Commemoration of Liberty July 3, 2020
Reflection
The Episcopal Church's Collect for the
Celebration of the Declaration of Independence is:
Lord God Almighty, in whose Name the
founders of this country won liberty for themselves and for us, and
lit the torch of freedom for nations then unborn: Grant that we and
all the people of this land may have grace to maintain our liberties
in righteousness and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
At the time of the Declaration of
Independence in 17176 the forerunner of the Episcopal Church, The
Church of England, in the American Colonies, was in a mess. There
were no Bishops in the Colonies, because Bishops stayed in their
palaces in England. If you wanted to get confirmed or ordained; you
had to go to England. Priests were officers of the Crown, and if they
wanted to advance in their clerical career, they needed to stay or go
back to England where it was safer. In some colonies, the Church of
England was the Established Church supported by tax money and
mandatory attendance. The mid-18th Century Revivals of the
“First Great Awakening” of 1730's and 1750's weakened further
the allegiance of the citizens to this Crown Institution. For a
Priest to join the rebellion was to throw away a livelihood.
Some
like William White of Philadelphia, where the Anglican Church was not
state supported, became a Chaplain to the 2nd Continental
Congress while Samuel Seabury, a Priest in New York, who was
extremely vocal in his opposition to the rebellion, was arrested and
jailed by the rebels for a period of time. After his release he
signed up as a Chaplain to the British forces in New York until the
end of the war. After the surrender of the British in 1783, with him
being persona non grata in New York, he then moved to Connecticut.
During, and after, the war, many
Anglican churches in those states in which they were Established,
were confiscated by the new rebel governments as enemy property. The
remnants of the struggling church came together in each new
independent state. Under the Articles of Confederation, each state
was a Sovereign State in a loose confederationm and in Connecticut
the gathering of remnant Priests elected a person to go to England
and be made a Bishop of the Independent State of Connecticut. That
elected Priest turned down the offer and Samuel Seabury was elected
in his place. Seabury thought his support for the British Crown would
be a sales pitch for the Bishops in England to approve him. It wasn't
and in Plan B, he went to Scotland and got a dissident group of the
Non-Juror Scottish Church Bishops to approve his consecration in
exchange for Seabury's promise to incorporate elements of the
Non-Juror Prayer Book. Upon his return he pushed that agenda.
There
was now a movement for a stronger National identity, as different
states worked on creating an American Prayer Book for 1785. In that
culled together Proposed Prayer Book there was a Prayer for the
commemoration of the 4th of July. The first called
national Episcopal convention was held to approve the draft, but it's
moderator, William White of Philadelphia, overruled that
commemoration, because he thought that the wounds were still too
fresh and he set the tone of how to live together in peace. The
Prayer was omitted in the 1789 Prayer Book and did not come back in
until the 1928 Prayer Book revision and then made a Commemoration in
the 1989 Revision. White and Samuel Provoost of New York were
dispatched to England, where those Bishops who had refused Seabury
agreed to consecrate White and Provoost.
So, we have this prayer where we ask
for grace to maintain the liberties for all the people of our nation.
We are still working on it. The Prayer is not just about a time past
but a present of Commemoration working for a future, living in peace and righteousness
with each other.
Tom Wilson+
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