The Scottish Episcopal Institute has been privileged to have Rev Professor Bryan Spinks (Yale University) as an associate tutor this academic year. Professor Spinks has taught our final stage BA students and MA students, along with Continuing Ministerial Development (CMD) auditors from across the SEC. Professor Spinks’ course was at the intersection and relation of doctrine and liturgy. Ms Pat Ellison, a Lay Reader in the second phase of Initial Ministerial Education (IME2), taking SEI’s MA in Liturgy shares some reflections on the module.
‘What an extraordinary privilege to have been able to take part in this module, with its unassuming title, each week to have found myself via zoom to Yale, where on the dot of 7pm, students connected with a lifetime of scholarship, engagement and passion.
The church at prayer exposes its belief, as it has always done, for far longer, incidentally, before the Reformation schisms than afterwards. The countless anaphoral flowers that have bloomed since, including those in Scotland, are all part of that bigger picture, that wrestle to engage with the mystery, to put words to the inexpressible, that involves us all as ministers of the church.
How might we all, in Professor Spinks’ words, avoid the ‘bumbledom’ of just accepting what we have, or of being unthinkingly satisfied with what we have always known and like, especially in relation to the needs of current and future congregations? If the Eucharist is, as he says, ‘the place where most people learn their theology and their prayer vocabulary’, perhaps we need collectively to be better educated and equipped to address the challenge. This course, I suggest, is a wonderful place to start.’ – Ms Pat Ellison, Lay Reader IME2.
