head> The Guild of Scholars of the Episcopal Church

The Guild of Scholars of the Episcopal Church

updated October 31, 2011


The Guild mourns the losses of Richard Bailey 1939-2011 and David Evett 1936-2011 . These great philologists, men of letters, and churchmen will be much missed. May Heaven welcome them.

The Guild met in the greater Cincinnati area, at The Community of the Transfiguration October 28-30, 2011. St. Mary's Spirituality Center on the grounds of the Convent of the Transfiguration, an Anglican community founded in 1898 by Mother Eva Mary (Matthews) located in Glendale, Ohio, a nineteenth-century suburb of Cincinnati. In addition to St. Mary's Spirituality Center, a newly remodeled retreat center (each room with a private bath), the 22-acre convent campus has a lovely chapel designed by Ralph Adams Cram. The sisters were generous hosts and welcomed our attendance at the daily offices held in the convent oratory. Evensong on Saturday night and High Mass Sunday morning were held in the Cram chapel.

Guild President Thomas Wortham adds:

I am especially pleased that the bishop of the Southern Ohio Diocese, the Right Rev. Thomas E. Breidenthal accepted our invitation to join us on Friday evening for a cocktail reception and dinner at St. Mary's Center, following which he shared with us further thoughts on issues of assembly in the church and the Emergent Church/Fresh Expressions Movement that he has had in regard to some of the themes he touched on in the DuBose Lectures he gave at Sewanee last fall (the texts of the lectures are printed in recent issues of Sewanee Theological Review and posted on the Southern Ohio diocesan website ; and a summary on Sewanee's website ).

Other speakers included Debora Kuller Shuger of UCLA on the life and death of Archbishop William Laud and John Krantz of Hanover College, on the human visual system and how it helps us see what we need to see, and David Holmes of William and Mary on Virginia churchmanship and the interplay between high and low in the Episcopal Church.

The end of October was a glorious time in Southern Ohio , and the grounds of the convent (which have been undergoing major renovations this year) provided lovely spaces for both quiet contemplation and cordial fellowship. And no less important, the kitchen at St. Mary's was quite respectable (and received several standing ovations from the guests). Our traditional Saturday night dinner was held at a nearby Glendale restaurant, the Grand Finale , a short driving distance from the convent.

Past Guild Meetings

2010's Guild of Scholars meeting took place at General Seminary, November 12-14, 2010. At 10 AM Friday morning, November 12, The Anglican Society lecture featured the Director of the St Mark's Library at GTS, Fr Andrew Kadel , who spoke on "The Permanent and Variable Characteristics of the Prayer Book" as seen in the recent discovery that has been given to us: William Reed Huntington's personal copy of the 1878 Book of Common Prayer containing his own notes that influenced the subsequent American Prayer Book and their relationship to liturgical revision in the 21st century.


Talks at the 2010 Guild meeting included (in, alas, his final talk to us) David Evett on "The Queene in the Tempest: Manuscript Instructions from a Patron to a Painter for an Elizabethan Political Allegory."

, Tom Wortham on "Ain't It a Shame What's Been Done to Mark Twain: The Selling of Huckleberry Finn." Marsha Dutton, "Saints Refusing to Leave: Aelred of Rievaulx's Saints of Hexham as an Inverted Translatio. , Charles Bailey on "The Legacy of Dioxin" at 10 AM.

If you are a ember and wish to continue your membership, please send $15, to Lew Overaker, made out to GUILD OF SCHOLARS.

His address again


The Guild of Scholars of the Episcopal Church is an interdisciplinary group made up of Lay Episcopalian academics, from fields in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, who meet annually at the General Theological Seminary in Manhattan. All members are elected upon recommendation of other members, and all members must be Episcopalians. Past members have included such figures as Frederick Pottle, W. H. Auden, and Cleanth Brooks. The organization's values include academic rigor, fellowship, service, and responsibility, and in the past we have been associated with generous financial support of scholarships at General Seminary. To propose a candidate please contact the Webmaster


Pictures from the Huntington Dinner

Nicholas Birns and Donna Gaines with ECUSA Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, William Reed Huntington Dinner, St. Peter's Lutheran Church, April 23, 2008

Nicholas Birns with Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson, William Reed Huntington Dinner, St. Peter's Lutheran Church, April 23, 2008

The Guild of Scholars of the Episcopal Church came into being in 1945 as an informal group of established scholars, Episcopal lay persons, who wished through their expertise to be of service to their church as well as to each other through meeting annually for seminar-style discussions. Its tradition is to gather in late fall, usually at the General Theological Seminary in downtown Manhattan, with twenty or so members in attendance. Mindful of its own rich history over sixty years, it deeply values diversity of views, a grounding in worship, and a concern for the church as a whole.

The Guild's David Billington writes on bridge design after the Minneapolis collapse

The Guild mourns the loss of its much-cherished member, Pardon Tillinghast . As a teacher, historian, and churchman, he represented the values and ideals of the Guild at their finest.

A festschrift honoring Guild chaplain, the Reverend Canon J. Robert Wright is published by Eerdmans Press. The book includes contributions by Guild members Marsha Dutton, E. Rozanne Elder, John V. Fleming, and Robert Bruce Mullin, and is co-edited by Marsha Dutton.

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The Guild's David L. Holmes has his book reviewed in the New York Times Book Review

Speakers for the 2007 meeting, held November 9-11, 2007, Marsha Dutton (on Aelred of Rievaulx's Life of Edward the Confessor ), Alec Valentine ("Walter Anderson: Artist and Nature Realized"), Karla Britton (Constructing the Ineffable: Contemporary Sacred Architecture), and George Spagna, "Towards A Quantum Theology".

For a list of past papers please click here .



Current membership of the Guild is:
  • Bradley Bateman, Provost, Economic History, Denison University
  • Charles Bailey , Public administration, NYU and the Ford Foundation
  • David R. Billington , Engineering, Princeton University
  • Nicholas Birns , Literary Studies, Eugene Lang College , The New School, Immediate Past President

    Nicholas Birns with Lewis Overaker and Harley Holden

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    George Parshall, Anna May Parshall, Jack Warren Burnam, Mrs. Burnam


    Deceased members of the Guild are listed in the Necrology \

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