Crossings Spring 2018

SPRING 2018

SPECIAL ISSUE

Speaking Faithfully in the Public Square Exploring CDSP’s curriculum-wide focus on critical reflection and public conversation

Letter from the Dean

Front cover photo: The Very Rev. W. Mark Richardson, CDSP’s president and dean, speaks with the Rev. Dr. William Lupfer, rector of Trinity Church Wall Street, after Lupfer delivered the address at CDSP’s 124th commencement.

Photo by Richard Wheeler

We are all familiar with that moment in Acts 17, when Paul delivers his famous sermon at the Areopagus, in which he tells a skeptical audience of Greek intellectuals that there is one God. The church treasures this sermon primarily for its content, but this issue of Crossings is inspired by another aspect of Paul’s ministry essential to that day in Athens: his ability to make a persuasive argument on a complex issue to the leading thinkers of his time.

Our world, our country and our church are beset by complex issues in fields as disparate, yet frequently inter-related, as genetic engineering, economic and trade policy and racial justice. Unfortunately, the debate over how these issues should be explored is frequently dominated by a sterile, utilitarian materialism on one side and a rigid and intellectually dubious religious fundamentalism on the other.

At CDSP we are working to disrupt this binary understanding of moral and ethical issues. The curriculum we instituted in 2016 focuses on core Christian concepts of mission, discipleship and evangelism while instilling the core leadership skills of contextual aware‑ ness, critical reflection and public conversation. These emphases are rooted in our commitment to prepare our graduates to speak the truth of their faith in the public square.

You can read about my own efforts to bring the teachings of our faith on a complicated contemporary issue on page 2. I have long worked at the intersection of theology and science, and recently become absorbed in working through the ethical issues posed

by CRISPR-Cas9, a tool that can edit the human genome. Like many stunning scientific and technological breakthroughs, CRISPRCas9 has the potential to do both enormous good and significant damage, and I am in hopes that we can develop an intellectual framework for considering its uses.

Climate change is another issue that requires us to struggle with moral and ethical concerns in the light of scientific realities.

During our January intersession, Professor Cynthia Moe-Lobeda taught a course designed in partnership with Professor Jennifer Snow that grounded students in the scientific and ethical dimensions of the problem while also introducing them to local activists who are struggling with climate changerelated devastation right here in the Bay Area.

Read about the class on page 13.

Current affairs are easily woven into certain classes, but at CDSP, the entire faculty is committed to cultivating students’ ability to offer a moral and spiritual voice in public conversations that desperately need this dimension in our problem solving. On page 7 you can read about how professors Julián Andrés González Holguín, Scott MacDougall and Susanna Singer prepare students to bring the insights, respectively, of the Old Testament, systematic theology and Christian formation to bear on contemporary issues.

We sent a new class of graduates out into the church on May 18 with a fine commencement address by the Rev. Dr. Bill Lupfer, rector of Trinity Wall Street. Bill, former dean of Trinity Cathedral in Portland, is a man who knows the church and knows the West and has a keen interest in leadership development. His insights about the future of theological education (see page 19) are worth contemplating.

General Convention is one of the places that the Episcopal Church practices public conversations, and Professor Ruth Meyers, our academic dean, is a distinguished veteran of those debates. Read her reflection on page 18.

And speaking of General Convention, if you are in Austin, July 5-13, please visit us at booth 911 in the Exhibit Hall and join us on the evening of July 8 at St. David’s Church for a reception to honor Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows of Indianapolis ’97. See page 18 for details. We’ve recently established a scholarship in Jennifer’s name to benefit black and Native American students, and we’d love to tell you about it.

— T he V ery R ev . W. M ark R ichardson , P h D President and Dean

Photo by Richard Wheeler

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Meeting the CRISPR Challenge

New Leaders for a New World

A new gene-editing technology poses critical moral questions, and Mark Richardson is helping to shape the Christian response.

CDSP’s commencement speaker says the seminary is well-positioned to meet the challenges of the church’s future.

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Distinguished Visitors

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Preparing to Engage At CDSP, students learn to use an ancient faith to illuminate current affairs. Professors González Holguín, MacDougall and Singer explain how it’s done.

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A Local Lens

Crossings SPRING 2018

New alumnus Anil Shah of the Diocese of Los Angeles snaps a precommencement selfie.

In Professor MoeLobeda’s course on climate change, students learn firsthand about environmental racism and the efforts to overcome it.

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If You’re in Austin …

A reception honoring Bishop Baskerville-Burrows is just part of CDSP’s plans for General Convention.

The Revs. Winnie Varghese and Gay Clark Jennings are the latest to hold the St. Margaret’s professorship.

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Honors All Around CDSP’s students, faculty and alums are attracting attention.

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Expertise and Activism The Very Rev. W. Mark Richardson, President and Dean Editorial: Canticle Communications Design: Barbara Nishi Graphic Design Crossings is published by Church Divinity School of the Pacific 2451 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709-1211

Academic Dean Ruth Meyers’s liturgical scholarship has been indispensable to her work at General Convention.

© Church Divinity School of the Pacific, all rights reserved.

For additional print copies, e-mail communications@cdsp.edu.

Crossings also is published as a pdf online, at www.cdsp.edu/news/crossings, with archive copies available.

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INTERVEN

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Just down the hill from Church Divinity School of the Pacific, on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, sits the office of Jennifer Doudna, the biochemist who, with French researcher Emmanulle Charpentier, invented a tool named CRISPR-Cas9 that can edit the human genome.

(CRISPR is the acronym for clustered, regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats—but not a lot of people find that helpful.)

NING in An intense debate is in the offing.

Mark Richardson wants the church to get ready

By Jim Naughton

CRISPR technology allows scientists to make changes to DNA in human cells, and could, eventually, lead to the eradication of genetic diseases.

But the technology, one day, might also give scientists the ability to intervene in the germ line cells and change the human genome, and, some suggest, allow parents to genetically engineer their offspring.

The Very Rev. W. Mark Richardson, CDSP’s president and dean, who has made a specialty of exploring the relationship of theology and science, was riveted by news of the discovery, not simply because of the ethical issues raised by CRISPR technology, but by the question of how society would create the line between genetic therapy and genetic enhancement.

“I’m very interested in the interface of public conversation and theology,” Richardson says. “What I wanted to do was find a place where

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we could model that conversation and show how the moral and spiritual dimensions of this technology can enter into our considerations and decision making.

“Jennifer Doudna herself has said that we shouldn’t use this technology until the public has spoken, and that got me thinking, ‘How might contemporary society enter this kind of moral discourse? And what agreed upon criteria of moral life and ultimate sense of the good would guide the conversation? What, beyond utilitarian risk/benefit analysis, will be the ground of decision making?’”

Richardson’s concern that Christian leaders be prepared to bring the truths and insights of their faith on political, social and cultural issues informs CDSP’s curriculum, which was revised in 2016 to instill what the seminary refers to as the “core leadership skills” of contextual awareness, critical reflection and public

conversation. CDSP requires master of divinity candidates to complete a course in community organizing as one means of developing these skills, but in many instances, Christian leaders who enter public conversations must draw on their own interest and expertise.

Richardson has no formal scientific training, yet a fascination with the interplay of scientific knowledge and religious insight has informed much of his ministry and grows out of his graduate studies in theology and philosophy. In 1996, he conceived and directed the Science and Spiritual Quest Project for the Center for Theology and Natural Sciences and led the program until 2003. The project, with headquarters at the Graduate Theological Union, brought more than 120 leading scientists together at conferences and workshops around the world to discuss ethical and spiritual questions raised

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“The biblical stories of human origins are powerful and continue to hold an important place for us. But how we use these stories, and toward what end, matters.”

— President Mark Richardson

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

CRISPR image used with permission from BMJ Publishing Group Ltd.

by scientific discovery, and one of its conferences was the material for a Newsweek cover story in 1998.

Like the late 19th and early 20th century Anglican theologians, many of them avocational naturalists, Richardson says he believes that, “If we are monotheists, and there is a single source of all things, then the world the scientist explores is the same world about which the person of faith makes assumptions under different descriptions, as ‘creation.’ It is a spiritual discipline to pursue coherence across our multiple descriptions of the same reality.”

Evolution and Theology For an example of how the insights of science can influence theological perspective, Richardson says, one need look no further than evolution.

“If you look at much of Western Christian theology to this day,” he says, “Christ is the reconstruction of a fallen creature and fallen world, so The Fall is built into and required for the gospel itself. Christ is God’s Plan B. But if you take an evolutionary view, with the emergence of complex life over millions of years, you have to ask, ‘Fall from what?’ It offers an expanded and different perspective on the same classic texts of our heritage.

“The biblical stories of human origins are powerful and continue to hold an important place for us. But how we use these stories, and toward what end, matters. From the perspective of a contemporary worldview, we know that before the emergence of human history the natural world was already filled with suffering, death and extinction. Perhaps

the first human experience of the natural world is more like a tangled jungle than a garden.”

It is possible to read human history as “a fitful journey of a finite creature toward wider apertures of moral and spiritual understanding, rather than a fall in stature constituted by a primordial rebellion,” Richardson says. “If a three-year-old pulls a goldfish out of the bowl to see how fish live out of water, the child is not rebelling, the child is exploring. Yet if the fish dies, there are sorrowful consequences.

It’s not rebellion but the tragic consequences of exploration. Within the rabbinic tradition there are those who interpret the same story we have read as Fall as the joys and sorrows of moral awakening as human beings, creatures of God. “If you take a more charitable view of humanity’s moral coming of age,” he adds, “the classical descriptions still hold. There is a sense of entering a condition already flawed owing to both present moral failure, and the complexity of a finite world larger than personal responsibility. Mere existence seems spiritually murky since the human being emerges in a natural world already filled with suffering and violence. Out of this comes sin, alienation and rupture of relationship with our Source. A description such as this still holds.

But should the explanation for it be based on a Fall?”

If one revises one’s thinking about The Fall, Richardson says, one must revise one’s thinking about the mission of Christ. “Some Christologies assume a ‘before and after’ in the entire sweep of cosmic history,” he says.

“Christ completes a transaction that marks a change in divine-human relationship that

“[P]ublic moral inquiry is in a fragile place because in a pluralistic society we do not share a common story, a common worldview background …”

— President Mark Richardson

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that is the case, then society’s thinkbiotechnology? constitutes a before-after in the midst ing about CRISPR must be guided by “[P]ublic moral inquiry is in a of history. But nothing in our philos‘humility.’” fragile place because in a pluralistic ophy of history or nature can make “The question is, ‘Why not see society we do not share a common sense of such sharp before-after the use of CRISPR technology as the story, a common worldview backnarratives. next phase of evolution?’” he says. “I ground from which to address such “One of the geniuses of William argue it is not evolution at all. It is immediate touchstone questions Temple (the Anglican theologian human management of mechanisms human beings have asked for millenand Archbishop of Canterbury who we have seen within the evolutionary nia: ‘Who am I?’ ‘How ought I to live?’ died in 1944) is his perspective that process. Genetic engineering at this ‘What is my destiny?’” he told particiwhat is true about Jesus is what was level, potentially, is eugenic. It pants in the conference at Episcopal always the case about the way God compresses the time is present in history, now frames of evolution and expressed in the fullness leads to conclusions that of the time in this most evolution might not lead poignant and unique way.

“We are contemplating intervening in a process to at all. Moreover, it may So, the key point of Christ that, as a whole, exceeds our knowledge, but is lead to consequences we for someone like Temple cannot predict. is revelation: revealing the vulnerable to our technological powers.”

“We are contemplating depth of God’s costly love intervening in a process for us and God’s world, — President Mark Richardson that, as a whole, exceeds converting the heart and our knowledge, but is pioneering a new way. vulnerable to our technoChrist’s sacrifice is not logical powers.”

Conference Center in Salt Lake City. something that turns the face of God One potential result of wide“My question is this: can we back toward humanity in a cosmic spread editing of the human genome really bring these backgrounds of transaction; his sacrifice is meant to would be the creation of what some cosmic meaning, our various renderturn the face of humankind back writers have called “a genetic underings of ‘the good’ into the public toward God.” class.” And the unintended consesquare? It is enticing, but a tall order.” quences that might flow from genetic In preparing for that conference, CRISPR modification would fall not only on Richardson says he “tried to tease out human beings, Richardson says, but an explanation of what the concept The influence of evolutionary biolon the whole of creation. of ‘the good’ would mean to a radical ogy on Christological thinking is “God’s work through evolution materialist, and to others who no lonimportant, not just as an illustration of makes me aware of where I stand in ger start from a theistic perspective.

Richardson’s contention that scientific the cosmic whole,” he says. “I don’t “To the materialist, we are discoveries have theological implistand apart from the created world. sophisticated biochemistry,” he says. cations, but because it shapes his I am not an actor on the stage of “Morality is an illusion that arises out participation in the CRISPR debate. nature, but fruit of nature’s tree. And of brains. It is surplus of our genetic This began last year as he prepared that leads me to a kind of modesty makeup. If that is the case, all moral his paper, “CRISPR and the Condiand cautiousness about intervening in discourse is a private preference. So, tion of Public Moral Discourse,” to be evolutionary processes.” what stands in the way of the next presented last October at “God and Richardson says that same moditeration of technical power whether Human Suffering: Conversations on esty must characterize Christians’ it is CRISPR or anything else? What, 21st Century Genetics and our Shared participation in debates on complex from a moral perspective, prevents Future,” a conference sponsored by issues. “We have to accept that no technologically introduced changes in Mount Tabor Lutheran Church in Utah. one is an expert in every aspect of the genome based on enhancement For Richardson, the CRISPR these discussions,” he says. “It is only or eugenics?” debate poses two distinct challenges in community that we can learn.”

The second challenge, Richardson and opportunities. The first is the says, is to acknowledge the great question of whether our culture is potential of CRISPR to prevent disease, capable of debating profound spiriwhile making clear its potential to tual and philosophical issues through alter what it means to be human. anything other than a materialistic “I believe that what we call ‘natulens, and if so, what are the comral selection’ is a mode of continuous mon premises from which to purdivine creativity,” he says. “And, if sue moral questions pertaining to C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Ancient Yet Immediate by

Jim Naughton

CDSP’s faculty puts enduring wisdom at the service of urgent needs Sometimes, the gospel intersects with the news in obvious ways. A seminary course in ethics, for instance, can always be enlivened by focusing on contemporary issues.

Professor Cynthia Moe-Lobeda’s recent January intensive course on climate change and climate justice (see page 13) is one example. But CDSP is committed to weaving serious reflection on contemporary issues such as immigration, poverty, inequality, bigotry and violence throughout the curriculum, even in places one might not expect to find it.

Here, faculty members Julián Andrés González Holguín, assistant professor of Old Testament, Scott MacDougall,

Photo by Jazmin Quaynor, Unsplash.com

assistant professor of theology, and Susanna Singer, associate professor of ministry development, talk about preparing students to think critically as Christian leaders about challenges facing the church, their communities and the world.

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Ancient Texts, New Perspectives

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In Julián Andrés González Holguín’s course on the Book of Isaiah, students don’t open the Bible first.

“We take a step back and look at what is going on in the world,” says González Holguín, who also teaches Introduction to the Old Testament, Biblical Hebrew, Film and the Hebrew Bible, and a course on the minor prophets. “We begin with reality before going to the task of theological and Biblical interpretation.”

Students choose social, economic, cultural or political issues within a particular community, and then describe their choices in an introductory paper. “It’s only after doing this we go to the Bible, and our approach is not just to understand the scripture, but to con­ nect it in a sophisticated way to the issue that they have identified,” González Holguín says.

When he first encounters students in his introductory Old Testament class, González Holguín says, many believe that they already understand frequently read texts. “I want to upset that idea,” says González Holguín, whose book “Cain, Abel, and the Politics of God” won the Hispanic Theology Initiative Book Award in 2017. “I want them to come

“Violence, domestic violence, gender identity, class differences, race differences. …

The question is always how can I use this information to bring it to my church community?”

— Professor Julián Andrés González Holguín

to the Bible as though they are reading it for the first time.

“I want you to take a migrant perspective on these texts: that you do not know them and that you will spend your life trying to get to know them and you will still need more time.”

The Bible, González Holguín says, is full of what, in news reports or political debates, might be referred to as “issues.”

“Violence, domestic violence, gender C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

identity, class differences, race differences,” he says, rattling off a list. “The question is always ‘how can I use this information to bring it to my church community?’ What we have is more time of them finding their own ways to bring this to their communities.”

González Holguín doesn’t scrimp on teaching the traditional tools for studying scripture. “We talk about the historical context of a scripture, the literary context of a scripture, the historical context of the reader,” he says.

In analyzing a scriptural text, some students want to focus exclusively on determining the intentions of the author or community that produced the text. González Holguín says that doesn’t go far enough. “A focus

Everyday Theology Scott MacDougall says he shapes his two-semester introductory theology course to help students think about the ways in which theological concerns show up on a daily basis in the lives of faithful Christians.

“What I try to do is to provide students with the broad themes and contexts and conversations that have characterized Christian theology from its origins to the present in such a

“I try as hard as I am able to give students the ability to use theology to shift the way we frame a cultural issue or the way we address a cultural issue, the way we get to the heart of an issue.”

— S c o tt M a c D o u g a l l

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

on the intention of the author alone ignores the long history of interpretation,” he says. “It ignores that readers throughout the centuries have created new meanings of the Biblical text. It ignores that, if the text only means what the author meant to say, we wouldn’t be reading these texts because they would be irrelevant to later communities.

“The process of interpreting and reinterpreting scripture is seen in the Bible itself. It was created by many hands in many centuries of Jewish history, and they were adding new stuff to their received traditions, and by that they were reclaiming the text,

updating the text so the text could con­tinue speaking to their own realities.

“Even after the canon closed, communities continued to reclaim the authority of the text by reappropriating it to the realities of their own context.”

For their final paper in González Holguín’s class on Isaiah, students return to the issue they identified in their first paper and explain how the Biblical interpretations they have learned will shape the action they will take to respond to the problem they identified.

way that they are able to see how the cultural and social issues we face connect to those conversations and can be addressed by those perennial themes and contexts,” says MacDougall, co-editor-in-chief of The Anglican Theological Review.

“Our theological situation has been produced by our cultural situation, but our cultural situation has been produced by our theological situation as well. It’s a deep interplay between theology and world in which each produces the other.”

Some students initially believe that academic theology is irrelevant to the pastoral ministry they aspire to undertake. MacDougall tries to change their thinking.

“Theology is a powerful tool,” he says. “It can form, or it can deform.

It can give life, or it can kill. I try to sensitize students to the fact that what we hold in our hearts and minds and

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“I try to sensitize students to the fact that what we hold in our hearts and minds and enact with our bodies theologically is not abstract. It is concrete, and it is made concrete through our actions in the world.”

— P r o f e s s o r S c o tt M a c D o u g a l l

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Photo by Paul Schutz

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

enact with our bodies theologically is not abstract. It is concrete, and it is made concrete through our actions in the world.

“I try as hard as I am able to give students the ability to use theology to shift the way we frame a cultural issue or the way we address a cultural issue, the way we get to the heart of an issue,” he says. “The theology I try to instill is a relational one. If we grasp a theology that God is a God that seeks a particular kind of relationship with creation, including us, then we can understand that some practices are more in keeping with that than others.”

MacDougall specializes in eschatology, a field that he believes has lost its original focus. He argues that if God is going to restore and redeem creation, then eschatology should focus on what that redeemed creation looks like and how humanity can live the values that redeemed creation reflects. “If something has eternal significance to God,” he says, “it ought to be significant to us.”

In the late patristic and early medieval period, however, the focus of eschatological thinking shifted to the fate of individual souls. “The question of life after death is a narrowing down of eschatology,” says MacDougall, author of “More Than Communion: Imagining an Eschatological Ecclesiology.” “Early patristics didn’t think like this much, and Jews didn’t think like this at all. ‘Getting my papers in order to cross the heavenly borders,’ was not Jesus’ deal.”

Because his course spans two semesters, MacDougall says he is often able to see students incorporating ideas they have discussed in his class and other classes into their writing, class comments and prayers they offer in chapel.

“The whole point of the curriculum,” he says, “is to give students the resources of the tradition to be brought to bear on the pressing issues in our church and in our world.”

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Susanna Singer

Willing, Able and Equipped During her recent sabbatical, Susanna Singer decided to redesign two of her key courses.

“I offer two foundational courses, Christian Education and Issues in Ministry,” she says, “and I had a module in each course about sociallyengaged ministries. As the church has

become more and more focused on missional theology, and as community organizing has becoming more embedded in CDSP’s ethos, I began to think I needed a whole course on the issue of socially engaged ministry.

The question I was asking was, ‘How do you form a community of Christians that is willing, able and equipped to turn toward the world in service, advocacy and justice ministries?’”

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— Professor Susanna Singer

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To explore that question, she took to the road, visiting CDSP alumni and alumnae who were deeply involved in ministries of service and advocacy.

In Portland, Oregon, she called on the Rev. Brendan Barnicle ’17, one of the first graduates of CDSP’s low-residency Master of Divinity program, who is half-time rector at St. Stephen’s. The downtown church organizes or participates in numerous outreach ministries, including the Clay Street Table, which provided over 150,000 meals to its community in 2016, and Operation Night Watch, which works against the social isolation of homeless people by offering them a place to gather.

“When I used insights of humanistic business leadership ten years ago, students resisted mightily.

Now they can’t get enough of it.”

— Professor Susanna Singer

Across the Willamette River, in Portland’s Mount Tabor neighborhood, Singer learned about Saints Peter and Paul’s work with the Multnomah County Needle Exchange Van from the Rev. Jonna Alexander ’15, the parish’s priest associate. Saints Peter and Paul also provides a weekly home to Rahab’s Sisters, which works with women affected by the sex industry, domestic violence, poverty, substance abuse and homelessness.

In the Diocese of Massachusetts, Singer spent time with the Rev. Holly Antolini ’91, rector at St. James Porter Square in Cambridge, C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

which is seeking to include housing units and community facilities in the redevelopment of its parish house, and the Rev. Richard Burden ’09 at All Saints, Brookline, which has a close relationship with the MANNA congregation of homeless and formerly homeless people at St. Paul’s Cathedral, and its innovative programs of hospitality, arts and worship.

“What I have been developing is a whole series of continuums as a discernment tool to explore the question, ‘Where is this community of faith called to act along a particular continuum?’” says Singer, whose travels also took her to the Dioceses of Los Angeles and Northern California. “There will be places called to ministries of direct service that may or may not be called to ministries of engagement for change of policy.”

The issues she is exploring weren’t discussed much as recently as five years ago, she says.

“When I first introduced critical theory into my Christian education classes and began to explore issues of race, class and power, it was traumatic for some students,” Singer says. But, she says, that is no longer the case. Similarly, “When I used insights of humanistic business leadership ten years ago, students resisted mightily. Now they can’t get enough of it. People have really changed their understanding of what they need.

“There is a dissolving of the vision that all of our students will be assistant rectors who move up to be rectors. That’s going to be for the minority of our students now. It’s terribly scary, but I think it is going to spark people’s imaginations. It is going to make them ask, ‘If my congregation is really going to be missional, how should I be leading them?’”

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

“How do you form a community of Christians that is willing, able and equipped to turn toward the world in service, advocacy and justice ministries?”

Climate Change Comes to Town Students explore the local impact of a global crisis

By Maria Buteux Reade

Professor Cynthia Moe-Lobeda believes that the church needs to bring all of its moral and spiritual wisdom to the fight against climate change. During this year’s January intersession, she taught a class aimed at training leaders who will do just that.

“The soul-shattering reality is that while climate change is caused primarily by high-consuming societies and sectors, it causes death and destruction first and foremost for impoverished people, who are also disproportionately people of color,” says Moe-Lobeda, professor

of theological and social ethics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific and Pacific Lutheran Theology Seminary (PLTS), who is internationally known for her work on climate issues.

“Low income communities are more vulnerable to the ongoing

suffering caused by hurricanes, droughts, rising seas and climate related disease. This devastating impact on our lives is a matter of faith for people called to love neighbor as self. How can we generate practical responses that are rooted in our faith traditions?”

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Photos by Thomas Minczeski

and fall establishing connections with local community organizing groups.

The course, said Snow, exemplifies the MDiv curriculum’s commitment to teach students “the core leadership skills of contextual awareness, critical reflection and public conversation.”

“Part of the Episcopal baptismal covenant reminds us to strive for and respect the dignity of all persons,” Snow says. “As leaders of the faith community, we want our students to be more actively involved with on-the-ground work.”

Witnesses to Stark Reality

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Marjorie Buslig makes a point in class

student Sheryl Johnson, and Brian SellersPetersen, author of “Harvesting Abundance: Local Initiatives of Food and Faith,” in designing the course, which included site visits and

“Our goal was to have students come into conversations with community activists focused on climate change and climate justice.”

— Professor Jennifer Snow

numerous panel discussions led by activists from the Bay Area and elsewhere.

“Our goal was to have students come into conversations with community activists focused on climate change and climate justice,” says Snow, who also spent the summer C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

On their second day together, students split into two groups to visit local organizations active in working against climate change.

One group gathered at the nonprofit West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project (WOEIP), where students met with codirectors Margaret Gordon and Brian Beveridge. Since the late 1990s, they have been full-time environmental activists focused on improving the quality of life for residents of West Oakland. The WOEIP works with neighborhood organizations, researchers and public officials to improve air quality and public health and encourage sustainable development in West Oakland.

WOEIP also sponsors a grassroots organization called No Coal in Oakland. Lora Jo Foo, an attorney and climate justice activist, helps lead the group’s campaign against what could be the largest coal export terminal on the West Coast. Foo described for students the intensive community-based activism over two years that has, so far, stopped the building of the terminal and the ongoing lawsuit of the developer against the City of Oakland to continue to build it.

The site visit helped Kathryn RobertsonDemers, an MTS student, gain understanding of how climate change intersects with other social justice issues. “With a deeper knowledge of the root cause and available solutions, I can begin to educate others and become part of the solution to climate justice issues,” she says.

The second group of students traveled to Richmond to meet with the Rev. Peter Champion and the Rev. Susan Champion, whose activism currently includes holding Conoco-Phillips, the multi-national gas and energy corporation, accountable for its

Photo by Jesse Bowser, Unsplash.com

The two-week class, which included nine students from CDSP, PLTS and the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), was developed in partnership with Jennifer Snow, director of extended learning and associate professor in practical theology at CDSP. Snow secured an Episcopal Church Stewardship of Creation grant to fund the project.

Snow and Moe-Lobeda consulted with the Rev. Will Scott, an organizer and activist with No Coal in Oakland, GTU doctoral

“The soul-shattering reality is that while climate change is caused primarily by highconsuming societies and sectors, it causes death and destruction first and foremost for impoverished people, who are also disproportionately people of color.”

— Professor Cynthia Moe-Lobeda

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Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2018 C R O S S I N G S

Photos by Thomas Minczeski

16 Araceli Cruz

Elsadig Elsheikh

environmental actions in the greater Richmond community.

Episcopal priests for some 50 years between them, the Champions introduced students to other activists working against the environmental degradation major oil refineries have caused in the East Bay area. Students also toured the neighborhood to get a first-hand look at the impact of the refineries and former shipyards on local communities.

“Climate justice is not just about changing weather patterns. …

It is about systemic issues like poverty, exploitation, racism and sexism. This course strengthened my belief that the Holy Spirit is calling to us to realize that we are participants in God’s creation, not masters of it.”

— E v e r e tt C h a r t e r s , M D i v S t u d e n t

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

“It is one thing to read what individuals are doing to fight for climate justice, but it is something completely different to have the chance to actually meet folks who are doing this work,” says Everett Charters, an MDiv student. “We met in the living room of a house that sits within the fatality blast zone of Philips 66’s massive propane storage tanks. That means, should there ever be an explosion, the folks who lived there would not survive. There was nothing academic about the reality the folks there live with. We can convince ourselves that climate change and issues of climate justice are happening ‘over there,’ but this class and especially the site visit taught me that ‘over there’ is always somebody’s front yard.”

Back in the classroom, a wide range of guest speakers helped students understand what they had seen and how people of faith might respond. One panel, led by Megan Zapanta and Abby Mohaupt, examined the practice of generating a just

and green economy. Zapanta is a Richmondbased community organizer with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and Mohaupt is co-director of the Green Seminary Initiative.

Students explored California’s climate policy with Andres Soto, a founding member of the Richmond Progressive Alliance, and Katelyn Roedner Sutter of the Environmental Defense Fund, an expert on California climate, air quality and environmental justice policy.

A panel on food justice and climate change included Sellers-Petersen, the former director of church engagement for Episcopal Relief & Development, who now works on issues of food justice, church agriculture and land stewardship. He shared the forum with Elsadig Elsheikh, who oversees programs on global food system, global equity and human rights as director of the Global Justice program at the Haas Institute, and Araceli Cruz, community health associate at the Puente de la Costa Sur, a community center in southeastern San Mateo County.

“Climate change impacts us all, and the conversation and search for solutions is required throughout civil society, including our pulpits, seminary classrooms and potlucks. It impacts what we eat, what we buy, how we vote, and how we are buried,” Sellers-Petersen said.

A Lasting Impact Moe-Lobeda was pleased with the course’s pilot session. “The students learned the tremendous power in consciously linking activism with theology, and they were reminded of the importance of cultivating deep spirituality when facing demanding moral issues,” she says. “They experienced the power of collaborative learning and building a trusting community of engagement in order to face daunting challenges like climate injustice.”

“As someone who may one day be a pastor to a congregation, I feel compelled to learn how to speak to people of faith about the issues,” says Charters. “From this course, I learned that the ministry of Jesus Christ teaches us to challenge systems of oppression and injustice, systems that humanity’s arrogance has created, and which are causing irreparable harm to the planet and suffering among those least responsible.

“Climate justice is not just about changing weather patterns,” he says. “It is about systemic issues like poverty, exploitation,

17 Brian Sellers-Petersen

racism and sexism. This course strengthened my belief that the Holy Spirit is calling to us to realize that we are participants in God’s creation, not masters of it.”

For Snow, the course was distinguished by its partnerships with community activists and organizations. “By definition, theology involves abstract ideas and complicated philosophies, but this course added practical responses coupled with prayer,” she says.

“Through this course, we have begun to establish partnerships.”

“Students had the chance to see volunteers engaged in the hard work of activism and community organizing. They expanded their understanding of how climate change is directly related to our economic system and embedded in racism and classism,” she says.

“By the end, they had seen first-hand the value of organizing to protect the vulnerable who are most affected by climate change and climate injustice.”

The course will be offered again in the fall of 2018.

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2018 C R O S S I N G S

Active in Austin CDSP plans a lively presence at General Convention A reception for the first black woman to be elected a diocesan bishop in the Episcopal Church, the announcement of a scholarship in her honor, the premiere of two new videos and a lively booth in the Exhibit Hall will highlight CDSP’s participation in the 79th General Convention of the Episcopal Church to be held in Austin, Texas, July 5-13.

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Photo by CaseyCronin.com

The reception honoring Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows of Indianapolis ’97, will be held on Sunday, July 8, 7-9 p.m., in Crail Hall at St. David’s Episcopal Church at 301 East Eight Street, less than half a mile from the Austin Convention Center.

Baskerville-Burrows was CDSP’s director of alumni/ae and church relations from 2002-2004 before serving in the Dioceses of Central New York and Chicago. She had previously served in the Diocese of Newark. The scholarship that bears her name will benefit black and Native American students.

The Rev. Andrew Hybl CAS ’12, CDSP’s dean of students and a group

of staff and student volunteers will be on hand to greet visitors at the seminary’s booth in General Convention’s vast Exhibit Hall. Drop by Booth 911 to say hello, watch new videos about CDSP and learn more about the only Episcopal seminary on the West Coast.

The Very Rev. W. Mark Richardson, CDSP’s president and dean, will attend convention to meet with Episcopal Church leaders and offer testimony on legislative resolutions that address theological education and the role of seminaries.

The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers, an alternate deputy from the Diocese of California, is serving as vice chair of the Special Committee on Sexual Harassment and Exploitation, created in February by the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, president of the House of Deputies. Since 2015, Meyers has served on the Task Force on the Study of Marriage, a group appointed by the presiding officers. It has proposed several resolutions to the convention.

During the triennium, the Rev. Dr. Susanna Singer served as chair of the Task Force on Clergy Leadership in Small Congregations, which has proposed several resolutions that will be considered at the convention.

Left: At General Convention in 2015, CDSP alums and friends gathered to celebrate Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

The Rev. Jim Richardson, the Rev. Don White, Lori Korleski Richardson, Jefferts Schori, the Rev. Don Brown, Carol Anne Brown; Right: The Rev. Irene Tanabe, the Rev. Edwin Johnson and Dean Mark Richardson

Photos by John Craigle

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

“Christians Without Buildings” William Lupfer talks about the future of the church

In his role as rector of Trinity Church Wall Street, one of the wealthiest and most influential parishes in the Christian world, the Rev. Dr. William Lupfer engages with leaders across the Anglican Communion, and in those conversations, he hears a common refrain.

B y P a tt i W a l s h

Photo by Richard Wheeler

“I’ve seen that there’s universal agreement that the two biggest challenges Anglican church leaders face are the formation of new leaders for a new world, and resourcing their ministry,” says Lupfer, who delivered the address at Church Divinity School of the Pacific’s commencement on May 18.

“Given Trinity’s long history of experience in both of these areas, we have incorporated them into our strategic plan,” he says.

Under Lupfer’s leadership, Trinity is planning a long-term response to these challenges that includes building neighborhoods in New York City, building leaders for future generations and helping churches across the global Anglican Communion to build financial capacity in ministry.

Lupfer believes it is critical for churches to engage their mission through, not outside, the marketplace. “To step outside the market is to marginalize yourself,” says Lupfer, who became Trinity’s rector in 2015. “You never want to embrace the market uncritically, but you can make it work for you. At Trinity, we are running mission through the marketplace.

We take land, try to turn it into money and then turn that money into ministry.”

Few churches in the Christian world have Trinity Wall Street’s advantages in this regard.

Chartered in 1697, the church received a grant of 215 acres in lower Manhattan from Queen Anne of England in 1705. While Trinity has given away much of that original land grant over its 322-year history to aid other

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When he looks at seminaries positioned to provide the kind of training he envisions, CDSP stands out. churches and schools, it actively manages its endowment to fund its ministries. With assets valued at about $5.85 billion, and spending to run its ministries and properties totaling about $400 million annually, it is one of the most influential institutions in the Anglican Communion. And Lupfer notes that Trinity’s own resources have fostered “wide-ranging conversations within Trinity about how we can expand our work with partners so they can deepen their impact in their own neighborhoods.”

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2018 C R O S S I N G S

Photo by Richard Wheeler

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When he looks to the future, Lupfer sees an Episcopal Church that owns fewer buildings, has substantially more people, supports a smaller institutional footprint, and is led by clergy who know how to make use of the gifts of lay people.

“One of our challenges will be to gather Christians without buildings and teach them how to resource themselves,” Lupfer says. “In a church like that, all the current property of the Episcopal Church shifts from being a building-maintenance burden to a potentially enormous resource for new and innovative ministries.

“When bishops have a cadre of leaders trained to go into new communities, freed from the constraints of the locations of our current buildings, the church will be able to expand its ministry, resources and impact.

“We also need to train leaders to understand how much wisdom is in the laity and work with laity much more closely to enhance the resource base for ministry.”

When he looks at seminaries positioned to provide the kind of training he envisions, CDSP stands out.

“I admire Mark Richardson’s leadership,” Lupfer says of CDSP’s president and dean. “The administration and the faculty he has built and his approach to leading the seminary show a clear understanding that the

Lupfer with the Rev. Peter Koon, provincial secretary of Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui.

delivering education in a new way.”

Lupfer, who was dean of Trinity Cathedral in Portland, Oregon, before moving to Manhattan, sees CDSP’s location as an additional advantage.

“I like their recent focus on spiritual leadership in the West,” he says.

“They are in a part of America that has driven value creation for decades, and the West uses a different leadership model than the East. In the West people build collaborative consensus early versus the East where there is more of a tendency to state clearly

“I like the focus of CDSP’s curriculum on mission, discipleship and evangelism with community organizing in the mix.”

— The Rev. Dr. William Lupfer

church and the world are different than in the past.

“I like the focus of CDSP’s curriculum on mission, discipleship and evangelism with community organizing in the mix. I like the emphasis on core leadership skills like public conversation.

“I like the way the Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership is

what you are about and take some early stands. Both models are strong, and I’d like to see them blended.”

Lupfer believes the Anglican Communion will pay increasing attention to Asia in the near future, citing estimates that China may be the most populous Christian country in the world by 2025. CDSP, through its location on the Pacific Rim and its

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

relationship with several Asian seminaries, is well positioned to collaborate with Asian Christians in sharing ministry solutions that might have global applications.

“When you look at some of the issues facing small Christian communities in the western United States, guess what? Some of those issues are the same in Korea,” Lupfer says.

“They are the same in Kenya. They are the same in Brazil. And there is a lot of wisdom in each place. I am familiar with some projects underway in rural Korea that would work in rural Oregon. So we need to take a more global approach to coming together to solve our problems.

“There is a network of wisdom in the Anglican Communion that doesn’t flow along judicatory lines,” Lupfer says. “There are places everywhere where people are succeeding, and if they can get together and talk, there is a lot of potential for peer education.

“For many reasons, CDSP is positioned to be a leader in the Anglican Communion in this environment.”

Patti Walsh is chief communications officer for Trinity Church Wall Street.

Photo courtesy of Trinity Wall Street

Guests of St. Margaret

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The Rev. Winnie Varghese

Varghese and Jennings are the latest professors of women in ministry

One of the Episcopal Church’s most prominent leaders served as the St. Margaret’s Visiting Professor of Women in Ministry during the June intensive term, and another will do so in January.

The Rev. Winnie Varghese, director of justice and reconciliation at Trinity Church Wall Street in New York City, was on campus for the two-week intensive term this summer, and the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, president of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church, will do the same during the January intensive.

Varghese, who blogs frequently at HuffPost, is the former rector of St. Mark’s-in-the-Bowery in lower Manhattan. She also served as a chaplain at Columbia University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

“The theological response to the evil humans can do to one another is to stand on the side of the suffering,” she Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2018 C R O S S I N G S

response to the evil humans can do to one another is to stand on the side of the suffering.”

— The Rev. Winnie Varghese

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Photo courtesy of Gay Clark Jennings

“The theological

wrote in her book, “Church Meets World.”

“Liberation movements look for the action of God there among the powerless.”

Varghese, a native of Texas whose family’s roots are in the ancient Mar Thoma church of southwest India, has been a board member of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship and the Episcopal Service Corps. She has served on the church’s Executive Council and is a deputy to General Convention.

Jennings was elected president of the House of Deputies in 2012, and again, by acclamation, in 2015. She is the first ordained woman to hold the position. A ten-time deputy from the Diocese of Ohio, she is also the Episcopal Church’s clergy representative to the Anglican Consultative Council.

Jennings previously served for 17 years as canon to the ordinary in the Diocese of Ohio and for nine years as associate director of CREDO Institute Inc., a church wellness program.

For the 2018 General Convention in Austin, she appointed the youngest and most diverse group of legislative committee officers ever to serve at General Convention. Fortyfive percent of the group is under the age of 50, 18 percent are people of color, and at least 15 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

Jennings has also appointed and is chairing the House of Deputies Special Committee on Sexual Harassment and Exploitation to draft legislation for General Convention.

“This group of 47 women is busy—very

The Rev. Gay Clark Jennings

while student Kathleen Moore ’19 and recent graduate Nikky Wood ’18 are members.

The previous St. Margaret’s Visiting Professors were Dr. Jenny Te Paa Daniel, the Rev. Suzanne Guthrie and the Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori.

The St. Margaret’s Visiting Professorship was inaugurated in 2014, on the 40th anniversary of the ordination of the first women to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. The

“This group of 47 women is busy—very busy, let me tell you—researching and writing legislation on a variety of issues related to #metoo …”

— T h e R e v . G ay C l a r k J e n n i n g s

busy, let me tell you—researching and writing legislation on a variety of issues related to #metoo, including theology and language, structural equity including pay and benefits, the Title IV disciplinary process, social justice for women, and the creation of a truth and reconciliation process,” she said in recent remarks to the church’s Executive Council.

The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers, CDSP’s academic dean, is vice-chair of the committee, C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

professorship was made possible by generous support from faculty, alumna and local laywomen. The chair is named in honor of St. Margaret’s House, a Berkeley-based institution that trained deaconesses and laywomen for the diaconate and lay ministry in the Episcopal Church from 1909-66.

Community News

October 2017-April 2018

STUDENT NEWS Low-residence MDiv student Sarah Kye Price was awarded an Episcopal Evangelism Society Grant for “Faith From the Margins to the Web,” a weekly, lectionary-based blog that records conversations about scripture between a college student or parish member in Price’s hometown of Richmond, Virginia, and someone living in poverty. She wrote about the project in the Winter 2018 issue of the Virginia Episcopalian.

The Rev. Tim Dyer, a low-residence MDiv student and priest in the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania, was featured in a documentary film, “The Children of Abraham,” that was shown in March 3 in Warren, Pennsylvania.

Katie Evenbeck, a first-year low-residence MDiv student and executive director of St. Dorothy’s Rest Camp and Retreat Center in the Diocese of California, received the Presidential Service Award for her response to the community during the fires in October in Sonoma County.

Kathleen Moore ’19 wrote an essay titled, “Throwing Privilege Into Stark Relief: White Women, Racism, and #MeToo,” for the House of Deputies website.

In May, Mia Benjamin ’19, low-residence MDiv student David Carlisle, low-residence MDiv student Michael Coburn, Lisa Cressman ’92, Kathleen Moore ’19, low-residence MDiv student Sarah Thomas, Bogard Teaching Fellow Tripp Hudgins and President Mark Richardson attended the Episcopal Preaching Foundation’s Preaching Excellence Program (PEP) in Richmond, Virginia.

Richardson serves on the foundation’s board.

The PEP program aims to “recruit seminarians with the greatest

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

potential to become the Episcopal Church’s next generation of outstanding preachers, and provide the tools, motivation and peer community to accelerate their progress toward this goal.”

ALUMNI NEWS The Rev. Michael Reid ’07 published an essay in a new collection titled, “Black Lives Have Always Mattered.”

The Rev. Dr. Joanne Sanders ’00, associate dean for religious life at Stanford University, began her term as the new president of the Association of College and University Religious Affairs (ACURA) at the end of October.

Teresa Wakeen ’16 was given the Morgan Directors’ Award for 2017 by the Episcopal Evangelism Society (EES). Wakeen is establishing a new worshipping community with the clientele of the Crossroads Center, a social services outreach agency in Detroit.

Mark Bradshaw CAS ’17 and Ed Milkovich ’17 were ordained to the priesthood at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Los Angeles, California, on January 13.

FACULTY NEWS Academic Dean Ruth Meyers led an adult education forum titled, “New Directions in Worship” on November 5 at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Albany, California.

Professor Cynthia Moe-Lobeda gave the keynote address at the Bishop’s Convocation of the Southwest Washington Synod of the ELCA in January. In November, she gave a presentation titled, “The Bible and Ethics: Race, Class, Gender, and Ecological Justice,” at Princeton Theological Seminary and presented a panel paper titled, “Race, Class, and

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2018 C R O S S I N G S

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Climate Violence,” at the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Boston. In March, she gave the Graduate Theological Union’s Professional Development Group Excellence in Teaching lecture.

Academic Dean Ruth Meyers, Assistant Professor Julián Andrés González Holguín, Assistant Professor Scott MacDougall, and Assistant Professor Caroline McCall have all been awarded 2018 Conant Grants for research from the Episcopal Church.

Dean Meyers’s grant will support her study of worship in culturally diverse and multiracial congregations in the Episcopal Church. She will travel to culturally diverse congregations, worship with them at their principal Sunday services, and interview their lay and ordained leaders and members.

Associate Professor Susanna Singer delivered the keynote address at the annual Living Stones meeting in February in Phoenix, Arizona. The title was, “Turning Outward: How Does the Church Carry Forward God’s Mission in the World?”

Professor González Holguín’s grant will support his writing of a book chapter for “The Cambridge Companion on the Hebrew Bible and Ethics.”

The chapter will focus on the connection between Christian ethics and the Hebrew Bible and will inform his research interest on the topics of human rights and migration as hermeneutical frameworks to interpret the biblical text.

Associate Professor Jennifer Snow gave a presentation at the Winter Meeting of the American Society of Church History in January titled, “A Border Made of Righteousness: Immigration and Christian Activism.”

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Professor MacDougall will co-author a book on the theological character of desire and its implications with John Panteleimon Manoussakis, associate professor of philosophy at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts, who is an Orthodox Christian philosopher.

Professor Julián Andrés González Holguín was selected by the Center for the Study of Latino/a Christianity and Religions at Perkins School of Theology as a scholarship recipient to the Pre-Tenure Faculty and PhD Candidate Seminar led by Dr. Daisy Machado of Union Theological Seminary held in March at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas.

Professor McCall will explore existing leadership models and programs being used in the Episcopal Church and its seminaries to determine the extent to which they emphasize mindset over, or in addition to, specific leadership tactics or skills.

IN MEMORIAM Walter Evans Phelps ’59 died on December 20, 2017 in Vacaville, California, at the age of 95, just three weeks short of the 58th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood. A celebration of his life was held at St. Brigid’s Church on January 22. He is interred in the Columbarium Garden at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Davis, California.

Professor Scott MacDougall and Aaron Klinefelter ’19 will attend “Jesus and the World’s Faiths,” this year’s Summer Institute at Newbigin House of Studies at Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

The Rev. Dr. Wallace Clift ’60 ’03 died on February 5. He was professor of the psychology of religion at the University of Denver and was the author of “Jung and Christianity” and many other books and articles.

At its May meeting, the Board of Trustees approved the promotion of Associate Professor Jennifer Snow.

Former CDSP Trustee Carol Booth died at home in Oakland on April 16.

A memorial service was held at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Oakland on May 12.

Assistant Professor Scott MacDougall has been appointed to the Graduate Theological Union’s core doctoral faculty by the GTU Board of Trustees.

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2018 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

A Scholar’s Service By

the

Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers

Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics

I attended my first General Convention in 1994, as a deputy from the Diocese of Western Michigan. Much to my surprise, I was assigned to the Prayer Book and Liturgy Committee. It was my first taste of the legislative process, and I was hooked!

My committee dealt with a range of issues: Prayer Book revision, blessing same-sex relationships, commemorations, lectionary, revisions to the Book of Occasional Services, and more. Bishop Mark Dyer and I worked together on resolutions about the filioque clause (the phrase “and the Son” in the final paragraph of the Nicene Creed). Bishop Dyer was passionate about the issue because of his work in ecumenical dialogue with Orthodox churches. Working with him helped me understand how to use my academic work in ­service of the church. Later, that work guided me in writing a note about

the Nicene Creed for Enriching Our Worship 1.

CDSP seeks to instill in our students the core skills of contextual awareness, critical reflection and public conversation. As ministers of the gospel, we are asked to bring those skills to bear in our communities, but we also can call upon them in creating a church that is more loving and more just.

When I became chair of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music in 2009, the General Convention had just directed the commission to collect and develop theological and liturgical resources for blessing same-sex relationships. Prior to 2009, I had not studied marriage rites since taking a doctoral course on pastoral liturgies twenty years earlier. Yet all of my work as a scholar and teacher of liturgy had prepared me to think analytically, creatively and constructively about liturgical language and ritual structures. It was a small step to apply that understanding to developing rites for blessing same-sex relationships. Working with liturgical scholars and theologians as well as other clergy and lay leaders, the commission developed new rites as well as theological and pastoral resources that have been well received in the Episcopal Church.

The blessings project piqued my interest in rites of blessing and marriage, so I invited a colleague to co-teach a course on rituals and theologies of marriage. Our students came from throughout the Graduate Theological Union, representing different Christian traditions and varied life experiences. We explored the complex history of marriage rites in

Christianity and considered theologies of marriage throughout Christian history and today, deepening my own understanding.

A few years later, my preparation for that course proved useful when I was appointed to the Task Force on the Study of Marriage. We were charged with building on work begun the previous triennium, to study a wide range of contemporary trends and norms related to marriage, family and other intimate relationships. I was already familiar with much of the literature and well prepared to think theologically about the issues.

I worked closely with a subcommittee that developed short essays exploring contemporary trends. These essays are part of the task force’s report to this summer’s General Convention. A product of a working group of scholars and clergy, the short essays reflect consultation with a number of scholars from different academic disciplines, both in identifying resources that might be of use for developing the essays and in reviewing drafts. Our hope is that these short pieces will be a springboard for congregations and other groups to study and reflect.

As ministers of the gospel, we are asked to bring those skills to bear in our communities, but we also can call upon them in creating a church that is more loving and more just.

This summer will be my seventh General Convention as a deputy or alternate deputy. Working with legislative committees and debating legislation on the floor of the House of Deputies continues to delight and challenge me. My hope is always that my gifts as a liturgical scholar will inform debate and decisions about the Episcopal Church’s worship and witness in the world.

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2018 C R O S S I N G S

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