Th E Year in Review

2008 - 2009 T HE Y EAR IN R EVIEW C AMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL F EDERATION Contents Page Foreword, by The Rt Revd Tim Stevens 3 Principal’s Welcome 4 Highlights of the Year A Particular Place 8 Cairo Exchange 9 Alumni and Friends Garden Party 11 Sabbatical Reflections: The Venerable Basil H. J. Matthews, Archdeacon of George, South Africa 12 Mr Joseph Nam, Principal of St Joseph’s Primary School, Hong Kong 13 Mission to Bradford 14 Ordinands Near and Far 15 Theological Conversations The Revd Angela Tilby on The Seven Deadly Sins 17 A Conversation with Jean Vanier 18 The Story of the Westcott Icon, by John Armson 21 New Developments Preaching Course 24 Weekly Hour of Silent Prayer 25 Heating in All Saints’ 26 Refurbishment of D Staircase 26 Children’s Play Area 26 Organ Installed in Chapel 27 Westcott House gifts and mementos 28 Ember List 2009 29 Staff Contacts 30 Members of Governing Council 2008-2009 31 2008 – 2009 THE YEAR IN REVIEW Foreword During my ten years as Bishop of Leicester,“ I have sensed that the demands and challenges facing those of us who minister in the Church of England are changing rapidly. We cannot predict with any precision what will be asked of those preparing for ordination or other forms of ministry in the next ten or fifteen years. But I and many The Rt Revd Tim Stevens is Bishop of Leicester and has been Chair of the Council of Westcott House since 2007 others celebrate what is being done at Westcott in so evidently releasing the gifts, the character and the passion for the Gospel in so many men and women. The more I see of them the more confident I become in God’s purposes for his church.” 3 2008 – 2009 THE YEAR IN REVIEW Principal’s Welcome We have been a full House again this past year with arrangement whereby Tripos and the BTh are some 75 Church of England ordinands, and with “co-funded”, which means HEFCE pay half the Yale Divinity School exchange students, subsidy and the Church the other half, and the independent and sabbatical students, including four Federation BA has been turned into a Foundation from Hong Kong and South Africa, we had a Degree leading to a BA, and Foundation Degrees student body of about 85. Once again, half the are exempt from the subsidy cut. This is really the ordinands were under 30 years old, and the mixture best possible outcome given the government was of backgrounds and nationalities as well as age not willing to grant an exemption to training for made for what I have come to expect to be a ministry despite their expectations that clergy spiritually and intellectually energising community! exercise a leading community role. Of course we are not out of the woods at all, and the very serious The diversity of academic pathways now available danger is what happens when the government, through the Cambridge Theological Federation whoever wins the next election, raises or removes and the University Divinity Faculty means that The Revd Canon Martin Seeley the cap on fees. My greatest disappointment in ordinands can prepare theologically and pastorally what has been an immense exercise has been the for public ministry in ways that will challenge hostile views of many in the Church who simply them to learn and grow whatever their background. do not see the need for a mixed learning ecology About two-thirds of the community were on where ordinands are trained theologically to the Cambridge University awards, including the best of their ability – for the sake of Church’s Bachelor of Theology for Ministry, Tripos, M.Phil., ministry in the world. PhD and the Certificate in Theology for Ministry, and one third on programmes provided by the Federation, including the BA and MA in Pastoral Yale Link Theology, accredited by Anglia Ruskin University. At the beginning of the year, in October, I was able We had some outstanding results, including firsts to visit Yale Divinity School, reciprocating the visit in all the undergraduate awards and a starred first Dean Harry Attridge made to Westcott the year in Tripos. earlier in 2008. I had a terrific week, not least because it was alumni week and therefore included Best outcome…but a succession of feasts, but also because I was able to The battle continued to keep the undergraduate see our Westcott students in situ and catch a sense awards affordable following the government’s of what is clearly an immensely valuable experience. decision to cut the HEFCE subsidy of about £3000 Each year we exchange three or four of our for “equivalent or lower qualifications” (ELQs – it ordinands for a similar number from Yale in the affects those who have a degree and then study for Michaelmas Term, and it is a much sought after a second first degree). We negotiated an opportunity. I am immensely grateful to Dean 4 2008 – 2009 THE YEAR IN REVIEW Attridge and the Associate Dean of Admissions, Anna Ramirez, for making my visit so worthwhile and for the great care they take of our ordinands. The trip allowed me to visit my alma mater, Union Theological Seminary in New York, and there I was able to meet their new President, Professor Serene Williams, herself formerly of Yale Divinity School. Community of Differences For me, there were two particular recurring themes in our community life in Westcott last year. The first was Yale students Chris McKee, Chantee Parris and Ryan Fleenor Westcott as a “community of differences” and the second was the call to be a priestly Church. narrow doctrine of the Holy Spirit. I fear this is evident in The understanding of Westcott as a community of the Church of England whenever we seek to marginalise or differences is not new at all – BK Cunningham, principal exclude those with whom we disagree – it is another form 1919-43, described the House as a “fellowship of of fundamentalism. differences”. This year, though, thanks to our first year The series of evening gatherings for the first years in some ordinands, we renewed our engagement with what this way helped all of us prepare for what for me was one of the means. The first years wanted an opportunity to explore most remarkable Westcott experiences in my short time and learn from the differences they held among themselves, here. In March we welcomed two women students from Al so they set up a series of informal evening gatherings, each Azhar University in Cairo in an exchange sponsored by the one with a theme. Two or more ordinands with different Foreign Office. Bonnie Evans-Hills from Westcott went to views were asked to prepare a short introduction about how Cairo as part of the exchange, and you can read her and they came to their perspective, and why it was important to one of the Egyptian students’ accounts of their experience them. The themes were liturgical and theological. The in this Review. Sonia and Fatma’s presence among us was a evenings were extraordinary, characterised by a remarkable remarkable experience of attention and reflection, and of quality of attentive listening. This was not an occasion to having assumptions delightfully demolished! The three argue or score points, but to attend to one another. The week exchange reminded me of my relationship with the result has been a quality of valuing of differences within the Muslim community when I was vicar of the Isle of Dogs, community that is new, and a recognition that it is better to and the profound sense that I was more truly a Christian ask a person why they act or think in a particular way than and we were more truly the speculate and judge why they might! Church because we were in Of course, this must extend far such a relationship. I hope we beyond the walls of Westcott, and may find a way to sustain this does so for ordinands within the life exchange, although it does of the Federation. But we need this rather depend on having Arabic sort of disposition of valuing and speaking ordinands! attending to the other, welcoming differences, in the life of the Church and for the sake of the world. Not to be so seems to me to reveal a very Hong Kong students Evelyn and Jennifer Wong 5 2008 – 2009 THE YEAR IN REVIEW A Priestly Church Professor Stanley Hauerwas, in his address at the Westcott House conference, “A Particular Place,” in September, developed Archbishop Rowan’s idea of the church as ‘undefended territory’, “a place where the desperate anxiety to please God means nothing; a place where the admission of failure is not the end but the beginning; a place from which no one is excluded in advance.” (Sam Wells and Sarah Coakley, Praying for England, Continuum 2008, p.175). This is a place where Jesus’ priesthood is exercised, The Rev’d Louise Coddington-Marshall with Bishop Michael Doe it is “the place that Jesus is.” Hauerwas took this idea of clergy are themselves being drawn into forms of ministry ‘undefended territory’ and applied it to the local church. I that marginalize the priestly. For some time we have been suspect those of us who are, or have been, parish clergy will preoccupied with the language of service, and being the find this a compelling insight, and immediately recognize “servant church.” That is Christ’s diaconal ministry, and so in its richness both aspiration and hazard! (The text and ours too. But separated from the unconditional, self- video of Stanley Hauerwas’ address is available on the emptying and transforming love of the cross and the empty Westcott website, along with the texts of the other keynote tomb, service becomes the endless and exhausting activity addresses at the “A Particular Place” conference).

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