5 WAYS TO PRETEND YOU KNOW MORE ABOUT THE CHURCH THAN YOU REALLY DO

Photo from Unsplash.

So you’re new to the Episcopal Church. Or you’re not, but you never paid attention in Sunday school. Or maybe you’re not actually an Episcopalian at all, you just hang out with them. In any case, you’re feeling a little overwhelmed when you’re with your ‘really into church’ pals. There’s just so much; everyone else has read lots of books, and you’ve maybe flipped through the back of a BCP once when you were bored. 

No need to feel so overwhelmed! Here are “5 Ways To Pretend You Know More About The Church Than You Really Do”

1. Casually mention a priest/seminarian/religious that you know

You’ve talked to clergy on Twitter before, right? Or at that youth group conference? Great! You can say you know them now. Just bring this up in conversation when it seems relevant. There’s a certain kind of Episcopalian who is fascinated by monasticism, and there’s another kind who is fascinated by England, so if you know a friar (they could be Catholic) or someone in the CofE, that lends extra cachet. If they’re actually a Baptist minister, don’t mention that part.  

2. Talk about whatever minor saint’s day it is

You’ve heard of saints, right? There’s Mary...Luke...uh..St Jude? St Louis? The Episcopal Church has a whole bunch. Just pop open the Wikipedia page and find today’s. TEC doesn’t actually do every saint every year, but it doesn’t matter that much. You can pick Catholic saints too. 

Or, if you want to seem knowledgeable and socially conscious, talk about saints who are relevant to a cause in some way, such as:

February 28: Hey, did you know today’s the feast of Anna Julia Hayward Cooper? She was one of the first academic Black feminists in the US. We should do a reading circle of Black feminist theology. 

April 3: Hey, did you know today’s the feast of Mary of Egypt? She was a sex worker. We should really do some more outreach to them.

August 26: Hey, did you know today’s the feast of Henry Winter Syle? He was the first Deaf priest in TEC. We should hire an ASL interpreter. 

The more obscure, the better. 

3. Have a strong opinion on something random 

You’ve been to a couple different parishes, and they all had their own quirks, but that’s cool, you’re here for Jesus. However, excessively into the church people like having opinions on things, and you need some too. Take a stand on something, the more minor the better, but be firm on it. 

For example, suppose your friends are discussing how their parish’s interim rector wears a stole with butterflies, and they don’t like it. You can jump in with ‘you know what’s really bad? When Episcopal priests wear birettas’. A biretta is a hat, sometimes with a pompom, that a very, very small number of Episcopal priests wear, all of the very Anglo-Catholic variety. But by adding this, you will appear to be someone with strong convictions on churchmanship who really knows the intricacies of clerical attire. Since the odds of your friends being pro-biretta are low, no offense will be taken. 

It could be anything! ‘I really think churches should bring back Anglican chant.’ ‘Choirs ought to wear red cassocks’. ‘I think only seminarians should be allowed to be subdeacons’. What’s a subdeacon? Irrelevant. Ideally, your opinion should be on something that has very little to do with what your parish actually does. Be careful about picking an opinion that involves your personal behavior: don’t say Episcopalians should fast on Fridays because it’s in the BCP if you don’t. 

4. Visit a notable Episcopal church, or a monastery

This will be easier depending on where you live, but if you can attend a service at some big and famous Episcopal church, like St Mary the Virgin in NYC or St Clement’s in Philadelphia, you can always mention that you went there, even if it was only once. You can also substitute any local church that does something especially old fashioned. Does anywhere near you use the 1928 Prayer Book? The 1662 Prayer Book? You need to go. Note: these parishes may not actually be Episcopalian, but that, if anything, makes it more exciting. Drop the word ‘schismatic’ in somewhere when talking about it. 

Going to a monastery or a convent is also a good choice. Of course, your reason to go there should be prayer and reflection, but...you can also totally mention it later to seem more religious. You can substitute a Catholic one if there’s no Episcopal religious orders near you. You can also visit a Catholic church, but it likewise needs to be especially interesting. Is there an Anglican ordinariate parish? (This is a Catholic church that used to be some flavor of Anglican, and has a prayer book based on TEC’s). Or how about a Latin mass parish? If the internet reviews say the priest is crazy, that’s even better (you only have to go once!), and you can keep bringing up that time you went to a Latin mass and the priest talked about how Jesuits infiltrated the National Parks Department indefinitely. 

5. Say ‘well, you know, after Vatican II…’ whenever anyone complains about anything related to liturgy/vestments/clerical formation/literally anything

Vatican II sounds like the Pope’s secret Moon colony, but it’s not. It was a Catholic council in the early 1960s that led to sweeping changes in the Catholic church, and that also had an impact on Protestantism. You don’t need to know more than that. Just use it as an explanation for anything at anyone’s parish they don’t like, and people will start nodding along. 

Note: If people around you start talking about Vatican I, that may be a sign your friends are so sufficiently churchy that this article will not help. 

So there you go, 5 ways to pretend you know more about the church than you do. You could consider reading an actual book at some point, but you could also just keep watching Vicar of Dibley reruns, you know?