I have now been an Anglican for more than a decade, with the majority of those years spent at Wycliffe College pursuing a masterâ??s degree and now a doctorate. During this time, I have observed a wide range of young Anglicans and Episcopalians who have often come from conservative evangelical or fundamentalist backgrounds or who have always been Anglican but were converted by evangelical parachurch ministries.
Fortunately or unfortunately, there still seems to be an ever-widening stream of ex-evangelical converts to Anglicanism coming out of places like Wheaton and, in Canada, Briercrest, where I studied when nary an Anglican had set foot on its campus. I say â??fortunatelyâ? for a couple of reasons. Even though I now feel less unique, it is nice to have company on the Canterbury Trail and to be disabused of oneâ??s all too American (and Canadian) illusions of originality. As Robert Bellah has indicated, it is a North American rite of passage to reject the religion of oneâ??s parents. Besides, there have always been Anglican converts from Protestant nonconformity. This contemporary movement, which was documented as a trickle in Robert Webberâ??s Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail (1985), has sometimes been to the mutual benefit of those involved. The young(ish) converts receive a depth of tradition lacking in their denomination of origin, while Anglicanism gains an influx of vitality.
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