Episcopal Parish's Move to Roman Catholicism Is A 'Reception,' Not A 'Conversion'

In last Monday's The Washington Post, I read with great interest an article entitled "Episcopal Church in Bladensburg to Convert to Roman Catholicism."  

As the ordained leader of a sister congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and a colleague of Fr. Mark Lewis, I knew the decision of St. Luke's Parish to be the result of a long and prayerful process of discernment about where God was calling them to be. It was a positive action rather than a negative reaction. It was about what they were for rather than (as is so often the case in such departures) what they were against. And so I wish them Godspeed in their journey and wish them well in their new spiritual home within the Roman Catholic tradition.

But I was very disappointed in the article's frequent and incorrect use of the term "conversion" to describe the congregation's move from the Episcopal Church to the Roman Catholic Church, a usage which unfortunately is all too common in religion reporting. Conversion, when used as a religious term, is defined as changing from one religion to a different religion, and not as switching from one denomination to another within the same religion.  

The Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal (or Anglican) Church are not separate religions. Both are part of Christ's one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. They are different -- and equally ancient -- traditions within the same Christian faith. Each traces its "family tree" directly back to original apostles in the earliest Church in Antioch, the place where followers of Jesus Christ were first called Christians.

The correct way to describe what my friends at St. Luke's are doing is "reception" -- they are applying to be received into the Roman Catholic tradition of the Christian faith. This may sound like semantics, but it is an important distinction. The Church may be blessed by God, but it is a human organization, subject to the same weaknesses and temptations of every other human organization. It is all too easy for the different denominations and sects that make up the Church to retreat into our "tribal" identities -- defining ourselves by what divides rather than unites us -- without starting with divisive terminology.

Having grown up as Jewish person I came to the Church as an outsider. When I became a follower of Christ, it didn't make much difference to my Jewish relatives which denomination I joined. The important distinction to them -- and to me for that matter -- was that I had become a Christian. It was unimportant to them which "brand" of Christianity I had chosen.  

People often ask me, "How did a nice Jewish boy like you become an Episcopalian?" I generally give them a two main reasons. First reason is that the Episcopal Church was the most Jewish church I could find (more on that in a future blog post). The second reason I give is the relationship the Episcopal/Anglican Church attempts to maintain with the larger Church. It holds that Sacraments it administers  it offers on behalf of the whole Church (not merely for its own piece of it), and respects and upholds the sacraments administered by any other part of the Church.  

Which is why in my own congregation, we make this invitation: "All who love God and seek a deeper relationship with Christ are welcome at Christ's table."

Click here to read the authors letter to the editor in the Washington Post.