Sacred Spaces, Living Stories: What Church Architecture Can Teach Us
Date & Time: Wednesday, October 21 | 3:00 pm ET

Registration: https://episcopalparishes.org/upcoming-webinars/

About the Webinar

Our church buildings tell stories. Their architecture reflects the communities that built them, the ways Episcopalians have understood worship and sacred space, and the presence the Church has sought to embody in the places it serves. But how well do we know the stories our buildings are telling?

Join the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church for a conversation about church architecture as an important part of Episcopal history and a resource for congregations today. Drawing on themes and insights from the award-winning book Spires in the Sun: The Carpenter Gothic Episcopal Churches of Florida, we’ll explore how congregations can better understand the architecture of their churches, consider how these spaces shape worship and the public’s encounter with the Church, and find practical ways to interpret and share their history with parishioners and visitors.

Come discover how looking more closely at the buildings we already know can reveal new stories about our congregations, our communities, and the Episcopal Church.

Speakers

• Matthew Payne – Director of Operations, Historical Society of the Episcopal Church; Mineral Point, WI
• Jonathan Rich – Author, Spires in the Sun: The Carpenter Gothic Episcopal Churches of Florida; Jacksonville, FL
• John Runkle – Priest, The Episcopal Church; First Vice-President, Historical Society of the Episcopal Church; Author of Searching for Sacred Space: Essays on Architecture and Liturgical Design in the Episcopal Church; Sewanee, TN

Sponsors & Hosts

• Hosted by: Episcopal Parish Network (episcopalparishes.org)
• Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (hsec.us)
• St. John’s Cathedral Bookstore and Gift Shop (jaxcathedralbooks.org)

Numerous regions of the Anglican Communion are topics of study in the latest issue of Anglican & Episcopal History (AEH). Studies examine missionaries’ archived sources for Kenya and Nigeria, parish history in Tanganyika, and the legacies of Episcopalians in Scotland and Virginia, USA.

Readers can find six thought-provoking, peer-reviewed studies along with fourteen book reviews, an engaged history article, two church reviews, and two articles detailing historic preservation work in Tennessee and New York in the September issue of AEH.

Academic studies in the issue are:

“A Range of Responses: Anglican Missionaries during the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya” by Samuel J. Richards

Samuel J. Richards’ study challenges a commonly accepted assumption that Anglican missionaries worked lockstep with British imperial officials in Kenya Colony during the Mau Mau Uprising of the 1950s.

By examining the actions of three Church Missionary Society (CMS) clergy – Neville Langford-Smith (1910–1993), Cecil Bewes (1902–1992), and Howard J. Church (1904–1984) – Richards concludes that “The range of responses among colonial clergy suggests that ecclesiastical reactions to Mau Mau were shaped less by colonial era privileges than by individual personalities and theological interpretations.” Richards argues that “Attributing contemporary action or inaction in churches to colonial vestiges fails to acknowledge the dynamism of individuals’ personalities and theological views. It robs Kenyans of agency.”

Richards is high school head of social sciences at the International School of Kenya in Nairobi where he teaches International Baccalaureate (IB) History and Theory of Knowledge. He is a contributing author to Authoritarian Rule since 1750 CE (Pearson, 2026) and Popular Movements from 1750 CE: Case Studies from East and West Africa (Aga Khan Academies, 2026).

“Negotiating Religion from the Top: Hegemony and Anonymity of African Kings in the Encounters of Church MIssionary Society Niger Missionaries in the Middle Belt of Nigeria, 1841-1930” by Kefas Lemak

Kefas Lemak investigates the strange contradiction in CMS missionary accounts from the Middle Belt of Nigeria that emphasize the hegemony and power of African kings while leaving those powerful kings unnamed in records.

“In colonial studies, African studies, and historical studies of Nigeria, much scholarship has focused on the hegemony of African kings and chiefs,” according to Lemak. “However, little attention has been given in African and religious studies to the polar opposite of this perception: although African kings are situated as important figures, the names of African kings and chiefs were mentioned only a few times in missionary and colonial writings, such as reports, journals, and narratives.” Lemak combed the journals of missionaries James Frederick Schon, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, and William Fortunatus John to explore this pattern.

Lemak is a faculty specialist at Western Michigan University where he teaches classes on the History of Christianity and Religion and Health. His research interests include World Christianity, African American Christianity, and African diaspora Christianity.

“‘Good Works…Follow after Justification’: the Early Modern Anglican use of Augustine of Hippo’s On faith and works” by Erik A. Estrada

Erik A. Estrada argues that Augustine’s On faith and works “provided a definite point of reference for a good number of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican theologians and biblical scholars” writing on various topics such as soteriology. This view challenges Suzanne Gatzemeier’s 2013 thesis on the topic.

Estrada focuses his analysis on influences within the Church of England, in particular ways St. Augustine influenced Archbishops of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) and Matthew Parker (1504–1575) as well as Scottish Anglican bishop William Forbes (1580–1634).

Estrada is assistant professor of religion at Texas Christian University. He specializes in the history of Christian soteriology and recently published Faith Alone (Fortress Press, 2026), a book on pre-Reformation debates.

“The Episcopal Churches in Scotland and the United States of America: A Shared Heritage of Liturgy and Eucharistic Theology” by Brian Douglas

Brian Douglas traces the strong liturgical heritage found in eucharistic theologies of the Scottish Episcopal Church and the Episcopal Church in the United States. He analyzes the theological framework of the 1764 Scottish Communion Office and ways it influenced practices in the United States following the ordination of Connecticut bishop Samuel Seabury’s 1784 agreement with Scottish Episcopalians. Douglas identifies these influences in both the 1786 and 1790 liturgical revisions in the US Episcopal Church.

“This heritage has continued in subsequent editions of the American prayer book, right up to the present prayer book of the Episcopal Church, published in 1979 and revised in 2016, especially in Rite One of the Holy Eucharist,” writes Douglas.

Douglas is a priest in the Anglican Church of Australia and a research professor at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, Charles Sturt University, Canberra. He is author of The Eucharist in Scottish Episcopalianism: An Alternate History and Theology (Edinburgh University Press, 2026).

“Henry Scougal’s Episcopalian Identity: Patristics, Priesthood, and Sacrament" by David Neal Greenwood

David Neal Greenwood writes that, “more than most theologians, Henry Scougal (1650–1678) has been subjected to tendentious historical revision, routinely being portrayed as either a theological liberal or a Puritan.”

Greenwood weighs in on the debate regarding which groups should claim the author of The Life of God in the Soul of Man (1676-1677) as their own. He writes that “Scougal and his work are prizes worth taking for those seeking to articulate a version of history that suits their denominational perspective. Yet attempts to appropriate Scougal as one of their own fail when the primary sources are consulted and properly understood.” His investigation works to correct distortions in the record.

Greenwood teaches in the Classics and Religious Studies Department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a priest in Scottish orders.

“The Glebe of Fairfax Parish, Virginia” by Charleen Smith-Reidel

Charlene Smith-Reidel traces the complexities and development surrounding glebe lands of Fairfax Parish, Virginia (now the District of Columbia), amid revolutionary change in colonial America.

She writes that, “The Fairfax Parish glebe is exceptional in that the specifications recorded in the vestry book constitute the most complete and detailed work order of any glebe in colonial Virginia. In the rural landscape, dotted with farms, fields, and few scattered settlements, both churches and glebe properties became notable landmarks, signaling to travelers the wealth and status of the parish. This glebe in Fairfax Parish was also among the last to be completed before  the start of the American Revolution. It would become a model to showcase the disestablishment of the Church of England in Virginia over the next fifty years.”

Smith-Reidel earned her degree in Vokskunde at the Universität in Freiburg, Germany. She is currently researching and writing on folklore and has been published in the Smithsonian Folklife Magazine.

Engaged History: “Archiving Parish Histories in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika” by Tulibako C. Mwakasege

Tulibako C. Mwakasege chronicles historical research in three Dodoma-based parishes as part of the project Archiving Parish Histories in the Diocese of Central Tanganyika. It forms part of Mwakasege’s larger research study “The Contribution of the Anglican Church on Gender Equality: the Case of the Diocese of Central Tanganyika, 1960s–2020,” which was supported by a research grant from the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church.

Mwakasege writes, “Our exploration of the Diocese of Central Tanganyika’s history took us deep into vestries, parish offices, and even personal homes where records had been quietly kept for decades. The primary sources were the parish archives themselves: baptismal, confirmation, marriage, and burial registers, some dating back to the early 1960s. I also found valuable correspondence between clergy, diocesan circulars, and handwritten minutes of early parish councils. Oral histories played an equally vital role; elderly parishioners and long-serving clergy helped reconstruct stories that had never been written down.”

These studies along with exhibit and book reviews are available in the latest issue of Anglican & Episcopal History. AEH is the peer-reviewed journal of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church. It is published quarterly. For subscription information visit hsec.us/membership.

If you’ve ventured into your church’s basement, you may know the feeling. You’re looking for a spare lightbulb, but stumble on a treasure trove: a leather-bound parish register from the 1890s, a box of faded Polaroids from a 1970s youth group fundraiser, or perhaps a mysterious box of floppy disks from the turn of the millennium. Tangible footprints of our faith communities—records of marriages, baptisms, community triumphs, and quiet moments of grace. Without a plan to protect them, these stories can easily be lost to time, humidity, or a well-meaning spring cleaning.

Fortunately, you don’t need a degree in library science to meet your parish’s archival needs. Whether you’re a lifelong history buff, a church administrator, or a volunteer who just inherited a closet full of boxes, there is an archival course waiting for you.

Produced by the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church and originally presented as a live, five-part Zoom series in 2024, Archives Basics for Churches has been curated into an on-demand, self-paced educational course. Tailored specifically for the unique canonical and historical landscape of the Episcopal Church, this free resource bridges the gap between professional preservation techniques and the practical realities of local parish life.

Instead of dry, academic lectures, the course breaks down the daunting task of historical preservation into five manageable, bite-sized sessions. The best part about this course? You won’t just watch a video and be left to figure things out on your own. Each session is packed with practical tools designed to get you moving from day one:

• Watch and learn: High-quality video recordings from the original sessions guide you through the process step-by-step.
• Skip the note-taking: Downloadable session outlines and presentation slides give you a quick-reference guide whenever you need to look something up.
• Stop guessing: You’ll gain access to real-world sample files, templates, and policy worksheets. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel—just download and customize them for your congregation.
• Keep growing: A curated list of additional resources is included to help you solve specific mysteries, from preserving delicate 19th-century paper to archiving modern digital files.

Across the five modules, the course addresses the real questions church volunteers face every day:

• The "Keep or Toss" dilemma: Learn what is historically and canonically vital to save (and what you can safely recycle).
• The Elements: Discover simple, budget-friendly ways to protect physical items from heat, light, and moisture.
• The Digital Frontier: how to organize and back up modern church records, emails, and digital photos so they don't vanish into a hard-drive abyss.
• Sharing the Story: Find out how to catalog your collection so that clergy, researchers, and future generations can actually find and enjoy it.

Ready to dive in? You don't have to tackle the whole basement this weekend. Grab a cup of coffee, watch the first session, and discover how easy—and deeply rewarding—it is to safeguard your community's legacy. Your church’s past is a gift to its future. Check out the Archives Basics for Churches resources today at hsec.us/archivesbasics , and learn how to keep your parish’s story alive for generations to come.

The Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (HSEC) has announced the awarding of $15,050 in grants to thirteen recipients whose projects will advance the preservation, study, and interpretation of Episcopal and Anglican history. The awards support scholarly research, publications, oral history initiatives, and public history projects in the United States and abroad. Since establishing its grants program in 1988, HSEC has awarded more than $500,000 to scholars, researchers, historians, and institutions engaged in documenting and interpreting the history of the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion.

Grant applications are reviewed by the Society's Grants and Research Committee, with final approval by the Board of Directors. Funding is provided through HSEC's annual budget and enhanced by contributions from Society members. This year, the committee reviewed requests totaling $28,933.68, underscoring the continuing demand for support of historical research.

Grant recipients are encouraged to share the results of their work through Anglican and Episcopal History, the Society's peer-reviewed quarterly journal. Additional information about the grants program is available at hsec.us/grants.

2026 Grant Recipients

• Aaron Griffith(Duke Divinity School) — Research on the history of Black Episcopal clergy serving in American police departments.
• Andrew English(Independent Scholar) — Research on the history of Little Fork Church in Rixeyville, Virginia, in preparation for its 250th anniversary.
• Anna Burnley(Independent Scholar) — Research on the altars created by Joseph Trummer in the Episcopal Diocese of Florida.
• Anthony Guillén(Former Officer for Latino/Hispanic Ministries, The Episcopal Church) — Continuation of an Episcopal oral history project.
• Blake Strickland(University of Florida) — A digital history project examining the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel's slave plantations.
• Daniel Graves(Independent Scholar, Anglican Church of Canada) — Research for a biography of Richard Hooker.
• Gordon Heath(McMaster Divinity College) — Research on Anglican and Episcopal responses to the World War II bombing of German and Japanese cities.
• Greg Farr(Episcopal Church in Connecticut) — A living and oral history project documenting predominantly Black congregations in the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut.
• Malia K. DuMont(Bard College) — Development of a public history and museum exhibit on St. Stephen's Service Flag from World War I.
• Matthew Vogel(University of Oxford) — Research on the life and work of William Stringfellow.
• Sarah Ahmed(McGill University) — Research on the intersection of medicine and early Methodism.
• Virgilio Jossene(Anglican Diocese of Tete, Mozambique) — Research on the Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil.
• Winnifred Mwikali(Pwani University, Kenya) — Research on the legacy of the Church Missionary Society in Kenya.

As the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (HSEC), we acknowledge the ancestral and unceded territories of all the Indigenous Peoples who call the lands inhabited by the Episcopal Church home, as well as the diverse and vibrant Indigenous Communities who make their homes here today. We acknowledge that the lands were seized through violence, colonization, and displacement, and we acknowledge the historical erasure and ongoing harms experienced by Indigenous peoples through massacres, resource exploitation, and forced assimilation. We commit to uplifting Indigenous voices, addressing ongoing colonial legacies, and working together to build a just and equitable future.

The Board of Directors of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church approved several significant initiatives during its June 2026 meeting and forwarded two constitutional amendments to the Society's annual meeting for consideration.

The Board adopted a Land Acknowledgment Statement that emphasizes historical education, approved funding to translate 2025 Tri-History Conference papers into Spanish for publication in a future issue of Anglican and Episcopal History, and agreed to serve as fiscal agent for the Latinx Archives Project, enabling it to receive tax-deductible contributions. Additional actions included adopting policies governing the sharing of information from the Diocesan History Contact Project and the funds management of Lifetime Membership dues.

The Board also proposed two constitutional amendments. The first changed the Treasurer from an elected office to one appointed by the Board and confirmed annually by the membership. The second replaced the requirement for annual CPA audits with annual independent financial reviews, reflecting the Society's size, straightforward financial operations, and the limited availability of audit firms serving organizations of its scale. During the Society's annual meeting, held via Zoom in July 2026, members approved both constitutional amendments.

The Board also recommended renaming the Tri-History Conference as the Episcopal History Conference to more clearly reflects the conference's mission while continuing its partnership with the National Episcopal Historians and Archivists and the Episcopal Women's History Project.

Actions taken by the Board and membership strengthen the Society's governance, enhance access to Episcopal historical scholarship, and support the continued preservation of the history of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.

The Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (HSEC) is pleased to announce that Dr. Carl MaultsBy, director of music and organist at St. Richard's Episcopal Church in Winter Park, Florida, has been named the recipient of the 2026 Nelson R. Burr Prize. The award, presented during the Society’s annual meeting, recognizes MaultsBy's article, "Afro-Centric Liturgical Music and Its Implementation at St. Philip's Church, Harlem," published in the December 2025 issue of Anglican and Episcopal History (Vol. 94, No. 4).

The HSEC Publications Committee selected the article for its exceptional scholarship, extensive research, and careful documentation. The committee also praised the work for incorporating the personal witness to illuminate recent developments in Episcopal liturgical music.

MaultsBy's article offers a significant contribution to the study of Anglican and Episcopal history by tracing the evolution of music at the historic St. Philip's Church in Harlem. It examines how traditional Anglican musical traditions were gradually supplemented—and, in some respects, transformed—through the incorporation of Afro-Centric liturgical music rooted in the faith, culture, and lived experience of African Americans. By situating these developments within the broader history of one of the Episcopal Church's most influential parishes, the article provides important historical and theological context for this evolution.

Throughout his distinguished career, MaultsBy has led music ministries at prominent Episcopal churches in New York, Washington, D.C., and Florida. He holds degrees from Lake Forest College and the Manhattan School of Music, and his work spans sacred, secular, and film music. An accomplished composer and author of liturgical works, hymnal settings, and organ compositions, he has also served on the Episcopal Church's Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music.

The Nelson R. Burr Prize is named in honor of historian Nelson R. Burr, whose landmark work, A Critical Bibliography of Religion in America (1961), remains a foundational resource in the field of American religious historiography. Awarded annually, the prize recognizes the author of the most outstanding article published in Anglican and Episcopal History, HSEC's quarterly peer-reviewed scholarly journal. The award honors excellence, originality, and significant contributions to the study of Anglican and Episcopal history.

Recent Burr Prize articles, including MaultsBy’s, are available online at hsec.us/Nelson-Burr-Prize. Print copies may be requested by contacting Director of Operations Matthew P. Payne at mpayne@hsec.us or (920) 383-1910.

A small funding spark has ignited a historical revelation, tracing a web of mid-century civil rights activism from a local Brooklyn parish all the way to West Africa. Backed by a second consecutive research grant from the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church (HSEC), historian Phil Sinitiere has uncovered rich, forgotten, and overlooked chapters in the historic alliance between legendary Black intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois and the Rev. William Howard Melish, a radical white pastor at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in the 1940s-1950s.

The project, titled William Howard Melish and W.E.B. Du Bois: Interracial Solidarity, Civil Rights, and Black Freedom at Church of the Holy Trinity, 1951-1963, explores how the Brooklyn church served as a vital, progressive crucible for racial justice. Working in close tandem with the Rev. Dr. Fr. Craig Townsend—one of the clerics at St. Anne and the Holy Trinity Church (SAHT) and director of the parish's Melish-Du Bois research project—Sinitiere’s global archival journey has successfully bridged continents and connected eras.

Global Discoveries

Sinitiere’s investigative work spanned multiple international repositories. In August 2025, during an intensive research trip to the regional archives in Accra, Ghana, Sinitiere discovered rare, illuminating correspondence between the Rev. Melish and Ghana’s visionary first president, Kwame Nkrumah. The trail of interracial solidarity continued in April 2026 at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where new discoveries within the W.E.B. Du Bois Collection further solidified the profound socio-political ties linking Du Bois, Melish, and the Holy Trinity community. Ongoing research in the W.E.B. Du Bois Papers at UMass Amherst added to the project’s documentary foundation. And Sinitiere and Townsend’s joint research in the SAHT archives and at The Center for Brooklyn History further linked the Melish and Du Bois story from America to Africa.

From Archives to the Printing Press

The rigorous archival work has culminated in four scholarly achievements:

• A Forthcoming Book: A newly materialized book project documenting Holy Trinity's 20th-century activism. Sinitiere and Townsend have engaged in promising preliminary discussions with NYU Press editor Jennifer Hammer, who has expressed keen interest in reviewing a formal book proposal.
• Memoir Edition: A critical editorial introduction to Melish’s West African memoir, "Du Bois, Nkrumah, and Ghana," which recounts his September 1963 trip to deliver a eulogy at Du Bois's funeral. This will be submitted to an open-source humanities journal.
• Historical Essay: A chronicle of the church's pioneering 1950s Negro History Week events, bound for the journal Anglican and Episcopal History.
• Archival Reflection: A co-authored memoiristic essay mapping their subjective experiences researching this cross-cultural history.

Braving the Elements

Beyond academic circles, the research is already capturing the public imagination. In late February 2026, building on the momentum of previous Black History Month forums, the researchers convened a public program titled "From Brooklyn to Ghana: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Rev. William Howard Melish." Despite severe blizzard conditions that paralyzed New York City, nearly 80 attendees gathered in person at the church, while a vast international audience tuned in via a global YouTube livestream. The overwhelming public response underscores the enduring relevance of the project, demonstrating how local church archives can reveal expansive, international histories of human rights and solidarity.

Phillip Luke Sinitiere is Senior Research Fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Center at UMass Amherst. He is also professor of history and humanities at the College of Biblical Studies, a predominately African American school located in Houston’s Mahatma Gandhi District. In addition to dozens of essays in academic journals that analyze W.E.B. Du Bois’s life and legacy, Sinitere’s Du Bois-related scholarly books include Citizen of the World: The Late Career and Legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois (Northwestern University Press, 2019); Forging Freedom in W.E.B. Du Bois’s Twilight Years: No Deed but Memory (University Press of Mississippi, 2023); and  Shirley Graham Du Bois: Artist, Activist, and Author in the African Diaspora (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025).

Book, church, and exhibit reviews helpful to scholars of church history are featured in the summer 2026 issue of Anglican & Episcopal History (AEH). Reviews of current scholarship include:

Church Review

Church reviews provide readers a glimpse of divine services throughout the Anglican Communion, especially within the Episcopal Church.

In this issue, readers first get a glimpse of Choral Evensong at the historic Christ Church, part of the Philadelphia-based Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. The profile describes a parish that is welcoming to tourists just at it once welcomed attendees like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin during the First Continental Congress in 1774. Today, Christ Church has active ministries for youth, families, young adults, retirees, and LGBTQIA+ community.

This Choral Evensong was also historic in welcoming the church’s twentieth rector, the first woman to hold the role.

Engaged History

Martha T. Dever and Sarah Hartzell highlight their work as co-founders of the Colorado Coalition of Indigenous Allies (CCIA). The organization, founded in January 2023, seeks justice for Indigenous people. CCIA is working to redress injustices as a result of the Doctrine of Discovery. This includes a pilgrimage sponsored by CCIA and the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado to the site of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.

Exhibit Reviews

Lachlan Hassman writes that, “Allan Rohan Crite painted windows into heaven.” These windows were on display in two Boston area exhibitions.

Crite, an African American artist associated with Anglo-Catholic parishes of Boston, characterized himself as a Christian artist who worked to make the divine accessible through art. Reviewer Rachel V. Kemp writes that many critics overlook the importance of faith in Crite’s works. She notes that those critics’ “descriptions fall short simply because they overlook the grounding principle of his life and art.”

The exhibitions were:

• “Allan Rohan Crite: Griot of Boston” at the Boston Athenaeum (October 23, 2025-January 24, 2026)
• “Allan Rohan Crite: Urban Glory” at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (October 23, 2025-January 19, 2026)

A co-published catalogue of the exhibits titled Allan Rohan Crite: Neighborhood Liturgy is now available from Princeton University Press.

Book Reviews

Fourteen book reviews including:

• Republic and Empire: Crisis, Revolution, and America’s Early Independence by Trevor Burnard and Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy | Reviewed by Suzanne Geissler of William Paterson University
• Decolonial Archival Futures by Krista McCracken and Skylee-Storm Hogan-Stacey | Reviewed by Caroline E. Zhu of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island
• Anglicanism, Missions, and Empire: the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries by Rowan Strong | Reviewed by Benjamin J. King of Seminary of the Southwest
• The American Revolution: An Intimate History by Geoffrey C. Ward | Reviewed by Susan L. Stonesifer of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, DC
• Anglican Identities: Logos Idealism, Imperial Whiteness, Commonweal Ecumenism by Gary Dorrien | Reviewed by Don H. Compier of the Bishop Kemper School for Ministry
• One Small Candle: the Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England by Francis J. Bremer | Reviewed by S. Scott Roher of Arlington, Virginia

Anglican & Episcopal History is the peer-reviewed journal of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church. It is published quarterly. For subscription information, visit www.hsec.us/membership.

Historians consider narratives of resistance and resilience as part of a special issue of Anglican & Episcopal History (AEH) for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

AEH editor-in-chief Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook writes that, “Ongoing debates over the role and scope of history amid this year’s semiquincentennial (250th) anniversary of the Declaration of Independence raise questions about who controls national narratives and how they intersect with religious history.” The June issue of AEH attempts to “complexify more dominant narratives of national and Episcopal history.”

Readers can find six peer-reviewed academic studies along with fourteen book reviews, an exhibit review, and a church review in the June issue.

The academic studies in the summer issue of Anglican & Episcopal History are:

A Dance of Destiny: 250 Years of Sovereignty and Survival by Bishop Steven Charleston

“If you want to understand the significance of the United States sesquicentennial from a Native American point of view, then you need to understand the powwow,” according to Charleston.

The retired bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska writes that, “In Native America, dance does more than tell a story. It changes reality. Dance is an agency of the sacred, a generator of spiritual energy and healing. People do not come to watch a dance, but to be transformed by it.”

Charleston’s essay points to ways the powwow on Turtle Island (North America) expropriates the American flag from being a symbol of death and translates it to become a symbol of life making it a symbol of freedom and equality for all people.

Charleston is an elder citizen of the Choctaw Nation. He is a well-known advocate for environmental justice and Indigenous rights.

Two studies are framed using Henry Wadsworth Longfellows’ 1860 poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

“Negro Belonging To”: Monstrous Intimacies in the Eighteenth-Century Records of Boston’s Old North Church by Jaime D. Crumley

“History has long lauded Old North [Church] for its contribution to the American Revolution. However, the church’s early history is rife with contradictions. Old North is simultaneously a monument to American freedom and a testament to the dark work of slavery,” according to Jaime D. Crumley.

Her study examines three baptisms: Gidney Clark’s at St. Michael’s Parish in Barbados as well as Prince and Cato at Old North Church in Boston.

Crumley is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethnic, Gender, and Disability Studies at the University of Utah. During the 2022-2023 academic year, she was the Research Fellow at Old North Illuminated, the nonprofit that interprets and preserves the history of Boston’s Old North Church.

Shining Lights on Complexity and Contradiction at the Old North Church, Boston: a Reappraisal for America’s Semiquincentennial by Matthew Peter Caldwell

“Old North is a church within a museum and a museum within a church, with all the attendant complexities of historic preservation, governance, and balance of religious and secular activity,” according to its vicar Matthew Peter Caldwell.

Old North has long held an outsized role in U.S. history. During the 1776 bicentennial celebrations President Gerald Ford spoke there. Old North also hosted Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in July 1976.

Caldwell writes that “Old North is for many a place of pilgrimage and a symbol of freedom” while recounting ways research by historian Jared Ross Hardesty in 2018 “led to deeper reflection of the church’s active engagement and complicity in the economy of enslavement.”

In addition to being vicar of Old North Church in Boston, Caldwell holds a Ph.D. in Anglican history and theology from the Toronto School of Theology.

Despite the Declaration: White Episcopal Support for Slavery and Black Episcopal Resistance in Early Republic New Jersey by Jolyon G.R. Pruszinski

“During the Revolutionary War, Anglicans in New Jersey were split on whether to remain loyal to the Crown, but after the war, both white and Black Episcopalians generally embraced the language of the Declaration of Independence with patriotic zeal,” according to Jolyon G.R. Pruszinski. He finds that, “Where they split was over whether ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ should be the deserved possessions of ‘all men’ or if the ‘all men’ who were ‘created equal’ were, in fact, ‘white’ men only.”

Pruszinski identifies a complex historiography in which the heritage of the U.S. Declaration of Independence was “one that both white and Black New Jersey Episcopalians claimed as their own: white Episcopalians usually as their exclusive possession, but Black Episcopalians as a part of a broadly catholic vision of what could and should be. It is the result of the insistence and persistence of Black Episcopalians over the course of 250 years that broader acceptance of the full truth of the Declaration has begun to be embraced in the Episcopal Church: that ‘all’ people are ‘created equal’ and are ‘endowed by their Creator with . . . inalienable rights.’”

Pruszinskiis a lecturer in the departments of History and Religion at Princeton University and the Reparations Commission historian for the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey.

St. Anna’s: the Influence of the Episcopal Church on the Poarch Band of Creek Indians Community in Alabama

“The history of St. Anna’s Episcopal Church and the Poarch Band of Creek Indians is not a simple story of missionary benevolence or cultural imposition, though it contains elements of both,” writes Kelly Fayard.

“What stands out across these accounts is how consistently elders refused both the missionaries’ paternalism and their own victimhood,” according to Fayard. “They acknowledged poverty plainly while insisting on the richness of their relational lives. They credited the Episcopal Church with real, material help—schools, healthcare, records that enabled federal recognition – while correcting the record on what missionaries had gotten wrong. This is a sophisticated historical consciousness, not nostalgia.”

Fayard is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Denver and a member of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

Decolonizing the Holy Land: Anglican Missionaries and Jewish Immigration into Mandatory Palestine, 1917-1948 by Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr.

Shattuck traces the influence and reactions of Anglican missionaries in Palestine to the increasing influence of Zionism and the arrival of Jewish migrants between 1917 and 1948.

His study points to changing views across time as he writes “...Anglican opposition to the Zionist movement begins during the latter stages of World War I with British missionaries in Jerusalem celebrating the capture of the city by Allied military forces under the command of General Edmund Allenby.”

Shattuck also chronicles Anglican missionary disappointment with the Balfour Declaration. He notes that, “As soon as it was made public, the statement was instantly greeted with consternation by Anglican missionaries, who began to worry about its impact on their activities in Palestine.”

One prominent figure in this opposition was Bishop Rennie MacInnes. Shattuck describes him “as bishop of the state church of the imperial power that held sway over Palestine” who was “clearly the most prominent of the Western Christian critics of Zionism in the 1920s.”

Shattuck concludes that “despite the laudable intent of the missionaries in seeking proactively to shield Palestinians from the immense suffering and dislocation that Zionism ultimately brought upon them, their continual use of anti-Judaic, supersessionist arguments, laced with antisemitic tropes and stereotypes, still represents a troubling legacy for which Anglicans and Episcopalians (as well as other Christian denominations) did not begin to atone officially until the mid-1960s.”

Gardiner H. Shattuck, Jr. is a historian and retired Episcopal priest who has written extensively on American Protestant involvement in socio-political events.

Narratives of Resistance and Resilience: Reflections on Anglican and Episcopal History for the Semiquincentennial by Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook

The paradox of Christianity – particularly Anglican and Episcopal Christianity – as a source of both liberation and oppression is the focus of the final essay by AEH editor-in-chief Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook.

“Empire, colonialism, and Christianity form the basis of White supremacy – the belief that White people are inherently superior to people of color – has operated for at least the last 500 years and is a pervasive part of the legacy of Anglican settler colonialism,” according to Kujawa-Holbrook. “Throughout Christian history, religion has been a source of liberation for some and a source of oppression against others. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, gender oppression, classism, religious oppression, language oppression, and other forms of oppression were and are still promulgated through Christian discourse.”

She challenges adoption of the “single narrative worldview of ‘secular’ histories” that suggest there is “one true historical narrative of Anglican and Episcopal history, and that this dominant narrative is the only way to tell our ‘unbiased’ story.” She points to ways Anglican and Episcopal historians have been actively dispelling this myth for at least two generations. She points to African American Episcopal and Afro-Anglican histories, Anglican and Episcopal women’s histories, Indigenous histories, Asian and Asian American Anglican histories, Latinx Anglican and Episcopal histories, LGBTQi1 histories, and increasingly, postcolonial and decolonial analyses as examples.

These studies along with exhibit and book reviews are available in the latest issue of Anglican & Episcopal History. AEH is the peer-reviewed journal of the Historical Society of the Episcopal Church. It is published quarterly. For subscription information visit hsec.us/membership.