Evangelically-raised students ‘come home’ to Anglican tradition
by Tali Folkins, Anglican Journal:
Note: In a companion piece to this article, the three current and recent theological students cited below talk about why they aspire to the priesthood in a time of uncertainty for the church.
When the Anglican Journal spoke with Christine Ivy, Tom Hubschmid and Caleb Upton, it became apparent that they had something in common: all three aspiring priests had come to Anglicanism in their adulthood after an upbringing in more evangelical denominations.
Upton, who was raised in what he calls a non-denominational Baptist home, says the order and regularity of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) became a spiritual lifeline to him when he discovered it in university.
“I credit the daily office with really saving my spiritual life,” he says. “It’s very encompassing of all sorts of different emotions…You submit to it, and it works on you….It actually brings everything that I am to it.”
The churches he had attended before becoming an Anglican, Upton says, base spiritual life on one’s own inspiration and feelings, making it difficult to feel connected to God at moments when one isn’t inspired. But the BCP’s daily office, he says, give him the discipline of regular structure on which he’s been able to train his prayer life to grow—a kind of spiritual “trellis,” as he puts it.
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