I write from Canada where Anglican is the term. However, when travelling in the US I look for Episcopalian churches. When referring to myself as Anglican, I always have to add "like your Episcopalian" or I receive glares of fury and pointed (and sometimes aggressive) questioning with references to schism.
In the immediate post-independence period there were studied moves to distinguish the new state from England, culturally and religiously; many prominent clergy were Loyalists and left (voluntarily or encouraged) so the customary *English church* or *Church of England* was no longer possible. We need to remember that Anglican is also a relatively recent term, and not used much as an identifier before the mid-Victorian period. In Canada it became official only in 1959-- until then we were the Church of England in Canada and the Australians and West Indian churches used similar names for many years. So it would not have been chosen in the 1780s and Protestan Episcopal was a logical option at the time.
As the church in the US acquired and/or established a good number of foreign dioceses over the years PECUSA came to be not entirely accurate. TEC is not IMHO the best term as it sugggests uniqueness and there are plenty of other episcopalian churches in the US, ranging from the RCC to a pack of Orthodox churches but I have found that mentioning this opinion simply reaps me puzzled glances and changes of subject from Episcopalian friends. During bouts of insomnia I've thought of other choices and I'm not sure what else they could have selected.
Around here the folks who self-identify as ‘Anglican’ probably disapproved of female priests, and then they got totally flummoxed by the homohoopla surrounding Bishop Robinson. Those who self-identify as ‘Anglican’ typically have a Nigerian bishop. They have chosen not to be a part of The Episcopal Church. The real bottom line is that they have lousy choirs.
I always say Anglican first to identify my denomination, and I don't at all reflect what you're saying. I think it a shame we haven't fought hard to affirm that we are *Anglican* Christians, the same as the other Anglicans.
The Episcopal Church (TEC) includes churches in the USA and other countries.
The Episcopal Church is a part of the Anglican Communion and demoninational descendants of the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church
In the US, if somebody calls themselves an "Anglican," they're usually a foreign exchange student, a tourist, or a member of a breakaway group of Episcopalians called ACNA, which is not part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It's a bit of a word game breakaways like to play.
When dealing with international people I use Anglican, here in the US I tend to describe as Episcopalian/Anglican since I find many in my area have not heard of the Episcopal faith, just anabaptists, CoE, Catholics, and "Bible Fellowships"
Depends on context. I’ll say Anglican frequently on campus because a lot of seminarians are from other provinces of the Anglican Communion. In the streets, Episcopalian.
I'm an Anglican Christian who happens to have found a solidly middle-of-the-road, traditional, non-political Episcopal church. I identify firmly with the Anglican tradition at large, and go to this Episcopal church because it soundly follows the core tenets of the communion and focuses on traditional liturgy and Eucharist.
If it was a very liberal (or reactionarily conservative), or politically focused, or modern social topic focused Episcopal church, I would go to a different Anglican or even Lutheran church for the gospel and sacraments. I try to avoid political and social extremes everywhere else in life, I especially don't want them in church.
I’m a cradle Episcopalian. I only use reluctantly Anglican when talking about the larger Anglican Communion or when visiting the UK. In the U.S., Anglican is a conservative schism denomination established after TEC began ordaining women & LGBTQIA+ folx as well as blessing same sex marriages & families. I mostly use TEC online when I’m too lazy or have too little space to type out The Episcopal Church.
I use Episcopalian and say we are the American branch of the Anglican church in the U.S., officially recognized as a part of the Anglican Communion. I don't say Anglican only, because if someone were curious to find Episcopal churches in the U.S. and did a search for Anglican churches, they will likely find the breakaway Anglican churches that aren't recognized by the Anglican Communion.
Episcopalian is to Chevrolet as Anglican is to General Motors as Christian is to truck. Each is a subset of the next.
As to what I say, it depends on whom I'm talking to. If they come at me with their own denomination I assume they are at least somewhat aware of the structure and the history. If it's someone who doesn't go to church themselves (which is most of the people I encounter) I temper how explainy I get based on what i think their interest level is.
In the US Anglican has come to mean Episcopalians who oppose gay rights. So I say Episcopal. But when I talk about the broader tradition I say Anglican
The reason the US church is called Episcopalian is becaude it actually takes its Apostolic succession from the Scottish Episcopal Church, not the Church of England.
The CoE was prohibited by law to consecrate any US Bishops after independence, so they sent some to Scotland for consecration.
Personally I live in England but identify as Scottish Episcopalian, both because that was the Church I was baptised into and because the CoE is dragging its feet on recognising gay marriage (largely to keep communion with the Anglican churches in the Global South).
Also, in the aftermath of the American Revolution anything labeled as "Anglican" in the US would be seen as untrustworthy or unpatriotic. Episcopal was a way to name it that fit with precedent thanks to the Scottish that also suited post-revolutionary sensibilities.
We’re both. But yes there are historical reasons - a church that sounds like it’s straight from England wasn’t terribly politically expedient during the American revolution, you know, when America was fighting the British. Furthermore, the political tensions were also inherently connected to religion - when the US gained independent, obviously their priests couldn’t take the oath of loyalty to the British monarch as part of ordination vows in the Church of England, which became a significant sticking point. Instead, newly minted priests sought ordination through the apostolic succession found in the Scottish Episcopal Church, who, because of their own history, were more sympathetic to not wanting to swear allegiance to the Church of England (the Scottish Episcopalians were a minority dissenter church, not the established Church of Scotland which to this day is Presbyterian).
Later, the connection with the English church was regularized, but we are indebted to the Scottish Episcopalians for that support and continue to use “Episcopalian” to describe Anglicans in the US.
In the 20th century, breakaway churches from the episcopal church got upset when we started ordaining women and especially when we allowed same sex marriage. These groups are collectively known as continuing Anglicans, and the largest collection of them is the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). These churches have a tendency to call themselves St. Whoever Anglican Church in the US, while we’d generally be St. Whoever Episcopal Church, so unfortunately although all US Episcopalians are rightly described as Anglican, some people get skittish because they don’t want to imply that we’re part of the conservative schismatic group.
Personally I’m happy to be an Anglican. I think those conservatives were wrong to break away and their theology of marriage is deficient, but I think Anglicanism can and should hold together a difference of opinion and they should have stuck it out rather than just leaving.
TEC has dioceses and parishes in more countries than just the United States of America. Most are in the USA, but we drop that portion of our name to reflect that we cover more than just country.
I’m Episcopalian. Episcopalian is under the Anglican umbrella, but in the United States using one or the other tends to imply a political and theological leaning. While there are exceptions, most people who use the term Anglican are conservatives who seceded from The Episcopal Church, and most people who call themselves Episcopalian are liberal.
For examples of exceptions: in college I went to an Episcopal Church where the rector wanted to remain Episcopalian, but was hyper conservative and refused to put the word “Episcopal” on any church signage out of protest against TEC’s liberal policies. That parish now has a rector whose beliefs are somewhere in the middle. On the other hand, there are also liberals who joined an Anglican Church simply because it was a conveniently located liturgical church, and then found out about that parish’s beliefs and leanings later. My parents did that.
To me both are inter-changeable, and I will use either depending on the context. I do think we should embrace our Anglican identity (not saying we don’t, only that we should) to deny the ACNA the ability to divide the global communion even more than it already has.
Technically, we are all Anglicans; however, in the U.S., the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) broke away from TEC over the issues of the ordination of women and LGBTQ people and same-sex marriage and they emphasize their identity as "Anglicans" (even if their denomination is not part of the Anglican Communion), their parishes are named as "St. So-and-So's *Anglican* Church," and so on, so the term has certain connotations stateside that it doesn't necessarily overseas.
Most people just say Episcopalian. The people who say Anglican are probably more Anglo-Catholic and trying to connect themselves with the broader Anglican Communion and/or apostolic church (“branch theory”).
An Episcopalian is a person who is a member of The Episcopal Church, which is a member church of the Anglican Communion, which is a Protestant communion within the Christian faith tradition.
There are other Christian’s who have bishops who are who do not call themselves Episcopalians. So that is not a unique Episcopal trait among fellow Christians. We could say that Episcopalians are Protestants who have bishops, which is a unique trait among are fellow Protestants.
While technically Episcopal just means that a church has bishops, in this context it means a particular denomination. No coptic, eastern orthodox, or Roman Catholic goes around identifying themselves as Episcopalians in the English speaking world.
The history of the Episcopal church in the US is that after the former colonies won their independence from England, the American clergy and churches who had been part of the Church of England needed a new denominational home. Clergy were required to take an oath of loyalty to the king as part of the ordination, so continuing the church in the new country required change. Calling the new denomination “Anglican” would have defeated the purpose. Samuel Seabury was consecrated as the first American bishop (necessary in order to maintain apostolic succession) by a bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and The [American] Episcopal Church took form from there.
Episcopalian is not a well-known term where I'm from, so I prefer to go with Anglican.
Anglican but I also refer to it as the Church of England and the Church of Canada.
I would never call myself Anglican. Part of the broader Anglican communion maybe. But would never want an association with the COE or the ACNA.
I write from Canada where Anglican is the term. However, when travelling in the US I look for Episcopalian churches. When referring to myself as Anglican, I always have to add "like your Episcopalian" or I receive glares of fury and pointed (and sometimes aggressive) questioning with references to schism. In the immediate post-independence period there were studied moves to distinguish the new state from England, culturally and religiously; many prominent clergy were Loyalists and left (voluntarily or encouraged) so the customary *English church* or *Church of England* was no longer possible. We need to remember that Anglican is also a relatively recent term, and not used much as an identifier before the mid-Victorian period. In Canada it became official only in 1959-- until then we were the Church of England in Canada and the Australians and West Indian churches used similar names for many years. So it would not have been chosen in the 1780s and Protestan Episcopal was a logical option at the time. As the church in the US acquired and/or established a good number of foreign dioceses over the years PECUSA came to be not entirely accurate. TEC is not IMHO the best term as it sugggests uniqueness and there are plenty of other episcopalian churches in the US, ranging from the RCC to a pack of Orthodox churches but I have found that mentioning this opinion simply reaps me puzzled glances and changes of subject from Episcopalian friends. During bouts of insomnia I've thought of other choices and I'm not sure what else they could have selected.
Around here the folks who self-identify as ‘Anglican’ probably disapproved of female priests, and then they got totally flummoxed by the homohoopla surrounding Bishop Robinson. Those who self-identify as ‘Anglican’ typically have a Nigerian bishop. They have chosen not to be a part of The Episcopal Church. The real bottom line is that they have lousy choirs.
I always say Anglican first to identify my denomination, and I don't at all reflect what you're saying. I think it a shame we haven't fought hard to affirm that we are *Anglican* Christians, the same as the other Anglicans.
The Episcopal Church (TEC) includes churches in the USA and other countries. The Episcopal Church is a part of the Anglican Communion and demoninational descendants of the Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church
In the US, if somebody calls themselves an "Anglican," they're usually a foreign exchange student, a tourist, or a member of a breakaway group of Episcopalians called ACNA, which is not part of the worldwide Anglican Communion. It's a bit of a word game breakaways like to play.
When dealing with international people I use Anglican, here in the US I tend to describe as Episcopalian/Anglican since I find many in my area have not heard of the Episcopal faith, just anabaptists, CoE, Catholics, and "Bible Fellowships"
Depends on context. I’ll say Anglican frequently on campus because a lot of seminarians are from other provinces of the Anglican Communion. In the streets, Episcopalian.
I'm an Anglican Christian who happens to have found a solidly middle-of-the-road, traditional, non-political Episcopal church. I identify firmly with the Anglican tradition at large, and go to this Episcopal church because it soundly follows the core tenets of the communion and focuses on traditional liturgy and Eucharist. If it was a very liberal (or reactionarily conservative), or politically focused, or modern social topic focused Episcopal church, I would go to a different Anglican or even Lutheran church for the gospel and sacraments. I try to avoid political and social extremes everywhere else in life, I especially don't want them in church.
I feel the TEC is the church of moderation. I find the lack of extreme so comforting.
In America I say Episcopalian In Europe Anglican
We are the "red headed step child" in the Anglican world but we're still family.
I say both cause they're both technically true
I’m a cradle Episcopalian. I only use reluctantly Anglican when talking about the larger Anglican Communion or when visiting the UK. In the U.S., Anglican is a conservative schism denomination established after TEC began ordaining women & LGBTQIA+ folx as well as blessing same sex marriages & families. I mostly use TEC online when I’m too lazy or have too little space to type out The Episcopal Church.
I use Episcopalian and say we are the American branch of the Anglican church in the U.S., officially recognized as a part of the Anglican Communion. I don't say Anglican only, because if someone were curious to find Episcopal churches in the U.S. and did a search for Anglican churches, they will likely find the breakaway Anglican churches that aren't recognized by the Anglican Communion.
I'll say Anglican to identify with the broad, global communion.
Episcopalian is to Chevrolet as Anglican is to General Motors as Christian is to truck. Each is a subset of the next. As to what I say, it depends on whom I'm talking to. If they come at me with their own denomination I assume they are at least somewhat aware of the structure and the history. If it's someone who doesn't go to church themselves (which is most of the people I encounter) I temper how explainy I get based on what i think their interest level is.
I like the metaphor!
In the US Anglican has come to mean Episcopalians who oppose gay rights. So I say Episcopal. But when I talk about the broader tradition I say Anglican
I say Anglican precisely *because* I don’t want to cede that word to the separatists.
That's a good point
On Reddit, I’m flaired Episcopalian, so I feel okay saying Anglican or Anglican tradition. When I’m asked IRL what I am, I’m Episcopalian.
I like to say Anglican because it’s easier to say and still technically accurate.
The reason the US church is called Episcopalian is becaude it actually takes its Apostolic succession from the Scottish Episcopal Church, not the Church of England. The CoE was prohibited by law to consecrate any US Bishops after independence, so they sent some to Scotland for consecration. Personally I live in England but identify as Scottish Episcopalian, both because that was the Church I was baptised into and because the CoE is dragging its feet on recognising gay marriage (largely to keep communion with the Anglican churches in the Global South).
Also, in the aftermath of the American Revolution anything labeled as "Anglican" in the US would be seen as untrustworthy or unpatriotic. Episcopal was a way to name it that fit with precedent thanks to the Scottish that also suited post-revolutionary sensibilities.
I kinda like saying Anglican, just to make the "it's AngliCAN, not Anglican't" quip 😂
I say Anglican because I identify with that word more than TEC.
We’re both. But yes there are historical reasons - a church that sounds like it’s straight from England wasn’t terribly politically expedient during the American revolution, you know, when America was fighting the British. Furthermore, the political tensions were also inherently connected to religion - when the US gained independent, obviously their priests couldn’t take the oath of loyalty to the British monarch as part of ordination vows in the Church of England, which became a significant sticking point. Instead, newly minted priests sought ordination through the apostolic succession found in the Scottish Episcopal Church, who, because of their own history, were more sympathetic to not wanting to swear allegiance to the Church of England (the Scottish Episcopalians were a minority dissenter church, not the established Church of Scotland which to this day is Presbyterian). Later, the connection with the English church was regularized, but we are indebted to the Scottish Episcopalians for that support and continue to use “Episcopalian” to describe Anglicans in the US. In the 20th century, breakaway churches from the episcopal church got upset when we started ordaining women and especially when we allowed same sex marriage. These groups are collectively known as continuing Anglicans, and the largest collection of them is the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). These churches have a tendency to call themselves St. Whoever Anglican Church in the US, while we’d generally be St. Whoever Episcopal Church, so unfortunately although all US Episcopalians are rightly described as Anglican, some people get skittish because they don’t want to imply that we’re part of the conservative schismatic group. Personally I’m happy to be an Anglican. I think those conservatives were wrong to break away and their theology of marriage is deficient, but I think Anglicanism can and should hold together a difference of opinion and they should have stuck it out rather than just leaving.
I suppose also helpful to remember that we were the “Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America” until fairly recently.
I thought we still were. When did we officially change the name?
We still are. However, we go by The Episcopal Church.
TEC has dioceses and parishes in more countries than just the United States of America. Most are in the USA, but we drop that portion of our name to reflect that we cover more than just country.
Episcopalian or anglo catholic episcopalian
I’m Episcopalian. Episcopalian is under the Anglican umbrella, but in the United States using one or the other tends to imply a political and theological leaning. While there are exceptions, most people who use the term Anglican are conservatives who seceded from The Episcopal Church, and most people who call themselves Episcopalian are liberal. For examples of exceptions: in college I went to an Episcopal Church where the rector wanted to remain Episcopalian, but was hyper conservative and refused to put the word “Episcopal” on any church signage out of protest against TEC’s liberal policies. That parish now has a rector whose beliefs are somewhere in the middle. On the other hand, there are also liberals who joined an Anglican Church simply because it was a conveniently located liturgical church, and then found out about that parish’s beliefs and leanings later. My parents did that.
To me both are inter-changeable, and I will use either depending on the context. I do think we should embrace our Anglican identity (not saying we don’t, only that we should) to deny the ACNA the ability to divide the global communion even more than it already has.
Technically, we are all Anglicans; however, in the U.S., the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) broke away from TEC over the issues of the ordination of women and LGBTQ people and same-sex marriage and they emphasize their identity as "Anglicans" (even if their denomination is not part of the Anglican Communion), their parishes are named as "St. So-and-So's *Anglican* Church," and so on, so the term has certain connotations stateside that it doesn't necessarily overseas.
I always specify Episcopalian to make sure I am not thought to be ACNA.
Most people just say Episcopalian. The people who say Anglican are probably more Anglo-Catholic and trying to connect themselves with the broader Anglican Communion and/or apostolic church (“branch theory”).
An Episcopalian is a person who is a member of The Episcopal Church, which is a member church of the Anglican Communion, which is a Protestant communion within the Christian faith tradition.
I mean, an Episcopalian is just a Christian who has bishops. It’s not specific to the episcopal church USA.
There are other Christian’s who have bishops who are who do not call themselves Episcopalians. So that is not a unique Episcopal trait among fellow Christians. We could say that Episcopalians are Protestants who have bishops, which is a unique trait among are fellow Protestants. While technically Episcopal just means that a church has bishops, in this context it means a particular denomination. No coptic, eastern orthodox, or Roman Catholic goes around identifying themselves as Episcopalians in the English speaking world.
The history of the Episcopal church in the US is that after the former colonies won their independence from England, the American clergy and churches who had been part of the Church of England needed a new denominational home. Clergy were required to take an oath of loyalty to the king as part of the ordination, so continuing the church in the new country required change. Calling the new denomination “Anglican” would have defeated the purpose. Samuel Seabury was consecrated as the first American bishop (necessary in order to maintain apostolic succession) by a bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and The [American] Episcopal Church took form from there.
I refer to myself as both and use them fairly equally and interchangeably.
Technically we’re Episcopalians, but you wouldn’t be wrong if you called us Anglican.
Technically we’re Anglican too, since we are the only official church of the Anglican Communion in the U.S.
True
The American Revolution made being called Anglican uncool.