When Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts
\nSchori preached and presided at a Eucharist June 13 at Southwark Cathedral in
\nLondon, she carried her mitre, or bishop’s hat, rather than wear it.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/i>She did so in order to comply with a
\n“statement” from Lambeth Palace, the London home of Archbishop of
\nCanterbury Rowan Williams, that said “that I was not to wear a mitre at Southwark
\nCathedral,” Jefferts Schori told the Executive Council June 16 on the
\nfirst day of its three-day meeting.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
A mitre is the pointy hat that bishops wear as a symbol of
\ntheir office and authority. <\/span>Rowan
\nWilliams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, forbade his ecclesiastical equal, Katharine
\nJefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church <\/span>(“Presiding Bishop” is the American and
\ndemocratic term for “Archbishop”) to wear her mitre while preaching in an
\nEnglish cathedral. <\/span>In addition,
\nLambeth Palace ran the ecclesiastical equivalent to a background check on
\nPresiding Bishop Schori–just to make sure she was rightly and duly
\nordained. <\/span><\/p>\nAmerican Episcopalians are up at arms. <\/span>After all, their church was founded
\nduring the Revolutionary period as a response to English interference with
\ntheir new style, New World democratic Anglicanism. <\/span>During the War, the Church of England tried to force their
\ncolonial offspring to pray for the King.
\n<\/span>Many American parishes closed rather than obey the directive; others
\ncut those prayers out of their prayer books and replaced them with
\nsupplications for George Washington and the Continental Congress. <\/span><\/p>\nAfter the War, the Church of England–still in a snit–refused
\nto consecrate a bishop to the new independent church because the former
\ncolonists would not swear allegiance to the Crown. <\/span>American Episcopalians turned to Scotland for help. <\/span>There, Scottish Episcopal bishops gladly
\nconsecrated Samuel Seabury to be the first bishop of an American Episcopal Church,
\na move that also served to further aggravate the English (thus
\npleasing both the Americans and the Scots!).<\/p>\nThe Episcopal Church in the United States has always had a
\ndifficult relationship with its Mother Church–from arguments over the separation
\nof church and state to missionary competition in Africa and Asia to concerns
\nover “foreign interference” of bishops.<\/p>\n
So, it is particularly galling to American Episcopalians to
\nhave the Archbishop of Canterbury direct their Presiding Bishop not to display
\nany signs of her spiritual authority–sort of treating our “archbishop” as if
\nshe is a visiting ecclesiastical serf from some colonial outback. <\/span>That she is a she <\/i>mightily compounds the insult, as most American Episcopalians
\nare pointedly proud to have consecrated the first woman archbishop in Christian
\nhistory. <\/span><\/p>\nOver on Facebook, three new pages, “The Anglican Resistance,” “Rowan Williams Needs to
\nApologize to the Episcopal Church,” and “The Archbishop of Canterbury Hath No
\nJurisdiction in this Realm” are drawing fans–as is the Twitter #mitregate
\nconversation. <\/span>But this is more
\nthan a petty church quarrel. <\/span>In
\nthe larger picture, Rowan Williams’ actions demonstrate something much more
\ntroubling.<\/p>\nChristianity in the west is in a persistent state of decline
\n(this includes England and the United States), losing spiritual market share in
\nfavor of other religions and atheism.
\n<\/span>Why? <\/span>Some of the loss is
\ndue to the fact that most western people find Christianity boring and
\nhypocritical–sentiments that the spiritual head of the Church of England
\nunderlined by Mitregate.<\/p>\nThe world is facing global warming, an economic meltdown,
\nmassive immigration crises, continued international terrorism, interreligious
\ntensions and warfare, nuclear escalation in the Middle East, poverty, the abuse
\nof women and children, human trafficking, genocide, oppression of LGBT persons,
\nand a massive environmental cataclysm in the Gulf of Mexico–and the Archbishop
\nof Canterbury is worried about a woman’s hat? <\/span><\/p>\nIn case the Church of England hasn’t noticed, this is why
\npeople are rejecting Christianity.
\n<\/span>It isn’t because some Christians chose women to lead their churches, ask
\nquestions about traditional renderings of theology and the Bible, doubt God’s
\nexistence, or want their gay and lesbian friends and relatives to be part of
\ntheir church communities.
\n<\/span>Canterbury, please know that western people are rejecting Christianity
\nbecause–as noted in a recent survey of young Americans–Christians are “out of
\ntouch with reality.”<\/p>\nWorldwide, Anglicans do care about any number of profound
\nsocial justice issues and are working to make the world a better place in God’s
\nname. <\/span>But if the Archbishop of
\nCanterbury’s staff can issue a directive about Katharine Jefferts Schori’s
\nmitre, then they have too much time on their hands. <\/span>Being worried about ecclesiastical millinery while Rome
\nburns certainly counts as being out of touch with reality. <\/span><\/p>\nAnd Rowan–a humble suggestion from here in the colonies–if you see lightening, best take off your mitre.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week, what is surely one of the most bizarre religion stories of the year came across my email. No, it wasn’t the story about lightning hitting the giant Jesus statue in Ohio. Instead, it is the “Mitregate” scandal, part of the continuing saga of Anglican travail. Both the Guardian newspaper in England and Episcopal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-history-and-theology","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n
Mitregate: The Anglican Crisis Over Women's Hats - Christianity for the Rest of Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/06\/mitregate-the-anglican-crisis-over-womens-hats.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mitregate: The Anglican Crisis Over Women's Hats - Christianity for the Rest of Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This week, what is surely one of the most bizarre religion stories of the year came across my email. No, it wasn’t the story about lightning hitting the giant Jesus statue in Ohio. Instead, it is the “Mitregate” scandal, part of the continuing saga of Anglican travail. Both the Guardian newspaper in England and Episcopal…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/06\/mitregate-the-anglican-crisis-over-womens-hats.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christianity for the Rest of Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-17T11:28:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Diana Butler Bass\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mitregate: The Anglican Crisis Over Women's Hats - Christianity for the Rest of Us","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/2010\/06\/mitregate-the-anglican-crisis-over-womens-hats.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mitregate: The Anglican Crisis Over Women's Hats - Christianity for the Rest of Us","og_description":"This week, what is surely one of the most bizarre religion stories of the year came across my email. No, it wasn’t the story about lightning hitting the giant Jesus statue in Ohio. Instead, it is the “Mitregate” scandal, part of the continuing saga of Anglican travail. 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She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of seven books including A People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s History of Christianity: the Other Side of the Story (HarperOne, 2009) Her best-selling Christianity for the Rest of Us (2006) was named as one of the best religion books of the year by Publishers Weekly and Christian Century, won the Book of the Year Award from the Academy of Parish Clergy, and was featured in a cover story in USA TODAY. Diana regularly consults with religious organizations, leads conferences for religious leaders, and teaches and preaches in a variety of venues. She regularly comments on religion, politics, and culture in the media including USA TODAY, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, FOX, PBS, and NPR. From 1995-2000, she wrote a weekly column on American religion for the New York Times Syndicate. She has written widely in the religious press, including Sojourners, Christian Century, Clergy Journal, and Congregations. From 2002 to 2006, she was the Project Director of a national Lilly Endowment funded study of mainline Protestant vitality\u00e2\u20ac\u201da project featured in Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Diana also serves on the board of directors of the Beatitudes Society. Diana has taught at Westmont College, the University of California at Santa Barbara, Macalester College, Rhodes College, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. She has taught church history, American religious history, history of Christian thought, religion and politics, and congregational studies. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in downtown Washington, D.C.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/author\/dbbass"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christianityfortherestofus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}