Toward a Critical Historiography of the Episcopal Church

Abstract

Historians of the Episcopal Church of the USA face the challenge of dealing with a tradition of in house ‘self-serving’ biographies and also of a Whiggish meta-narrative which privileged the Anglo Catholic reading of the history of ECUSA. This is similar to the challenge laid out by Diarmaid MacCulloch in relation to the English Reformation. This meta-narrative often read evangelicals out of the story. My book sought in part to correct this approach through a fresh analysis of Phillips Brooks' ministry and teaching. Within a broad tradition such as Anglicanism, argument about the past is part of the contemporary debate about identity in the tradition and of priorities in the present. That is very reasonable and a more candid engagement of the differences would serve everyone better than different perspectives passing each other like ships in the night.