Yale graduate, Nashotah supporter

BY THE VERY REV. KEVIN MARTIN

In 1971, the year I graduated from seminary, Berkeley Divinity School affiliated with Yale Divinity School to form the Berkeley Center at Yale. My experience during those turbulent years was mostly positive, yet today I am a strong supporter of Nashotah House. There are three reasons for this.

The most important reason is theological. The continued decline we see in the Episcopal Church today — note that membership and attendance is down by half since 2000 — is first about what we teach. Several reasons for this have been discussed in many forums, but for me a major factor is the drift of the Episcopal Church away from historic and classical Anglicanism. In its place, Episcopal leaders have pursued a zeal for diversity and inclusion. This zeal has not only fractured the Church, but its goals of reaching a more diverse community of people have failed. The only diversity we find today in the Church is gender diversity, and even this has failed to draw enough new people to sustain the Church’s life. I support Nashotah House because it is one of the few places where historic and classical Anglicanism is taught and modeled. Comparing Nashotah’s curriculum with almost all other Episcopal seminaries reveals how far the Church and its leaders have drifted away from the essential gifts of Anglicanism.

The second reason I support Nashotah House is its worshipful and prayerful community. My experience in attending and teaching at the House over the past 20 years has affected me deeply. I find Benedictine worship and spirituality feeds my soul every time I attend Nashotah House; every time I visit, I feel I’m standing on sacred ground. Anglicanism is based on the premise that worship and prayer are essential to learning the truths of Christianity. This underlying intention to form priests in the context of a community of classical devotion and prayer also feeds the souls of current students and a number of colleagues I know who are graduates of the House. One distinctive of Nashotah graduates is their understanding of the Church as the community of Christ. They know that the life of the Church and of our individual parishes is most formed in attention to the doctrines of our faith, surrounded with deep spiritual formation of our people. Too many of our clergy today think our communities are formed in common concern and shaped by the commitment of our leaders to reforming society. The primary symbol of this to me today is the use by so many clergy of the term “the beloved community.” Those who study Anglicanism and good doctrine know that the Church is made up of sinners who are gathered into “the Community of the Beloved.”

In other words, if it is not centered on the death and resurrection of Christ done for all, the Church becomes one more society bent on making the world better by making it more like us.

The third reason I wholeheartedly support Nashotah House is its leadership. I find it in the current leadership of Dean Dr. Anderson, the board, and the faculty. Sometimes when I mention my support of Nashotah, I get a strong reaction from other Episcopal leaders. I almost always find that these reactions are based on some event or issue in the past and try to direct people to the Nashotah House of the present. Nashotah has faced issues, but its historic vision and mission has brought it back to its essential character. Who better to help the Church of today to return to its identity and mission? I believe there are signs in the Church that the “restoration of true Anglicanism” is beginning to take shape in the wider community of Episcopal and Anglican believers in North America. I see this especially in our younger clergy, where I find a deep longing to reform the Church, to reconcile it to other Anglican believers, and to stand in solidarity with the wider Anglican Community. For me, Nashotah is the place our Lord is forming leaders to help lead this restoration.

Yes, I benefited from my time at Yale. But I find that the substance of Christian doctrine taught to me by Jaroslav Pelican, the spirituality shown to me by Henri Nouwen, the courageous witness to Christ shown me by my dean and other faculty at Berkeley in the time of civil rights unrest best resonates with the life of Nashotah House today. What benefited me best at Yale is now best witnessed at Nashotah. Nashotah has become my adoptive seminary because it is where I most see clergy now formed in Christ and his Church in classical Anglicanism. The Very Rev. Kevin Martin is the former Dean of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas. Before that he served as rector of three parishes, director of two parachurch ministries, and for nine years as the Canon for Mission in the Diocese of Texas. He is the author of three books, numerous articles, and a regular blog for church leaders, called “Kevin on Congregations.” He holds an honorary doctorate from Nashotah House.