Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Tuesday, October 16, 2007. The Church calendar remembers Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, Bishops and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury.
* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm * Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm) * Today in History: On this day in 1812, Henry Martyn, Anglican missionary and Bible translator in India, died in Tokat, Asia Minor.
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TEACHING
St. Margaret's lecturer calls on Episcopal Church to 'redefine vocation'
Oppression must be confronted to achieve communion, transformation, Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook says
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[Episcopal News Service] Despite having their vocations discounted and stymied, "one of the great legacies of Episcopal women throughout history was their ability to be persistent, to hold the church accountable to the people that constitute it," the Rev. Dr. Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook told the fourth annual St. Margaret's Lecture October 12 at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (http://www.cdsp.edu) (CDSP) in Berkeley, California.
"For all the attempts to diminish or dismiss their vocations, women still managed to profoundly impact those around them precisely because their lives had so much meaning," said Kujawa-Holbrook, academic dean and the Suzanne Radley Hiatt Professor of Feminist Pastoral Theology and Church History at the Episcopal Divinity School (http://www.eds.edu) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Her lecture, titled "Deeper Joy: Women and Vocation in the 20th Century Episcopal Church," stemmed from reflections on the research into vocational formation and women's history which resulted in a book of the same name that Kujawa-Holbrook recently co-edited.
"The study of women and vocation outside the institutional church, reminds us that indeed most Christians are not called to work for the church professionally. Rather, they are called.to exercise their ministry in daily life," Kujawa-Holbrook told more than 100 people in attendance.
Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90993_ENG_HTM.htm
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Catalyst: "God's Ambassadors: A History of the Christian Clergy in America" from Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 356 pages, hardcover, c. 2007, $30
[Source: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.] In God's Ambassadors, E. Brooks Holifield masterfully traces the history of America's Christian clergy from the 17th to the 21st century, analyzing the changes in practice and authority that have transformed the clerical profession.
Challenging one-sided depictions of decline in clerical authority, Holifield locates the complex story of the clergy within the context not only of changing theologies but also of transitions in American culture and society. The result is a thorough social history of the profession that also takes seriously the theological presuppositions that have informed clerical activity. With alternating chapters on Protestant and Catholic clergy, the book permits sustained comparisons between the two dominant Christian traditions in American history.
At the same time, God's Ambassadors depicts a vocation that has remained deeply ambivalent regarding the professional status marking the other traditional learned callings in the American workplace. Changing expectations about clerical education, as well as enduring theological questions, have engendered a debate about the professional ideal that has distinguished the clerical vocation from such fields as law and medicine.
The American clergy from the past four centuries constitute a colorful, diverse cast of characters who have, in ways both obvious and obscure, helped to shape the tone of American culture. For a well-rounded narrative of their story told by a master historian, God's Ambassadors is the book to read.
To order: Episcopal Books and Resources, online at http://www.episcopalbookstore.org or call 800-903-5544 -- or visit your local Episcopal bookseller, http://www.episcopalbooksellers.org