Nearly five years of work came to fruition quietly in late February when the legal federation between Bexley Hall and Seabury Western Theological Seminary became final. The new entity, which will be inaugurated on April 27 in Indianapolis, is formally called the Bexley Hall Seabury Western Theological Seminary Federation, Inc. For now it will be known simply as Bexley Seabury.

Beginning on May 15, the federation will have a single board of trustees that will include continuing members from each seminary’s board and ten new members. “Thankfully, many of the leaders who oversaw the birth of the federation have agreed to stay on, while our new members complement their skills and experience with fresh perspectives and ideas,” said Roger Ferlo, Bexley Seabury president. “I’m grateful to Alan Gates and Wendy Lane who chaired the nominating committee, the committee’s members, and the ten people who agreed to join us at this pivotal time. Bexley Seabury has just the board it needs to lead us into the future.”

a Holy Week reflection by President Roger Ferlo

How do you imagine resurrection?

Frankly, the Gospels aren’t much help.  We know a lot about the before and after of Jesus’ resurrection, but precious little of the during.  The Gospel writers balk at describing an event that no one witnessed.   Once Joseph of Arimathea gives the go-ahead to use his pre-purchased resting space, we are told very little. True, Matthew has a story about the Pharisees arranging with Pilate to put guards at the entrance, thus preventing anyone from breaking the seal, stealing the body, faking a resurrection.  In a way, that reported episode is the exception that proves the rule.  On the actual mechanics of resurrection the lips of the evangelists are as sealed as the entrance to the tomb. 

Using sight, sound, and the study of the Word to encounter the Spirit

Reimagining Scripture for Those of Our Faith, Their Faith & No Faith

Forget about the black coffee and energy drinks. Those attending the free Friday afternoon workshops at the Restoring the Biblical Imagination event need not worry about suffering after-lunch lethargy. The two offerings — A Muslim, a Jew and a Christian Walk into a Cafe:  Building Relationships through Scriptural Study and The Bible for "Nones:" Sights and Sounds of Scripture — will fully engage participants' eyes, ears, minds and hearts as they experience new ways to see, hear, understand and express their faith.

On April 26 and 27, faculty, staff, board members, alumni and friends of Bexley Hall and Seabury Western seminaries will gather at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis to inaugurate the new Bexley Hall Seabury Western Seminary Federation. We will be doing so at a time when seminary education in the Episcopal Church, as in all the mainstream denominations, is under tremendous stress.

The New Year 2013 magazine of In Trust, an organization committed to strengthening boards and governance in North American theological schools, profiles the Seabury and Bexley federation.

The story is titled "Coming to the Table: Building on a shared missionary heritage, two Episcopal seminaries carefully chart a way forward."

Read the article.

In the early 1970s, the National Gallery in London had just purchased a small, exquisite portrait attributed to Rogier van der Weyden, the great 15th century Flemish artist.

It's a picture of a scholar, dressed in furs against the cold. He is hunched over at an odd angle in three quarter profile, as if he were just about to tumble out of the picture frame. He holds a parchment manuscript in his hands. He has beautiful hands, long-fingered and elegant, a triumph of the artist's draughtsmanship and painterly skill.

The artist has positioned the document so that we viewers can see what the scholar sees, lettering so finely detailed and focused that it's almost legible. But it's not, any more than the man's own quizzical expression. The document rivets his attention. His eyes are large, deep, hooded. He stares with a gaze so intense that you can see the veins throbbing at his temple. At the corner of his mouth, you can see a small crowfoot wrinkle, almost like a scar. We can see him, but he won't see us. He is oblivious to us as our puzzled gaze invades his private space. It feels uncomfortable to look so closely at him, almost an invasion. He is at once fully exposed, and impassively removed.

I have been attending a lot of conferences recently. It was both a joy and a challenge to address the diocesan conventions of Indianapolis, Southern Ohio, and Chicago. It was a joy to stand before large groups of more or less happy and excited Episcopalians. There was much affection expressed for their bishops, all three of whom seemed genuinely to enjoy their jobs. Seeing this was a welcome contrast to the conventional wisdom among Episcopal clergy my age, which is that being a bishop is the worst job in the church, and that most bishops spend a lot of their time thinking about early retirement. This might have been the case during the culture wars and ideological schisms that roiled the church in the late nineties and early 2000's, but these dioceses and these bishops appeared to be in this business for the long haul, and to relish the prospect. There was another good thing I noticed about these gatherings. The deputies seemed genuinely to like each other, and to love the church. This came through in several ways—in the camaraderie of the various meals taken together, in the vibrancy of worship, and the sheer civility of open conversations on issues that mattered deeply to people. For the first time in a long time, it seems safe for church people to disagree.

"Sometimes I feel like a motherless child," will be presented on Saturday, Dec. 1 at 5:00 pm at St. Peter's Episcopal Church at 621 W. Belmont in Chicago.

Seabury Professor John Dally also serves as Artist-in-Residence at St. Peter's Church in Chicago.  Their World AIDS Day performance to benefit Bonaventure House, Alexian Brothers' AIDS ministry in Lakeview, is now a four-year tradition.  John has worked with residents of Bonaventure House to develop experience-based monologues for this year's commemoration around themes of lament, journey, and home.  Members of St. Peter's, many of whom are professional musicians, will supply the musical reflections.

A flyer is attached

 World AIDS Day 2012

A sermon preached by President Roger Ferlo at the Diocese of Indianapolis's Convention on October 26:

When Bishop Cate invited me to give this sermon, the honor was great but my trepidation was greater. I'm a native New Yorker, born upstate, long resident in New York City, and now newly arrived in Chicago. Until settling in the Midwest, most of what I knew about Indiana I learned from driving through Gary behind the moving truck. Clearly this would not do.

So I boned up on a little history—Wikipedia to the rescue. And what I learned turned out to be oddly resonant with the text of today's reading from Ephesians, and with the theme and purpose of this great gathering, assembled at a signal moment in the history of this diocese and of our church, a moment of great unity and joy in the diocese of Indianapolis, and of great division in our national life.

What is the vocation of our new Bexley Hall Seabury Western federation? Just before our recent, historic board meeting, the combined faculty of Bexley Hall and Seabury met for two days in Columbus with the Very Rev. Martha Horne, dean and president emerita of Virginia Theological Seminary, to consider this question.