Bishop Grundorf’s Sermon  Independence Day -2010 at St. Barnabas’ Church

Why does the church and particularly the Anglican Church celebrate American Independence day as a Prayer Book Holy Day?  Is it because we Anglicans have always treasured a strong sense of patriotism, of love of country…or is it even more than that?  We all know that Anglicans, being grateful children of the Church of England, are ever ready to recall the historical side of our ties to Monarchy and Parliament in times past.  But in America, the story of Anglicanism is very different.  We are not as our forefathers in England were (and are) part of an established church as there is no such thing in our American Republic.  The fact is, at one time, our historical link to the English Church injured our witness on the American Shore and severely weakened us as a Church.  Because of her links to the Church of England and the State whose yoke was thrown off in the 1770’s, the post Revolutionary Anglican Church in the new United States was marginalized and sapped of its strength,  not to mention its popularity and general appeal.  (One of the reasons why the Anglican Church was renamed the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA).

So why an Independence Day Celebration?  Because our branch of the Church is keenly aware of the need to thank our Almighty Father for His manifold blessings upon us a people and a nation.  We are a nation of immigrants, almost without exception, whose forefathers came from other parts of the world.   Those who have come to this great land have come because it has always been the land of opportunity for all.  Many here today have come to this country more recently and have become citizens and part of the great melting pot in order to share in the American dream.  God has blessed our country and made us free, as a nation, and we are bound by grace and divine revelation to render our due thanks and praise to our Lord God.  Every blessing, personal, corporate, and national comes from above from the mercy of our Blessed Saviour.  And our Liturgy, that most wonderful gift from the earliest Church, enables us to offer up our boundened duty and service as the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, in which our Lord, the Head of the family, unites us on earth to Himself as He presents Himself to the Father as oiur perfect Priest and Mediator in heaven.  The Eucharistic Liturgy is Jesus Christ’s great action with, for and in us.  There is no better way to give thanks than to join ourselves to Christ’s supreme prayer, His ultimate giving of thanks, in the Liturgy.

The Holy Day designation in our 1928 Prayer Book of Independence Day in the American Church replaces the anniversary service of the Accession of the English monarch found in the other Prayer Books of the Anglican Communion.  However, our service fulfills the same purpose as the original—that is to thank God for His mercies and graces conveyed to us as a people, a particular nation consecrated to Him.  In 1786, the first proposed American Prayer Book contained a unique service to be celebrated on the 4^th of July,  “A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the inestimable Blessings of Religious and Civil Liberty.”  What a title!  Anglicans in America wanted to commemorate the profound event of America’s Independence from early on in our national story.  A Convention of the new Protestant Episcopal Church in 1785 ordered propers for both Morning Prayer and Holy Communion to be drafted for the celebration of Independence Day and commanded “that the said form of prayer to be used in this church on the 4^th of July forever!”  Unfortunately, some individuals, including the president of the Convention, Bishop William White of Pennsylvania, vigorously protested the introduction of a service commemorating American Independence so close to the end of the Revolutionary War.  A few concerned Churchmen felt the innovation of such a service to be a pastorally unwise move.  Some feared the service would cause division in the American Episcopal Church, because many of its clergy, loyal to the English Church and tradition, opposed the political principal of Revolution.  Others warned that the inclusion of an Independence Day service might jeopardize universal acceptance in the Anglican Communion of a Prayer Book over which much controversy had already swirled.  Bishop White who was personally sympathetic with and supportive of the American Revolution even thought that the 4^th of July service was the imposition of a political litmus test on the Church’s official liturgy.  Bishop Samuel Provoost of New York wrote concerning the 4^th of July commemoration:  “The Thanksgiving for the Fourth of July is in all probability the one principal cause of opposition to the Prayer Book.”

Unfortunately, the worries and fear prevailed:  at the first official General Convention of the American Church in 1789, the seemingly unpopular Independence Day service was withdrawn from the Proposed Book of Common Prayer.  It seems that at least some Anglicans in America were not quite ready to acknowledge in formal way what God had done for them in setting them free and establishing them in a new land of liberty.  But, thank God, this is not the end of the story.  The Fourth of July service suffered a blow but was not defeated.  Although unofficial, it was reprinted and used consistently throughout the nineteenth century in many parishes.  In 1826 Bishop John Henry Hobart of New York authorized an official reprint for use in his diocese.  This began a trend which would eventually spread thoughout the American Church.  Our present Collect, Epistle and Gospel for the commemoration of the Fourth of July were finally introduced with the 1928 Prayer Book. 

Many more critical struggles have plagued the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church over the intervening years.  The Episcopal Church and all the mainline churches in the west have in so many ways abandoned the first principles of our founding fathers as found our Prayer Book.  I am reminded of the incremental erosion of Faith and Practice in the churches and how they have paralleled the cultural, moral and political changes we have seen in our own country.  The turmoil in the church did not begin with a few cataclysmic events such as changes in the order of ministry and gender confusion, but over years of evolving change until we have come to a time when for many there are no longer absolutes.  The doctrines of the Scriptures and Creeds are abandoned to majority vote.  Thankfully, people who were once passive or unaware of the evolving changes are now beginning to awaken that our country is losing its basic foundation of liberty and freedom.  Our country was built upon liberty and freedom under God in the Judeo/Christian framework and once that is abandoned to the spirit of the age (Zeitgeist) it is my strong opinion we are future generations are in real trouble.  The mainline Churches of our Country are no longer able to provide the moral authority or the salt that preserves and heals, abandoned this to “political correctness.”  It is my firm belief that we all must be bold and involved in both standing up and speaking out for what we know to be fight for the church as well as our country. 

In so many ways, the story of our service this morning is the story of our Church and of our blessed and privileged land.  Like America herself, the Anglican Church has struggled and we pray will persevere to proclaim the truths of freedom and justice for all.  On this day may we ever remember in our prayers those who have labored and sacrificed to make America a truly great and godly nation, a country dedicated to the principles of freedom, liberty and self-determination.  But let us also remember all those who made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our way of life and our treasured freedoms, which we believe come, not from man, nor from the State, nor from any temporal power, but from God himself.  May the Lord bring about in the hearts and minds of all Americans a new and radical conversion , which may lead our Blessed land back to the God of our Fathers, a conversin so desperately needed in a post-modern age of ever increasing secularism, pluralism, neo-paganism and self-service.  May God make our nation great yet again, by causing us to depend only upon Him.  May God bless each one here this day—and may God bless the United States of America.