Ancient Order of Priesthood

Stanley Hauerwas

Gilbert T. Rowe Professor Emeritus of Divinity and Law
Duke Divinity School
Durham, NC

Biography

Stanley Hauerwas has sought to recover the significance of the virtues for understanding the nature of the Christian life. This search has led him to emphasize the importance of the church, as well as narrative for understanding Christian existence. His work cuts across disciplinary lines as he is in conversation with systematic theology, philosophical theology and ethics, political theory, as well as the philosophy of social science and medical ethics. He was named “America’s Best Theologian” by Time magazine in 2001. Dr. Hauerwas, who holds a joint appointment in Duke Law School, delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectureship at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland in 2001.

He has written numerous influential books and articles, including A Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic, which was selected as one of the 100 most important books on religion of the 20th century. Dr. Hauerwas also recently authored The Work of Theology (Eerdmans, 2015), Hannah’s Child: A Theological Memoir, 2^nd Ed. (Eerdmans, 2012), and War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity (Baker Academic Press, 2011).

Oliver O’Donovan

Professor Emeritus, Christian Ethics and Practical Theology
The University of Edinburgh
Scotland

Biography

Oliver O’Donovan, born in 1945 in London and educated in London, at Oxford and Princeton, was ordained an Anglican priest in Oxford in 1973. He held teaching posts at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford (1972) and Wycliffe College, Toronto (1977), before becoming Regius Professor of Moral & Pastoral Theology at Oxford and Canon of Christ Church (1982), and later Professor of Christian Ethics & Practical Theology at Edinburgh (2006-2012).

His major writings on Ethics and Political Theology are Resurrection and Moral Order (1986;  French: Resurrection et l’Expérience Morale, tr. J.Y. Lacoste, 1992), The Desire of the Nations (1996), The Ways of Judgment (2005) and most recently (2013-7), the three volumes of Ethics as Theology (Self, World and Time, Finding and Seeking and Entering into Rest). Shorter contributions to public moral debates include Begotten or Made? (1984), Peace and Certainty (1989), The Just War Revisited (2003) and A Conversation Waiting to Begin (2009).   On the history of Western thought he has written The Problem of Self-love in Saint Augustine (1980), On the Thirty-Nine Articles (1986) and From Irenaeus to Grotius (1999), a sourcebook in collaboration with his wife, Joan Lockwood O’Donovan, with whom he also published a collection of interpretative essays, Bonds of Imperfection (2004).   A book of Sermons, The Word in Small Boats, appeared in 2010.   

He has contributed to commissions and working-parties of the Church of England and is currently a member of its Faith and Order Council. For six years (1985-90), he served as a member of the Second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission and was a Visiting Professor in the  Faculty of Philosophy at the Gregorian University of Rome in 2001. 

He has lectured extensively at universities in Britain, USA, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. He is a past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics.   

Since 2000, he has been a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh since 2009, a Senior Honorary Research Fellow of the Kirby Laing Institute in Cambridge since 2012 and an Honorary Professor of the University of St Andrews since 2013. He became a Provincial Canon and Canon Theologian of York in 2015 and chaired the Archbishops’ Review of the Crown Nominations Commission in 2016-17.

The O’Donovans were married in 1978, and have two sons.

Ephraim Radner

Professor of Historical Theology
Wycliffe College
Toronto, Canada

Biography

Ephraim Radner is a priest in the Episcopal Church (Diocese of Colorado) and professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College, an Anglican seminary affiliated with the University of Toronto. His doctorate from Yale Divinity School is in systematic theology.

Ephraim grew up in Berkeley, California, and studied music and art history before going to seminary. Following ordination and work in Burundi (East Africa), he served congregations in Brooklyn, Cleveland, New Haven, Stamford, and Pueblo. He has taught at Yale University and Iliff Seminary, as well as at the Episcopal seminary in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

He has written and edited several books, including The End of the Church (about how the Holy Spirit works in Church division), Spirit and Nature (about how the Holy Spirit is an intrinsically disputed actor), Hope Among the Fragments (how we live in a divided Church), and a theological commentary on Leviticus.

He lives in Toronto with his wife, the Rev. Annette Brownlee, and they have two adult children who both reside in Colorado.

N.T. Wright

Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity
University of St Andrews, Scotland

Biography

N.T. Wright is the former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England and one of the world’s leading Bible scholars. He is now serving as the chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the School of Divinity at the University of St. Andrews. For twenty years, Wright taught New Testament studies at Cambridge, McGill, and Oxford Universities, and he has been featured on ABC News, Dateline, The Colbert Report, and Fresh Air. Wright is the award-winning author of After You Believe, Surprised by Hope, Simply Christian, The Challenge of Jesus, and The Meaning of Jesus (coauthored with Marcus Borg), as well as the much-heralded series Christian Origins and the Question of God.

Matthew Burdette

Curate, Good Shepard Episcopal Church

Dallas, Texas

Biography

The Rev. Dr. Matthew Burdette is a curate at Church of the Good Shepherd in Dallas, serves as Associate Director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, and he contributes regularly to the Living Church magazine.

He studied at General Theological Seminary, and earned a PhD in Theology at the University of Aberdeen, researching the political eschatologies of Robert W. Jenson and James H. Cone. Matt is interested in the Christian doctrine of God, the theology of culture, and the tradition of Christian socialism. He is married to his lifelong friend Evie.

Catherine Sider-Hamilton

Assistant Professor in New Testament and Greek
Wycliffe College

Priest-in-Charge
St. Matthews Anglican, Riverdale

Toronto, Ontario

Biography

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Sider-Hamilton is Assistant Professor in New Testament and Greek at Wycliffe College in the University of Toronto, and Priest-in-Charge, St. Matthew’s Anglican Church, Riverdale.

Concerning her own vocation, he writes, “I have been given the wonderful opportunity to serve both in parish ministry and in the academy—to be a ‘scholar-priest’. It’s a joy for me (if also a challenge, in terms of sheer workload and the current ideological pressures on the church). Parish ministry helps keep my scholarship and teaching grounded in Christ and his people, and teaching and writing feed into preaching and pastoral ministry in a way that I have found rich and life-giving.”

She is fascinated by the way the church—and Israel—reads its scriptures, and seeks to work at the intersection of biblical studies and theology, taking seriously the historical claim of the scriptures and at the same time their witness and function as Word of God.

Recent publications include the newly-released The Death of Jesus in Matthew: Innocent Blood and the End of Exile (Cambridge University Press, 2017), and a book in the works on women’s interpretation of Paul (working title Paul and Women through the Ages, jointly authored with Marion Taylor), as well as a co-edited volume of essays on Francis Watson’s Gospel Writing and Fourfold Gospel (LNTS), among other reflections on the life of the church and the role of women.

Nathaniel Jung-Chul Lee

Associate Rector
All Saints Church
Chevy Chase, Maryland

Biography

The Rev. Nathaniel (“Nate”) Jung-Chul Lee has served as the Associate Rector at All Saints Chevy Chase since 2015, where he especially enjoys his work in Christian Education and Mission & Outreach. During that time he has also taught as an adjunct at Loyola University (Baltimore, MD) and Nashotah House Seminary (WI). He is currently completing work toward his Ph.D. at Baylor University, having graduated from Duke Divinity School. While at Duke, Nate worked as the Research Associate for Stanley Hauerwas and helped edit two books: Working with Words and War and the American Difference. He has published in Political Theology, The Trinity Journal, and The Living Church. His wife, Janna, and his one-year-old son, Ezekiel, are the best things that ever happened to him.

Wesley Hill

Associate Professor of Biblical Studies
Trinity School for Ministry
Ambridge, Pennsylvania

Biography

Wesley Hill is Associate Professor of Biblical Studies at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality (Zondervan, second edition 2016), Paul and the Trinity: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline Letters (Eerdmans, 2015), and Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in the Church as a Celibate Gay Christian (Brazos, 2015). A contributing editor at Comment magazine, he writes regularly for Christianity Today, First Things, The Living Church, and other publications, including SpiritualFriendship.org which he co-founded.

Degrees

• B.A., Wheaton College, IL
• M.A., Durham University, UK
• Ph.D., Durham University, UK

Elisabeth Rain Kincaid

Assistant Professor of Moral Theology
Aquinas Institute of Theology
St. Louis, Missouri

Biography

Elisabeth Rain Kincaid is an Assistant Professor of Moral Theology at the Aquinas Institute of Theology. She holds a Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Notre Dame, a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law, an M.T.S. from Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, and a B.A. in English and History from Rice University. Her dissertation, entitled “‘In a Prudent Way and Without Rashness’: Reclaiming Francisco Suárez’s Theories of Legal Engagement” focuses on retrieving constructive approaches to legal engagement for contemporary Christians. Her research interests include natural law theory, the intersections of law and theology, questions of work and vocation, and theological approaches to business ethics. She also has practiced as a white-collar criminal defense lawyer and served as a graduate campus minister.

Degrees

• Ph.D. in Theology, University of Notre Dame
• J.D., University of Texas School of Law
• M.T.S., Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University
• B.A. in English and History, Rice University

Joey Royal

Director
Arthur Turner Training School

Iqaluit, Nunavut CA
(Canadian Arctic)

Biography

The Rev. Joey Royal is a priest living in the Canadian Arctic. Having previously served as a parish priest in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, he now lives in Iqaluit, Nunavut where he serves as Director of the Arthur Turner Training School. He is married to Jennifer and they have a son named Benjamin.

Samira Page

Founder and Executive Director
Gateway of Grace

Dallas, Texas

Biography

The Rev. Dr. Samira Izadi Page is the founder and executive director of Gateway of Grace, an outreach ministry to refugees, many of whom are survivors of severe trauma. Her organization helps refugees start over with donated furniture, pocket money, groceries, baby showers, job assistance, language lessons, and more. Most important, perhaps, Gateway trains volunteers and churches to adopt refugee families, the point where friendships form and integration begins.

Raised a Muslim in Iran, Samira found her way to the United States after a difficult trek escaping unrest from revolution and war at home. Arriving in Texas, a local church showed them unique kindness and generosity and soon became a second family. Today, her experiences help her not only to serve people displaced by war, famine, political turmoil, and natural calamities; but also to raise up churches and individuals to meet the needs of refugees despite their background, culture, or religious affiliation.

Matthew Boulter

Associate Rector
Christ Church
Tyler, Texas

Biography

The Rev. Matt Boulter is a wayfarer from Texas who sometimes thinks he’s traveling down the right path. He is an Episcopal priest and PhD student at the National University of Ireland / Maynooth University. His hobbies include reading, running, drinking, smoking, and hanging out with his three brown-eyed girls.

Fr. Boulter is the associate rector at Christ Church in Tyler, Texas. His primary responsibility is the planting, nurturing, and development of Christ Church South (the second campus of Christ Church), which opened for public worship on December 4, 2016.

His academic work focuses primarily on the teaching of two philosophy classes per semester at the University of Texas at Tyler, as well as work on his dissertation, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure, which will focus on the Habilitationschrift of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Matt also blogs at religiocity.org.

Paul Wheatley

PhD Student,
University of Notre Dame

Priest & Church Planter,
Episcopal Diocese of Dallas

Biography

Father Paul Wheatley is a PhD student in Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity at the University of Notre Dame, studying manuscript evidence of the reception of the Gospels as a fourfold canon. He is a priest of the Diocese of Dallas, and has served as missioner to college students in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, Associate Rector for Worship and Young Adult Formation at Church of the Incarnation, and as founding Vicar at St. Augustine’s, Oak Cliff.