Crossings Spring 2015

SPRING 2015

Best of both worlds Low-res students thrive on campus and online

Christ Actually James Carroll’s Jesus

An Army chaplain returns Andrea Baker’s Afghanistan

Photo by Thomas Minczeski

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Letter from the Dean Through his new book, “Christ Actually,” James Carroll says that he is “aiming to secure a new understanding of Jesus as a mode of securing a hopeful human future.” I have known James for more than 20 years and am delighted that he will be giving our commencement address on Friday, May 22. Even before he arrives he has given us much to think about.

In “Christ Actually,” and the profile that begins on page 8, Carroll argues against the concept of redemptive violence, saying it makes no sense to argue “that God will bring about the fulfillment of history by ­destroying God’s creation.” Accepting this assertion requires us to reshape our notions about who Jesus was, why he was killed and whether we can continue to think, as many ­Christians do, that his death was both an example and justification of redemptive violence. In developing this new Christology, Carroll also causes us to rethink the ways in which the social order, in which many of us hold privileged places, is supported by violence or the threat of violence.

Violence has been much on our country’s mind lately. We’ve recently commemorated the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, the day Alabama state police attacked civil rights marchers in Selma. In Ferguson, Missouri, two police officers were shot just days after the U.S. Justice Department issued its report on the troubled town’s racist and repressive justice system. At CDSP, we are not only preparing students to minister in this broken world, but also to examine the ways in which our received religious ideas either contribute or fail to respond to the violence we see around us.

Our community organizing classes give students the tools to begin conversations aimed at discovering the gifts and needs of people in the neighborhoods where they work and live. The student-led initiative to

take compline and other liturgies into the streets, to highway overpasses and public transportation hubs offers a vivid example of sharing our treasured practices with the communities around us. We are also called to train those who bear the brunt of our nation’s battles—as the story on page 11 about the Rev. Andrea Baker, a military chaplain and CDSP alumnae, makes achingly clear.

To put a solid theological foundation beneath this work, we must not only act differently but also think differently. At CDSP, we understand how important it is to provide rigorous theological education in a flexible format. This understanding shapes our new, yet already thriving low-residency master of divinity program that you can read about on page 2. The faculty and I also believe it is necessary to speak of classic Christian practices and disciplines in ways that resonate with our students and will stand them in good stead when they complete their courses and step out into a changing church and changing world.

After many months of careful and creative conversations, we have begun to speak of engagement in public life as an important element of the traditional practice of mission development. We have come to understand that evangelism in contemporary society requires us to understand who we are in a pluralistic context and to speak of faith in ways that express both our respect for other traditions and the passion behind our own beliefs. We have begun to recognize discipleship as a lifelong process through which each of us comes to understand the life that God is calling us to live, and to take the steps necessary to live it.

At CDSP, we are training our students not to retreat from a tumultuous world but to advance upon it, speaking and practicing the ways of peace.

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Pioneers

Faculty News Marion Grau accepts professorship at Norwegian School of Theology. Scott MacDougall is CDSP’s new visiting assistant professor of theology.

CDSP’s first cohort of low-residency MDiv students flourishes in a flexible program that makes seminary education possible for mid-career professionals.

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Active Alums

Murderous Consequences

CDSP alums, faculty made key contributions to “Daily Prayer for All Seasons.”

Plus, a cluster of calls from cathedrals.

In “Christ Actually,” commencement speaker James Carroll’s examines how the gospels were distorted by Rome’s war on the Jews.

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“What do you need?”

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A Soldier, Again An alumna of West Point and CDSP, the Rev. Andrea Baker, MDiv ’10, served as an Army chaplain in Afghanistan with a furry aide-de-camp.

Crossings SPRING 2015

President and Dean Cover photo of Brendan Barnicle

by Thomas Minczeski

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Full circle The Rev. Laurel Johnston, MDiv ’06, is back at CDSP as director of alumni affairs, major gifts officer.

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A Safe, Sacred Space Student Sarah Quinney crafts a eucharist for autistic children.

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Generosity online, results IRL CDSP’s #GivingTuesday campaign brings a scholar to campus in real life (IRL).

The Very Rev. W. Mark Richardson, Dean and President Editorial: Canticle Communications Photography: Thomas Minczeski, Patricia Pingree, Sarah Quinney, Richard Wheeler Design: Barbara Nishi Graphic Design Crossings is published by Church Divinity School of the Pacific 2451 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709-1211 © Church Divinity School of the Pacific, all rights reserved.

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

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

CDSP is making a practice of consulting student stakeholders about the future.

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

We want to know what you think of our magazine.

Please send your comments, story ideas and suggestions to communications@cdsp.edu

Go Green with CDSP: Email communications@cdsp.edu to subscribe to our monthly email newsletter, and stay connected on Facebook at /cdspfans, on Twitter @cdsptweets, and on Instagram @cdspstudent.

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The three inaugural students in CDSP’s new, low-residence MDiv program are nearing com­­ pletion of their first year, and the reviews are in: it’s a Godsend, one that made seminary a real possibility for them.

Each of these pioneering students comes from a different walk and stage of life: Brendan Barnicle, 47, is a startup tech/finance entre­­ preneur living in Portland, Oregon; Michael Spencer, 39, is canon to the ordinary in the Diocese of Eastern Michigan; and Marlene Laurendeau, 63, is a part-time clinical social worker who divides her time between Brunswick, Maine, and the Bay Area.

It is the hybrid nature of the fully accredited MDiv program—a combination of campus learning and distance learning—that drew the three to CDSP. In fact, none felt a full-time residence program was an option for them. Students in the low-residence MDiv program study online during the fall and spring semesters and visit Berkeley each January and June

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for intensive academic work and Christian formation programs. The program can be completed in as few as four years or as many as ten years, and 24 students have been accepted to begin in 2015.

As the Very Rev. Mark W. Richardson, president and dean of CDSP, said when he announced the new format, the low-residence MDiv pro­­­gram demonstrates the seminary’s commitment to developing new ways to train ordained leaders in the church, ways that are grounded in spiritual practices and Christian community.

And as with all students who attend CDSP, low-residence students benefit from the ecumenical and interfaith environment of the Graduate Theological Union (GTU).

“Students at CDSP are challenged and enriched by GTU students and faculty from other Christian traditions and other faiths,” Richardson said.

“The new low-residence MDiv will prepare students who are thoroughly Episcopal in identity and thoroughly comfortable in a multicultural world.

We’re preparing students for handson ministry in today’s church.”

Low residence, high intensity by

L u S ta n t o n L e ó n

Students take alternate path to MDiv Low-residency student Michael Spencer chats with residential MDiv student Nicole Wood, her husband, Adam, and their son, Ethan.

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Photos by Thomas Minczeski

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

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“…I love the combination of online and on-campus learning.

I like to be on campus and be deeply ensconced in that experience.”

— Brendan Barnicle

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Brendan Barnicle chats with Professor Ruth Meyers, Jonna Alexander and Gyllian Davies.

That’s certainly been the experience for Brendan Barnicle.

“These have been some of the most joyous times of my life,” said Barnicle, a senior research analyst and partner at an investment bank. “For me, it is really important to be in an Episcopal seminary because I grew up in the Roman Catholic setting, and I love the combination of online and on-campus learning. I like to be on campus and be deeply ensconced in that experience. When you’re on campus you’re with all the other seminarians, and you don’t have to deal with traffic or make dinner. It’s great to have that interplay, to build that base, but to take it back into the real world, that’s great, too. I’ve found that the balance between on-campus and online learning is a really good option for me.”

Despite belonging to a class of only three, Barnicle said the times spent on the CDSP campus makes him feel a part of a larger cohort. During the summer intensive he was engaged with 25 to 30 other students, and during the January intensive, he was studying with students attending the traditional program as well as part-timers and GTU students.

Barnicle, who is married, has three children and is deeply involved in his business, said the low-residence program meets a real need.

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

“Otherwise, people like me would not likely be involved in this type of ministry. It is just not an option for me to uproot my family and move to seminary for three years.”

Barnicle, who is an active member of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, thinks he is called to parish ministry, but that is something he is continuing to discern.

“I’m really interested in what we do with ministry in the workplace,” he said. “For many people, workplace is their first community; it’s where they spend the most time.

They spend more time there than with their families. What are reasonable things to do in that community? I’ve seen it in my own workplace. Since I started this process, I’ve been amazed at how many people come to me and tell me what is going on in their lives. And that’s been an incredible blessing and reveals how deep the need is and how important it is for people to be in this ministry.”

Have his co-workers expressed astonishment that he is attending seminary?

“Surprisingly, no,” Barnicle said and laughed. “I’m sure some must say, ‘What kind of church is this that would let me become a priest?’ but they haven’t said it to my face.”

Michael Spencer already was on the discernment path when, in February 2013, he became canon to the ordinary to the Rt. Rev. Todd Ousley, bishop of the Diocese of Eastern Michigan. Spencer knew he wanted the job, but he also knew he wanted to go to seminary. He just wasn’t sure if, when and how he’d be able to combine the two.

“I knew that a traditional seminary probably wouldn’t work for me,” Spencer said. “God provided me with the possibility for a different path. I’m probably the only canon to the ordinary enrolled in an MDiv program.

It’s a different and fascinating way to do this.”

Spencer had worked for more than eight years in human resources at Michigan State University before taking his current position. He said he thought he’d work in that job a year before figuring out possibilities for formation.

“I knew that Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge had a distance learning program in 2013, but I didn’t like to have only one choice. Then— it had to be by providence—CDSP announced they were going to have a distance learning program.”

After he graduated from college, Spencer worked in an Episcopal Service Corps program in Los Angeles, and he liked the West Coast culture.

The weather was another plus, “and I knew CDSP had some very admired faculty, and I was looking forward to getting to study with those folks,” Spencer said. “On a gut level, it seemed the right thing to do.

“Without a distance learning option,” Spencer said, “I would definitely have been faced with the choice of my job or seminary. This gave me the opportunity to do a really needed, vital and practical ministry. I’m not just doing field assignments in the summer, like at traditional seminaries. In this circumstance, I get to work almost full time in a ministry, and I get to have both my ministry form my formation, and my formation form my ministry in very exciting ways.”

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“I get to work almost full time in a ministry, and I get to have both my ministry form my formation, and my formation form my ministry in very exciting ways.”

— Michael Spencer

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

As Richardson promised when the new program was announced, the seminary’s partnership with GTU has helped provide an amazing depth to CDSP’s low-residence option, Spencer said.

“One of the things that I have heard in various corners of the church is that there is a real concern that the low-residence program is not sufficient and not adequate, and that priests are just not going to get the training and formation that the church needs,” Spencer said. “But one of the great things about CDSP and this option is that CDSP is part of the GTU, and a lot of those other schools offer online courses as well,” he said. “There are a variety of programs and options, so we have a lot of opportunities to get a really rich educational experience.”

Online discussions can be profound, Spen­ cer said, and he and his colleagues meet students in other programs during the intensives.

“There are a lot of different ways we are building relationships and being part of the community,” he said. “When we are there, we go to a restaurant or go to a local pub with the other students, building, over time, a feeling of being connected. The seminary is still figuring out some things and we’re still figuring out some things, including how the formation program is going to work.

“We have a cohort of three, and we definitely feel like pioneers.”

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Michael Spencer assists Dean Mark Richardson at the Eucharist

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Unlike Spencer and Barnicle, Marlene Laurendeau’s goal is not to become an ordained priest, but, like Spencer, her road to CDSP smacks of fate. She’s not even sure how she ended up on the CDSP website, but there it was: an announcement of an MDiv program in a low-residence format.

“I’m a lifelong learner; I just love learning,” Laurendeau said. “I got my masters of social work when I was in my 40s, and I knew I wanted something more than that, which took me to San Francisco Theological Seminary, where I got my diploma in the art of spiritual direction in my 50s. And now I’m in my early 60s.

“I was at a crossroads about this time last year, trying to figure out what is really important to me at this stage of my life. I guess I was looking to deepen my relationship with God. I looked at a lot of master’s programs at GTU. I wanted to understand Christianity better and be with a group of like-minded people. I have a place here in the Bay Area, and my mom and sister live here. When I found out about the MDiv online program, I thought, ‘Oh, this is interesting,’ and since I’m bi-coastal, I thought this is worth looking into.”

She hasn’t been disappointed.

“I’ve gotten through the initial anxiety of being back in school again,” Laurendeau said.

“I had my first semester online in the fall.

That was sort of a proving ground for me.

“In a lot of ways it is better than face-to-face. You have to listen well and read well and then respond.”

— Marlene Laurendeau

Photo courtesy of Marlene Laurendeau

I just wanted to make sure I could do it. I got through that, and I’ve loved it, and it has been good to have the residency program. I like mixing with all the other students.”

Laurendeau is active in her Roman Catholic church in Brunswick, where she lives for most of the year. She and her late husband were lay Dominicans. Laurendeau said she doesn’t currently practice but is “more of a Dominican at large.”

Although she doesn’t anticipate seeking ordination, she isn’t closing any doors.

“I don’t have an end goal in mind,” she said. “I don’t have an urge to be an Episcopal priest right now.”

In many ways, Laurendeau said, she finds CDSP’s low-residence program more challenging and satisfying than a traditional model of learning.

“It is very disciplined with lots of structure, which I appreciate, “ she said. “In a lot of ways it is better than face-to-face. You are obligated to interact with people at least twice a week—that’s part of the grade you get. So you have to listen well and read well and then respond. It demands more discipline than face-to-face because you are

obligated to respond. I think this requires a whole lot more of you.

“I like the audiovisual aspect of it because you can also be in a face-to-face and be bored to death. These online classes use works of art, maps, YouTube, videos.

In order to make it interesting they throw in a little of everything,” Laurendeau said. “And you can pause it, and look at it, and think about it, and “…one of the great things resume it. There were a few … is that CDSP is part of live teleconferences, but I’m referring to the part that’s the GTU, and a lot of those recorded. I’m a slow reader, other schools offer online and I can spend as much time as I want on something courses as well.” and reread it. You can’t do — Michael Spencer that in the classroom.”

For more information about the low-residence program, go to cdsp.edu/ degree-programs/master-of-divinity/.

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

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Photo by Patricia Pingree

Seeking a

esus Jwho can save us again

Carroll probes myth of redemptive violence, roots of anti-Semitism by

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Jim Naughton

James Carroll has written 11 novels, eight works of non-fiction and countless newspaper columns for The Boston Globe, yet he can sum up his writing career in a single sentence. “All of my work has been preoccupied with trying to reconcile the relationship between the Christian religion and…grotesque outbreaks of violence, especially anti-Semitism,” he says.

Carroll, who will deliver the commencement address at CDSP’s graduation ceremonies on May 22, is only slightly exaggerating. All four of his most recent books, “Constantine’s Sword,” “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” “Christ Actually” and the novel “Warburg in Rome” deal to varying degrees with the murderous consequences of Christianity’s ancient animosity towards Jews. Several of his earlier books, like “An American Requiem,” which won the National Book Award in 1996 and “House of War,” which won the first PEN/Galbraith award in 2006, treat American exceptionalism, rather than Christianity, as the faith made lethal by hubris and a belief in redemptive violence.

“This perversion is deeply rooted in religion itself: sacrificial violence, the idea that God will bring about the fulfillment of history by destroying God’s creation,” says Carroll, a former Paulist priest. “But humankind can C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015

no longer afford it.” In “Christ Actually,” which ranges from the Roman annihilation of the Jewish nation to Auschwitz and Hiroshima and back again, Carroll argues that the events that threw deep shadows across his childhood have fundamentally altered humanity’s prospect of survival.

“What Auschwitz tells us is the depth of evil to which human beings are capable of descending, and what Hiroshima tells us is the absolute power with which we can bring that about,” he says. “I am aiming to secure a new understanding of Jesus as a mode of securing a hopeful human future.

“If we go on thinking of Jesus the way we have, it makes the suicide of our species more likely.

We cannot go on thinking that God wills violence, whether in our atonement theologies or in our outmoded assumptions about just war. Violence is a different problem now because

• Church Divinity School of the Pacific

of the absolute weapon that made its debut in 1945.”

The “new understanding” of Jesus that Carroll presents is almost as striking for what it isn’t as for what it is. “Christ Actually” does not attempt to cast its subject in a contemporary mold. Carroll does not present Jesus as a peasant revolutionary or an itinerant sage; nor does he dispute Jesus’ divinity.

“The historical Jesus movement solved the problem of Jesus’ divinity by effectively walking away from the problem of his divinity,” he says. “I insist upon the idea that Jesus was in some way divine. Otherwise his story wouldn’t have endured. Nor would it have transcendent meaning for us now.”

Carroll’s concern is to ground both the historical Jesus and the historical Christ firmly in the context of first-century Judaism. Drawing on the work of historian Daniel Boyarin, Carroll argues that the concept of a suffering messiah who is somehow one with the creator was not a ­Christian innovation.

In “Christ Actually” he quotes Boyarin, who wrote that “the basic underlying thoughts from which both the Trinity and the Incarnation grew

“We Christians are tone deaf to the anti-Jewish character of our sacred texts. That must change.”

— J a m e s C a r r o ll

are there in the very world into which Jesus was born and in which he was first written about in the Gospels of Mark and John.”

Christianity and Judaism may eventually have diverged over significant theological ­disagreements, Carroll says, but there is no way to know how each might have been shaped by such a gradual parting because history intervened.

Only two of the factions that made up first century Judaism survived the three catastrophic phases of the Roman war against the Jews, the first of which began in 66 C. E. and the last of which ended 70 years later, Carroll writes in “Christ Actually.” The Pharisees, with Roman permission, fled Jerusalem before the destruction of the Temple in 70 C. E. for Yavne on the Mediterranean coast of what is now the state of Israel. The Jesus movement persevered in Galilee and several communities outside of the city that, once destroyed, the emperor Hadrian renamed Aelia Capitolina.

The two surviving parties of Jews then

engaged in a running struggle to define the future of their once shared faith, Carroll says.

Their disagreements were written into the canonical gospels, which were being composed during this period, as though they had occurred during Jesus’ time. This, he says, accounts for much of the gospel writers’ animosity toward “the Jews,” and the portrayal of Jewish leaders and Jewish crowds as central figures in the drama that culminated in Jesus’ crucifixion.

The struggle between the two groups took its decisive turn in the fourth century, Carroll says, when Christians, once victims of the Roman Empire, became the Roman Empire, and could turn the power of both church and state on the Jewish people.

“The great mistake Christians have made is in thinking that the history of the church has unfolded according to the plan of God,” Carroll says. “It hasn’t. The Jesus people evolved into what we know as ‘the church’ through contingent facts of history. And once you stop thinking of this unfolding as the will of God, you are no longer exempt from the moral consequences of the ways in which the church victimized the synagogue. Christians are responsible to and for history.”

Carroll’s passionate interest in Christian anti-Semitism has deep roots. “By an accident of biography I brushed up against the Holocaust as a boy,” he says. “My father was stationed in Germany in the 1950s. The post World War II scene in Germany was Act One of the great disillusionment I underwent.

“The two great idols of my world were the absolute virtue of the United States as opposed to the demonic evil of the Soviet Union and the equal and absolute virtue of

“The great mistake Christians have made is in thinking that the history of the church has unfolded according to the plan of God…” — J a m e s C a r r o ll

the Catholic Church—the “perfect society” as Pope Leo XIII put it. I grew up breathing the air of absolute Catholic triumphalism, which was a perfect match to American exceptionalism.

“As a boy, I saw the movie about Anne Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

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Frank. I was riveted by trial of Adolf Eichmann. I was shocked to read the play The Deputy by Rolf Hochhuth [a controversial drama which alleges that Pope Pius XII did far less than he could have to prevent the Holocaust]. I read Elie Wiesel’s ‘Night.’ All of these were transforming.”

Carroll says that the Second Vatican Council, the landmark gathering of Catholic bishops called by Pope John XXIII in the early 1960s, was held in part in response to World War II and the Holocaust. “That is why the church’s relation to the Jewish people was central to what Vatican II took up,” he says. “And I think you can argue that the most radical document of Vatican II was Nostra Aetate, which repudiated 2,000 years of Christian doctrine. It said not only that the ‘Christ killer’ charge was a lie, but that the idea that Christianity had superseded the Jewish faith was wrong. … It says the covenant God has made with the Jewish people is full and complete and permanent.

That is an absolute revolution in Christian theology.”

Join us at CDSP

The

121st Commencement Exercises • Friday, May 22, 10:30 am COMMENCEMENT SPEAKER: JAMES CARROLL Awarding of honorary degrees to: The Right Rev. Scott B. Hayashi, Bishop of Utah The Right Rev. Anne Elliot Hodges-Copple, Bishop Suffragan of North Carolina

The change in the church’s teaching began the transformation of the relationship between Jews and Christians, but did not complete it.

“The positive-negative polarity of the Christian imagination, which historically affirmed the church by negating the synagogue, is still pervasive,” Carroll says. “It is as basic as the New Testament versus the Old Testament, grace versus law, generosity versus greed. That positive-negative bipolarity results in an ongoing, if implicit, contempt for the Jewish people. We have barely begun to dismantle this structure, and even the most wellintentioned preachers, even the ones attuned to radical scholarship, are still at its mercy.”

In preparing to give the commencement address at CDSP, Carroll has reflected on the role of theological educators in broadening the church’s understanding of its Jewish roots and in combatting anti-Semitism. “Every Christian, but especially every preacher, has an obligation to become informed about how scriptural texts were written,” he says.

“Christians need to hear the anti-Jewish texts as if we ourselves are Jews. We should take offense at these texts, and be instructed by that offense. Every Christian preacher should be required to address in every sermon at least implicitly the anti-Jewish character of the readings proclaimed on Sunday. Obviously the problem is momentous in Holy Week.

“Christians,” he adds, “should find a way to invite Jewish

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

friends to come to church with them.

Christians should then ask their Jewish friends what they are hearing. We Christians are tone deaf to the antiJewish character of our sacred texts.

That must change.”

Although he left the Roman Catholic priesthood in the mid-1970s, Carroll has remained in the Catholic Church. He is married to the novelist Alexandra Marshall, an Episcopalian, and they have two grown children.

Carroll has held fellowships at both the Harvard Divinity School and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has been a visiting professor at Brandeis and Emory, a writer-in-residence at Emerson College and a distinguished-scholarin-residence at Suffolk University.

Beginning in the fall, he will be distinguished writer in residence at New York University.

Reflecting on his own years as a seminarian, Carroll says, “I was formed in a discipline developed in the Middle Ages. Catholic seminaries then were faux monasteries with the hours and cults and disciplines of the cloistered life. Truth is, I rather loved it, but I understood early on that there was something unreal and inhuman about it. But I would hope that the great genius of a tradition that sought to combine the serious contemplative life with a rigorous commitment to activism for justice can be preserved. What I most value about my faith is the permanent invitation to self-criticism and selfsurpassing that is made possible by the eternal offer of God’s forgiveness.”

MILITARY CHAPLAIN and the

MINISTRY DOG by

L u S ta n t o n L e ó n

It wasn’t any one particular thing: not one class, one course, one professor. It was the total CDSP experience that prepared Andrea Baker for military chaplaincy.

“What CDSP builds is this sense of openness and inclusivity,” said the Rev. Baker, MDiv ’10, who in November returned from a seven-month deployment in Afghanistan. She now serves—aided by Zac, the unit ministry dog—as associate rector at Faith Episcopal Church in Cameron Park, California.

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Chaplain Captain Andrea Baker, right, with the Task Force Flying Dragons unit ministry team including Sgt. Diamond James and Senior Airman Zac.

Photos courtesy of Andrea Baker

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“I felt completely, solidly grounded in Episcopal and Anglican faith,” Baker said.

“When you feel completely grounded, it allows for more creativity and an openness to others and their traditions. At CDSP there was a reali­­zation that the church is changing, that we have to think entrepreneurially, outside the box, about how we can best serve God in the world.”

That Baker would be drawn to both the ministry and the military isn’t much of a surprise. Her father, Colonel (retired) Eugene W. Allen, was senior music director of the United States Army and leader and commander of The United States Army Band (Pershing’s Own) from 1976-1990. Her mother, Claire Reno Allen, who died in January of this year, mothered and ministered to generations of military musicians and their families. Five of Baker’s six siblings either served in the military or married someone who did; the sixth married the son of a career Air Force officer.

When in high school in Woodbridge, Virginia, Baker (then Andrea Allen) met and fell in love with Brian Baker, a kindred spirit who grew up in an Air Force family, and, like Andrea, was a member of the high school track team. The two graduated from West Point, got married, did youth ministry together in Hawaii, and both served in the U.S. Army as Signal Corps officers. The couple has a daughter in college and a son, who has been recruited by the U.S. Military Academy Prepa­­ratory School at West Point to run track next year.

It was while serving in the Army in the mid-1980s that Baker first felt called to ordained ministry, as did her husband. Brian acted quickly. He left the Army, graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary, earned a DMin in preaching from Seabury Western Theological Seminary, and began a career in ordained ministry. In 2006, he was called to be dean of Trinity Cathedral in Sacramento, California.

While Brian acted, Andrea pondered. She graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1984 and served as an Army communications officer in Hawaii and the Pentagon until 1991, when Brian completed seminary. She received a Master of Arts in English and creative writing from the University of Hawaii in 1996, and later worked as admissions director and upper school director at The Community School in Sun Valley, Idaho, from 2001-2006.

In 2006, with Brian’s encouragement,

Andrea found herself ready to accept the call.

“You know, the call never really goes away. We had moved to Sacramento in 2006, and I was taking a year off from working to get our family settled. Brian called me from a CREDO conference,” she said, referring to the wellness conferences for clergy sponsored by the Church Pension Fund, “and he said, ‘I think it’s time for you to go to seminary.’ He was supposed to be working on his own stuff, right? And I said then, ‘Okay, God, I surrender.’ I had been running from ordained ministry for more than 20 years.”

Baker says that first and foremost, military chaplains exist to ensure the free exercise of religion for all service members and their families. CDSP prepared her for the pluralism

“...military chaplains exist to ensure the free exercise of religion for all service members and their families.”

— T h e R e v. A n d r e a B a k e r

she encountered in the Army, she said, and helped equip her to serve as an ethical, moral and spiritual advisor.

“I took classes with the Jesuits, the Franciscans, and at the multidenominational Pacific School of Religion,” she said. “My eyes were opened to a lot of faith traditions. Had there been time, I would have taken courses at the Orthodox Institute, the Center for Jewish Studies, the Institute for Buddhist Studies and the Center for Islamic Studies.

“I got a really good grounding in Episcopal liturgy and tradition, but I also developed a real appreciation of other religions. When I walked into my unit in Afghanistan and the brigade chaplain, my supervisory chaplain, was Mormon, I knew it wouldn’t be a problem. We can differ greatly theologically; it’s okay. I knew that. I also knew we shared common ground; we both loved soldiers and were there to serve them.”

During her second year at CDSP, Baker received an email from the Rev. Jan Smith Wood, who was dean of students at the time.

It was an email that helped shape Baker’s ministry.

“It read something to the effect, ‘Dear students, An Army Reserve chaplain recruiter was here today. I hate war. I hate violence of all kinds, but who needs ministry more than military members and their families?’”

Baker recalled. “At this point, I was 46 or 47 years old, and I thought I was too old. I called the recruiter, who said they needed chaplains from liturgical denominations and that with my military background he could probably get an age waiver for me and get me into the Reserve.”

There are multiple steps to becoming a military chaplain. First, a candidate must be ordained and minister as a full-time professional, normally for at least a year or two.

Then candidates must receive an ecclesiastical endorsement from their faith group. For Baker, this meant obtaining the support of the Rt. Rev. James B. (Jay) Magness, the Episcopal Church’s bishop suffra­­­­gan for armed services and federal ministries. Then she was appointed to become a commissioned officer in the Army Chaplain Corps by an Army Reserve chaplain board.

Seminary students can also apply to become commissioned officers who serve as chaplain candidates with Army Reserve or National Guard units. Such students drill for pay with their assigned units and work under the supervision of chaplains while they are in seminary. Once they are ordained and complete the required full-time ministry experience, they can apply to become chaplains.

“I thought that train had come and gone!” Baker said of becoming a chap­­lain. “I had thought seriously about becoming an Army chaplain as a young lieutenant in Hawaii. When I got out in 1991, I thought I was never going back into the Army again, but the train came back around. In the summer of 2011, almost 20 years after I left the Army, I was raising my right hand again to become an Army chaplain.”

In 2013, as part of her chaplain

Chaplain Baker celebrates communion at The First Cup Ministry Center, Kandahar Airfield.

training, Baker completed a 12-week Chaplain Basic Officer Leadership Course.

“When I was there, I was really praying, ‘God, if you have an opportunity for me to deploy, I’m ready and willing.’”

The opportunity arose with an active duty unit, the 1-52 Aviation Battalion out of Ft. Wainwright, Alaska, which was headed to Afghanistan.

Their chaplain couldn’t deploy. Baker raised her hand again; she wanted to go. She served with that battalion from April to November 2014.

Zac, the Ministry Dog While preparing for deployment to Kandahar Airfield, one of the largest military bases in Afghanistan, Baker spent a week at Ft. Bliss in El Paso, Texas. There she met Chaplain (Major) Karen Hallett and “Sergeant Zoe,” a psychiatric service dog who had been trained by Puppies Behind

Bars in New York to help people dealing with post-traumatic stress.

Hallett had deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 with Zoe as her unit ministry dog, and offered to get a service dog for Baker to use on deployment.

Baker tucked the thought away.

Once deployed, Baker received a request from her battalion commander asking that she arrange for the behavioral health morale dog visiting from Bagram, Afghanistan, to spend time with their soldiers. Baker mentioned that she might be able to get the unit its own ministry dog. The commander liked the idea and told her to make it happen, if she could.

“The only catch was I would have to keep the dog and continue to use him in ministry,” Baker said. “I didn’t know how that would go over with Brian. I had left him and our teenage son at home with two notvery-well-trained dogs from a rescue organization. I didn’t know how he’d like a third. I finally called him and

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

asked. I felt like a 10-year-old saying, ‘Daddy, can I have another puppy?’”

Of course, Brian said yes. Hallett flew with Zac from Otisville Correctional Facility in New York to Kuwait, where Baker picked him up.

Senior Airman Zac, a black Labrador Retriever, is named after U.S. Airman 1st Class Zachary Cuddeback, who was killed during a 2011 terrorist attack on a U.S. Air Force bus in Germany. Cuddeback’s father’s American Legion post purchased and donated Zac to Puppies Behind Bars, where an inmate trained him for more than two years to be a service dog for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Baker shared Zac with another chaplain in Afghanistan, but had him about 60 percent of the time. Zac’s primary job was to raise morale, and he served as an icebreaker between Baker and other soldiers.

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“Reactions to him were amazing,” said Baker, whose voice takes on a particular buoyancy when she talks about Zac. “I’d even get calls and emails from the Aussies, Marines and hospital staff asking if I would bring Zac over for the day. Zac flew with me multiple times to visit our battalion’s soldiers at outlying medevac locations.

“It was phenomenal what he did.

It just added some normalcy to life. … Zac introduced me to soldiers I know I’d never have had a connection with otherwise. Sergeants would get down on the floor and wrestle with him. He would get up on the couch and put his head in soldiers’ laps during counseling sessions. He is the most calm, chill dog.”

Plus, Zac gave the soldiers an opportunity to display affection in a very tactile way.

“In the military we have a keen awareness about sexual harassment and assault issues,” Baker said. “We work hard at keeping the environment professional. You really can’t touch each other. But people can show affection and emotion to a dog. It’s an outlet that, otherwise, soldiers wouldn’t have.”

Zac accompanied Baker everywhere on base, where she visited soldiers in their work areas, led small women’s ministry groups, and co-led worship services.

“I did a lot of ministry with nondenominational evangelical Christians,” Baker said. “I wondered how they would take to me (being an Episcopalian and a woman), but I think the liturgy helped ground and unite us. They may not have heard a woman preach before or viewed communion as a sacrament, but we all gathered around the same table together in the same uniform, week after week, to hear the Word of God and be fed and strengthened by the body and blood of Christ.

“I was the only female chaplain on Kandahar at the time.

My fellow chaplains were very accepting of me. Theologically,

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

we might not agree. Some might not even think a woman should be a chaplain, but we didn’t go there. We focused on our common ground— loving Jesus and loving soldiers.”

A space to share, a space to celebrate Youth Ministry Day breaks new ground

“... people can show affection and emotion to a dog. It’s an outlet

by

that, otherwise, soldiers wouldn’t have.”

— T h e R e v. A n d r e a B a k e r

Back stateside, Zac goes to the office with Baker at Faith Church and serves with her at her home Reserve unit, the 319th Expeditionary Signal Battalion, with soldiers who drill in Sacramento and Dublin, California.

Baker said she loves being an Army Reserve chaplain, an experience she might have missed if not for CDSP, and she plans to continue to serve for as long as the Army will let her.

“A huge part of it was when Jan Wood sent that email,” Baker said. “I am not a pacifist, but I lean in that direction. To hear affirmation from someone who is a pacifist, that was huge for me. I’m comfortable living in that gray area, and that solidified for me that it was okay to be a chaplain.

“I want the most spiritually centered, ethically responsible people fighting our wars. If we can help bring that about, what a beautiful thing.”

Deacon Sarah Quinney, a third-year student from the Diocese of Northern California, was a full-time music therapist working primarily with autistic children when she enrolled at CDSP. “One of the hardest things about coming to seminary was leaving that work full time and feeling like I was not only leaving those families but going somewhere where they do not go and where we don’t have a space for them,” Quinney said. “So I basic­ally said to God, ‘There is no way that all of this work I have done with these kids doesn’t serve some purpose. You have to pave some roads for me.’”

Three years later, on the cusp of her graduation, Quinney has created a eucharistic space for autistic children and their families, and on March 14, she welcomed participants in Youth Ministry Day, sponsored by CDSP and the Diocese of California, to share it with her.

Photo by Sarah Quinney

Jim Naughton

The Eucharist, conducted on a brightly colored parachute, was the spiritual highpoint of a day that organizers and participants said included an unusual amount of honest, sometimes wrenching conversation about the challenges that youth ministers face in providing pastoral care to teens and families struggling with mental illness or significant developmental differences.

“I felt this gathering was really notable for the sense of community,” said Jennifer Snow, the Diocese of California’s associate for discipleship ministries, who helped to organize the event that included sessions on suicide prevention, eating disorders and other mental illnesses. “It seemed to me that people were saying these are the challenges that I am seeing and that our communities are seeing, and maybe there aren’t simple answers to this, but I want to be able to talk about it.”

The diocese and CDSP had jointly sponsored two previous youth ministry days that focused on perennial issues in Christian formation such as confirmation curricula, said Alissa Fencsik, program manager for the seminary’s Center for Anglican Learning and Leadership. This year, however, planners decided to build the program from the grassroots up, consulting with local youth ministers about their most pressing needs.

They heard one particular concern over and over again. “We all feel completely at sea with the pastoral care of kids in crisis, especially mental illness,” said the Rev. Susanna Singer, associate professor of ministry development, and director of the Doctor of Ministry program at CDSP. However, when Singer and Snow began to search for a keynote speaker, they came up empty. “We were surprised to find after much looking that we really couldn’t find anyone,”

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Photo by Sarah Quinney

“I encourage families to bring with them whatever kind of food or drink their child will consume and we will consecrate it.”

— Sarah Quinney

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Snow said. “There seemed to be nobody in progressive theological circles who was working on crisis issues. We asked people at other seminaries, and no one had a suggestion.”

Snow and Singer quickly pivoted away from the search for an outside expert and began to fashion an event that would focus on the concerns and wisdom of youth ministers in California and other nearby dioceses, as well as students, faculty and staff at CDSP. The Rev. L. Ann Hallisey, CDSP’s dean of students, and the Rev. Phil Brochard, rector of All Souls Episcopal Parish in Berkeley, were drafted to give what became a highly interactive keynote presentation. Hallisey has a master’s in clinical counseling, while Brochard has dealt with issues of mental illness and developmental differences in a pastoral setting. Snow enlisted mental health professionals to lead sessions on suicide prevention, eating disorders, cutting and other crises commonly encountered by youth ministers. A panel composed of students, alumni and diocesan staff spoke from personal and professional experience of the struggles faced by children and families in crisis.

Hallisey says the gathering demonstrated that parishes are increasingly open in discussing issues related to mental illness and developmental C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015

differences. “Ten years ago these kinds of things would have been hidden or swept under the rug,” she said. “You may not have known about them unless you were called to a hospital or something. I would like to think that healthy congregations today are a support for families and teens who are dealing with these kinds of challenges.”

When the workshops and panel discussions concluded, participants were invited to sit on the floor, as they were able, and, if they chose, to occupy one of the brightly colored triangles on the parachute that Quinney had spread before a low, circular altar that sat in front of a more traditional altar.

Her work on the Eucharist for autistic children had begun in the Rev. Ruth Meyers’s liturgics class. “One of my assignments each year is to write a Eucharistic prayer for use in a parti­cular context,” said Meyers, CDSP’s academic dean and the HodgesHaynes Professor of Liturgics. “It takes a high level of skill to write a Eucharistic prayer, because it asks you to integrate all you know liturgically, theologically and pastorally.

“Sarah was able to take the learning she had done in seminary and her background as a music therapist and put those together in a way that was liturgically and theologically

• Church Divinity School of the Pacific

sound and also effective in the context she knows well as a therapist.”

The parachute, for example, is part of many therapists’ stock-intrade. “They are used by all kinds of therapists, so it is something that children are very familiar with,” Quinney said. “The space is structured by the colored triangles, and that gives the children boundaries. And in the end you can take it outside and shake out all their crumbs and things.”

Quinney once worked with a child who would eat only pizza and drink only orange juice, and she understood from the outset that a Eucharist for autistic children would need to define “bread and wine” fairly broadly. “I encourage families to bring with them whatever kind of food or drink their child will consume and we will consecrate it,” she said.

“I knew from the start that if I were going to design this to be for the most challenging cases I’d ever had, then that is the direction it had to go.”

Quinney gives children a sense of the structure of the Eucharist by using storyboards that illustrate what is happening at a given moment. Music and movement also play an essential role in the service, she said. Prayers can be sung to simple familiar tunes, such as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and children are encouraged to mimic the motions of the celebrant.

Although no children participated in the Eucharist on Youth Ministry Day, Quinney was encouraged by how the service was received. “We had a lot of parents there who had children on the spectrum and they got back to me with the most validating responses,” she said. “They said, ‘My kid could do this. My kid could do this.’ ” The Eucharist was not only instructive and inspiring, Singer said, it was also emblematic of a gathering at which a community became more aware of its own gifts and abilities. “I think there was a sense of confidence among the participants because we didn’t bring in a rock star,” she said. “We said, ‘Oh, we can do this ourselves.’”

#GivingTuesday supports a scholar by

K at h l e e n M o o r e

On December 2, CDSP students, staff, faculty, alumni and other friends participated in Giving Tuesday, an initiative designed to provide a charitable alternative to the start of its Christmas shopping counterpart, Cyber Monday. Participants took to social media to spread the word. Thanks to this community fundraising effort, CDSP has welcomed its first Giving Tuesday Scholar, Iain Stanford.

Stanford, who earned a master of divinity from the University of Notre Dame, also holds a master of theology from Harvard Divinity School, where he has completed course work toward his ThD. He is a postulant to the priesthood from the Diocese of Oregon, and is working toward his Certificate of Anglican Studies at CDSP. Born and raised a Roman Catholic, Stanford was 40 years old when he left that church in 2004 after a series of “last straws.” He spent that summer visiting churches in Boston and ultimately found a home in the Episcopal Church.

“When I became Episcopal, one of the highlights was being a part of TransEpiscopal at the 2012 General Convention,” Stanford said. “When the vote happened—not only on adding gender identity and gender expression to the non-discrimination canon, but also when the blessings on same-sex marriage happened—taken together, for the first time in my life, I was in a church that accepted all of who I was as a trans man. And to me, that solidified my hopes coming into the Episcopal Church.”

Stanford says he is passionate about creating “what the Rev. Stephanie Spellers would call radical welcoming communities” like The Crossing, a congregation that Spellers started in Boston. “When I was in Boston I was a part of The Crossing, and that is definitely a community that lives radical welcome to the extent that any human community can,” he said.

Stanford is also interested in what he describes as a 21st century religious order. “If I ever get the opportunity, I’d like to start an intentional community —not based on celibacy or gender, but based on the idea that the need for ministry has not diminished one iota,” he said. Stanford has friends among the clergy who work in street ministry and said the church currently

lacks structures to pay for this kind of ministry. As a result, he says, these clergy struggle to support their ministries and themselves.

“One of the things that religious orders did was to offer precisely that kind of support,” Stanford says. “So it’s a community that supports spiritually, but also practically—economically.

Hopefully, you’re able to free people up to be able to do some ministries that in a different setting could not be done. I think this kind of new monasticism merges with the idea of emerging church communities and rebuilding and revitalizing communities.”

While at CDSP, Stanford hopes to resume work on the dissertation he began at Harvard in 2005. Originally focused on same-sex marriage, the project has evolved into a two-part exploration of intimate relationships.

“The first part is talking about how queer and trans bodies have been constructed in Christian discourse, to get to the conclusion that an ethical dimension of relationships isn’t about body parts,” Stanford says. “And the second half looks at queer theology’s discussion around friendship and trying to capture a notion of friendship as the virtue ethic of relationship. So it also inverts the debates right now, in that friendship becomes an overall ethic of relationship, and marriage is one type of relationship under that ethic.”

Stanford is “thrilled to be in Berkeley. One of the opportunities of being a student at CDSP is I get to go and experience different communities in the area,” he says. “It’s a chance for me to get to know what’s available on the West Coast. I have an ability and opportunity just to experience the breadth of what the Episcopal Church can be.

“It’s been a whirlwind. I was only accepted into the postulancy December 3, and I’m still pinching myself. I was working as a certified nursing assistant in Eugene while I was in-process. I was living with family. So I am just eternally grateful to be here.”

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

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Faculty News

Academic Dean Ruth Meyers was a keynote speaker at the AnglicanLutheran National Worship Conference last July in Edmonton, Alberta.

In April she led the Diocese of Oregon’s clergy conference. Meyers has been appointed a consultant to the House of Deputies Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Music for the 2015 General Convention.

Professor Brad Burroughs gave a three-week course on “Gospel Economics” at All Souls Episcopal Parish in Berkeley and led a two-week course at Saint Paul Lutheran Church in Oakland on “Christianity and Political Engagement.”

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Professor Marion Grau gave a pre­­sentation titled “Anointed with Oil: A Messianic Critique of Petroleum Eco­nomies” at the Society of Anglican and Lutheran Theologians, which meets con­currently with the American Academy of Religion. Her new book, “Refiguring Theological Hermeneutics: Hermes, Trickster, Fool,” was published in December by Palgrave Macmillan.

In March, Grau announced that she has accepted the positions of professor of systematic theology and missiology at the Norwegian School of Theology and editor of the Norwegian Journal of Missiology beginning in the fall of 2014. In his announcement letter, President Mark Richardson wrote, “Marion’s impressive research, which includes three books and numerous journal articles, has made substantial contributions to her field and the wider church’s understanding of systematic and constructive theology. You may know that, for the

last several years, Marion has been conducting research on pilgrimage sponsored by the Norwegian Research Foundation’s Ritual and Democracy Project. Her new position will make it possible both to return to Europe fulltime and to extend this important new academic work and the relationships that have developed from it.”

Professor Susanna Singer spent the fall semester on sabbatical at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, the seminary near Oxford with which CDSP has regular student exchanges. She began work on a book on formation for mission in the 21st century, attended conferences on innovative ministries in the Church of England, and forged relationships with skilled ministry practitioners and theological educators. Her work has already borne fruit in a revised and updated “Issues in Ministry” course for graduating students, with a fresh emphasis on mission, discipleship and evangelism.

In February, Professor Singer traveled to the annual Living Stones Collaborative meeting in San Antonio, Texas, for collaboration and conversation with colleagues throughout the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion who are engaged in ministry development.

on June 30 from 7-9 pm for a Seminary Night reception at The Alta Club 100 E. South Temple in Salt Lake City RSVP to ljohnston@cdsp.edu or 510-204-0740.

The Rev. Mary Louise Allen ’86 has accepted the call to be the second rector of St. Martha’s Episcopal Church in Bethany Beach, Delaware.

The Rev. Andrea Baker ’10, a U.S. Army Reserve chaplain, returned home from a seven-month tour of duty in Afghanistan in November.

The Rev. Dominic Barrington, who was an exchange student at CDSP from Ripon College Cuddesdon in 1995, has been named dean of St. James Cathedral in Chicago.

Professor Scott MacDougall will be visiting assistant professor of theology for the 2015-2016 academic year.

MacDougall holds an MA from General Theological Seminary and a PhD in theology from Fordham University, where he has been a teaching fellow since 2010.

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Our Active Alums

“Daily Prayer for All Seasons,” a new single-volume daily office for our time, provides prayers, poetry and meditations that make the Anglican custom of praying the hours accessible to people from all walks of life. Published in August by Church Publishing Inc., the book is organized by liturgical season and includes a one- or two-page service for each of the eight canonical hours. Its prayers present a variety of images of God and use inclusive and expansive language.

Eight years in the making, “Daily Prayer for All Seasons” was compiled by a diverse group of pastors, teachers and spiritual leaders across the Episcopal Church at the direction of General Convention, the church’s governing authority. Members of the CDSP community who contributed to “Daily Prayer for All Seasons” include Academic Dean Ruth Meyers; Professor Emeritus Louis Weil; Paul Fromberg, DMin ’14; Sam Dessórdi Leite, MDiv ’10, DMin ’13; Julia McCray-Goldsmith, CAS ’14; Ernesto Medina, MDiv ’88 and Julia Wakelee-Lynch MDiv ’03.

The Rev. Lyn Zill Briggs ’06 published “God’s Word, My Voice: A Lectionary for Children” with Church Publishing Inc. Julia McCray Goldsmith, CAS ’14, endorsed the book, writing, “Instilling a heartfelt relationship with Holy Scripture is one of the primary tasks of the Christian educator, and this volume should be one of our primary resources.”

The Very Rev. Justin P. Chapman ’08 was installed as the 19th dean of the Cathedral of Our Merciful Saviour in Faribault, Minnesota, in November.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Droste ’00 accepted a call as canon for congrega­ tional development and mission in the Diocese of New Jersey in June.

The Rev. Daniel Green ’05 has been called as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Petaluma, California.

The Rev. Phillip A. Jackson ’94 was called as vicar of Trinity Wall Street in February.

The Very Rev. Paul J. LebensEnglund ’04, was installed as the seventh dean of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Minneapolis in November.

The Rev. Canon Linda Potter ’94 became interim rector of St. Mark’s in Medford, Oregon, in March.

The Rev. Morris V. Samuel Jr. ’59 was profiled in the Scranton TimesTribune for his participation in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march. Samuel was in charge of the security detail and had to defend marchers against the allegations of Congressman William Dickinson of Alabama.

The Rev. Matthew Thomas ­Seddon ’12 was called as priest-incharge of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Austin in August.

The Rev. Jay Walton ’14 was ordained to the priesthood at ­ Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral in January.

The Rev. Monica Whitaker ’14 ­ partici­pated in the Association of Theo­logical Schools “Consultation for Students & Recent Graduates of the Preparing for 2040 Schools” in March.

In Memoriam The Rev. Malcolm Boyd ’54 died on February 27, 2015.

The Rev. Dirk Rinehart Pidcock ’66 died on September 18, 2014.

The Rev. Giles Lee Asbury ’73 died March 12, 2015.

The Rev. Dr. Charles Ingram ’84 died on October 23, 2014.

Mary Kimball, CDSP trustee from 2006-2014, died February 3, 2015.

Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

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Building a

DURABLE FUTURE Today I am an Episcopal priest and the newest member of CDSP’s ­executive team, but more than 30 years ago, I was a Roman Catholic priest in Chicago serving as a pastor in two inner city parishes.

by

The Rev. Bob Rybicki

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Director of Operations and Personnel Management

Back then, my parish was part of a cluster of inner city parishes in the Englewood neighborhood. We were faced with declining congregations, underutilized buildings, accumulating deficits, and the inefficient use of personnel and facilities. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin asked us to begin a year-long planning process that would help us to respond to these challenges.

The phrase “planning process,” which sounds benign today, sounded back then to some of my parishioners like a code word for “merger.” The cardinal had charged us to plan for change, but initially, people held on even tighter to what they already knew and what they already had: buildings, stained glass windows, pews, and other reminders of a past that seemed more comfortable and more secure than the future was likely to be.

But as we pushed ahead with our planning and new things began to happen, the people in Englewood had new things to hold on to and to rally around. When people could see that our planning was going to create new opportunities to grow both spiritually and socio-economically, they were able to let go of the buildings that had previously been the touchstones of their community’s identity. The tipping point came when people understood and believed that if we were going to close some buildings, we wouldn’t do so just to put a short-term Band-Aid on the neighborhood’s problems. We’d close the buildings to create something new, something that would be financially viable for many years to come.

C R O S S I N G S Spring 2015 • Church Divinity School of the Pacific

Once the new identity we were creating together began to take shape, we were able to close facilities in poor condition, rent out building spaces, consolidate programs and buildings, and merge administrative services.

This may all sound very corporate, but it was more than that. It was clergy and lay people together creating a future that could be sustained rather than letting the future sink us deeper into debt and irrelevance.

Today at CDSP and across the Episcopal Church, we face many of the same challenges.

We need to use our human and financial resources wisely, and to do so, we need to engage in a solid planning process that involves all stakeholders. This approach will help us to make good decisions, but here on Holy Hill, solid planning also serves another purpose. By involving students at every stage, our process will be a learning opportunity for our students, who are very likely to face similar challenges in the congregations and communities they serve after graduation. And, of course, we gain the wisdom of their voices as we go forward.

As I consider the work before us, I’ve been remembering that back in Englewood, our work didn’t stop when the buildings were closed or the programs were consolidated. The change began when we went out in our neighborhoods and asked people, “What do you need?”

Back then, the answer—strange as it seemed to me at the time—was a street fair.

But we listened to the people and threw a party. In the end, that fair helped create community, provided us with a way to engage with our neighbors, and invited people into the church.

Since I arrived at CDSP in February, I’ve been especially heartened to notice the willingness of the faculty and board to include students in conversations about the life of the seminary and the ways in which we are preparing for change in our facilities, our curriculum, and our common life. We haven’t yet planned a street fair, but we often ask, “What do you need?” Just as it did back in Chicago, that question helps create a sense of shared identity and community. It opens up conversation that makes us more open to change and more willing to experiment.

Our work in Englewood created a new and vibrant community. Here at CDSP, we’re on the same path to ensuring our viability for years to come.

ALLY

An

for alums

The Rev. Laurel Johnston ’06 has come full circle in her ministry, and last fall, she landed back on Holy Hill.

That’s when Johnston, a seasoned development executive, became CDSP’s director of alumni affairs and major gifts officer. She is based in Thousand Oaks, California, outside of Los Angeles, and spends about a quarter of her time in Berkeley.

Before seminary, she worked in development for CARE and the American Red Cross. “Through my studies at CDSP—principally in scripture study, homiletics and theology— I began to see my past work in the context of ministry, spiritual practice and building God’s reign,” she says.

“Framing the work of fundraising in a theological, scriptural and spiritual context provided a solid platform for me to serve in the ministry of stewardship.”

Since receiving her MDiv in 2006 and being ordained in 2007, Johnston has served as a curate at St. John’s

Episcopal Church in Aptos, California, as program officer for stewardship for the Episcopal Church, and as executive director of TENS, the Episcopal Network for Stewardship.

“I began my work in stewardship in September 2008, at the height of the Great Recession,” Johnston said. “Not surprisingly, the crisis pushed congregations to overcome some inhibitions about talking about money in real and relevant ways, and more importantly, it opened up authentic conversations about how money is deeply connected to our spiritual lives.” During this time, Johnston created a three-part video conversation with eminent scholar Walter Brueggemann, “Companions on the Way,” that is available on the Episcopal Church’s website.

Whether she’s working from northern or southern California, much of Johnston’s time is spent making connections with CDSP alums across the church. “I’m excited about

engaging with alums and providing various forums in which they can share stories of how CDSP shaped their ministry,” Johnston said. “As an alumna, I give to CDSP out of gratitude for the well-rounded and well-grounded theological education I received. I trust many of our alums give specifically for this reason and want to ensure that CDSP continues in its mission to raise up ministry leaders for service to God’s church.”

Johnston, who is a hiker and “a life-long beginning tennis player,” can be reached at ljohnston@cdsp.edu or 510-204-0740.

!

“Besides grounding me in scripture, history and theology, CDSP made me more aware of the changes happening in the church. I felt like the faculty and the community were doing their best to grapple with those realities and not just pass on an antiquarian vision of what we are called to do.”

— T h e R e v. D a n i e l G r e e n ’ 0 5

Read more about how CDSP prepared Daniel for challenging ministry at cdsp.edu/giving/annual-fund or in the letter from President Mark Richardson recently mailed to you. Please support CDSP as we prepare leaders for the Episcopal Church of the future by sending your annual fund gift to: Church Divinity School of the Pacific Annual Fund 2451 Ridge Road • Berkeley, CA 94709-1211

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Church Divinity School of the Pacific • Spring 2015 C R O S S I N G S

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