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Spencer Reece: "For All of You Are One"

Our Little Roses

Connections that Transcend Cultures

People and Places

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The Spring 2014 Issue is now available!

ARTICLES

Editor's Notes

Richard Geoffrey Leggett

Ressourcement and Mission

Alan Kreider

Communion and Knowledge in the Canons of the Episcopal Church

William Glass

Whoever Comes to Me: Open Table, Missional Church, and the Body of Christ

Martha Smith Tatarnic

Scripture, Tradition, and Ressourcement: Toward an Anglican Fundamental Liturgical Theology

Tyler Sampson

PRACTICING THEOLOGY

For All of You Are One

Spencer Reece

ON POETRY AND THEOLOGY

Repurposing the Body: Sacramentality and the Poetics of Discipleship

Daniel Wade McClain

POETRY

When Jesus Was Grown

Gail White

Father Oliver Herbel

Timothy Murphy

The Tree Felled, The Tree Raised

Brett Foster

My Death

Kevin Hart

Maundy Thursday

Harry Moore

Secrets of Story

Robert Manaster

REVIEW ARTICLE

Translating the

Roman Missal: An Episcopal Reflection on the Process and the Product

Patrick Malloy

BOOK REVIEWS

Rosemary P. Carbine and Kathleen J. Dolphin, eds., Women, Wisdom, and Witness: Engaging Contexts in Conversation

reviewed by
Cynthia S. W. Crysdale

Kelly Cherry, The Life and Death of Poetry: Poems

reviewed by
Marjorie Maddox

Cynthia Crysdale and Neil Ormerod, Creator God, Evolving World

reviewed by
Andrew Davison

Edward Feld, Joy, Despair, and Hope: Reading Psalms

reviewed by
Donn F. Morgan

Zachary Guiliano and Charles M. Stang, eds., The Open Body: Essays in Anglican Ecclesiology

reviewed by
William H. Petersen

Dominic Keech, The Anti-Pelagian Christology of Augustine of Hippo, 396-430

reviewed by
Joseph Lenow

William M. Kondrath, Facing Feelings in Faith Communities

reviewed by
Barbara J. Blodgett

Kimberly Bracken Long, Feasting on the Word Worship Companion: Liturgies for Year C., Volume 1, Advent through Pentecost

reviewed by
Lynne McNaughton

Jean-Luc Marion, translated by Jeffrey L. Kosky, In the Self's Place: The Approach of Saint Augustine

reviewed by
Andreas Nordlander

Ian S. Markham, J. Barney Hawkins IV, Justyn Terry, and Leslie Nu�ez Steffensen, eds., The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Anglican Communion

reviewed by
Jesse Zink

Michon M. Matthiesen, Sacrifice as Gift: Eucharist, Grace, and Contemplative Prayer in Maurice de la Taille

reviewed by
Henry Hart

Alister McGrath, C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet

and

Alister E. McGrath, The Intellectual World of C. S. Lewis

reviewed by
Molly James

Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda, Resisting Structural Evil: Love as Ecological- Economic Vocation

reviewed by
Nathan Crawford

John Perry, The Pretenses of Loyalty: Locke, Liberal Theory, and American Political Theology

reviewed by
Joseph Antus

Cheryl M. Peterson, Who is the Church? An Ecclesiology for the Twenty-First Century

reviewed by
Peter Schmiechen

John Ridland, Happy in an Ordinary Thing

reviewed by
Paul J. Willis

Dennis E. Smith and Hal Taussig, eds., Meals in the Early Christian World: Social Formation, Experimentation, and Conflict at the Table

reviewed by
Harry O. Maier

Raymond Tomkinson, Called to Love: Discernment, Decision Making and Ministry

reviewed by

Elizabeth Marie Melchionna

James F. Turrell, Celebrating the Rites of Initiation: A Practical Ceremonial Guide for Clergy and Other Liturgical Ministers

reviewed by
M. Milner Seifert

Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

reviewed by

Richard A. Burnett

Seminaries Abroad Gift Program (SAGP)

For almost 25 years the ATR has been received free of charge by a growing number of seminaries, theological schools, libraries, and Christian communities around the world. Please consider giving the gift of the ATR to those whose limited financial resources cannot meet their hunger for theological study and investigation. SAGP subscriptions may be given in honor or memory of colleagues, friends, or family members, and are a significant way for parishes to support much-needed educational opportunities through their outreach budgets. The list of available recipients can be viewed here. Thank you.

Newsletter editor:

Deacon Vicki K. Black

Spring 2014 Issue Available Now

richard leggett The Anglican Theological Review is, to my knowledge, one of the few theological journals that includes poetry. In this issue we offer two essays with a poetic theme: one a poetic reflection on practicing theology, the other an essay on poetry and theology. In the first, Spencer Reece opens a window into his experience of becoming a Christian--even after becoming a priest. What I particularly value about Reece's essay is the implicit reminder that "poetry" has its root in the Greek word poesis, meaning "making" or, dare I say, "creating." Poetry is a literary act of creating a world, perhaps even an identity. If poetry made Reece a priest, then surely the poesis of ministry in Honduras forged his Christian identity. Daniel Wade McClain provides a more discursive theological foundation for this notion of poetry as a sacramental discipline of discipleship, describing poetry as a means of transformation in which poetry becomes as much a sacrament as Christian initiation or the eucharist.

Even though this Spring 2014 issue was not intended to be a thematic issue, the question "What role does tradition play in our navigation of the currents of contemporary life?" runs below the surface. In the opening essay, Alan Kreider leads us on an exploration of the contemporary movement of ressourcement, a return to the earliest sources of the Christian movement in order to discover whether those sources can provide us with wisdom for Christians in the twenty-first century. The winner of the Hefling Student Essay competition, Tyler Sampson, follows Kreider's lead in an exploration of the benefits of ressourcement in shaping an Anglican liturgical theology, with Yves Congar as his guide.

Two other offerings also examine ressourcement from the viewpoint of the worship of the Christian community: Patrick Malloy reviews two recent works on liturgical revision in the Roman Catholic communion, while Martha Smith Tatarnic, writing from the Canadian context, revisits the continuing discussion of the practice of the "Open Table." William Glass's essay on "Communion and Knowledge in the Canons of the Episcopal Church" suggests that canon law is akin to a rule of life and, as such, canonical legality must be discussed within the total pattern of the Anglican way of life, as a means by which we discern the mind of God for the church in a given time, place, and circumstance.

I trust that you find this issue of the Review one that touches your hearts, minds, and souls. Surely this is what good theology does.

--Richard Geoffrey Leggett

Editor in Chief

"For All of You Are One"

an excerpt from Spencer Reece's

essay on life in Honduras

Honduras made me a Christian. I am a little afraid to admit that to you. But it is the truth. A delayed reaction if ever there was one because I was already ordained by the time the plane landed on the tarmac in San Pedro Sula. Yet the truth is the collar was fastened to my neck before I felt I knew much about Christ. Surely there were events that inched me toward Christ: my cousin was murdered, five classmates died of AIDS, I had read poems to patients in hospice, I had gone to seminary twice and read the Gospels. Grief carved my faith, books had informed it, but I was a little green about how to execute my faith. I was ready to be a messenger. But what was my message? Who was this Christ that was sending me?. . .

In Honduras, Christ, like the sun, pressed close on me. Most find the heat nearly unbearable, and by two o'clock everyone finds shade and waits it out until five or six in the evening. Honduras is a country of two hundred thousand orphans. Our Little Roses, where I lived and worked, was the only all-girl orphanage in the country. Girls had been much discounted in Honduran culture, and twenty-five years before the founding of this home, the girls were sent to the state penitentiary for the inmates to look after. A judge, opposed to the founding of the home, in its early days had said to the founder: "If you open this home where will get our maids and prostitutes?" Injustice pressed on us, too. And if you smell injustice Christ is never far from that; Christ was moving toward me but I could not see it yet. . . .

In 2012-2013, Spencer Reece won the Fulbright to go to Honduras and collect an anthology of poems by the schoolchildren on the grounds of Our Little Roses. This essay will serve as his introduction to the forthcoming anthology, tentatively titled Hope & Fury: Children's Voices from the Murder Capital of the World, which is co-edited by Richard Blanco and will be published in tandem with a documentary film to be released in 2015 or 2016.

The complete text of Spencer Reece's Practicing Theology essay in the Spring 2014 issue, "For All of You Are One," is available here .

Our Little Roses

transforming lives for girls in Honduras

"What happens to little girls who are abandoned, abused,

or orphaned? And why are there only homes for boys?"

Our Little Roses began with these simple questions, and for over 25 years, it has been dedicated to rescuing girls from situations of risk and turning them into successful women in a loving, caring, Christian home. It is the first residential home for girls in Honduras dedicated to transforming broken lives into productive members of the society. The vision of Our Little Roses is to prepare girls who were once destitute, abandoned, and abused for the future, to be integral members of society by creating an atmosphere of love, self-reliance, and respect, and by providing the best educational opportunities that will ensure their success to break the cycle of poverty, abuse, and illiteracy.

Beginning something that is new, "never done before," and counter-cultural requires a total commitment and focus to bring the objective to reality. I have often been asked how I was able to begin this ministry, especially with little local and government support and cooperation. My answer is, only with God's help and strength, through prayer and total dedication--and a determination to see the word "no" as more of a challenge than an answer. Thankfully, with my husband's support and the encouragement of countless others, we were able to make the impossible a reality in Honduras.

-- Diana Frade,
founder of Our Little Roses Ministries

Connections that Transcend Cultures

experiencing true friendship at Our Little Roses

Members of our parish, St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Coral Gables, Florida, have been visiting Our Little Roses for 8 years, and it has been a transformational experience. Young people from our parish have regularly participated in this annual mission trip over the years, often with a parent, and they have come home with a deeper awareness of the need to care for others, of the randomness of privilege, of the connections we share that transcend time, place, language, and economics. Every person who has gone to Honduras thought they were going to help, to serve. In the end, they received more than they gave, and left knowing that it is not what you have, but what you give that matters most. The girls at Our Little Roses have no "things" to give, but they have everything to give in terms of love and friendship.

The girls at Our Little Roses are much like girls anywhere else: they laugh and cry, they share and fight. But most of all, they have an unquenchable need for love, and a need to know that they are loved within the walls of their home. When the people of St. Philip's spend even one week there, they know the love of the Christian community in a very tangible way. It is "loving our neighbor as ourselves" at work, even when that neighbor lives far away.

-- Maribeth Conroy, Rector,

Saint Philip's Episcopal Church & School, Coral Gables, Florida

People and Places

news from friends of the ATR

Joy McDougall has published an essay entitled, "The Bondage of the I/Eye?: A Transnational Feminist Wager for the Doctrine of Sin" in the anthology Reimagining with Christian Doctrines: Responding to Global Gender Injustices. The volume is edited by Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Jenny Daggers, and was published by Palgrave Macmillan earlier this year.

Rob Slocum's Seeing & Believing: Meditations for Faith was published by Forward Movement in November 2013. This devotional journal is a collection of 53 images that are descriptions of an experience or story, and can provide verbal "snapshots" of meaning as a starting point for reflections of faith. The study was inspired by Austin Farrer, who states that new faith calls for new images of faith, and that the Christian revolution was essentially a transformation of images. Each reflection on an image is accompanied by a photograph, along with questions to encourage the reader to connect the reflection to personal experience.

This fall Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski will begin teaching at Seminary of the Southwest as Associate Professor of Church History. Dr. Joslyn-Siemiatkoski received his Ph.D. from Boston College in 2005. He is the author of Christian Memories of the Maccabean Martyrs and is currently working on A Christian Commentary of Mishnah Avot. He previously served as Associate Professor of Church History at CDSP in Berkeley, California.

Robert MacSwain's recent essay, "'Scripture in the Toolshed': A Report from North America," has been included in the collection of essays The Bible in the Life of the Church, edited by Clare Amos. This volume is part of the Canterbury Studies in Anglicanism series, and was published by Canterbury Press / Morehouse Publishing in 2013.

C. K. Robertson

The General Theological Seminary has announced that C. K. (Chuck) Robertson will be among the three distinguished leaders of the Episcopal Church who will receive its Doctor of Divinity degree, honoris causa, to be conferred at the 192st Commencement ceremonies in New York City on May 14, 2014.

In March, Sofia Starnes was Visiting Poet at Virginia Wesleyan College, in Norfolk, Virginia, where she gave a poetry reading and visited with the students. During the Festival of the Book, held later that month in Charlottesville, Virginia, she participated in a panel on "Poetry and the Community" and was Keynote Presenter in the program "Writing and the Community: A Vital Fusion." Sofia was featured poet at Michigan State University's Residential College in Arts and Humanities in April, where she hosted an informal conversation on poetry in the afternoon for the community, and in the evening offered a reading of her work at the RCAH Theater.

Dan Westberg continues his work on a book-length argument for universal health care. In the fall he gave a talk in Madison, Wisconsin on the Swedish health care system, and wrote two articles in the Living Church on universal health care as a Christian ethical challenge. During Lent he made a couple of presentations on the passion music of J S Bach at St Paul's Episcopal Church in Milwaukee, and was also asked to speak to the same-sex marriage issue from the conservative point of view at St Paul's K Street in Washington, D.C. Dan is working on the final revisions of a new introduction to moral theology which will be published in 2015 by InterVarsity Press.

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