Lutheran (ELCA) vs Anglican (TEC)

The Liturgist

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Given that the particular need driving you to "pick a side" is the question of vocation, I wonder whether part of your discernment ought to be to look seriously at what pursuing ministry in either would mean. What are their discernment and selection criteria and processes, what training would they require, what support would there be, etc etc?

While I agree with @The Liturgist that one doesn't choose a denomination just for convenience, if the reality is that the door to ministry is going to open in one direction but not the other (for example), that might well help you make the decision.

This is very true - if you have an Episcopal or ELCA bishop who is really interested in having you join, or even a priest who wants to sponsor and mentor you through that seminary, that is compelling.

Although my point @Paidiske actually entailed the same one you were making, but I may have expressed it too delicately, and that is, ceteris paribus (all other things being equal), what does becoming a priest in the Episcopal Church or a pastor in the ELCA mean in terms of your spiritual life, and also, what does it mean in terms of your professional life, and how will things change once the person or persons who are interested in your service retire?

The other aspect of my post relates to that in that the ELCA and Episcopal Church are, to my extreme unhappiness, shrinking. Recently an Episcopal monastery I had donated to and planned to visit closed due to one of the four brothers dying, another requiring treatment in a nursing home, the two others feeling they were too old, and most importantly, Covid, which accelerated the decline. This was very sad, and it is also very sad whenever a good Episcopal or ELCA parish closes. Recently, an Episcopal cathedral with controversial Brutalist archirecture in the Northern US had to be sold, and while the architecture was controversial, some loved it, including one of the priests assigned there - fortunately she was inspired to publish a beautiful book of photos of it, which makes me happy, as I am one of the small number of enthusiasts of that architectural period, but unhappily it became a megachurch.

So my point was that without wanting to suggest careerism, but rather, just as a practical matter, one should be aware of this extremely tragic situation that both denominations are contracting, and one should be aware of the ramifications of this for job security. However, a true compelling vocation will overcome this.

Now, since like the Eastern Orthodox church you are familiar with, the ELCA and the Episcopal Church are episcopal, knowing your bishop is important, although perhaps not to the same extent as in the Orthodox church, where the hierarchs are like constitutional monarchs, who are chosen from the ranks of the monastic hegumens and archimandrites and generally, once consecrated, remain in office until they repose or become incapacitated (or on occasion, fall victim to political turmoil, which many believe happened to Metropolitan Jonah and Archbishop Nikolai of the OCA, both of whom wound up in ROCOR).
 
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The Liturgist

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Very good points, I am not entirely opposed to "low church" practices as I had a lot of experience with a Baptist church that really captured the passion that many Evangelicals feel. It's a beautiful feeling and I respect all worship styles, I just prefer the immersion of being in the Kingdom of Heaven that I feel in liturgical worship

Well fortunately the ELCA and the Episcopal Church are liturgical churches, and the Episcopal Church in much of the US tends to be more high church than Anglican churches in some countries. Different countries seem to have different levels of “default churchmanship” - the Episcopal Church is directly descended from the high church Scottish Episcopal Church, so tends to incline that way, but there are regions of the Episcopal Church known for being low church, and even some Continuing Anglican Churches are low church; several Episcopal priests have told me that Virginia in particular is one area where one can find a number of traditional low church parishes. The parish I recently visited in Utah appeared to default to low church compared to my retired friend’s parish from the perspective of the laity, in that unlike in the latter, I saw no one making the sign of the cross and there was no incense, however, the guest priest, who lives in the area part time and is the retired dean of a cathedral from the northern US, consecrated the Eucharist in a high church manner and was vested in a full stole and chasuble, and even performed the ablutions with a purificator after the liturgy itself. So the reality on the ground is usually a blend of low church and high church; my retired friend was possibly lower church than his congregation, as he normally wore an alb, stole and cincture, but no chasuble, for example, and his manual acts at the altar were less ornate.

The Anglican Church of Canada did a great video with two young priests who were canons at a cathedral, one low church, the other high church, demonstrating the differences in how they did things, while explaining how these minor variations in practice neither adversely affected their fidelity to the liturgy or their personal friendship.
 
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seeking.IAM

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The Anglican Church of Canada did a great video with two young priests who were canons at a cathedral, one low church, the other high church, demonstrating the differences in how they did things,

This sounds interesting. Do you have a link so this may be viewed?
 
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DeFyYing

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This sounds interesting. Do you have a link so this may be viewed?
Dunno if this is what he means but Maple Anglican made this video interviewing and comparing a high church and low church priest
 
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The Liturgist

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This sounds interesting. Do you have a link so this may be viewed?


By the way, just to clarify, I don’t think this was an official ACC publication, but it may have been diocesan, or produced for catechtical purposes; it is published on a YouTube channel called Maple Leaf Anglican along with other interesting educational videos about Anglicanism, and follows two priests who I believe were at the time of filming both members of the cathedral chapel in Edmonton.

Also, interestingly, one user asked why the high church priest was not celebrating ad orientem; apparently, despite its apparent age, the cathedral in Edmonton has an altar which is configured like the high altars of some churches in Rome (including St. Peter’s Basillica) so that it is only possible to celebrate versus populum. One would assume however there is no confessio (a dip in front of the altar of certain Roman churches intended so pilgrims could get as close as possible to the relics of the saint the altar was constructed over).
 
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The Liturgist

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Dunno if this is what he means but Maple Anglican made this video interviewing and comparing a high church and low church priest

Indeed that’s it. He has other interesting videos as well for those new to Anglicanism (and more broadly, liturgical Christianity), for example, one explaining the difference between a vicar and a rector.
 
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