St. Andrew's Messenger Week of Easter III
It was around 2014 or so that I first heard about the testimony of Dr. Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, a version of which you may view here, and I hope that you will. Sometime during her graduate studies in English at Ohio State University she determined that she was a lesbian and so when she graduated she and her partner packed up their belongings and Golden Retriever and headed to the University of Syracuse, where she was to begin a tenure-track position in the Department of English, with an emphasis on Gender and Queer Studies. She published The Politics of Survivorship: Incest, Women's Literature, and Feminist Theory and a number of scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. She was not only a radical feminist, but a well-educated, excellently credentialed one.
While researching the Religious Right and their "politics of hatred" she wrote an editorial criticizing the Promise Keepers organization. That prompted a letter from the Rev'd Ken Smith, at the time the Minister of the Syracuse Reformed Presbyterian Church, getting to know Smith and his wife well and developing a friendship with them, and in-depth Bible study that eventually led not only to her conversion to Christianity, her repudiation of lesbianism, but to her eventual marriage. Today she and her husband, the Rev'd Kent Butterfield, live in Durham, North Carolina, where he serves as Minister of the First Reformed Presbyterian Church. She is the author of several books including The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into the Christian Faith, which largely dealt with her conversion, The Gospel Comes With a House Key: Practicing Radically Different Hospitality in Our Post-Christian World, and Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age.
I had long admired Dr. Butterfield and around 2019 I had the opportunity to hear her speak and meet her in person at East Cooper Baptist Church near Charleston. I have had the opportunity to meet other people whom I admired that were, frankly, sometimes a disappointment in person. That was not the case with her -- my esteem only exponentially increased. After her talk people lined up to speak with her; my own comments were going to be fairly ho-hum -- to tell her that I admired her candor and her work and to mention, just by way of connection, that I knew the Rev'd Ian Wise, who'd preceded her husband at First Reformed Presbyterian (we were students under care of Catawba Presbytery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church -- he ended up going to the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America and I ended up, of course, in the Reformed Episcopal Church, rather different directions concerning the Regulative Principle of Worship). As it turned out, I was behind a young lady who had sought our Dr. Butterfield to discuss some rather personal struggles she was having (I wasn't trying to eavesdrop but under the circumstances picking up some of the conversation was inevitable); there was no rush as she listened at length (so much I considered forgoing greeting her) and then gave the young lady her cell phone number and told her to contact her if she needed to speak further -- I was awed because that made it clear that Rosaria Butterfield not only writes about hospitality she practices it.
Needless to say, I'm a Rosaria Butterfield fan and as I mentioned Sunday for the next several weeks I'm going to be encouraging you to hear her speak at St. Luke's Anglican Church on Hilton Head Island from 5:30-7:00pm on Thursday, 5 June. St. Luke's is located at 50 Pope Avenue. The evening will include a light dinner and lecture for $10 and you may register here or call the church office at: (843) 785-4099.
As I also mentioned on Sunday, I am so confident that you will appreciate the opportunity to hear Dr. Butterfield that for parishioners of St. Andrew's I will personally refund the $10 cost and even include a few dollars to cover gas if you don't think her talk was worth it. I hope that you'll make it a point to attend.
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This week in the Reformed Episcopal Board of Foreign Missions Cycle of Prayer we pray for:
• THE CHURCH OF CHRIST THE SAVIOUR, St Petersburg, Russia, Minister: The Rev'd Dr. Sergei Makov
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The Men's Lunch will meet at 11:30am on Thursday, 15 May, at Sweet Potatoes Kitchen,531 Stephenson Ave.
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The Vestry will meet on Sunday, 18 May, following worship.
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The 2025 Anglican Way Institute (not to be confused with the Anglican Way Conference sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of the USA) will be held from 28-30 May at the Holy Communion Anglican Cathedral in Dallas, Texas. In commemoration of the Seventeen Hundredth Anniversary of the Council of Nicaea the conference will examine the Ecumenical Councils of the Church. The speakers will include:
The Most Rev'd Dr. Ray R. Sutton, Bishop of the Diocese of Mid-America and Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church.
The Rev'd Dr. D. Blair Smith, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and President-appointee at Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Dr. D. Jeffrey Bingham, Research Professor of Historical Theology and Jesse Hendley Chair of Biblical Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The Rev'd Dr. David R. Maxwell, Louis A. Fincke and Anna B. Shine Professor of Systematic Theology, Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.
The Very Rev'd Dr. Chad Hatfield, Professor of Evangelism and Missiology and former President of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary.
Distance registration is available at a reduced rate.
(The Rev'd) Drew Collins, Rector