Officials from the United Methodist Church and Episcopal Church have joined together at the Washington National Cathedral to mark an agreement bringing the two oldline Protestant denominations closer together.
“Today as Episcopalians and United Methodists, we remember who we are kin too. We celebrate our family tree and our common roots in the Lord Jesus Christ,” proclaimed the Rev. Dr. Kim Cape, General Secretary of the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church.
Cape gave the January 25 sermon at the Episcopal cathedral, declaring the day “historic” and that the two communities were acting “to mend a long division.”
Principles in the agreement were adopted in 2006, but the service was the first occasion for a United Methodist minister, The Rev. Canon Gina Gilland Campbell, to preside over a celebration of communion at the Washington National Cathedral. Campbell serves on staff at the cathedral.
“Today the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Church formally recognize an interim Eucharistic agreement and agree that those things that bind us together are stronger than those things that pull us apart,” Cape stated. “There is rejoicing in heaven.”
In a pre-taped video message, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori sent greetings to the gathered United Methodists and Episcopalians.
“Interim Eucharistic Sharing is a waystation on a journey that we hope will lead to full communion between our two traditions which share common roots,” Jefferts Schori predicted. The Episcopal Church has already entered into full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, an agreement that allows for clergy from both denominations to serve as pastors and celebrate communion in Episcopal and Lutheran churches.
The Episcopal Church official speculated that Methodism and Anglicanism might not be separate traditions if the Church of England “had been a little broader in the era that the Wesleys were walking this Earth and preaching the Gospel”.
“There is a great yearning that we might become one again,” Jefferts Schori asserted. “We recognize a great deal of common reality in our two traditions and Eucharistic sharing is an opportunity to expand that reality.”
Jefferts Schori noted that the interim agreement asks that congregations study scripture together and act in the world together.
“I fervently hope that this marker at the Washington National Cathedral will encourage, prompt and prod our mutual congregations to live deeper into communion,” the Presiding Bishop shared.
While Gilland Campbell is the first United Methodist clergy to celebrate communion at the national church, the cathedral has long had a lax policy, inviting “all who seek God and a deeper life in Christ” as welcome to receive Holy Communion. Gilland Campbell recently welcomed Muslims to lead a service of Islamic Friday prayers at the Cathedral.
“Everyone is welcome at this table who seeks to know him more deeply, to love him more dearly and to live that out in their life and in their faith each and every day,” Gilland Campbell stated during the January service. In contrast, the Episcopal Church’s canon 1.17.7 states “no unbaptized person shall be eligible to receive Holy Communion in this Church.”
Quoting from the Gospel reading, Cape said Jesus’ prayer in John Chapter 17 was that Christians be one in him.
“Today is a significant step in making Jesus prayer come true,” Cape enthused. “Today Episcopalians and United Methodists are acting out of our best selves.”
Noting John Wesley’s intention that Methodism serve as a renewal movement within the Church of England, Cape quoted an Anglican Bishop of Wesley’s time who said he was “made of the finest stuff God ever put in a fanatic.”
Cape noted that John Wesley’s younger brother, Charles, who was ordained with him as an Anglican priest at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, authored “Love divine, all loves excelling” – the closing hymn for the service. “You gave us our best voice” Cape said of Wesley’s hymn writing.
“What we are doing here today is drawing closer to God and drawing closer to one another,” Cape explained. “This pleases God, worships Christ, and delights the Holy Spirit.”
Recalling a trip to Mozambique in 2001 in which she was one of nine officials treated to dinner by local Christians, Cape described the chicken halves that she and the other church officials were served, while local church members passed around bowls of rice with a small amount of chicken juice.
“This five chicken dinner was a sacrifice,” Cape recalled. “It was clear that Christ was the host, the honored one. It was for Christ they gave their best, their all. It is at table with Christ as hope that God is pleased. What would be your equivalent offering to God?”
“What are we willing to offer Christ? What is our best? Welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, cross divisions, release our favorite wrong, or do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. Today we remember who we are akin to, and we are grateful. We thank you, friends, for bringing us together in this wonderful occasion around Christ’s table, where God is praised, Christ is worshipped, and the Holy Spirit is delighted.”
In addition to Gilland Campbell and Cape, United Methodist Bishops James Dorff and Marcus Matthews also participated in the service. Joining in the procession were representatives of United Methodist Candler School of Theology, Wesley Theological Seminary and the Episcopal Church’s Virginia Theological Seminary.
Closer relationships between Anglican and Wesleyan Christians are not limited to liberal denominations. The Anglican Church in North America, a traditionalist denomination that includes former Episcopalians, has a relationship with United Methodist renewal organizations Good News and UM Action through the Common Ground Christian Network, an ecumenical grouping of orthodox Christian churches and renewal organizations. In 2014, a district superintendent from the North Georgia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church was an ecumenical guest at the Investiture service of Anglican Archbishop Foley Beach.
Comment by Greg on February 6, 2015 at 8:44 am
Dr Kim Cape’s comment, “Today Episcopalians and United Methodists are acting out of our best selves,” reminds me of Obama’s aggrandized declaration . . .”We are the people we’ve been waiting for.”
While I believe the work of ecumenism to be important and the fervent prayer of Christ, this latest move is a win for the Episcopal Church and a loss for the United Methodist Church. The Piskies will be able to continue to fudge their numbers of “Sunday communicants” as they shrink, sell off property and merge. Their hardcore leftist clergy will only infect and continue to tear apart the UMC, which of course, is their goal.
Comment by DD on February 6, 2015 at 5:22 pm
You are dead right. You can’t beat the liberal churches when it comes to self-righteousness. They don’t even need a Savior, they’ve got “our best selves.”
Comment by Dan on February 6, 2015 at 9:06 am
Well, let’s see; they both believe in Communion of the unbaptized – check. Significant theological differences – compare the 39 Articles of Religion of TEC with the ones Wesley wrote and notice the ones he left out, particularly the one on predestination; but hey maybe the Piskies are Arminian at their core. What’s going to happen if UMC folks are at a TEC Communion and there’s no grape juice available?
Unfortunately the hierarchies of both denominations are rotten at their core these days, so I wouldn’t expect much of this beyond mutual back slapping between the two.
Comment by Joe Sherrill on February 13, 2015 at 8:35 am
“Unfortunately the hierarchies of both denominations are rotten at their
core these days, so I wouldn’t expect much of this beyond mutual back
slapping between the two.”
I am a Methodist at this time, but you got it right.
Comment by David F. Miller on February 6, 2015 at 9:21 am
I am not very comfortable with this “waystation”. Why did the UMC decide to join with the Episcopal Church? Perhaps the most liberal of denominations. If we are truly interested in union why not include the Anglican Church in North America or the Southern Baptists? Seeing the actions of Bishop Jefferts Schori in dealing with the Anglican Church in NA I have my doubts about this union.
Comment by brookspj on February 6, 2015 at 1:29 pm
Well for one thing the SBC wouldn’t have us unless we redid everyone’s baptism and defrocked all our female clergy. I think that’s asking too much, don’t you?
Comment by Guest on February 6, 2015 at 2:13 pm
This is what happens to every organization that is in decline. In business, I believe that it’s called consolidation. It is perhaps the most obvious symptom of decline. The SBC simply isn’t declining to ever have to do this.
Comment by Kyle on February 6, 2015 at 5:58 pm
Might be some issues with the sodomites too. Because, you know, the SBC believes the Bible is the divine word of God, and the Episcopagans don’t.
Comment by brookspj on February 6, 2015 at 7:44 pm
Really? The Bible is the “divine” word of God? Do Baptists pray to and worship it then? Do they rip the pages out to eat at communion and dip into a cup of ink? Silly us, we believe Jesus is the divine and living word of God (Article II Book of Discipline).
Comment by Jason P Taggart on February 6, 2015 at 9:12 pm
Purely a coincidence that the Jesus you believe in is 100 percent behind every left-wing political position. Unfortunately, your ACLU Jesus never existed, and based on the membership numbers, the ACLU churches will also cease to exist. People drop out of church when they don’t find God in it.
Comment by brookspj on February 7, 2015 at 1:25 am
ACLU Jesus? Can’t say I’m familiar with him. Sounds like a cartoon name. Don’t assume you know anything about me or what I believe.
Comment by Bedouin2015 on February 7, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Your “Book of Discipline” is a poor substitute for the Word of God.
Comment by brookspj on February 7, 2015 at 1:13 pm
Can’t argue with that. Of course we don’t treat it as such.
Comment by brookspj on February 7, 2015 at 1:16 pm
Also that Jesus being the Word or Logos as the Greek is in John. FYI
Comment by David F. Miller on February 13, 2015 at 8:52 am
Yes, true; but how do we learn anything about Jesus if not through the inspired writings found in the Bible.
Comment by Fran Brunson on February 8, 2015 at 8:11 am
They don’t honor the Bible or the Book of Discipline.
Comment by Bedouin2015 on February 7, 2015 at 12:05 pm
Your “Book of Discipline” is a poor substitute for the Word of God.
Comment by David F. Miller on February 13, 2015 at 8:49 am
But it is in the Bible that we learn about Jesus and God’s will for humanity. We believe it to be the inspired word of God; GIven for instruction and comfort.
Comment by brookspj on February 13, 2015 at 12:46 pm
I’m not disagreeing that we look to the Bible to know God and understand Jesus, but the book points to the divine. It isn’t divine itself. Choose your words carefully.
Comment by David F. Miller on February 13, 2015 at 1:12 pm
Of course a book is only paper and in itself means nothing. I am not worshipping the book itself. However, how do we discern the divine? How do we know God’s will for us. What source is used if not the Bible?
Comment by brookspj on February 13, 2015 at 4:42 pm
I’m really not disputing that we use the Bible to discern God. I don’t know why you continue bring it up. My tradition believes all knowledge that is sufficient and necessary to salvation is found in scripture. Beyond that we believe one can and does “encounter” God outside of scripture through creation and through the witness of the Holy Spirit embodied in others. We also believe later Christians through history were inspired to write works that can be helpful in understanding God, but we don’t consider these non-canonical texts as foundational as scripture itself. Does that answer your question?
Comment by jschrack on March 10, 2015 at 1:02 pm
A point of clarification, we in the SBC do not believe the Bible to be Divine, but that the Bible was divinely inspired.
“The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.” – Baptist Faith and Message (http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp)
Comment by Michael Daigle on May 5, 2015 at 7:36 am
If, as you say, Baptists believe that “All Scripture is TOTALLY TRUE and trustworthy”, why then to Southern Baptists still deny the truth about the Holy Eucharist? In John’s Gospel, chapter 6, Vs. 50-56, Jesus himself, very clearly and directly stated that He is the “Bread of Life” and that the “Bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world”. Further, he said that “Truly, Truly I tell you, that unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you will have no life in you. Whoever eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood has Eternal Life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My Flesh is true food and My Blood is True drink. Whoever feeds on My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in me, and I in him”.
Jesus could not have made it any more clearer or more explicit. For a church who claims to believe in the literal intrepretation of the Bible, it is amazing to me how you pick and choose which parts you choose to believe. The Holy Eucharist is not just crackers and little cups of grape juice.
Comment by David F. Miller on February 13, 2015 at 8:49 am
Have we asked?
Comment by John S. on February 13, 2015 at 8:33 am
I hate to break the news to you but the Episcopal Church is hardly the most liberal of denominations. By the standards in America it is a somewhat left of center but well within view of it.
Comment by David F. Miller on February 13, 2015 at 8:47 am
I am a little surprised by your claim that the Episcopal is just left of center. Which denomination is left then?
Comment by John S. on February 18, 2015 at 6:08 am
Start with the UCC.
Comment by Trish Martin on February 6, 2015 at 10:09 am
I am disppointed. I want zero part in ECUSA.
Comment by Mary Mary Barnett Howard on February 6, 2015 at 6:24 pm
I left the United Methodist Church because of its liberalism…for the Episcopal Church, which became even worse. Thank God for the Anglican Communion and ACNA. It’s so like the Methodist Church of my childhood.
Comment by Fran Brunson on February 8, 2015 at 8:10 am
The same leftists who run around praising “diversity” one minute will whine about “divisiveness” the next. They frequently whine about Christians having “ten thousand denominations.” If diversity is a good thing, so what if there are many denominations?
Comment by Jerald Walz on February 9, 2015 at 1:34 pm
Maybe TEC could merge with the “progressive” UMC churches and leave the rest of us alone as they slowly die out…just a thought.
Comment by Orter T. on February 12, 2015 at 11:25 am
Instead of the Episcopal Church, the UMC should at least go talk with the Wesleyan Church; at least they are on the rise.
Comment by David F. Miller on February 13, 2015 at 8:53 am
That is a great idea.
Comment by Vincent Ciro on February 13, 2015 at 7:18 am
Matt. 7:15 in my opinion.
Comment by John S. on February 13, 2015 at 8:35 am
I had wondered how “full communion” could work with TEC’s stances on LGBTQ issues at direct variance with the official UMC positions then I thought this has two components. The UMC has full communion with ELCA despite the differences. The US UMC leadership using TEC to fool the non-USA Methodists into embracing, by the backdoor, what has been rejected time and again.
Comment by aconcernedhumanperson on March 30, 2016 at 5:32 am
I left the UMC and joined TEC. The UMC is, in my opinion, more concerned with the clergy and bishops than just about anything else, and lay members have a smaller voice in the church’s affairs. Also, bishops have much more power in the UMC than TEC. The differences between worship styles are pretty significant. Not that it matters, but I would leave any merger between the UMC and TEC and I suspect others would as well.
Comment by John Cox on February 22, 2018 at 10:14 am
There are some fairly condemning comments here. They disturb me. Statements such as “. . . .the hierarchies of both denominations are rotten at their core these days.” are concluding statements. Upon what facts are they based?
I know Kim Cape personally. We were both members of a spiritual growth group in which members—-there were 7, 8, or 9 of us—-who actively shared and disclosed our inner selves. There was mutual trusting, mutual disclosing, mutual honesty, and, mutual vulnerability. In my 73 physical years on earth, I’ve never experienced such spiritual intimacy in any other situation though I’ve longed for something similar all of my ensuing years. She and I have discussed what’s within our hearts, one-on-one as well as in community. She most certainly is NOT “rotten” any more than are we who make comments here.
What disturbs me most when reading and considering the comments is contrasting these them with Jesus of Nazareth’s commandment as documented in John 13:34 and 35: “A new commandment I give to you (to those of us who like to say that we are Jesus’ followers), that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” I don’t sense that there’s love in any of these comments. There is, however, love communicated in the article. And there is love in the heart of Kim Cape, the woman. Why is love condemned? WHY?