Episcopal Life Online Daybook -- Today is Tuesday, November 6, 2007. The Church calendar remembers William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (1881-1944).
* 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 1836, Herbert Beaver, the first Anglican priest in Oregon, arrived at Ft. Vancouver.
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TEACHING
Episcopal seminaries' enrollment statistics show varying trends
By Mary Frances Schjonberg
[Episcopal News Service] The average age of people enrolled in the seminaries associated with the Episcopal Church continues to range from the high 30s to the mid 40s.
Episcopal News Service contacted all 11 seminaries this fall, asking them for specific information about their incoming classes, as well as their student bodies as a whole. Not all of the information requested is compiled in the same way from seminary to seminary, and thus apples-to-apples comparisons are not always possible.
It is also worth noting that most seminaries now offer degree and certificate programs beyond the traditional Master of Divinity degree sought by most people in the ordination process.
Most seminaries showed enrollments ranging near to what they had experienced in recent years. Whether male or female students form the majority varies from seminary to seminary.
Bexley Hall, based in Columbus, Ohio, and with a branch campus in Rochester, New York, and Trinity Episcopal School of Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, did not respond to ENS' requests for information.
Berkeley Divinity School at Yale told ENS it was unable to split out its enrollment statistics from those of Yale Divinity School.
Summaries of the statistics Episcopal Life received in response to its requests are available at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_91624_ENG_HTM.htm
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Catalyst: "A History of Global Anglicanism" from Cambridge University Press, by Kevin Ward, 362 pages, paperback, c. 2006, $35.99
[Source: Cambridge University Press] Anglicanism can be seen as irredeemably English. In this book Kevin Ward questions that assumption. He explores the character of the African, Asian, Oceanic, Caribbean and Latin American churches which are now a majority in the world-wide communion, and shows how they are decisively shaping what it means to be Anglican. While emphasizing the importance of colonialism and neo-colonialism for explaining the globalization of Anglicanism, Ward does not focus predominantly on the Churches of Britain and N. America; nor does he privilege the idea of Anglicanism as an 'expansion of English Christianity'. At a time when Anglicanism faces the danger of dissolution Ward explores the historically deep roots of non-Western forms of Anglicanism, and the importance of the diversity and flexibility which has so far enabled Anglicanism to develop cohesive yet multiform identities around the world.
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