CDSP… Everywhere: New seminary approach has Pentecost parallels

During the 2022 Summer Intensive, we had a contest among the students to rename their program. It was then known as the “Low Residency” or “Low Res” program. This title struck many as rather demeaning.There is nothing “low” about these students except for the fact that they are on campus for one month instead of nine! I am pleased to say that the winning suggestion was “Hybrid Program,” thus rightly advancing their status from “low” to “high” (pardon the pun).

There were other good suggestions as well. One that was particularly appealing to me was “CDSP Everywhere.”

I thought about that title a lot when we made our January announcement that CDSP will be moving to an all-hybrid format. This change will make it possible for students everywhere to earn their MDiv from CDSP through online instruction, with occasional in-person sessions. We are beginning a new chapter in the history of the school in which our theological education will no longer take place just in Berkeley, but literally everywhere. There is an important biblical precedent for this shift. In the history of Israel, it was the Temple in Jerusalem, a physical location, where God’s Spirit or shekinah was believed to dwell. One had to go to Jerusalem to worship and learn.

For Christians, that changed with Pentecost. When the disciples gathered in the Upper Room, the Holy Spirit descended upon them as a living community. The shekinah was no longer in the Temple or any singular physical place; it was with everyone, everywhere.

With the destruction of the physical temple in 70 CE, Jewish rabbis had a similar insight: God was no longer confined to the Holy Mount. God could be found wherever Torah was taught, in a synagogue, or even at home. Again, God was not limited to a special location.

All of God was everywhere. All of God is everywhere.

As scripture says,“The Church of Jesus Christ is a spiritual temple made of living stones … being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

These biblical insights are helpful touchstones for those of us living and working in another kind of temple, Holy Hill in Berkeley, CA.

In the past we have thought of CDSP as a place. We are now called to think of it as a people. This place, our campus and buildings, have of course been an important part of our spiritual lives. This place is beloved by our faculty, staff, and alums who worshiped together in the chapel, enjoyed fellowship in Denniston Commons, and enjoyed late night theological discussions in Parsons Hall. So too was the Temple Mount beloved by the people of Israel. Just read the Psalms! But the communities that followed came to realize that God’s Spirit didn’t reside solely there. It was present in the lives and hearts of the people of God. The tongues of fire didn’t just burn on sacrificial pyres of the Temple Mount. They danced upon the heads of all believers.

CDSP is taking a quantum leap.Thanks to modern technology and transportation, we are no longer the seminary of only Province VIII of the Episcopal Church. Nor is our community limited to the physical confines of Parsons or Gibbs Hall; our teaching, to Classrooms A, B, and Tucson; our research, to the Flora Hewlett Library; or our worship, to All Saints Chapel.

We are truly “CDSP Everywhere”: in the training and enrichment of clergy and lay leaders, in curacies connected to congregations throughout the country, and in the interactions of diverse communities. May the holy fire of Pentecost that inspired the foundation of our school more than a hundred years ago continue to light up the hearts of all our people—everywhere.