A bishop teaches. . . . Really, I’m serious . . . about creeds in the U. S.

The Rt. Rev. Ray Sutton, who confirmed me, is a bishop who takes his teaching role seriously. And he showed it during his visitation to my new church Providence REC. He gave a mini-seminar on the current state of the Anglican Communion and the Reformed Episcopal Church on Saturday the 25th. And he taught Sunday School and gave the sermon on Sunday the 26th.

Much of what he taught is already known to the average reader of this blog. So I’ll stick to highlights and interesting tidbits.

He stated that the struggles between conservatives and revisionists in the Episcopal Church USA are nothing new. Back at its founding after the Revolutionary War, Latitudinarianism was popular. It advocated subscribing only to the Bible while ditching the creeds. Bishop William White was very much influenced by it and got the Athanasian Creed taken out of the U.S. prayer book and tried to get the Nicene Creed taken out.

Fortunately, Bishop Samuel Seabury, with the support and urging of the Scottish bishops who consecrated him, successfully insisted on keeping the Nicene Creed. In fact, you might say the Scottish bishops did an intervention, consecrating Seabury in order to thwart Latitudinarianism in the U. S.

The Reformed Episcopal Church, shortly after its founding, added back the Athanasian Creed as well, the first U.S. Anglican church to do so. (The ECUSA didn’t add it back to its prayer books until 1979, and then in the Historical Documents section in the back.)