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At a joint meeting on October 3-5, the boards of Bexley Hall and Seabury Western Theological Seminary approved the creation of a federation to unite the two seminaries into a single institution.

"This was a historic moment," said the Rev. Roger Ferlo, who became president of both schools on July 1. "What Bexley and Seabury have done is unprecedented in the world of theological education and will serve as a model for many other schools. I applaud the daring and courage that both boards demonstrated during this long and fruitful process."

Under the terms of the agreement, Bexley and Seabury will remain separate entities but be united by a parent corporation that will be led by a single board of trustees and president. This model allows the endowments and academic accreditation of each school to remain intact while providing for unified faculty, governance and budgeting.

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.

 

Over many years serving on university and seminary faculties, I have learned that faculty members constitute the heart and soul of the educational enterprise. Especially at our seminaries, faculty are important not only for what they teach but also for who they are. As so many of our alumni attest, their teachers at Bexley Hall and Seabury played a key role in their students' intellectual and spiritual formation. This is a legacy we cherish, and one that will continue. But the radical changes and restructuring of the past few years of our shared history have forced us to re-examine our own vocations as theological educators, as well as the vocation of the institutions we are committed to serve.

 

By the time you read this, the Chicago teachers’ strike might be over.  But it might not, and the way in which these events have unfolded gives pause to educators everywhere, especially those of us whose job it is to help shape faithful leaders. It was heartening to see so many local churches step up to offer programs for children (and harried working parents) who had no place else to turn. Less heartening was the confrontational rhetoric from leaders on both sides that almost immediately turned vicious and personal. All this in the midst of a national election where personality trumps fact, and where personal attack based on race or religion takes precedence over reasoned argument when push comes, as it does almost inevitably, to shove.

This fall, seven new students began their studies at Bexley. In the next several months, we'll introduce all of them. This month, meet Jennifer Oldstone-Moore and Peter Pond:

Jennifer Oldstone-Moore

I am a postulant from the Diocese of Southern Ohio, sponsored by Christ Church Springfield. I'm married and have three high school and college aged daughters. I teach in the Religion Department of Wittenberg University. My undergraduate majors were in Religion and Art History at Swarthmore College, and my graduate degrees from the Divinity School at the University of Chicago.  I've been thinking about religion in formal settings for a long time now!  This thinking has always been accompanied with seeking and with living the tradition as fully as possible.

My call to ordained ministry has grown out of many aspects of my life, most importantly my call to education, my interest in moral formation in children, and the richness of personal growth in family life. I've taught about the religions and cultures of East Asia, especially China and Japan, for many years, and I've found Asian religious traditions both provocative and formative. I've also been engaged with an emerging pedagogy called contemplative education, which is a wonderful resource in and out of the classroom, and, I think, a bridge between the academy and religious & spiritual life.  I've been involved with the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a program of religious formation for children, since 1995. Finally, I relish the integration of faith and practice in the every day, which for me is most powerfully realized in my family.

I'm grateful to be pursuing this call that brings together so much that is so meaningful to me, finding the Holy One in new and exciting ways. I find the community of Bexley Hall to be nurturing and stimulating, with fellow seminarians already engaged in wonderful and interesting ministries, attentive to liturgy and worship, and mindful of the shape of the call to the wider world. I very much appreciate the larger community of seminarians, professors, and a shared religious life that our connection to Trinity Lutheran offers. I'm looking forward to the connections and collaborations that will come with the new confederation with Seabury.

Peter J. L. Pond

I am an entering junior, a Postulant from the Diocese of Southern Ohio.  I am attending Bexley Hall on a part time basis, commuting from the Cincinnati area.  My home parish is St. Anne in West Chester.  My wife Donna and I have four children: two daughters in college, one in high school, and a son in junior high school.  We relocated to Ohio in 2008 for my current job and we have all fallen in love with the Buckeye state.

I have a BA in History from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire and an MBA from Norwich University in Vermont.  I work full time for Amylin Pharmaceuticals in West Chester.  I grew up in a family that afforded me the opportunity to travel, to explore my faith, and to serve others.

Bexley Hall appeals to me for several reasons:   Bexley Hall was a leader on the frontier of a growing and changing nation and it educated priests in the mid west to serve Christ and His church.  It has a story rich in history.   Many years later Bexley has shown great resilience in its ability to adapt to circumstance and location.  Bexley Hall's current location offers both small class sizes while providing the resources of a larger seminary environment at Trinity Lutheran Seminary.  And Bexley Hall is located in a neighborhood of one of the larger cities in the country.  Lastly Bexley Hall's founder Philander Chase grew up in a New Hampshire town that bordered a town I lived in.

I have been discerning God's call for a long time and ignoring the call for even longer.  I look forward to my time at Bexley Hall:  To learn, to grow, and to courageously bear the Cross.