Bexley Seabury Magazine Spring 2013

Restoring the Biblical Imagination The difference social media makes The global journey of Peter Pond

BEXLEY+ SEABURY SUMMER 2013 }

VOL. 1: ISSUE Nยบ 1

PRESIDENT'S LETTER

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

A letter from the president

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Kellogg: The MBA comes to church

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The difference social media makes

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Inaugural: From words to meanings

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Inaugural: Imagination and conversation

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The global journey of Peter Pond

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Anglican Studies: accent on ecumenism

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Anne Tuohy: the donor as advocate

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Our generous donors

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New trustees join board

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Alumni news

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The episodic community

About the time you receive this first issue of the Bexley Seabury magazine, I will mark my first anniversary as president of both seminaries. The first year has been full—a whirlwind at times, but one filled with the Spirit.

I began my tenure at a time when seminary education in the Episcopal Church, as in all mainline denominations, was—and remains—under tremendous stress. Training for ministry by studying in residence full-time for three years, while still satisfying for some students, leaves too many facing an uncertain job outlook while bearing a staggering burden of student debt. Our students will minister in a church with a growing need for bi-vocational clergy and a steadily diminishing allegiance to denominational identity, and we must offer seminary education in flexible ways that will train them for the work ahead.

At the same time, the church for which we are training new leaders is, when it is at its best, being reshaped and energized by the changing nature of our ministry. Our post-Christian culture and our neighbor “nones”—Americans who profess no religious affiliation—give us the freedom to value mission over structure and to declare that substantive, intellectually grounded interfaith relationships are essential to understanding our own faith and our calling as Christians.

At Bexley Seabury, we have already thrown off many of the institutional trappings that might have kept us from responding creatively to these changes.

Our challenge in this past year has been to recognize just how dramatically our circumstances have changed and to respond energetically and enthusiastically rather than in panic or denial.

In this spirit, and with the generous assistance of Anthony Ruger of Auburn Theological Seminary and Professor Simon Lee, former chancellor of Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom, we developed a new strategic plan. Now fully federated and with an energetic new board (see page 22), we at Bexley Seabury have begun to implement that plan. Its five goals are straightforward, but not simplistic:

Goal 1: Create a Federation academic program that combines the right mix of lifelong learning opportunities and MA, MDiv and DMin level course work for lay people, aspirants for ordination, and people already engaged in lay and ordained leadership.

Goal 2: Create a robust teaching and learning community and develop a theological curriculum with built-in flexibility that can respond to changing needs and pedagogical strategies in the 21st century church.

{ President Roger Ferlo

Goal 3: Establish financial stability by 2015.

Goal 4: Enhance the Federation’s technological and communications capacities to support broadly accessible theological education and formation for people of faith and the larger public.

Goal 5: Revive, deepen and forge new partnerships with seminaries, parishes and other centers of theological inquiry.

None of our plans or programs would ever find meaning without the faithful people—students, faculty, alumni, board members and supporters—who make up the Bexley Seabury community.

Be sure to read about the remarkable journey of Bexley student Peter Pond on page 14 and enjoy a conversation with long-time educator, advocate and Seabury leader Anne Tuohy on page 18.

Communications is changing along with the culture and the church. We hope you enjoy this first annual issue of our new magazine and that it persuades you to reconnect with Bexley Seabury online at bexleyseabury.org, via our monthly email newsletter and on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for your support of the Bexley Seabury Federation and our venture into theological education for the 21st century.

Yours in Christ, The Rev. Roger Ferlo, Ph.D. President, Bexley Seabury

{ Opposite: Shaun Whitehead of Saint Lawrence University and Frank Yamada, president of McCormick Theological Seminary, at Bexley Seabury’s inaugural event in April.

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KELLOGG SUMMER INSTITUTE

BEXLEY + SEABURY

It turns out they do teach that in seminary

“I have not stopped recommending it. The Kellogg classes really made me think about the big picture, not simply in terms of the parish, but

{ Seabury’s “incredible” Kellogg program is practical, yet visionary

BY LU STANTON LEÓN

“It has given me an open-mindedness to engage Christians and non-Christians and hear them in ways I have not been able to hear them before.”

THE REV. WILLIAM V. GREEN

Every fifth Sunday of the month, Green holds a forum at Tabernacle in which he shares what he learned at Kellogg. He feels it is the least he can do.

“This is what is really exciting,” he said. “When I decided to go to Kellogg—it was one day before the deadline for the class—the church didn’t have it within its budget to send me, but I made an appeal, and 56 different people made a contribution for me to go. They made it possible for 2

how the church fits into the world and how the church learns from the world.” { the Rev. Emily Mellott

W

illiam V. Green, pastor of The Tabernacle of Glory Baptist Church in Nashville, says it was the Holy Spirit that led him to enroll in Seabury’s Kellogg Summer Institute last year. And the Holy Spirit didn’t steer him wrong.

“It’s an incredible program,” Green said of the one-week leadership program offered by Seabury in partnership with the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. “It has given me an open-mindedness, a flexibility to engage Christians and non-Christians and hear them in ways I have not been able to hear them before.”

This marks the third summer Seabury has offered the highly acclaimed program, which is taught by faculty from Kellogg’s Center for Nonprofit Management. Green was one of three participants from the 2012 session who offered to describe the knowledge they gained and how they are putting it into practice.

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{ the Rev. William V. Green me to go and not have any worries about tuition, lodging, meals or transportation.

“When I was sitting in class one day the Holy Spirit said to me, ‘When you go back, you have to take it back to the different generations in your congregation.’ I have, and it is phenomenal,” he said of the forums. “It gives a level of joy, and they look forward to it every fifth Sunday.

We did it Easter Sunday, and I thought nobody would show up because it was Easter, and we had over 100 people there.”

Generational Understanding

It was the Kellogg program, Green said, that made him aware of the challenges of communicating with the multiple generations in his congregation: the Greatest

Generation, the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, and Generations X, Y and Z. Each generation used a different means of communication, from newspapers to radio to television to computers and, finally, cellphones and tablet computers.

“What is interesting is with the first four mediums you have to sit down to use them. With iPhones and iPads, you can walk around with the world in your hand.

How can you be relevant to people who have the whole world in their hands?”

As a result of the Kellogg program, Green led a forum at Tabernacle describing what each generation had to offer and what was meaningful for them.

“Then I had everyone get in small groups and talk about what each generation offered to the quality of their life.

That one-on-one allowed us to break down the barriers, because now I know your story. It was a great experience.”

A New Framework for Ministry

Because of his enthusiasm for Seabury’s summer program, Green enrolled in several more courses in Kellogg’s Nonprofit Management Program, which he said has led to a new, comprehensive strategy for his congregation.

“We have developed a Q7C’s plan,” Green said of his congregation, which has a Sunday attendance of 125 to 130. “The Q stands for our quadrant plan, which means we divided our congregation into north, south, east and west of downtown Nashville, and we are creating something that allows you, whatever quadrant you live in,

to provide concern, compassion, care and comfort in times of crisis and celebration to members of our congregation.”

The congregation will implement that plan this summer, Green said, and members are excited about it. “We needed 16 people to be Q7C’s administrators, and 16 people volunteered on the very first day. It was amazing.”

THE REV. EMILY MELLOTT

Emily Mellott, rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Lombard, Ill., was so taken with Seabury’s Kellogg program in 2011 that she went back and enrolled in the 2012 program.

“I have not stopped recommending it to my friends and colleagues,” said Mellott, who is credited with turning the Ash Wednesday Ashes to Go initiative into a national movement. “I don’t know if the Kellogg program changed my whole perspective, but it really was a very powerful experience that refreshed the way I look at the parish and the church in general.

I’ve done it for two years; it is addictive in a good way.”

New Perspectives

“The most important thing for me is that this is like turning around 180 degrees in looking at the work of ministry and the experience of the church. It is a perspective of ministry and the life of the whole church that I never realized I was missing,” said Mellott, whose congregation averages about 100 on Sundays. “The Kellogg classes really made me think

about the big picture, not simply in terms of the parish, but how the church fits into the world and how the church learns from the world. Part of it is that the church develops its own vocabulary and its own patterns, and those shape our expectations. To come in from the business perspective—and I’ve spent some time in business before—made everything fresh.

In parish ministry you know the people are connected, but the Kellogg program made me look at how people network, how to bring people in so their networks are our networks.”

More Effective Negotiations

“We talked about negotiations. Nobody in the church talks about negotiations, but we are negotiating all the time. Because I’ve taken the class, I’m able to step back and say here are the tools that may be helpful. I think at Calvary we are constantly renegotiating the role of the vestry with each new vestry member. In the course we talked about the things that frame the negotiation, like in business. A huge part of the lesson was how to win-win. What is it you need and how can we get there?

“I found the negotiations session, for me personally, particularly mind expanding.”

Identifying Core Values

“The other thing I found particularly helpful was the information on branding and core values,” Mellott said. “I came home from that, sat down with my vestry and said, ‘If Zappos employees can tell 3

KELLOGG SUMMER INSTITUTE

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Summer 2013

CHURCH SOCIAL MEDIA

{ SEABURY’S KELLOGG PROGRAM DELIVERS RESULTS

“I love this program. I love talking about things that help our church. It is what we need to align the church to reach the people today. It is cutting edge.” { the Rev. Melissa Adzima anyone how their work is based on the company’s core values, like Deliver WOW through Service, how is it that we, who are in the business of changing people’s lives through our beliefs, have a hard time telling people what our core values are?’ We have developed a set of core values that we are proud of and have shared with our congregation.”

THE REV. MELISSA ADZIMA

Seabury’s Kellogg program came at a perfect time for Melissa Adzima, an associate for administration and development at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Erie, Pennsylvania. With the support of the diocese, St. Mark’s is undergoing an intentional redevelopment project, strategically reinventing itself in hope of a period of significant growth and development. It is the first project of its kind in the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania.

Adzima’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Sean Rowe, had heard about Seabury’s Kellogg program and recommended it to her. She attended with Carly H. Rowe, who is director of formation and program development at St. Mark’s and is married to Bishop Rowe.

“We went together to get ideas and to see if we were on the right page,” Adzima said. “I found our intuitions were right in a number of things, but there’s also a lot we need to learn. I love this program.

I love talking about things that help our 4

church, where we desperately need it right now. It is what we need to align the church to reach the people today. It is cutting edge.”

Branding and Marketing

Adzima said the session on branding and marketing was one of her favorites.

“We have a lot of valuable things we can learn from businesses and corporations and then translating that into church language: identity, mission, thinking about who we are trying to reach, who is our competition. We need to think about how do we get people who, instead of coming to church, chose to read the New York Times, or drink a cup of coffee, or hang out with their dog.”

Adzima’s project for the class focused on marketing, which led her to re-do St. Mark’s internal signage. ”Newcomers are a huge passion of mine, so I looked at all of our signs and asked, ‘Are we being clear where things are?’ Doing little things can be huge because it eliminates barriers to people getting where they want to go.”

Trying Something New

“The church is not the same as it was 30 years ago. It’s not the same as it was five years ago. The people we’re trying to reach are different than ever before, with Facebook, the internet, social networks. So I post once a day on Facebook and work on keeping our webpage up-to-date. We’re

just trying new ideas, different programs, offering Bible studies in different locations. It’s a process. By trying a lot of things, some don’t work.”

But clearly, some do. Two years ago the average Sunday attendance at St. Mark’s had dropped to about 50. Since then it has grown to about 130.

“When I came on board in July 2011, redevelopment was at its very beginning,” Adzima said. “We said we can’t be sustainable. We have to do something or we’ll have to close.”

St. Mark’s became a missional church and, just this year, was joined by another small parish.

“We want to be a vibrant, living community,” Adzima said. “The congregation is on board with the redevelopment because they can see the fruits of what’s happening.”

Many of the challenges and changes facing St. Mark’s were addressed in the Kellogg sessions, such as those on conflict management, effective communication, visioning, innovation and motivation.

“I definitely have applied what I learned from the program,” Adzima said.

“I’ve been able to apply it because in this program you go from academic to practical at the same time. These are things you can take with you and use.”

F

Preach the Gospel. Use tweets if necessary.

Bexley dean explores charms, challenges of social media

BY JIM NAUGHTON

From a line of dialog in an episode of The Simpsons, the Rev. Tom Ferguson, dean of Bexley Hall, has crafted an online persona that is widely known in the Episcopal Church. The “crusty old dean,” as Ferguson is known to readers of his popular blog, writes perceptive, sardonic and occasionally autobiographical essays on current issues in the Episcopal Church and theological education, ranging from the restructuring of the church to the General Ordination Examination.

Ferguson’s moniker isn’t accurate—he’s forward thinking and 44—but a blog with a witty title that demonstrates an encyclopedic command of popular culture has probably allowed him to reach a wider audience than had he called it Musings from the Seminary.

“Most of my favorite blogs are in that kind of vein,” Ferguson says. “It was an effort to connect with folks for whom those kind of [pop culture] images resonate. I was not going to be doing ‘Here is something I saw on the news today and here is what I think about it.’ There has to be a place for deep, sustained conversation.”

Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other forms of social media exert a pervasive influence on the society in which the 5

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{ Right: Bishops Thomas Ely of Vermont

and W. Nicholas Knisely of Rhode Island tweet during a recent ecumenical service.

Lutheran Bishop Jim Hazlewood took the photo with his iPhone and posted it via Twitter. Below: Confirm not Conform uses Twitter to speak and listen.

“I have a real firm conviction that Christianity has always accommodated and adapted to broader changes in how people communicate; and we need to do that again.”

Episcopal Church ministers. Many parishes, bishops, clergy and lay leaders are just dipping their toes into the waters of social media, while others have been happily swimming for many years. But the number of individuals and institutions using these tools is so vast—1 billion worldwide on Facebook and 100 million on Twitter alone—that the church ignores them at its peril.

Ferguson, a popular music aficionado, sees a parallel to the changes that have convulsed the music industry. When computer savvy young people like Napster developer Sean Parker created ways to share music easily online, industry leaders fought the practice rather than finding creative ways to incorporate the technology into their own distribution systems.

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“Unless we get with it and get ahead of these changes, the church is going to be shaped by forces that it doesn’t understand,” Ferguson says. However, while he believes the church has been slow off the mark in its response to social media, he remains optimistic.

“I have a real firm conviction that Christianity has always accommodated and adapted to broader changes in how people communicate; and we need to do that again,” Ferguson says. “In the Middle Ages, you had to learn Latin whether you wanted to or not because that’s how business was done. You are going to have to learn how to do this stuff.”

Meredith Gould, author of The Social Media Gospel, who consults with religious and health care organizations, agrees. “The conversation about why we

should bother with social media is over,” she says. “We need to focus on how to make it work to your advantage and for preaching the gospel.”

Social media can be used in numerous ways to benefit the church. A short list could include distributing information, promoting events, advocating for a cause, raising money, making and maintaining connections, and stimulating conversations that grow into relationships.

Seminaries must cultivate their expertise in using the new digital media tools. Doing so will have an immediate impact on how they educate students and also on how they promote their institutions, Gould says.

“What you find in most church environments is a mix between resistance and using social media clumsily,” she adds.

Summer 2013

“I tell people, ‘Let’s back up a few frames and talk about your strategy here.’ Social media is not an ‘add on.’ It really needs to be integrated into what you’re doing to communicate vision and mission.”

Bishop W. Nicholas Knisely of Rhode Island was among the earliest proponents of social media in the Episcopal Church, and he has used the new communications tools for everything from reporting news from General Conventions, to blogging about physics—his previous career—to spreading emergency information during the snowstorm that rocked coastal New England in February.

Knisely says social media is an easy way for clergy to interact with people in both casual and strategic ways. “It is an excellent way to ask questions and get feedback prior to writing a sermon, in the middle of writing an article, or thinking through how people feel about a particular issue,” he says. “I can’t tell you how many times I have gone on Facebook or Twitter and asked a question. I have always been surprised by not only how much I get back but the high quality of what I get back.”

In his years online, he has seen a shift from the written word toward images.

“Pictures are the currency that gets you noticed right now,” he says. “So, I have been a lot more intentional about using Instagram [a photo sharing and social media platform] and pictures on Twitter, and it has changed the nature of my interactions. It allows a whole group of people who don’t make witty puns or snarky comments to do things on social media.”

Many younger clergy are skillful in using social media to develop online relationships, Knisely says. “A lot of the job is to remind them that their institutional job is to interact on social media, not just personally, but on behalf of the community that they serve.”

Developing an institutional voice is an art all its own, whether one is speaking for a parish, a seminary or another faithbased organization, says the Rev. Laura Toepfer, managing director of Confirm not Conform, developers of youth and adult confirmation curricula that have become popular in the Episcopal Church.

“When we were starting out, we thought that as a brand new product with

CHURCH SOCIAL MEDIA

very little name recognition, and very little money, we needed to do something to allow people to learn about it and to give people a sense that we knew what we were talking about,” Toepfer says. “I am not sure that we ever articulated that as our social media strategy when we became active on Facebook and Twitter, but that was the underlying sense of what we are doing.”

Toepfer breaks the process of cultivating a strong social media presence into three phases. The first is finding material.

“I keep my eyes peeled for those news items or blog posts or videos that both match our ethos as an organization and that would be useful for people who are active in Christian formation,” she says.

Developing a tone of voice is the second step. Toepfer found an unlikely model in the Solihull Police Department in the West Midlands of England. “I have never been there,” she says, “but on Twitter they have just the right tone. They’re funny, they’re quirky, they’re personable, but you know that they’re the police.”

The third step, and one many organizations omit, is to use social media as a means of listening to people one wouldn’t otherwise encounter. Toepfer once used the phrase “confirmation class” as a search term on Twitter with eye-opening results. “Oh my goodness, people were being forthright about how boring their class was and how they’d rather be doing something else,” she says. “I thought that was very important information for me to know and for the church to know.”

She retweeted her findings every Sunday for several months as a way of keeping adults who work in the field of Christian formation in touch with the experiences of the young people with whom they are working. She plans to resume the practice in the fall.

Beyond questions of what seminarians should be taught about social media and how seminaries can use new communications tools to make themselves more visible lies a larger issue: Can social media hasten the long-envisioned transformation of theological education?

Ferguson believes they can.

“Seminaries really need to be about relationship and community,” he says. “It is through relationship and community

that formation takes place. Social media is an integral component in developing those relationships.”

In 2001, Ferguson recalls, he proposed to the leaders of a local formation program that they seek a grant to rethink how the Episcopal Church delivered theological education. He believed it might be possible for formational activities to take place in the local diocese while the academic content could be provided in intensive residency and online courses.

His idea went over “like a lead balloon,” Ferguson remembers. But in the last twelve years, the landscape of theological education has changed considerably, and the need to provide instruction and formation in flexible and innovative ways is widely understood. Ferguson believes that social media and online learning software provide the glue that can bind learning communities together in the periods when they are not in residence at a seminary.

Additionally, he says, the ethos of social media, which is democratic and freewheeling, is well suited to the contemporary seminary classroom, in which instructors and students engage on a more equal footing.

“We are moving away from a model of instruction where people come and receive knowledge, and the primary aspect of the classroom is transactional,” Ferguson says. “The people in our classrooms are called to be there. Many of them have significant life experience in their working lives. The instructors are also there for a reason. They are also called. That creates a commonality. We are both teachers and we are both learners.

“There is not a predominant paradigm in theological education right now,” he adds. “At Bexley Seabury, we are trying to take that by the horns. We aren’t going to talk about ‘alternate’ tracks. We are just going to talk about options. Theological education is changing, and social media is a big part of that. We like to think that at Bexley Seabury we’ve seen this change coming, we get it and we are working to embrace it.”

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BIBLICAL IMAGINATION

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“The lively interwoven dialogues of the Talmud school have always been for me a kind of exemplar of the dialogical way of thinking, evidence that narratives have a fabric that must be woven and rewoven.”

Sharing texts and making meanings in a digital world At the inaugural: a fresh approach to speaking of scripture

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In his lecture “Restoring the Biblical Imagination,” presented at the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis on April 26, the Rev. Roger Ferlo, president of the Bexley Seabury Seminary Federation, traced the history of reading and of texts from the age of scrolls to the age of Facebook. Each development in technology, he noted, made sacred texts available to new audiences who frequently interpreted them in new ways.

But, while scripture can be studied in private, Ferlo said, it is still best understood in conversation with other readers in an interpretive community, as sacred texts have been since the earliest times. He concluded that six traits are required for contemporary people of faith to restore “the Biblical imagination.”

How do we restore access to the Biblical imagination? Six things: First, the approach must be textrich, but not text-obsessed. We have to be sensitive to the nuance of translation: aware of translation issues, aware of the multiplicity of text witnesses, aware of historical context. We have to be aware of how texts came to be and how they came to be read. We have to be aware of how they came to be reread and re-reread.

In seminary work, this has historically been the material of the classical Biblical disciplines, which over the last several

BIBLICAL IMAGINATION

generations have worked with mainly an historical critical bias. Often times for better and sometimes for worse, the historical critical method still forms the core of the masters-level theological education.

And in many places, this method still seems to be presented as an end in itself.

But it is never an end in itself.

Second, the Biblical imagination must be dialogical. Almost by definition, the sacred texts are told in groups of listeners. Meanings in a sense, to use a contemporary term, are “crowdsourced,”— like the Talmud. And images must speak to images across cultures, whether they’re Eastern cultures or Western cultures or Latino cultures or Asian cultures. And our dialogue partners must both be partners who are here with us and partners who have gone before us. Both alive and dead.

The lively interwoven dialogues of the Talmud school have always been for me a kind of exemplar of this dialogical way of thinking, evidence that narratives have a fabric that must be woven and rewoven.

Next, the Biblical imagination must be multi-sensory. The visual and oral have now become the key senses in our postliterate culture.

The Biblical imagination must be culture-specific. Perhaps you are familiar with the book The Emerging Church for Dummies. If you come from an evangelical culture, your focus is going to be on the book and on the text. If you come from a liturgical culture, your focus is going to be on how the book is preached and performed ritually. If you come from an emerging culture, you might be unapologetically syncretic in your use of book and ritual, downright promiscuous in use of book and ritual. If you’re in the Scriptural Reasoning movement, you’re going to assume cultural disparities and cultural disjunctions and you aren’t going to try to dissolve them or resolve them, but to live with them.

While the Biblical imagination must be culturally specific, it must also

be culturally permeable. That’s what I love about the music of Osvaldo Golijov, the famed Argentine composer whose composition La Pasión según San Marcos has become popular on YouTube. The mixing of cultures, of languages, dance forms, rhythms, concert etiquette, post-Classical fusion…you have Bach arias and Brazilian folk songs, Cuban drumming and even his suspicion of church and junta all come forward in this sort of mestizo of a work of art. He was asked, “I know that you have mentioned growing up in Argentina during the dictatorship. Is there any relationship you can think of between your early years and this Passion?” Golijov said, “Yes, there is a relationship, because I know of low-ranking priests who tried to do what Jesus did. This is again about Christianity or institutional religion being the best and the worst. These priests lived in the slums with the poor and were being killed and disappeared which is the same thing while at the same time you would see a televised mass of the chief of the Argentinian junta, Jorge Rafael Videla, kneeling before the archbishop and receiving his blessing. I remember walking over dead bodies on the way to school and thinking, ‘Okay, this is how life is.’”

Fifth, as Golijov’s work suggests, the Biblical imagination must be global in scope and culturally and politically engaged.

And finally, it must be open-ended, even eschatological.

Nothing is ever complete when we engage our scriptural imaginations. Our motto should be what John Keats said about poetry, what he called negative capability—when a person is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. My favorite image for this is, again, in the Gospel of Mark. It is that unassimilated detail of Jesus’ betrayal when a man flees and the soldiers grab his robe and he flees naked. No other Gospel talks about it. No one explains, what was that about? And for me that opens up the Biblical imagination rather than closes it down.

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A Muslim, a Jew and a Christian walk into a café … { Scriptural reasoning session highlights convivial inauguration weekend

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PHOTOS BY RICHARD SPAHR

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n two jam-packed April days at the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, the Bexley Hall Seabury-Western Theological Seminary Federation came into being with a dignified bang. The Rev. Dr. Roger Ferlo, the Federation’s first dean and president, opened the event with a multimedia-driven keynote address on the Judeo-Christian tradition’s encounter with the written word.

A panel of scholars introduced more than 175 friends of the Federation to Scriptural Reasoning, a way to share sacred texts

among members of the three Abrahamic faiths. In an experiential workshop called “The Bible for Nones,” panelists and participants considered how images and sound can deepen exploration of the Bible. The next day, Ferlo was installed as dean and president. The Very Rev. Ian Markham, dean of Virginia Theological Seminary, preached and the Rt. Rev. Diane Jardine Bruce of Los Angeles and the Rev. Canon Carlson Gerdau, former canon to two presiding bishops, were presented with honorary doctoral degrees.

{ Omar Shaukat of the University of Virginia, Sarah Snyder of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme and Rabbi Joshua Stanton of the Center for Global Judaism at Hebrew College (opposite) led a demonstration of Scriptural Reasoning that stirred spirited, good-humored conversation.

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BIBLICAL IMAGINATION

BIBLICAL IMAGINATION

{ Scenes from a festive, thought-provoking weekend include participants visiting John Dally’s workshop cum art installation on The Bible for Nones, probing table conversation on the practice of Scriptural Reasoning and bursts of singing led by the Rev. Shaun Whitehead, associate chaplain at St. Lawrence University. At a buffet reception afterwards (clockwise on this page) Anne Harlan, wife of Bexley Seabury President Roger Ferlo, chats with Karen Altergott; Bishop Diane Jardine Bruce and her husband Stephen listen to the bishop’s fellow honorary degree recipient Canon Carl Gerdau; Bishop W. Michie Klusmeyer, chair of the Bexley Seabury board, spends a moment with the Rev. Dr. George A. Hill, III and Rabbi Joshua Stanton mingles with well wishers.

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PETER POND

BY LU STANTON LEÓN

“ I was 13, and I would

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spend weekends in the refugee camps. It was

really humbling because I got to leave the refugee camp. I was free to go and they weren’t. I witnessed death, and hunger, and pain.”

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A spiritual odyssey: Peter Pond’s far flung journey to seminary

It was June, 1980, and 13-year-old Peter J.L. Pond had just finished his last day of seventh grade at Thailand’s International School Bangkok. He and his father, an activist adamant in his support of Cambodian refugees, were returning to the Sa Kaeo refugee camp near the Cambodian border when armed Thai military officers stopped the car and took his father.

Pond slipped away and hid in a Buddhist temple inside the camp.

“They arrested Dad at the gate,” said Pond, who now lives in Mason, Ohio, and has just completed his first year at Bexley.

“They pulled their guns out, and they forgot about me. That’s the advantage of being a kid. People forget you’re there. I went straight to the Buddhist temple and spent the night there. I didn’t know what was going on. One of my Cambodian brothers told me later that there was an attempt by the interned and reorganizing Khmer Rouge to get me. I dressed wearing the Krama, a Cambodian garment used as a scarf or bandana, to try to blend in. An Anglican priest came and got me out the next morning.”

That was neither the first nor the last time that religion and social activism would dramatically converge in Pond’s life. He is the son of a clergyman who put everything on the line to help save the poor and the powerless, whether in New England, Hungary, Puerto Rico or Cambodia—especially Cambodia.

It made for a complicated childhood— Pond’s father and stepmother adopted 16 Cambodian refugee children—but Pond downplays his unconventional upbringing, which included his becoming a novice Buddhist monk and eventually led him to Bexley Hall Seminary.

“I’ve really had a lifelong call,” said Pond, who is married, the father of four, and works full-time as manager of site services for Amylin Pharmaceuticals in West Chester, Ohio. “I am a preacher’s kid. Some may say it’s an unorthodox journey I’ve been on, but most preacher kids have an interesting story.”

Perhaps. But his is extraordinary.

Pond was born in 1966 in Puerto Rico, the son of Karen (who now lives in Maine) and the Rev. Peter L. Pond, a member of a prominent New England family and a graduate of Yale Divinity School. He spent most of his youth in rural northern New Hampshire where Pond said his father “preferred to worship at home and celebrate the Eucharist as a family.”

In 1976, his parents divorced.

Pond’s three siblings went to live with his mother and he went to live with his father. In 1979, the two of them moved to Thailand to be near Pond’s grandmother, Josephine Stanton, wife of Edwin F. Stanton, the first United States Ambassador to Thailand after World War II. That was when his father became aware of the

PETER POND

Summer 2013

plight of Cambodian refugees flooding into Thailand at the end of the Pol Pot regime. That also was Pond’s first exposure to Buddhism, which was prevalent in Cambodia and practiced by his grandmother.

From that time on, the Rev. Pond devoted his adult life to helping Cambodian refugees. His activism spawned numerous articles including a 1984 New York Times article by Gail Sheehy detailing his efforts to save Cambodian children; a Providence Journal (RI) magazine article in 1989, “Peter Pond’s War,” which described his “Quixotic, obsessive, even fanatic” quest to bring peace to Cambodia; and after he died on June 20, 2000, at 67 years of age, a Providence Journal op-ed that called him, “R.I.'s Schindler of the Killing Fields” for his efforts to save so many young Cambodians from the Khmer Rouge.

It wasn’t always easy to be the child of a parent so absorbed in saving others.

“When I was growing up, I think I had a glimpse of what it’s like to be an outsider,” Pond says. “When I was at home, we ate Cambodian food, Cambodian was spoken in the house, and so in some ways, I can understand what it’s like to be an outsider, or somebody in the margin. Not that I claim that. Sharing Dad was tough, but I think it might have been tougher on my siblings who lived with my mom and visited us on weekends. I was able to see

what my dad saw and better understand what drove him. I knew things that my siblings didn’t, so it put everything in a different context.” Pond lived in Thailand from October 1979 until June of 1980.

“I was 13, and I would spend weekends in the refugee camps,” Pond recalls.

“It was really humbling because I got to leave the refugee camp; I was free to go and they weren’t. I witnessed death, and hunger, and pain.”

What he saw and experienced there reinforced what his parents had instilled in him from the beginning.

“Social activism is a big part of me, and for me, social justice and religion are intertwined,” Pond said. “Jesus came to serve. Christ sought out the poor, the sick, the dead, the blind, the possessed, the diseased, the unclean. Christ fed the hungry.

Jesus broke rules and upset the status quo. The great commandment given to us is to love God and love people. Social activism is a way of expressing both.” ___ Pond, who is 47 years old, said one of his earliest memories of discussing religion occurred during a vacation to Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands when he was about 10 years old.

“We were in the Virgin Islands, and a housekeeper who was a Jehovah’s

{ Peter Pond (orange robe, center) spent two weeks at age 15 in a Thai refuge camp as a novice Buddhist monk.

Witness said to me, ‘See those children over there? They’ll never get into the Kingdom.’ I asked why not, and she said because there were only so many seats in heaven, and only a select few could get in.

I said I would gladly give up my seat for one of them. She was so upset when I said that.

“I had never thought of heaven as being exclusive. That conversation stuck with me.”

Memories of that trip to the Virgin Islands stand out for another reason: it was the first time Pond witnessed extreme poverty.

“To get to the Virgin Islands we had to go through Puerto Rico where, at the time, shanties were built right up to the airport fence. I remember thinking, wow, people live in those buildings. It was the first time I was exposed to poverty like that.”

In a few years, he would be exposed to much worse in the Cambodian refugee camps. And he would, in fact, share his “seat” with many other children at his home in New Hampshire. ___ During the year he lived with his father in Thailand, Pond went with his grandmother to weekly meditation classes where they met with Somdet Phra Sangharaja, the supreme patriarch of Theravada

{ Pond, left, did his novitiate to honor his grandmother, who had died in a car accident.

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PETER POND

“In Kenya the congregation broke into Swahili and swayed in prayer. They were ecstatically praising Jesus and were blissful.

That was altogether a new experience for me.”

Buddhism in Thailand, for meditation instruction.

Two years after Pond moved back to the United States, his grandmother died

in a car crash in Connecticut. To honor her wishes, during his spring break he went back to Thailand and became a novice monk. He was 15.

“She had asked that I become a novice monk in order to gain her merit in the afterlife,” Pond says, adding that it was common for men in Thailand to go through the temporary ordination in order to gain merit and honor for family members.

During the week prior to the service, 16

BEXLEY + SEABURY

Pond’s head and eyebrows were shaved and he had to learn enough of the Sanskrit language to say his vows. He then spent about a week in robes before going back to high school in the United States.

Pond says his experience with Buddhism made him feel comfortable with the Episcopal Church.

“One of the reasons I feel so at home with Anglicanism is that it is an old tradition that has great liturgy. Buddhism is that way, too, and I felt at home when I walked into an Episcopal church. As my spiritual director said, it’s all part of our ministry. Everything that happens is part of our ministry.”

After graduating with a history degree from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, Pond married Donna, an Episcopalian, and his ministry took another turn when he became a chaplain assistant in the Army Reserve, participating in missions in Guatemala and in

Kenya, where Pond said he met people of great faith who could recite scripture and apply it to any conversation.

“I thought I had the best job in the world,” Pond said. “In Kenya I worshiped in an Anglican church and felt the Holy Spirit as I had never felt it before.” He said he “felt the Holy Spirit at work as the congregation broke into Swahili and swayed in prayer. They were ecstatically praising Jesus and were blissful. That was altogether a new experience for me.”

After the Army Reserve, Pond and his family lived in New Hampshire where they attended church at Trinity Episcopal Church in Claremont. Pond became actively involved in the church, becoming a lay Eucharistic minister, prayer leader, reader, member of the choir, and a Sunday school leader. It was there that he was baptized.

“I was a superficial Christian for a long time,” Pond said. “I knew that Christ was born, preached, and was crucified; it was just a two-dimensional story. But once I realized why this happened, I was captivated. The concept of grace—free but not cheap—humbles me. And God's love is hard to resist. We don't speak of being saved in our tradition, but our conscious commitment to become baptized is close.

I had always made the false assumption that I had been baptized when I was too young to remember it; I was baptized at a vestry meeting in 2000.”

A corporate transfer resulted in Pond’s family moving to Ohio. He started as a part-time student at Bexley in the fall of 2012. He, his wife and their four children are members of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church in West Chester, where Pond was confirmed and is a member of the church’s praise band. It was the rector at St. Anne’s who encouraged Pond to go to seminary.

Right now, in addition to his job and seminary, Pond’s focus is on his wife and children—two in college, one in high school and one in junior high, including his youngest daughter, who is autistic.

“My wife and I do a lot of advocating for my daughter,” Pond said. “We’ve found out there’s not a lot of support for kids on the spectrum.”

He doesn’t know where his ministry will lead him next, but it is sure to be an adventure.

Peter, his wife Donna, and their four children moved to Ohio in 2008. He says they have all “fallen in love with the Buckeye state.”

ANGLICAN STUDIES

Summer 2013

Eyes on the horizon { Anglican Studies for a changing church When Seabury Academic Dean Ellen Wondra and Bexley Dean Tom Ferguson set out to develop a common Anglican Studies program—the first joint offering of the new federation between the two seminaries—they were aiming to train students “who are looking toward the horizon rather than over their shoulders,” says Wondra.

“Bishops, commission on ministry chairs, and experienced clergy tell us that people seeking ordained ministry need more preparation for ministry in the 21st century,” she says. “We need to teach the Anglican tradition in the context of other faiths, other Christian traditions, and the spiritual experiences of people who aren’t part of a religious tradition.”

The new Anglican Studies certificate from Bexley Seabury requires a course in ecumenical, interfaith or international ministry, a course in congregational mission and leadership, and a course in practical theology in addition to the standard Anglican Studies curriculum that covers spirituality, theology, history, liturgy, music and canon law.

The new curriculum kicks off in the fall of 2013 with a course in the pastoral offices taught in Columbus by Bexley Seabury President Roger Ferlo. “Like any seminary course, we will study the history, purpose and liturgical forms of the offices,” says Ferlo. “Our investigation, however, will be guided by our understanding of post-modern culture. Are the Prayer Book offices effective in today’s world? What rites do we lack to answer the world’s need?”

The new Anglican Studies courses on offer this fall include a Columbus course with Ferguson that will focus on the history of Anglicanism as a diverse, globalized communion, and Professor John Dally’s Chicago course titled “Strategies for Teaching the Bible.”

“Seminarians learn about the history and content of the Bible, but after they

begin parish ministry, it can be difficult for them to translate their learning into terms that parishioners can use and share,” Dally said. “This course picks up where traditional seminary courses leave off with strategies for teaching the Biblical story in ways that can lead to personal and communal transformation.”

Wondra and Ferguson knew that it wasn’t only the curriculum that needed to change in the new program. “Our students are self-starting and self-directing,” Wondra said, “and already engaged in ministry in their churches and communities. They have full lives, and uprooting for three years to attend a traditional residential program is not appropriate for them.”

Students seeking the Anglican Studies certificate can mix and match classes and campuses to suit their schedules. The new program offers intensive weekend and week-long courses in both Columbus and Chicago as well as traditional semester-long classes in Columbus.

Wondra will also teach the Federation’s first online-only course this fall—a class in Episcopal Church polity and canon law.

In the last several years, students in Seabury’s Anglican Studies program have come from across the country, and Wondra expects the appeal of the Federation’s new program to have even broader reach.

“Bexley and Seabury started by training students for ministry on the frontier,” she says. “Today’s frontiers are global and interfaith, and we’re still looking toward them.”

To learn more about Bexley Seabury’s Anglican Studies program, visit the website, bexleyseabury.org.

{ Ellen Wondra, Seabury Academic Dean

“We need to teach the Anglican tradition in the context of other faiths, other Christian traditions, and the spiritual experiences of people who aren’t part of a religious tradition.”

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ANNE TUOHY

BEXLEY + SEABURY

Summer 2013

Church in Glencoe, Ill., in the Diocese of Chicago. She spoke recently about what appeals to her, as both a donor and board member, about Bexley Seabury.

Q: How did you first get involved with the Bexley Seabury Federation?

A

Anne Tuohy: Pursuing a passion for formation

BY JIM NAUGHTON

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Anne Tuohy is an advocate for Christian formation, regardless of the age of the Christian in question. As a consultant to non-profit organizations, she has nurtured children’s ministries within the Episcopal Church, developed national conferences and learning opportunities and advocated for greater emphasis on lifelong Christian formation. As a deputy to General Convention she proposed resolutions that led to the creation of the Standing Commission on Lifelong Christian Formation and Education.

She joined the board of Seabury Western Theological Seminary in 2006 and now serves on the founding board of the Bexley Seabury Federation.

A lifelong advocate for children and families living in poverty, Anne has served as an advisor, developer and board member of organizations that promote the health and education of society’s most vulnerable members. She is incoming board chair of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, a Chicago-based national non-profit organization that provides research, professional training and programs that give children from birth to age five living in poverty a strong foundation for success in school and in life.

Anne and her husband, John, a retired lawyer who chairs the board of the Chicago Community Loan Fund, have three children and three grandchildren. They are members of St. Elisabeth’s

A: In early 2005, [former Seabury President] Gary Hall and [Professor] John Dally asked me to be part of a group that was exploring new opportunities for clergy and laity to continue their theological education and strengthen their ministries. It was challenging and exciting to work with Seabury DMin graduates who were using their Seabury experience to reach out in innovative ways to the communities they were serving. I appreciated this emphasis on making theological education more accessible and inclusive because it reflects the church’s emphasis on the ministry of all the baptized.

I see something similar happening now with our two seminaries. Bexley and Seabury are both operating in ecumenical settings, working with non-traditional students and seeking ways to strengthen Christ’s ministry in our changing world. Together we are working on a whole new way of providing theological education in the Episcopal Church while honoring the roots and strengths of our tradition.

Q: When you look over the many offerings of the Federation—the masters of divinity, the certificate in Anglican Studies, the doctor of ministry degrees in congregational development and preaching and lifelong learning opportunities for clergy and laity—what seems most intriguing to you?

A: I’m excited about developing lifelong learning experiences and meeting the challenge of reaching the largest numbers of people most effectively. I believe there are ongoing opportunities to strengthen theological education within the Episcopal Church and help people in the pews, along with clergy and those preparing for ordained ministry, understand what it means to be an Episcopalian, an Anglican

ANNE TUOHY

and a Christian equipped to share the Gospel outside the institution.

For example, I see the kind of things we did in Indianapolis on the weekend of Dean Roger Ferlo’s inauguration as president of the Federation (see pages 10-11) as a model for learning experiences we can offer in other settings.

Q: You are one of those trustees who has “sampled the wares” of the Federation.

Tell us about that.

A: I have taken a number of classes at Seabury and have truly enjoyed learning with and from the variety of people who have come from around the country for these intensive weekends and weeks. The online exchanges and papers before and after the on-site classes have been rich.

These programs bring together clergy and lay people who are active in business, sciences, education, community action, social services, politics and other fields. They often represent a variety of faiths, and everyone seems to benefit from each other’s insights and experiences. I'd like to see more opportunities for laity and clergy to learn together.

Q: You’ve served on the board during the presidencies of the Very Rev. Gary Hall, Bob Bottoms, who is the former president of DePauw University, and now the Rev. Roger Ferlo. What distinguishes Dean Ferlo from his predecessors?

A: One of the things I really love about Roger’s leadership is that he brings great experience from other areas of the academic world, as well as experience as a parish priest and a professor in another Episcopal seminary. Plus, he ran a lifelong learning program in a major metropolitan area when he was at Virginia Theological Seminary.

He understands the need for leadership in the institutional church to be better equipped for imaginative and innovative Christian ministry. These qualities make him particularly well suited to lead us in this new endeavor.

Q: You are the incoming chair of the Ounce of Prevention Fund. Your husband, John, has retired from practicing law and is now chair of the board of the Chicago Community Loan Fund.

You’re both highly sought after. What inspired you to give your time and money to Bexley Seabury?

A: John and I invest in organizations that are committed to creating opportunities for long-term systemic change in the wellbeing of people and communities. For us, sharing time and expertise goes along with giving money, and as active participants, it seems natural to become advocates in the wider world.

I believe deeply that the ministry of Jesus provides a model for building the Kingdom of God on earth and that all of us, lay and ordained, are called to build the Kingdom. We live in an era when we need new understanding of what that means in the context of our daily lives. Providing theological education for those in all orders of ministry helps the institutional church and its members be more effective in making life abundant for all people and deepening our individual spiritual lives. I believe that the new opportunities at the Bexley Seabury Federation will enrich the church's understanding of the gospel call to be change agents in a world badly in need of reconciliation.

Q: What is your vision for the future of Bexley Seabury?

A: I see it as a hub of excellent theological education, a center of dialogue and conversation that helps us learn from one another and grow from others' experiences and understandings of God and God’s ongoing creation.

As we grow the church’s ministry in the 21st century, we are called not to abandon what we have been and what we are, but to help the church discover new ways of being the people of God in the world.

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DONORS

Our support We thank God for the following individuals, congregations and groups who share in the mission and ministry of Bexley Seabury through the generosity of their gifts:

Chase & Whipple Circle ($10,000+) Individuals Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas D. Chabraja The Rev. Canon Carlson Gerdau Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Koeze Mr. and Mrs. John L. Tuohy Parishes Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis, Ind. Christ Episcopal Church, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Gambier & Fairbault Fellows ($5,000+) Individuals The Rev. M.E. Eccles and Mrs. Katie Eccles The Rev. Gwynne Wright Parishes Christ Church Cathedral, Cincinnati, Ohio

Enmegahbowh Society ($3,000+) Individuals Mr. and Mrs. James H. Hawk Mr. and Mrs. George Hill The Revs. Richard and Sallie Schisler The Rev. Dr. Ellen Wondra Parishes Calvary Episcopal Church, Tarboro, N.C.

Evanston & Rochester Associates ($1,000+) Individuals The Rev. and Mrs. J. Stephen Bergmann The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. Thomas E. Breidenthal Dr. Barbara A. Campbell The Rev. Jane A. and Mr. Michael A. Clark The Rev. Dr. Kathryn P. Clausen The Rev. Darby O. Everhard and Mr. Thomas C. Everhard The Rev. Roger Ferlo and Ms. Anne Harlan Mr. Joseph L. Flint and Mr. Steven E. Mosco Mr. Paul Frank The Rev. Bruce Freeman The Rev. Alan M. Gates The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. Wendell N. Gibbs, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. R. Thomas Green Mr. and Mrs. Edward D. Hatcher The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. W. Michie Klusmeyer Mr. and Mrs. William M. Lane, Esq. The Rev. Paul Lillie Mr. and Mrs. Roger Lumpp Canon Diane M. Porter The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. Kenneth L. Price, Jr. The Rev. C. Davies Reed and Ms. Carol C. Rogers Mr. and Mrs. Fred W. Ruebeck Mr. and Mrs. Milner Seifert The Rev. Thomas C. Shepherd The Rev. A. Bruce Smith

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BEXLEY + SEABURY

Dr. Salme Harju Steinberg and Dr. Michael S. Steinberg The Rt. Rev. Catherine M. and Mr. Larry Waynick Mr. and Mrs. Lawson E. Whitesides, Jr. Parishes All Saints Episcopal Church, Hilton Head Island, S.C. Christ Church, Winnetka, Ill. Church of the Good Shepherd, Rangeley, Maine Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Keyser, WV Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Asheboro, N.C. Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, Cincinnati, Ohio Church of the Good Shepherd, Columbia, S.C. Church of the Holy Spirit, Lake Forest, Ill. St. Paul’s Church, Cleveland Heights, Ohio St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, Ind. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Oxford, Miss.

St. Andrews & St. John Episcopal Church, Southwest Harbor, Maine St. James Episcopal Church, Piqua, Ohio St. Saviour’s Parish, Bar Harbor, Maine Dioceses The Episcopal Church in Minnesota Diocese of New York Diocese of Ohio

Supporters ($500+) Individuals The Rev. Elizabeth and Mr. Charles Coutler Mr. Robert Doak Ms. Ruth Frey The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. Sanford Hampton The Rev. Preston B. Hannibal The Rev. Dr. M. Susan Harlow and the Rev. Dr. Bonnie A. Perry The Very Rev. Martha Horne Mr. and Mrs. Bruce A. Jones Ms. Joyce Keehsin Mr. and Mrs. Jon R. Lind The Rt. Rev. James W. Montgomery The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Louis Oats The Rev. Marilyle S. Page The Very Rev. and Mrs. William H. Peterseon The Rev. Ruth A. Meyers and The Rev. Daniel Prechtel The Rev. Charlotte C. Reed and Dr. Don Reed The Rev. George P. Timberlake Mr. and Mrs. Robert W. Van Niel Parishes Christ Church Christiana Hundred, Wilmington, Del. Church of the Epiphany, Grove City, Pa. St. James Episcopal Church, Roanoke, Va. St. John’s Episcopal Church, Worthington, Ohio St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, Dublin, Ohio St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, St. Louis, Mo. Society of the Transfiguration, Cincinnati, Ohio St. George’s Episcopal Church, Newport News, Va. St. Paul Episcopal Church, Chillicothe, Ohio St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Coral Gables, Fla. St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Cincinnati, Ohio Trinity Episcopal Church, Pottsville, Pa. Trinity Memorial Church, Binghamton, N.Y. Trinity on the Hill Episcopal Church, Los Alamos, N.M.

Friends ($150+) Individuals The Rt. Rev. Gladstone B. Adams III

Mr. and Mrs. William T. Bagot The Rev. and Mrs. Stephen I. Bartlett The Rev. Mary C. Carson The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Harvey G. Cook Lt. Col. Carl E. Creswell, USA Retired Dr. Deborah DeManno The Very Rev. and Mrs. John P. Downey The Rev. and Mrs. O. C. Edwards, Jr. The Rev. and Mrs. William Jay Fasel, D.Min The Rev. Dr. Thomas Ferguson and the Rev. Shannon M. Kelly The Rev. Michael K. Fincher The Rev. PV George Mrs. Janet H. Graf The Very Rev. Dr. W. Richard Hamlin Mr. William P. Hauworth II Mr. Robert Heinrich The Rev. and Mrs. Walter F. Hendricks, III Pastor John Hickey The Rev. Canon Suzann Van Sickle Holding The Rev. John A. Holmen and The Rev. Canon Mary J. Holmen Mr. Roger S. Hurd The Rt. Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Edward J. Konieczny Mr. and Mrs. Mike Krug The Rev. and Mrs. Wallace G. Lonergan, PhD. The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Trawin Malone The Rev. Canon Ralph G. McGimpsey Mr. and Mrs. Conway Newton The Rev. and Mrs. Jesse Perkins The Rev. Jeffrey Queen and Ms. Richelle Thompson The Rev. Anne L. Reed The Very Rev. Kathryn M. and Mr. Harold Schillreff The Rev. and Mrs. Dale E. Sheppard Mr. and Mrs. John B. Snyder Mr. and Mrs. Robert Spencer Mr. Ira G. Stroud The Rev. and Mrs. Charles E. Sturm The Rev. Canon Jean P. and Mr. Thomas P. Vail The Rev. Arie J. van den Blink The Rev. and Mrs. Peter E. Van Horne The Rev. Michael J. Way The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. O’Kelley Whitaker The Rev. Jon M. White The Rev. Kathryn S. White The Rev. Canon and Mrs. Charles E. Wood, Jr. Parishes All Saints Episcopal Church, Valley City, N.D. Calvary Episcopal Church, Lombard, Ill. Church of the Holy Spirit, Greensboro, N.C. St. Andrews, Fort Thomas, KY St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Caledonia, N.Y. St. John Episcopal Church, Henderson, N.C. St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Bath, N.Y. Trinity Episcopal Church, Buchanan, Va. Trinity Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, Ind. Trinity Episcopal Church, Lawrenceburg, Ind.

Contributors (Up to $100) Individuals Mr. Richard Adams Mrs. Deidre Arnold Mrs. Ruth E. Asboe The Rev. James E. Baltzell The Rev. Melanie Barbarito The Rev. Carolyn Bavaro Mrs. Verna Beaver The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. David C. Bowman The Rev. Lydia G. and the Rev. Taylor W. Burton-Edwards The Rev. Canon Joye Cantrell Mr. and Mrs. Stephen C. Carlson

DONORS

Summer 2013

Drs. Stephen H. and Virginia Carr The Rev. Susan Carter The Rev. Philip College The Rev. Judith A. Culpepper, M.D. The Rev. John A. Dally and Mr. Todd M. Young The Rev. Dr. Warren H. Deane, Sr. The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Clarence F. Decker The Rev. Arthur C. Dilg The Rev. Marilyn K. Dressel The Very Rev. and Mrs. Kurt Dunkle The Rev. Ted E. Durst and Mr. Mark D. Britt Mr. and Mrs. David P. Earle, III Ms. Caroly Evanisko The Rev. Gary T. Evans The Rev. Beverly A. Factor and Dr. Joseph J. Elterman The Rev. Michael Fill and Ms. Maryann Silver The Rev. and Dr. Davis L. Fisher The Rev. Luke Fodor The Rev. and Mrs. Charles A. Forbes Mr. and Mrs. Craig Fowler The Rev. David Garcia Ms. F. Elizabeth Garrett The Rev. Canon Dr. Mark Gatza The Rev. and Mrs. David Getreu The Rev. Canon Charles H. Gill, Jr. Ms. Georgianna Gleason Mr. and Mrs. George G. Gorbantenko The Revs. Arthur and Jane Hadley Mr. William P. Hall Mr. Lyle Hampton Ms. Kathleen E. Hart-Zavoli The Rev. Thomas E. Honderich and Mr. Gordon Chastain The Rev. Gloria Hopewell The Rev. Dr. Donna M. Ialongo Dr. Christopher C. Jones The Rev. J. Michael Jupin Ms. Anne Karoly The Rev. Lois B. and Mr. Newlin Keen The Rev. David Kendall-Sperry The Rev. and Mrs. John R. Kenny, Jr. The Rev. and Mrs. Paul D. Kidd The Rev. Louise Mr. and Mrs. Larry Krauser Mr. and Mrs. Russell L. Kumm The Rev. and Mrs. Walter LaBatt The Rev. and Mrs. Armand E. Larive The Rev. and Mrs. Manousos E. Lionikis The Rev. Elizabeth A. and Mrs. George S. Lloyd The Rev and Dr. William Logan The Rev. and Mrs. David S. Luckett Mr. and Mrs. Joseph W. Lullo The Rev. Bruce L. MacDuffie The Rev. Karl E. Marsh The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. George H. Martin The Rev. and Mrs. Joseph E. Mazza The Rev. Lauren McDonald The Rt. Rev. Rodney R. Michel Mr. and Mrs. Carl H. Most The Rev. Robert D. North The Very Rev. JyungJa Oh and Ms. Melissa McNeill The Rev. Canon Ronald D. Osborne and Ms. Sara J. Hauff The Rev. and Mrs. John R. Paal The Rev. Linda A. and Mr. Anthony Packard Ms. Anne N. Pearson The Rev. and Mrs. Edward M. Perkinson The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. William D. Persell The Rev. and Mrs. George S. Plattenburg Ms. Kathryn B. Pruessner The Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Harold Roberts The Rev. Crisitine V. and Mr. Bruce Rockwell

Mrs. Ginny Ronning Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Scarborough The Rev. and Mrs. Dennis L. Serdahl The Rev. Robert S. Shank, Jr. The Rev. Richard E. Shinn Mrs. Alice Slater The Rev. and Mrs. George D. Smith, III Mr. and Mrs. Newland F. Smith, 3rd Mr. and Mrs. Richard Z. Smolinski The Rev. and Mrs. James R. Sorenson The Rev. and Mrs. Robert E. Stevens Dr. and Mrs. Richard H. Stevenson Ms. Deborah Stokes Mrs. Ellen Stukenberg The Rt. Rev. Douglas E. Theuner Mr. Robert Thomson The Rev. Debra Trakel The Rev. and Mrs. Webster A. Two Hawk The Rev. Canon Rudolph J. Van der Hiel The Rev. and Mrs. Charles M. Vogt Mrs. Dorothy S. Webb The Rev. Ann and Mr. Paul Webber The Rev. Peter W. Wenner and Ms. Barbara S. Williamson Mr. and Mrs. Frederick A. Williams The Rev. Dr. Robert O. Wyatt II and Ms. Terri Lackey Parishes Church of the Good Shepherd, Savona, N.Y. Chapel of the Good Shepherd, West Lafayette, Ind. Grace Church, Chicago, Ill. Holy Cross Episcopal Church, Kentwood, Mich.

Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Church, Little Lake, Mich.

Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Hampstead, N.C. St. James Episcopal Church, Zanesville, Ohio St. Laurence Episcopal Church, Effingham, Ill. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Gas City, Ind. St Luke Episcopal Church, Niles, Ohio St. Mary Episcopal Church, Hillsboro, Ohio St. Paul Episcopal Church, Bellevue, Ohio St. Paul Episcopal Church, Put-In-Bay, Ohio St. Philip the Deacon, Portland, Ore. Trinity Church, Mackinac Island, Mich.

Foundation Support Nicholas & Eleanor Chabraja Foundation Good Samaritan, Inc. Henry Luce Foundation

Bexley Dean’s Discretionary Fund The Rev. Dr. Thomas Ferguson and the Rev. Shannon Kelly The Rev. Roger Ferlo and Ms. Anne Harlan Auburn Theological Seminary, New York, N.Y.

Jack Baker Fund Mrs. Ann R. DeLong

John Kevern Fund St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, N.C.

Bexley Thanksgiving & Memorial Fund Mr. and Mrs. William T. Bagot The Rev. and Mrs. J. Stephen Bergmann The Revs. Richard and Sallie Schisler

Bexley Scholarship Fund The Rt. Rev. William G. Burrill The Rev. Diane E. Morgan The Rev. Canon Gregory A. Jacobs

Ms. Lorey Roggenkamp St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Franklinville, N.Y. St. Paul Episcopal Church, Bellevue, Ohio

Bexley Special Gifts Fund The Rt. Rev. Catherine M. Waynick and Mr. Larry Waynick The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. Don E. Johnson

Bexley Special Events Fund Mr. and Mrs. William T. Bagot The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. Mark Hollingsworth The Rev. and Mrs. Dale E. Sheppard The Rev. A. Bruce Smith The Revs. Kathryn and George Young Diocese Of Oklahoma Diocese of Southwest Florida Diocese of Virginia

Inauguration Fund Mr. and Mrs. William T. Bagot The Rev. and Mrs. J. Stephen Bergmann The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. Thomas E. Breidenthal Mr. and Mrs. John A. Bross Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas D. Chabraja The Rev. and Mrs. Michael J. Galvin The Rev. Canon Carlson Gerdau Mr. and Mrs. James H. Hawk Mr. and Mrs. George Hill The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. W. Michie Klusmeyer The Rev. Wendy D. and Mr. Charles A. Lane Canon Diane Porter Dr. and Mrs. Robert E. Reber The Rev. C. Davies Reed and Ms. Carol C. Rogers The Revs. Richard and Sallie Schisler The Rev. and Mrs. Dale E. Sheppard Mr. and Mrs. John L. Tuohy The Rt. Rev. Catherine M. and Mr. Larry Waynick The Rev. Gwynne A. Wright St. Francis In-The-Fields Episcopal Church, Zionsville, Ind. Woman’s Board of Seabury Western Theological Seminary, Chicago, Ill.

Inauguration Service plate offering The offering, which totaled $1,654, has been divided equally between Renk Theological School in South Sudan and the Bexley Society, which supports social justice ministries in the greater Columbus area. We are grateful to all who contributed and are pleased to be able to thank these contributors by name: The Rev. Lydia G. and The Rev. Taylor W. Burton-Edwards The Very Rev. and Mrs. Kurt Dunkle Ms. Georgianna Gleason Mr. and Mrs. Edward D. Hatcher The Rev. Canon Suzann Van Sickle Holding Ms. Anne Karoly The Rt. Rev. and Mrs. William D. Persell Mr. and Mrs. Fred W. Ruebeck The Rev. Dr. Ellen Wondra This list reflects contributions received from July 1, 2012 through June 7, 2013. If we have made mistakes or omissions, please contact Susan Quigley at susan.quigley@seabury.edu or 773.380.6785.

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FEDERATION NEWS

BEXLEY + SEABURY

On campus and beyond

UPCOMING EVENTS

CLASS OF 2013

Trinity Day September 26

Bexley graduates move to new ministries Congratulations to the Bexley class of 2013, whose members have all moved on to new ministries across the church from Ontario to West Virginia.

Chadwick Slater will serve as priest-incharge of Christ Church, Bluefield, W. Va. Joyce Keeshin will serve a two-year residency as canon at St. James Episcopal Church Westwood in Cincinnati.

Adrienne Clements will be curate at St. Timothy's Anglican Church in Agincourt, Ontario.

Rose Ann Lonsway will serve a two-year residency as curate at St Peter's Church in Delaware, Ohio.

Sarah Brock will be an intern at the monastery of the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Cambridge, Mass., through

a program offered by the Episcopal Service Corps.

{ Darrell Guder, Trinity Day speaker Join us in Columbus for Trinity Day, with lectures by Darrell L. Guder, the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary.

Guder, an ordained Presbyterian minister, received his Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg. His writing and teaching focus on the theology of the missional church, especially the theological implications of the paradigm shift to postChristendom as the context for Christian mission in the West.

Watch for more information in Bexley Seabury’s monthly email newsletter and on our website at bexleyseabury.org.

BOARD NEWS

Board charts course The new Bexley Seabury board of directors met in late May to begin charting a course for the new federation. Thirty-five members attended the meeting in Columbus at which the board approved a threeyear strategic plan, a 2013-2014 operating budget, and the granting of degrees to eleven 2013 graduates.

As its first order of business, the 22

board elected officers including Bishop Mike Klusmeyer of West Virginia as chair, the Rev. Alan Gates of the Diocese of Ohio as vice-chair, the Rev. Gwynne Wright of the Diocese of Chicago as secretary, and Roger Lumpp of the Diocese of Chicago as treasurer.

Accreditation

Robert Saik is continuing to discern his call. He is a candidate in a search process in the Diocese of Arizona and also has an opportunity to join a congregation in the Cincinnati area.

Elise Feyerherm, Roger Ferlo, Tom Ferguson; standing (l-r): Chadwick Slater (Diocese of West Virginia), Joyce Keeshin (Diocese of Southern Ohio), Adrienne Clements (Anglican Church of Canada), Rose Ann Lonsway (Diocese of Southern Ohio), Sarah Brock (Diocese of Southern Ohio), Elizabeth Frank (Diocese of Ohio), Robert Saik (Diocese of Southern Ohio)

FEDERATION NEWS

FEDERATION NEWS

Elizabeth Frank will be deacon-in-charge and, in time, priest-in-charge of New Life Episcopal Church in Uniontown, Ohio.

{ seated ( l-r): Faculty members Jason Fout,

Summer 2013

The Federation’s accreditation by the Association of Theological Schools (ATS), another essential step in the federation process, is proceeding. ATS accreditors visited the Chicago and Columbus campuses in late May and their recommendations will go to the Commission on Accrediting in August 2013.

Bexley Hall has been reauthorized by the Ohio Board of Regents and the Federation has been authorized by the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

STAFF & FACULTY

Transitions

In May, the board of directors, faculty, staff and students held a community meal to bid farewell to Bexley Professor Elise Feyerherm, who is returning to the east coast after eight years in Columbus.

The board also expressed gratitude for the work of former Seabury Director of Continuing Education Ruth Frey, who became director of programs at the Washington National Cathedral on July 1, and former Bexley Seabury Director of Development Joe Flint, who is now the

senior development officer at The Cradle, an adoption agency in Evanston, Ill. The Rev. Mark Ramseth retired as dean and president of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus on January 31, 2013. Dr. Thomas Ludwig, a long-time member of the board and senior faculty member at Hope College in Holland, Mich., is serving as interim president through July 2013.

{ clockwise from top left: Federation faculty at President Ferlo’s installation on April 27.

Bexley students and faculty celebrate Eucharist on the porch of Bexley House. Washington National Cathedral Dean Gary Hall and Ruth Frey at Restoring the Biblical Imagination on April 26.

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FEDERATION NEWS

BEXLEY + SEABURY

Alumni news SEABURY

The Rev. Dr. Wayne Carlson (’71, ’99), rector of Church of the Holy Family in Park Forest, Ill. from 1994-2011, died on April 12, 2013.

The Rev. Elizabeth Jameson (’97), former vice president and chief operating officer at Seabury Western, was called in April 2013 as rector of St. Simon’s Episcopal Church in Arlington Heights, Ill..

Elizabeth served as interim rector of St. Elisabeth’s Episcopal Church in Glencoe, Ill. until June 2013. { Christopher Epting's book, John Mark, available at redmoonpublications.com.

Dean Mark Bourlakas elected bishop of Southwestern Virginia. Former Seabury VP Elizabeth Jameson named rector at St. Simon, Arlington Heights, Ill.

The Rev. Elizabeth Molitors (’09) began serving as rector of Annunciation of Our Lady Episcopal Church in Gurnee, Ill. on March 17, 2013. Elizabeth formerly served as an associate rector at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Glen Ellyn, Ill. The Very Rev. Mark Bourlakas (’97), dean of Christ Church Cathedral in Louisville, KY, was elected on March 9, 2013 as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia.

The Rev. Wayne L. Johnson (’45) died on January 2, 2013 at the age of 93 in Rock Island, Ill. Along with serving parishes in the dioceses of Springfield, Quincy and Chicago, he served as a trustee of Seabury Western (1965-1981) and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1971.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Leonel Mitchell, liturgical scholar in the Episcopal Church and reviser of the Book of Common Prayer, died on May 23, 2012.

The Rt. Rev. Christopher Epting (’72, Bexley Seabury trustee) has published John Mark, a gospel novel that is the result of his years of studying the Gospel of Mark. The novel incorporates his experiences studying in Israel and Palestine and reading modern scholarship about the society in which Jesus

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STUDENT COLUMN

Summer 2013

Precious time { In (intensive) residence

lived and the politics of his day.

Order John Mark online at www.redmoonpublications.com.

BEXLEY

The Rev. Rosalind Hughes (’11) is rector of Church of the Epiphany in Euclid, Ohio. Her blog, Over the Water, is at rosalindhughes.com.

The Rev. Michael Petrochuk (’12) is rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Barberton, Ohio and assistant professor of business at Walsh University in North Canton.

The Rev. Dr. Richard Spielmann, faculty member at Bexley Hall from 19631992, died on March 26, 2013 in Tempe, Ariz. He was the Eleutheros Cooke Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History and the author of History of Christian Worship and Bexley Hall: 150 Years.

The Rev. Phillip L. Webster II (’01) is rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Columbia, S.C. Before accepting that call in July 2012, he was rector of the Church of the Resurrection in Dallas.

The Rev. Jon White (’12) is rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Beckley, W. Va.

Send news of new calls and appointments, publications, retirements and other alum news to Ron Fox at ron.fox@seabury.edu or telephone him at 773-380-6781.

BY JANA TROUTMAN-MILLER

“I have met so many women and men with whom I have quickly made close bonds because of shared experience, love of learning, or simply because our paths have brought us together at this place and this time.”

When I went looking for a seminary where I could complete an Anglican studies program, I had a short list of requirements: a flexible schedule, a convenient location, high academic standards, and a program dedicated to providing a quality formation experience. Seabury’s Anglican Studies program has met my needs and those of many others like me who are seeking a greater understanding of our identities as Christians and as Episcopalians.

When we gather for our monthly residency periods, time is precious, so the schedules are full and meaningful.

No time is wasted when we arrive; after a brief check in, we quickly get into the lecture and spend the next several hours immersed in the subject. We consistently are given spiritual and cultural contexts in which to consider the topics we are covering, while discussing ways that the information can be applied to our own experiences in ministry. This really is the heart of the Seabury program: providing us with a rich history of the Episcopal Church, and then enabling us to use the knowledge to develop our identity as ministers of Christ, no matter what our calling might be.

Formation experiences also come in the form of daily worship. Seabury has made a commitment to providing several enriching worship experiences each time we are together. On weekends there are Evening Prayer, Compline, Morning Prayer, and Saturday Eucharist. During weeklong sessions, there are Morning and Evening Prayers and daily Eucharist. Each student is encouraged to take roles in our worship, and each experience is designed to offer a fresh take on our liturgies.

Our days are long and rigorous, but in each class we have the opportunity for discussion and collaboration. During meals, we break bread and get to know one another. What has surprised me most is that, despite our episodic contact with one another, I have developed deep relationships with fellow students, staff,

and faculty. I graduated from a traditional seminary thirteen years ago and remember my years there most fondly because of the camaraderie among the students. It has been no different for me at Seabury. I have met so many women and men with whom I have quickly made close bonds because of shared experience, love of learning, or simply because our paths have brought us together at this place and this time.

These relationships have been especially enriching because the students come from different dioceses all over the country and have had such diverse journeys of faith. Some are lifelong Episcopalians, and others, like me, are new to the church. During lectures, it is common for students to compare differences in our parishes or dioceses. And I have benefited greatly from listening to those who have lived through the changes the Episcopal Church has experienced over the years, while they have benefitted from my fresh eyes. All of this has helped us to develop a rich and broad perspective of the church.

I could not be more pleased with my experience at Seabury, or more proud to be included among its alumni. I am blessed with new knowledge of the Episcopal Church and the entire Anglican Communion. I have a growing appreciation and passion for liturgy and worship.

And I have been fortunate enough to develop lifelong relationships that will be part of my ongoing formation. As I continue to learn what it means to live out the Baptismal Covenant, I will continue to draw on the training and formation I received at Seabury.

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