As I write this, I am preparing for a week at Kanuga (the Episcopal conference center in western North Carolina) to spend time with six Old Catholic bishops from Europe who are visiting the U.S. as guests of the Episcopal House of Bishops. Although I suspect that very few Episcopalians are aware of it, the Episcopal Church has enjoyed a long friendship with the Old Catholic churches in Europe -- progressive congregations whose disapproval of the pope's declaration of infallibility in 1870 moved them to break away from the Roman church, adopting a polity of dispersed authority similar to our own.

What is on the minds of the Old Catholic bishops during this visit is what is on many minds here in the States -- the diminishing role of the Christian church as an arbiter of values in an increasingly secular culture. We live in a paradoxical time. European culture especially is beset by a postmodern mistrust of any religious "meta-narrative" (to use a favorite post-modern phrase) that claims universal acceptance. At the same time, in France, in Denmark, in the Netherlands, there is a resurgence of a new and violent meta-narrative spreading among disaffected young Muslim men -- the jihadist dream of a universal caliphate, better known as the nightmare of ISIS. This resurgent Islamist meta-narrative breeds, no doubt by intention, a troubling xenophobic and racist reaction among people who should know better.  Read the entire reflection  

Be Not Afraid! That is the title adopted by the Bexley Seabury Board of Directors at its February meeting for the working draft of the 2015-2017 Bexley Seabury Strategic Plan. Slated for final approval at the board's May meeting, the new plan commits us to four key goals:

• Increase access to theological education in both the Episcopal Church and beyond.
• Expand our stakeholder communities.
• Ensure institutional and financial equilibrium.
• Increase and nurture connections with the larger church and with other faith communities, both domestically and internationally.

Our strategic planning efforts coincided with the preparation of a thorough self-study of our seminary programs. The result of several months of research and writing by a team comprised of faculty, alumni, students, and board members, and headed by Dean Tom Ferguson, the work was completed in time for meetings with the visiting team from the Association of Theological Schools, our accrediting agency, February 22-25.

The accrediting team has now shared their recommendations with us. The recommendations are confidential until acted on by the entire Commission on Accreditation at its June meeting. But we can tell you that their report was gratifyingly positive. We are pleased with what they had to say, and we look forward to sharing the recommendations, once they are official, with the wider Bexley Seabury community. Along with the strategic planning process, the results and recommendations of the ATS accreditation visit are essential parts of visioning for Bexley Seabury's future.

More to come!