The Mission of Nashotah House Continues

A little over a year ago, Mr. Duke accepted the role of Executive Vice President of Institutional Advancement at Nashotah House. Since then, he has been working alongside President and Provost, Dr. Garwood Anderson. Here's a fun Q&A session they did together reflecting on what brought them to Nashotah House and what they see for its future. Three things are clear: they share a deep love for this place, the work being accomplished, and their profound optimism for the days ahead.

Dr. Anderson Begins... 

Anderson: Labin, no doubt others have asked you what brought you from a leadership position in a development hotbed like Baylor University to Nashotah House. What do you tell them?

Duke: Perhaps I should frame the question a little differently: “Why in the world would you leave a good job and free college tuition for seven kids?” The tipping point for me was a visit to Nashotah’s campus. I knew from the moment I set foot here that this was a holy place and felt almost immediately that I was being called to serve its mission to empower the church. 

I am not a cradle Anglican, but I am nonetheless indebted to the tradition that taught me how to pray with and for my family and my church. And, well, we pray a lot here at the House and form our sons and daughters in a life of prayer. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to serve the church in this sacred place, sending out well-prepared men and women to spread the Gospel.

Anderson: Both of us attended good seminaries, but we see something different and special at Nashotah House. What is that for you? Almost anywhere you go you’ll hear that residential theological education is a dinosaur. I take it that you don’t believe that. Why not?

The same formation that prepared missionaries, church planters, priests, and lay leaders in the 1840s is the same formation needed to address the issues of our day. Pictured: Labin Duke and Dr. Garwood Anderson, the Garth of the Cloister at Nashotah House.

Duke: I am convinced that the model for formation here at the House is second to none. In just a short time here, I have seen that our students are thoroughly prepared for the rigors of a lifetime of ministry in service to the church. The church faces serious challenges and nothing short of serious preparation will suffice to meet these challenges. I believe people are rediscovering the value of authentic residential theological education. Serious formation needs a proper context to take root. My seminary was good from a classroom point of view, but there is only so much that can be done on a campus designed for the commuter student. The formation on a campus like that is no comparison to what someone receives in just one week at Nashotah House. 

Anderson: Now that you’ve been around for a little while, what do you wish our friends, alumni, and donors better understood about us? 

Duke: The Pax Nashotah is a phenomenon that is a wonder to behold. Our students come from a variety of traditions and backgrounds, and they often hold to differing views. Yet there is, on the whole, a powerful peace that pervades the close community and prayer life at the House. The Pax Nashotah did not happen by accident, nor will it endure by accident. Nashotah House will continue its mission for another 175 years only by the sacrificial commitments of our family and friends.

Labin’s Turn...

Duke: Dr. Anderson, when I interviewed some alumni and students before accepting my position, almost everyone listed you as their favorite professor (the others had not taken you for a class). What’s your secret?

Anderson: Well, that’s nice to hear, but maybe it is just a sampling error! I don’t know if there are secrets. There is an old but good saying about teaching – it comes from Greek grammar, which makes it even better – that the verb “to teach” takes a double object: we teach a subject matter and we teach people. If you are focused on either one to the exclusion of the other, you will fail at some level. To be erudite with subject matter will impress some people – and we academics like to do that – but it is not the same as committing to the servant role of doing whatever it takes to make students competent, inspired, and appropriately confident. A lot of teaching (not here, of course!) amounts to professors demonstrating why their students will never be as learned as they are. But teaching people is another story.

Duke: You accepted the role of President & Provost during a tumultuous time at the House. Now that you’ve had a little more time to reflect on those challenging days, what would you say are the main things you have learned?

Anderson: I think it is fair in retrospect to say that I didn’t know what I was getting into – not because anyone was holding anything back, but because you just can’t know what is involved until it’s on your plate. By way of lessons, there have been so many: The biggest is that God can do things that we can’t. You’re a prime example of that, Labin. So are the other incredible faculty and staff who have come our way. God has a church full of incredibly gifted people who want to be a part of something that matters, and he seems to think that some of those people belong here! 

I think a second lesson is that the church, and this seminary, need more exercise of charity, such that it becomes habitual, what we’re known for. I’m not talking about bland niceness or naiveté but the simple extension of kindnesses, best interpretations of motives, empathy, and so on. A lot of tumult in the church is self-imposed, and even when it isn’t, both Jesus and Paul (and Peter, for that matter) told us to overcome evil with good. When we think somehow that we are on the right side of something, it becomes easy to think that any of our means – to say nothing of our attitudes – are justified. But this is the Devil’s snare.

Duke: What is the next frontier for the House?

Anderson: I like the question about frontiers because we can never forget that we were founded on a frontier to reach frontiers, and should we ever forget that, we lose the heart and soul of this place. It is easy while we are plugging away at our daily work to lose a view of the horizon, and, like a young driver not looking far enough down the road, we careen side to side rather than moving straight ahead.

If I may take a liberty with the question, though, I see two frontiers. The first is a kind of internal frontier. When the quality of our faculty and programs and the health of this community become known for what they are becoming, this becomes the seminary option that cannot be ignored. But then we need perpetually to “lift our eyes” to the horizon of the Anglican Communion and ask whether, as Isaiah puts it, “it is too small a thing” that we find a place at the table of North American Anglicanism as a niche or boutique product. The next frontiers are missionary frontiers: secularized urban centers, university campuses, unreached people groups, military chaplaincies, and even amused-to-death suburbanites. A church that is no longer the self-propagating institution of previous generations is a loss to the American religious scene, but it is a new opportunity for missionary Christianity. What do you think, Labin?

Duke: In line with what you have said, the next frontier for the House is not a physical wilderness as it was when the red and blue chapels were built. The next frontier is a spiritual wilderness. Yet, the same formation that prepared missionaries, church planters, priests, and lay leaders in the 1840s is the same formation needed to address the issues of our day. 

The frontier is ever changing, but the mission of the Mission remains the same!