Harvard Dean to Speak at Family Life Conference
Episcopal News Service. August 10, 1978 [78226]
NEW YORK -- The Rev. Kristen Stendahl, Dean of Harvard Divinity School and a world-reknowned biblical scholar, will be one of the key figures in an Episcopal Church examination of family life this Fall in Denver.
The Family Life Conference, sponsored by the Committee on Social and Specialized Ministries of the Episcopal Church's Church in Society office, will employ a liturgical framework and family models to examine the Christian tradition of family life, the social history and influences on the family in the United States and the appropriate ministries of the Church.
Dean Stendahl will be joined for major presentations by the Rev. John Snow, author and professor of pastoral theology at the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass; Dr. Marion Kelleran, chairman of the Anglican Consultative Council and pastoral theologian, and Dr. Charles L. Lawrence, President of the House of Deputies and a sociologist.
Presiding Bishop John M. Allin will preach at the eucharist which will open the first morning's session and set the liturgical framework. The Rev. Martin Tilson of Birmingham, Ala., chairman of the sponsoring committee, and Mr. Woodrow Carter of the Church Center staff will open the working session after which Dean Stendahl and Mr. Snow will seek to lay out the biblical roots and theological themes that will be developed over the next days by the 250 participants.
At the conclusion of the opening papers, the participants will be divided into groups of about fifteen which will be the basic working groups for the conference. and became John Lord O'Brian Professor of Divinity. He taught at Uppsala University in Sweden from 1951 to 1954.
Ordained a priest of the Church of Sweden in 1944, Dean Stendahl was an assistant pastor in the diocese of Stockholm from 1944 to 1946 and Chaplain at Uppsala University from 1948 to 1950. He was the President of the Student Christian Movement in Sweden in 1954.
Dean Stendahl is the author of "The School of St. Matthew and its Use of The Old Testament" (1954) and the editor and co-author of "The Scrolls and the New Testament" (1957). He wrote "The Bible and the Role of Women" (1966), "Holy Week" (1974), and "Paul Among Jews and Gentiles" (1976). He has published articles and essays in Swedish, German, and American journals and encyclopedias, including "The Gospel of Matthew" in Peake's Commentary (1962) and the essay on "Biblical Theology" in The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (1962).
Born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1921, Dean Stendahl received his Th. D. degree from Uppsala University in 1954. He studied in Cambridge, England, and in Paris in 1951 and was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1951 and 1954. Dean Stendahl is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Council member of the World Union of Jewish Studies.
Professor Snow, who will respond to the remarks of Dean Stendahl, has been on the faculty of the Episcopal Divinity (Theological) School in Cambridge since 1972. Educated at Harvard University and ETS, he was chaplain at Princeton University before coming to Cambridge. He is the author of On Pilgrimmage: Marriage in the '70s, and The Gospel in a Broken World.
Dr. Lawrence served on the faculty of Brooklyn College from 1948 until his retirement in 1977. He is a former editor of the "Journal of Marriage and the Family" and an author of numerous articles. Elected president of the House of Deputies in 1976, he has also held a number of national, diocesan and parish church posts. He holds the Ph.D. degree from Columbia University and is often called on as a visiting lecturer in sociology and social issues.
Dr. Kelleran joined the faculty of V. T. S. in 1963 as associate professor of Pastoral Theology and Christian Education. Prior to that she served the Diocese of Washington (D.C.) as Director of Christian Education. She has received a B.A. degree from the University of Buffalo, Buffalo, N.Y., and did graduate study at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., and Union Theological Seminary, New York City.
She currently chairs the Anglican Consultative Council and, as such, is the first woman participant in the Lambeth Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion. She served on the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church from 1967-73.
The Conference will take place at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Denver from Nov. 13 to Nov. 16. The cost of approximately $185 will include the $25 registration fee as well as room and board. Information and registration material may be obtained from the Office of Social Ministries and Concerns, the Episcopal Church Center, 815 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10017.