Stand Firm: Dr. Stephen Noll: Open Letter on Theological Education to Network Bishops and Common Cause Partners

Pentecost 2007

Dear Colleagues in the Gospel,

I write you about an issue close to my heart: the sustenance of orthodox Anglican theological education in the USA . As many of you know, I worked for 21 years at Trinity School for Ministry to fulfill its vision to reform and renew the Episcopal Church. Sadly, we failed. Any failure has multiple explanations, but I am convinced that one of them is the failure of conservative bishops to see the urgent need to send ALL orthodox and evangelical students to Trinity. Instead many naively accepted a pluralistic approach to theological formation. Trinity was seen as a nice new dish at the Episcopal smorgasbord, catering to certain renewal people, not the necessary remedy to a radically sick denomination. the rest