2009 – 2010 T HE Y EAR IN R EVIEW C AMBRIDGE THEOLOGICAL F EDERATION Contents Page Foreword from the Bishop of Leicester 3 Principal’s Welcome 4 Highlights of the Year Westcott Walkabout 9 China Visit 10 Alumni and Friends’ Garden Party 11 Yale Exchange 12 Overseas Guests Verna Jebb 14 Elijah Mwangi 15 India Link Cambridge Mission to Delhi 16 Dinesh Singh 17 Suzanne Cooke and Sally Kimmis 18 Ordinand Visits and Placements Manchester 19 Canary Wharf 20 International Student Trust 21 Theological Conversations Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust 22 B K Cunningham – A Recollection 24 Prophetic Preaching 26 New Developments New Staff Members 28 Westcott Future Developments 30 Remembering Westcott 31 Westcott House Gifts and Mementos 32 Ember List 2010 33 Staff Contacts 34 Members of the Governing Council 2009 – 2010 35 2009 – 2010 THE YEAR IN REVIEW Foreword from the Bishop of Leicester Education and formation for ordained ministry in“ the Church of England faces challenges at least as great as those confronting all major public institutions in a time of rapid and dramatic financial retrenchment. We can already see how this will test the staff, the Council and the ordinands in new ways in the years ahead. Yet what this Year in Review reflects, and what those who have visited Westcott House will have experienced, is the depth of prayer, the breadth of vision and the commitment to change The Rt Revd Tim Stevens is Bishop of Leicester and has been and growth which infuses the whole life of the Chair of the Council of Westcott House since 2007 House. Here is to be seen a confident, reflective and intelligent Christian faith vividly lived out in a vibrant, diverse and international community.” 3 2009 – 2010 THE YEAR IN REVIEW Principal’s Welcome We have had an incredibly rich year, with a full two, again with one starred, in the BTh. The House of about 80 ordinands and independent module results for the Foundation Degree also students. Visiting students from Kenya, India, the included a high proportion of firsts. These results US, and the far North of Canada have challenged reflect the high standard of theological learning and deepened our preparation for service in a across the whole community, enabling all ordinands changing Church that is both local and global. to develop the capacity to think – and act – We have learned from one another, and been theologically in ministry. changed for good by our encounters. For many of the British ordinands, their own development has Higher Fee Challenge been transformed by placement and study We have a major challenge on our hands now, experiences overseas and in the UK – Yale, India, following Lord Browne’s review of Higher Peru, New York, and, of course, Manchester. Education funding and the Comprehensive My first visit to mainland China gave me a similar Spending Review. We fully recognise that the mind- and soul-expanding experience. You can read The Revd Canon Martin Seeley General Synod budget will not in the current Principal about the experiences of our visitors here, our financial climate be able to bear the cost of ordinands on placement, and my visit to China, in significantly higher fees. We are therefore working this Review. on strategies to secure additional funding to be able to provide bursaries to support those whom the Prayer Church needs to have the opportunity to benefit from Cambridge University taught Theology These experiences have the transforming benefit degrees. We are starting to seek funds for Westcott they do because they happen in the context of students, both through our own community and in rigorous spiritual and intellectual development. partnership with the Cambridge Divinity Faculty, to The daily office, and for a high proportion of the help bear the additional costs. Most further degree community the daily eucharist, are the communal students (MPhils and PhDs) already have to find frame and wellspring of all else that happens in part of their fees, but the trusts and other sources training. Our theology and our practice are we have depended on for these will not be rooted in the life of prayer. This year we have sufficient for the numbers we have on Tripos and strengthened our attention to ordinands’ practice of the BTh. We could well be looking at finding an personal devotion with lectio divina groups led by additional £5000 per student through a the chaplain, Lindsay Yates. combination of approaches, and this year there are The year has been one of outstanding academic a total of eleven Tripos students and 23 BTh results. Ordinands gained seven firsts between students. Further on in this Review you can read them, five, including one starred, in Tripos, and more about our fundraising needs. 4 2009 – 2010 THE YEAR IN REVIEW Guests We welcomed a range of guest preachers and speakers through the course of the year. The Bishop of London visited the House in November and preached in the octave of the Feast of Christ the King, taking this as the context in which to engage the world’s ecological crisis. He concluded his sermon saying, “The Bible shows us the individual person realistically as someone always involved in relationships with other human beings and with the world of nature. We can perish in a world and a human community that is atomised but we are saved together. At the end of The Divine Comedy, Dante describes his vision of divine reality – ‘all the scattered leaves of the universe bound by love in one volume’. Professor David Burrell speaking at Westcott to Divinity Faculty and Federation students Such is the origin and the purpose of the Church and it is the calling of this House to explore, celebrate and substantiate Adoration into Action this truth.” Ken Leech paid a long-awaited visit to the House at the invitation of the weekly Silent Prayer group. He spent an afternoon exploring with us the relationship between contemplative prayer and social action, contributing to an ongoing consideration of these themes in the House as we deepen our commitment as a community of ‘adoration into action’. Ken’s presence with us was refreshing and challenging, and we are left puzzling what has happened to the social engagement from the Church’s catholic tradition, familiar to many of us from local experience but seemingly lacking theological leadership today. Our invaluable Yale Divinity School link was expressed through the presence of Professors Nora and Arthur Tisdale in June. Nora, The Bishop of London speaking to Karin Voth Harman on his visit Professor of Homiletics at Yale, led a presentation on prophetic preaching and she has written a piece in this Review. We also were honoured to welcome David Burrell, Emeritus Professor at the University of Notre Dame and now Professor of Ethics and Development at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi, Uganda. David delivered a challenging lecture about the development of theology among Jews, Christians and Muslims, rooted in the open encounter with the other and leading to a deeper regard each for their own faith and a richer appreciation of the faith of others. During his visit he also met with the Principals of the Cambridge Theological Federation institutions to explore with us the meaning of ecumenism as it expands to include a world of other faiths. L-R: The Revd Canon Dr Isaac Ihiasota and the Revd Professor Sarah Coakley with Ken Leech 5 2009 – 2010 THE YEAR IN REVIEW for the work the Centre undertakes on social cohesion. I am delighted that he has agreed to stay involved with the House (he and his family remain living in Cambridge) giving us a valuable engagement with matters of faith in public life. Dr Margie Tolstoy, who has been on the staff for about seventeen years as Tutor in Ethics, announced her retirement, taking effect in December 2010 after a well earned term’s sabbatical. Margie has made a deep and lasting impact on many ordinands’ lives, through her generous care, her unbounded hospitality, and her wisdom. Many Tripos students have benefited from her challenging and compelling course on the Holocaust in the Divinity Faculty, and students across the Federation have valued her contribution to the teaching of ethics. Recently she has taken in hand our archives and this has been an illuminating process for us as she discovers fascinating events and connections L-R: Writer James Wood and actor Tom Hollander with Martin Seeley in the history of the House. She will remain living in Madingley And then in September Tom Hollander, who plays the Revd Adam and we look forward to her continued participation in the Smallbone, and James Wood, the writer of the television series Rev House’s life. came to Westcott to ask me about my time as vicar of the Isle of Dogs, and about one or two other aspects of church life. Staff Farewells… The Westcott community, of course, changes substantially every year with the leaving of one group and the arrival of the next group of ordinands. This year that sense of change has been substantially compounded by staff changes. The Revd Dr Michael Beasley, who has been on the Westcott staff for seven years first as Chaplain and then as Tutor for Mission and Vice-Principal, was appointed to the newly created post of Director of Mission for the Diocese of Oxford. We were thrilled for Michael and Lizzie, but they leave a big hole. Michael was instrumental in the development of strategic planning in the House, and for a number of outreach programmes including missions, as well as for teaching mission in the Federation.