The Anglican Episcopal House of Studies is a fellowship of learning within the wider community of Duke Divinity School, dedicated to the nurturing and training of Anglicans and Episcopalians for future service in the Church.
There has been a significant stream of Anglicans at Duke Divinity School, both on the faculty and in the student body, for decades. But this House – established in 2006 – reflects recent growth in the number of Anglican/Episcopal students attending Duke Divinity School as well as a wider ecumenical interest in the Anglican heritage and its contemporary outworkings.
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We are not an Episcopal seminary. Even though among our number there are many postulants preparing for ordination in the Episcopal Church, as well as some intending to serve elsewhere in the Anglican world, our aims are rather different. Those who participate in the AEHS – which is itself a diverse group vocationally and politically – work out the meaning of their Anglican identity within a wider ecumenical perspective (a predominantly United Methodist seminary) and across a broader intellectual canvas (a divinity school situated at the heart of a leading university). Through the serious study of theology and the embodied practices of worship – in an environment of committed fellowship as well as contextual engagement – we expect profound spiritual formation and transformation.
Such work cannot be neatly packaged into courses and credits. Thanks to the relative intimacy of the AEHS – approximately 50 students, in a range of master’s and doctoral programs – our events are often informal, sometimes spontaneous, certainly honest. Yet the House oversees academic courses covering a range of disciplines relating to Anglican theology and practice. It fosters field education in relevant parish, social and clinical locations, accompanied by reflection on experience. And it oversees spiritual formation, through both individual and corporate commitments, with the aim of integrating the personal and professional, the academic and practical, the devotional and ecclesial. These three elements of AEHS programming – academic, experiential, formational – form the core requirements of the Certificate in Anglican Studies. These elements have proved ample for equipping students for the General Ordination Examinations, without the need of a further ‘Anglican’ year elsewhere.
Read about
AEHS and Director Jo Bailey Wells in Divinity Magazine.
