“What we all need to realize is that we are one tiny strand of God’s tapestry,” says Wells, who is married to Sam Wells, dean of Duke Chapel and research professor of Christian ethics at The Divinity School. “Only when we take our place faithfully in the whole do we realize how great and how rich the picture is.”

To help students develop that perspective, Wells plans to introduce them to a variety of speakers in the coming year.

George Carey, former archbishop of Canterbury and an outspoken opponent of ordination for openly gay Anglicans, will give a talk at the school on Feb. 8. Wells also has arranged for Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry of North Carolina, who has supported ordaining those who are openly gay, to guest teach a course with her on Anglican polity this semester.

“My hope would be that people who differ with one another will still attend and listen and debate,” Wells says. “We may not end up agreeing, but if we are able to hold discussion together then we are learning to be a church that manages a level of diversity.” Craig Uffman M.Div.’08 welcomes the opportunity to hear a diversity of viewpoints through the Anglican Episcopal House. Open constructive debate contributes powerfully to the church, he says.

“One of the beautiful things about Anglican Episcopal House is that it enables students to discuss these differences and to recognize more of our commonalities,” says Uffman, a former officer in the U.S. Navy who plans to go into parish ministry. “We don’t need to rush out and splinter the church because we’re for or against a particular view of sexuality.”

Davis adds that the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies has great potential to broaden the view of students who otherwise might not consider the church in its global context. That is especially important at a time when the Anglican Communion is growing by millions of members in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Many people go to seminary really never having had a conversation with somebody who was an Anglican, but not a North American Episcopalian,” Davis says. “Part of the problem we are having in the Communion is that leaders are only now starting to reckon with the reality. I would hope that would be something we could help people begin to think about.”

Wells hopes the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies ultimately will encourage patience and humility among those involved in church debates. Americans, Europeans, Africans and others need to listen to one another, she says, and they should be willing to wait for one another rather than striking off in their own directions.

“The smaller our world becomes, the more we ought to be aware of the church across the globe, yet the more tempting it becomes to isolate ourselves,” she says. “Being faithful in the local church is having our hearts and minds stretched to begin to embrace every nation, tongue and tribe.”

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