Arthur Vogel: A Retrospective
One of the happiest and most cherished times of the year on the Nashotah House campus, Commencement Week, was cancelled or postponed this spring. Normally a non-stop celebration to honor our graduating seniors, welcome returning alumni, catch up with friends and colleagues, and tie a bow on another academic year became one more casualty of the coronavirus. However a team from Nashotah House connected with many alumni this past summer to extend greetings and to hear stories from their time at the House.
During one such phone conversation, we were reminded by one of our 60-year graduates, the Rev. Norman Burke, of another esteemed graduate and former Nashotah House professor, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Arthur A. Vogel.
Biblical scholar and Warden of Keble College, Oxford (1960-1968), Austin Farrer (right) with Arthur Vogel near “the preaching cross” at Nashotah House. Image courtesy A Light in a Burning Glass by Robert Slocum.
Arthur Anton Vogel (1924– 2012) was educated at Nashotah House, where he received a Bachelor of Divinity in 1946 and went on to study at the University of Chicago and at Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1952. After ordination, Vogel became rector of St. John Chrysostom Episcopal Church in Delafield, Wisconsin, from 1953 to 1957 and simultaneously served as Professor of Philosophical and Systematic Theology at Nashotah House from 1952 to 1971 (also functioning as sub-dean from 1965-1971). Vogel was then consecrated bishop coadjutor in the Diocese of West Missouri, which he subsequently served as bishop from 1973 to 1989.
Fr. Burke, ’60, a second-generation Nashotah graduate, recalls that Dr. Vogel was a favorite professor among Nashotah students, “especially his course on apologetics.” Fr. Burke says Dr. Vogel was known for creating a sense of camaraderie and community among students and faculty.
An excerpt from “The Nashotah News,” March 1958 from Faculty Activities. Fr. Vogel was an active professor with many duties.
Regarded by his students as an “outstanding Aristotelian theologian,” Vogel was a popular and sought-after instructor. In fact, in 1959 General Theological Seminary offered Dr. Vogel the Chair of Dogmatic Theology, a prized post and tempting offer. After careful consideration, however, he declined, preferring to remain at Nashotah House and continuing as the William Adams Chair of Apologetics and Dogmatic Theology.
Dr. Vogel was a prolific writer, publishing 14 books including Body Theology: God’s Presence in Man’s World; I Know God Better than I Know Myself; Christ in His Time and Ours; and Radical Christianity and the Flesh of Jesus. He was also a frequent contributor to many other books, journals, and magazines.
In his book Canterbury Pilgrim (1968), Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey declared Dr. Vogel as “among the most creative of contemporary Anglican theologians in the United States.”
After being offered a position at General Theological Seminary, Fr. Vogel chose to remain at Nashotah House. Hallock, Peter. “The Nashotah News,” March 1960.
Noted for challenging the Church to be more involved in religious and social issues, Dr. Vogel observed, “American theologians have been conspicuous by their absence from public discussion of the problematic issues” (Ruth Meyers, Continuing the Reformation, 1997).
Dr. Vogel participated in a variety of ecumenical endeavors, including the Consultation on Church Union (1962-1966); the First and Second International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commissions (1969-1990); the National Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission (1964-1984); and the 4th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (1968). In observing commonalities between the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, Dr. Vogel noted, “If the nature of the Eucharist, the fact of Christ’s presence in it, and the means of its production can be essentially agreed upon, then might common reception be the primary means by which God wills to bring about ever increasing unity among His people?”
Dr. Vogel’s legacy as a creative, thought provoking scholar, an advocate for the Church’s public witness and a voice of Church unity, lives on in the memories of Nashotah graduates and in the institution itself. We are grateful for Dr. Vogel’s service to the Sons and Daughters of the House.