Bloy House News
The Episcopal Theological School at Claremont
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Greetings from Bloy House, the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, where the fall term is well under way. Thank you for considering Bloy House/ETSC for theological coursework and continuing education alike. For information, phone 909.621.2419 or email bloyhouse@cst.edu.Faithfully in Christ,
(The Very Rev.) Sylvia Sweeney, Ph.D.
Bloy House Dean and President
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Bloy House-CDSP talks continue
In September and October at their respective fall Board of Trustee meetings the boards of Bloy House and of Church Divinity School of the Pacific approved the basic outline of a memorandum of understanding between the two schools. It is our hope that in the coming months, if approved by the Association of Theological Schools, the two schools will be able to move closer to a shared program, creating the opportunity for a west coast partnership for Bloy House students seeking a Master of Divinity degree.
Bloy House has a long history with CDSP that dates back to its earliest years, when CDSP professors actually came to Bloy House to teach Bloy House classes. In the last several decades, many of our alumni who especially sought an M. Div from an Episcopal seminary spent their final residential year at CDSP in order to receive their degrees. We look forward to what the future brings in this longstanding relationship.
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 Seminarian Norma Guerra receives SIM grant
The Rev. Dr. Robert Honeychurch was happy to represent the Society for the Increase of the Ministry by presenting Norma Guerra, seminarian from All Saints, Pasadena, with a SIM Grant on October 12 to help support her in her seminary work. Congratulations Norma! SIM Ministry has for over a hundred years been supporting seminarians through financial grants to aid them with the costs of seminary. Many of us in the church today are deeply indebted to SIM for the help they offered us during our time at seminary. To learn more about this wonderful ministry click here. |
 Bloy House professor
named dean of CST
We are happy to celebrate with the faculty, students, and trustees of Claremont School of Theology that the Rev. Dr. Sheryl Kujawa-Holbrook has been named academic dean of CST. Sheryl is an Episcopal priest, former dean of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, and a one of the primary architects of CST's interfaith emphasis. Dr. Kujawa-Holbrook is also Professor of Anglican Studies and Professor of Religious Education at Bloy House. We are delighted at the potential for new partnerships with CST that this appointment may herald. Congratulations to CST and to Sheryl!
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 Jim Sanders' class on the prophets to be offered next fall
In Fall of 2014 Bloy House will be adding a new class to its curriculum. This class will be offered from 2 to 5 p.m. on Friday afternoons and will be taught by our world renowned Old Testament Professor, Canon Dr. Jim Sanders (pictured). The title of the class is "Wisdom and the Prophets" and the class will examine the ways in which Wisdom writers and ideas came to influence the prophets to move to a universalizing view of salvation. Significant time will be given to the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Education for Episcopal Leadership students who have done some prior course work in Old Testament studies either in college, seminary, or EfM are welcome in this class. Cost of the class for EEL students is $400 and scholarship help is available upon request for those with need. Cost of the class for credit is $1,380.
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 Fresh Start for Lay Leaders
The next class of Fresh Start for Lay Leaders will begin meeting at Bloy House on January 11. Fresh Start for Lay Leaders is part of our Education for Episcopal Leadership program and offers lay persons in the church an opportunity to develop and enhance their own leadership skills for ministry in congregations and in their secular vocations. The class is taught by the Rev. Canon Joanna Satorius (pictured). The four core modules are "Entering a New System," "Family and Friends: Leading an Integrated Life," "History-sharing," and "Understanding Transition." While the program is especially useful for leaders of congregations in transition, it is also extremely helpful for any congregation seeking to grow their community or adapt to the current changes taking place across the church. Permission of the rector or vicar of the student's congregation is required for participation. For more information contact Canon Satorius at jsatorius@ladiocese.org. Fresh Start for Lay Leaders meets at Bloy House on teaching weekends from 9 a.m to 3 p.m. Cost of the program is $280, which includes hospitality and lunch.
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 What is a school?
By Sylvia Sweeney
I recently had the great honor of meeting a priest named Wisnel de Jardin (pictured above). Pere Wisnel, as he is affectionately called by his parishioners, is a priest who serves eight small rural schools and churches in Haiti. Pere Wisnel makes do, as do his parishioners and the students at the eight schools he serves.
On a recent visit to the United States Pere Wisnel had the opportunity to visit several American Episcopal schools that are in partnership with his schools in Haiti. In truth, for the most part these schools are never wanting and never have to make do. He saw the beautiful buildings, the fully stocked libraries, the cupboards overflowing with school supplies of all kinds. He saw the copy machines, the computers, the electronic sound systems for chapel services, and he saw the level of education and professionalism demanded of instructors in our American Episcopal schools. Wisnel could not dream of duplicating any of this in his own setting.
One of Pere Wisnel's goals for his trip was to raise the back pay that is owed to many of the teachers at his schools; pay that they, of course, depend on to feed and clothe their families, and to pay the tuition bills they are accruing for their children to be able to attend school in a setting where virtually all education is self-funded private education.
At one point in his address to everyone who had gathered for this fundraiser for the school at St. Marguerite's, Haiti, Wisnel said. "Now that I have visited your schools, I can only say, we do not have a school ..." I think many of us in the room were heartbroken by his words, and it left me pondering what a school really is. I think Pere Wisnel was deeply wrong in his momentary despair at the comparison between the learning conditions of his students and those of his American counterparts.
If schools are anything, they are places of hope and of transformation, and hope and transformation do not happen through coming in contact with stuff. Clearly there is huge need in the educational institutions of Haiti, a need that we at least in part can help to meet. But when a teacher chooses to keep teaching, even when there is no money to pay him or her; when students keep coming to school when there is no roof over their heads while they learn; when homework gets done by candlelight, but still gets done; when children happily walk two hours a day up a mountain in order to attend school, then something deeply powerful and holy must be happening in that place. That ... that is a school! A place where people dare to dream big dreams, to expect more for their lives than they currently have, where they come together with joy to learn and grow and be transformed together. That is a school.
Bloy House, too, is a school. While there is no comparison between the great wealth of our situation and the poverty in the midst of which Pere Wisnel is a chaplain, Bloy House too has had to struggle with the question of what it means to be a school when financial resources are limited, and there are voices both internal and external questioning whether this is a "real" seminary. If a real seminary opens the hearts of those who attend; if it allows its students to learn from as bright and capable a peer network as the church can offer a seminarian; if it provides students with mentors whose vision is deeply valued and respected across the church and the academy; if a "real" seminary forms students for ministry in a way that allows them to grow and change and flourish amidst the hurricane winds of change impacting our church, then I am proud to proclaim to all that Bloy House is as real a seminary as one can find. Be proud of this seminary of the Diocese of Los Angeles. It is an extraordinary, rich, and flourishing community of learning and transformation.
And ponder if you will what is it that we, the church, need give to the next generation of Americans and of Episcopalians (in the Americas and beyond) that will so capture their hearts and minds that they too might be inspired to skip up a steep mountainside to become all God dreamed of for them.
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 The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future
By Carol Gilligan and David Richards
In our recent "Gender and Leadership" panel discussion at the National Coming Out Day commemorations at St. Luke's, Long Beach we heard from the Rev. Dr. Ron David about one of the most provocative and challenging books that has crossed my radar screen in quite some time.
No one will call The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy's Future a quick or easy read. But for those who have the patience and interest to stick with it through its historical and psychological romp through the history of patriarchy, there is substantial food for thought for our complex time in American history, and in particular the tumultuous recent history of the Episcopal Church.
Carol Gilligan, whose germinal feminist work in child developmental psychology dramatically helped reshape moral theology in the last century, has teamed up with David Richards, a law professor at New York University who specializes in issues related to the law and gender. Their claim is that "patriarchy calls for and legitimates the traumatic disruption of intimate relationships and that the effect of such trauma on the human psyche is precisely to suppress personal voice and relationships in an identification with the patriarchal voice that imposed the disruption. This disruption of intimate voice has concomitant commitments to honor, to institutions that rigidly control sexual interactions according to closely defined social boundaries (the Love Laws), and to violence as a means of enforcing such control. The historical and conceptual roots of all this are to be found in ancient Roman society and the adoption and propagation of such values through normative, Augustinian Christianity in its most Pauline guise." (21)
Whether you are a lover of history, of classical literature, a feminist or GLBT thinker, or are simply fascinated by the idea of exploring the link between gender identity issues and democratic action, this book will keep you engaged and thinking, inviting you to imagine ways in which our resistance to patriarchy can truly help create a rich soil for democracy to thrive in.
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Your support is appreciatedFinancial contributions to support the work of Bloy House are appreciated year-round. Thank you for your consideration and generosity. Gifts may be mailed to Bloy House, the Episcopal Theological School at Claremont, 1325 N. College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711.
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In this issue: Please scroll down for more on upcoming courses and student and faculty activities.
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Fall 2013 Teaching Weekends, Academic Calendar
August 23-24
September 6-7
September 20-21
September 27-28*
October 11-12
October 18-19*
November 1-2
November 15-16
November 22-23*
December 13-14
*The weekends printed in bold are the second of back-to-back weekends.
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Bloy Bling
Across this diocese alumni and congregations are deeply proud of the ministry we are doing here at Bloy House, and our current students have been asking for a way to sport the school's colors. This year at convention those of you who are friends and supporters of Bloy House will have an opportunity to show our Bloy House blue by buying either a Bloy House polo shirt or a Bloy House coffee mug. For any graduates who have never had the opportunity to purchase Bloy House tippet seals, these seals will also be available. Cost of the polo shirts is $26. Coffee mugs are $10 and tippet seals are $20.
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