First Christ Episcopal Church - Seattle, WA - January 23rd 2011

       Who are the Episcopals? The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Church of England. Recently there has been a split in the Church though, with the more conservative African branches who reject the acceptance of openly gay men and women and women priests verses the American Church and some of the European Churches who accept them.
     
       The Episcopal Church is what a more liberal version of the Catholic Church would look like. Out of all the Christian sects it's the one I find myself most drawn to for that reason. I see God's love and acceptance lived over dogma and tradition, yet the traditions that add so much mysticism to the experience Catholicism still stay. There is still the liturgy, the Eucharist, baptism, and confirmation to name a few. Now, what was my experience at First Christ Episcopal Church?

        My experience was interesting. The day was there a baby was being baptized into the Church. The Church is right across from Mars Hill and while Mars Hill was full of a young energized group and full to the brim, this Church was smaller and had a lot of families and older folks. There was great energy though and the Mother (term for female priest) and Father were good at balancing the message of missionary work and being "Fisher's of Men" (the theme of the service) between the two of them. Because the building was small parts of the service took part at the back or the front of the building. There was an organic feel to it, and the choir was really energized. The baptism itself was the part I had the hardest time understanding though...


      I talked to a man afterword who was an ex-evangelical who had come to the Episcopal Church because of how it aligned with what he believed about the Bible and he told me the reason why children are baptized. The reason seems to be that in the older days when an entire family was baptized the children were included as well. I have issue with this still though...how can a child that doesn't even know what sin is, sin? A baby who still needs it's mother for nourishment and can barely speak. The baby could have been no more then 1 or 2 years old and he was already supposed to be a minster of Christ? I guess that's why confirmation exists since that's when the baptism of belief and confession really is. Teenagers are in a better situation to think about what it means to be (enter religion here), babies have no idea, it's out of their experience and language that they know and speak.

    I guess in that way it's more for the congregation to support the child in it's development to become more Christlike (which I support), but then it seems baptism is more for traditions sake and serves no real purpose for the child since the meaning of the baptism is beyond it's understanding. I was baptized in the Mormon Church at 8 years old. I still remember it. I know I had no idea of what it meant. I remember saying, "That was fun." After being dunked by my father in the baptismal pool but the meaning of what it means to be baptized I had no comprehension of. I wasn't at the age of true understanding yet. To me it was like swimming, I was dressed in a special white suit and with my family. I knew it meant something to my family, but it meant nothing to me. I did it because it was expected that I would be baptized at that age and I wanted to please my parents.

     My experience with baptism articulates why I think it should be at an older age. Events only mean something when we understand the significance behind the events. If not it's ritual for rituals sake and more for the people who do understand, then the one who the event is being done for.

    The experience at First Christ Episcopal Church was good I would say overall. If I had chosen to take the Eucharist I could have. In the program it said, "If you have been baptized in any Christian denomination feel free to partake of the Eucharist." (they even had gluten free wafers) I still went up with arms crossed though to recieve a blessing as I usually do at the Catholic Church that I've attended with my girlfriend.

    I don't believe in Christ as Lord and Savior. I believe in an all loving, all good, all powerful, all omnipresent God that resides outside and within all things and is the Good and Virtue. But because I'm not a Christian and don't think I could be. I don't feel right partaking in a ritual that is the defining moment of the Eucharistic Christian Faiths. I'm grateful being a guest, an outsider, and a friend.




  

Saint Michael Parish - Olympia, WA - January 9th 2010

     Saint Michael Parish is a beautiful Church. I mean this in every sense of the world. I have never been to a Church that held such a diversity of age, cultural backgrounds, and even decorations around the Chapel with a mixture of Christmas decorations still up, an angel on a tapestry and figures varying in size throughout the Church.

     I came with my girlfriend and we both came out the service feeling hope and uplifted. The service was about Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist and how baptism and being reborn through baptism is a call to action as the Father described it. Now for me this action goes directly against some of the doctrine of the papacy given that I think that Gay Marriage is moral right and that it's unethical that women cannot become priests. I mentioned after to my girlfriend that, "I would probably make a good Episcopal," for some of the reasons I just mentioned.

     Regardless of the many issues where the Catholic Church and I differ, the message still stands of the call to virtue and goodness and what baptism means still stands. It means remembrance, it means a swearing or covenant to live anew or renewing a promise already made. This is something any person can do, since all of us changing all the time and life provides opportunities to grow and change. For Judaism it's the covenant God made with the people, for Christianity Jesus is the New Covenant and for Islam God's covenant is revealed through Muhammad. Every one of the major religions be they Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Jews or others have that reminder and that call to be better and to live with virtue.

   Today in Church I got that reminder through Catholicism and remembering what baptism means...in time I hope I won't need a reminder...that it will always come naturally. But that time is not now and I very blessed to have been reminded that day in the beautiful Saint Michael Parish.