Episode 102 • 18th May 2023 • The Living Church Podcast • The Living Church
David Bentley Hart, that peppery, unyielding Eastern Orthodox theologian, has two brothers: one is a Church of England priest, another is an American Anglo-Catholic priest. Wouldn’t you love to be at that Thanksgiving table?
You may have heard it said that families are some of God’s most radical ecumenical experiments. Today we have two brothers, situated in denominations that have historically been in tension, even opposition.
Inter-Anglican tensions have a long and complex history. But most of us have not lived through the whole history. We just begin where we are. So what do we make of the church we’re given? And how do we navigate in the broken pieces, especially as parish priests?
Today we sit down with two brothers, both priests, one in the Episcopal Church, one in the Anglican Church in North America. They were kind enough to come on the podcast to share about their journeys, their discernment into the priesthood, and also to field Amber’s questions — not always softballs — about Christian unity, the episcopacy, prayer books, communion with Canterbury, and how it affects their ministries. What does Christian wisdom entail in divided times?: a question many of us are asking. Let’s start at the dinner table and see what happens.
Our guests are the Rev. Jonathan and the Rev. David Beadle. Jon is rector of All Saints, Conroe, Texas, in the Western Gulf Coast Diocese of the Anglican Church in North America, and David is curate at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral in Dallas.