Godly Play applied insights from Montessori education to children’s formation, but it became more than Montessori for churches. The Godly Play Foundation’s website shows a map and links to its presence in more than 60 nations, including Cambodia, Ethiopia, Germany, Israel, Pakistan, and Russia.

Berryman was born in Ashland, Kansas, and the Godly Play Foundation is based there. He married Dorothea Schoonyoung in 1960, and they had two daughters in the same decade.

Their younger daughter, Colleen, was born with spina bifada. She painted and was a reading teacher at School of the Woods in Houston for many years, until she died in 2020. Thea Berryman was the music teacher at the same school for more than 35 years.

Berryman was a graduate of the University of Kansas, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the University of Tulsa Law School. He also read theology at Oxford University’s Mansfield College during the summer of 1966 and graduated from the year-long program at the Center for Advanced Montessori Studies in Bergamo, Italy, in 1972.

He had three post-doctoral residencies in theology and medical ethics at the Institute of Religion in the Texas Medical Center in Houston (1973-76). Both General Theological Seminary and Virginia Theological Seminary gave him honorary degrees.

Berryman was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1962 and was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1984.

Berryman often remembered encountering the “God of Power” during his childhood, especially when he engaged with nature and was guided by supportive adults. He felt that the “church God” was more rigid and formal, and he began seeking a bridge between children’s experiences and formal Christian teaching.

The foundation said the Berrymans “embarked on a journey to develop a new approach to spiritual nurture that honors the centrality, capacity, and competency of children,” which led them to develop Godly Play. He founded the Center for the Theology of Childhood in 1997 to continue to inspire research and theological discourse on the spirituality of children. That center is now part of the Godly Play Foundation.

The center keeps a 4,000-volume library and a Godly Play room based at St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church in Denver. Berryman retired in 2007 as executive director of the center and became its senior fellow. In his retirement, he was based in the Diocese of Colorado.

“I had the privilege of meeting with Jerome almost every week since I started this role in 2020,” said Dr. Heather Ingersoll, executive director of the foundation. “It is hard to describe someone who was one of the most brilliant minds in Christian education and Children’s spirituality, yet so practical, personable, and kind. His fierce dedication to ensuring that our religious and academic spaces honor children’s spiritual journeys is inspiring and was a transformational gift to all who encountered and will encounter his work.”

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl Minor, director of the Center for the Theology of Childhood, said she met Berryman in 1992. “It will be my privilege to honor his legacy, continuing the important work of advocating for children in the academy and the church. In Godly Play, we often talk about endings that are also beginnings. May it be so for Jerome and for us as we both grieve and carry on his work in the world.”

“It has been a decade-long journey,” said Angela Thorpe Mason, the center’s executive director. The house was slated for demolition in the early 2000s, and was in extremely bad shape. A group of local advocates rallied to save it. The Pauli Murray Center was established in 2012, but the rehabilitation wasn’t complete until this April.

Murray’s grandfather, Robert Fitzgerald, built the house in 1898, and Murray moved there to live with her grandparents and two aunts in 1914, at the age of 3. Her aunt sold the house in 1953, but Murray visited it even after it had been sold and felt a deep connection to it. One reason the rehabilitation took so long was a desire to restore its early 20th-century state as much as possible, using historic construction techniques.

This is not, however, a historic house museum full of period furniture. It’s also not a shrine full of altars and reliquaries. Murray’s typewriter will be on display, as will her writing, and there will be a room with a recording of her talking.

Mason does see the space as sacred, and hopes visitors will feel the same way. “I’m hoping that visitors will enter into a relationship with Pauli Murray, and that relationship building will inspire people to do something, even if it’s small, to create social change,” Mason said.

Lacking a chapel doesn’t mean Murray’s faith is overlooked. “Faith is a through line,” Mason said. The center helps with the annual St. Pauli Murray service at her home parish, St. Titus’ Episcopal Church, which is less than two miles from the center. St. Titus will host a Pauli Murray pilgrimage from the center to the parish in October. A commemoration of Murray on July 1 was added to Lesser Feasts and Fasts in 2012.

The exhibit on Murray’s life emphasizes her lifelong Episcopal faith, which was formed by her grandmother, Cornelia, as well as pioneering work in fighting for women’s rights within the Episcopal Church. Murray and her partner, Renee Barlow, attended St Mark’s-in-the-Bowery in New York City, and Murray once walked out because she was so dismayed that men filled every role other than chorister.

After Barlow’s death in 1973, Murray planned the memorial service, and the officiant asked her if she had ever considered ordination. She would be ordained to the priesthood just four years later, just a year after the Episcopal Church voted to welcome women to the priesthood.

Murray is best known as a leader in the civil rights movement. Her 1950 book States’ Laws on Race and Color catalogued and critiqued discriminatory laws, and urged civil rights lawyers to draw on sociological and psychological evidence to challenge them directly as unconstitutional, a strategy at the heart of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954.

Murray critiqued sexism within the civil rights movement and coined the phrase “Jane Crow” to describe the complex challenges faced by women of color in American society. She was a cofounder of the National Organization for Women, which she hoped would follow the NAACP’s role in the civil rights movement as a leader in the fight for equality.

The center wants the space to be more than a memorial to the past, and to honor Murray’s legacy by continuing to foster activism. “This is an active space designed to move contemporary social justice work forward,” Mason said. This is part of why there are few items on display, although the center has more in storage for potential future exhibits.

The center hopes to have events and workshops for educators, reflecting Murray’s career as a professor at two law schools. It offers various free curriculum resources on a variety of aspects of her life, including a four-session Christian education course. It has hosted numerous virtual talks by professors, lawyers, and clergy about different aspects of Murray’s legacy and issues facing women, African-Americans, and LGBT people.

This July, the center hosted a pro bono legal clinic for transgender people to discuss changing their legal names. Murray’s given name was Anna Pauline, but she started using “Pauli” as a young adult. She wore androgynous clothing, was often distressed by womanhood, and tried to find a doctor who would give her hormone therapy. The center sees supporting LGBT persons as an important part of reflecting Murray’s legacy.

The center also sees itself as a place where local community organizations focused on social justice can meet and work in Murray’s spirit. The house is located in Durham’s West End, a historically black neighborhood that has been increasingly gentrified. It’s the last original structure on its street. “We want to help preserve the historical integrity of the West End,” Mason said.

“How do we activate public history for a public good?” asked Mason, who spent a decade working for the state helping black communities in North Carolina understand their history. Only 2 percent of the 95,000 places on the National Register of Historic Places focus on African-American history. The center, which was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Department of the Interior, hopes to raise awareness of the importance of preservation of African-American history to understand both the past and the present.

A report prepared by the center about the restoration said that most archaeological sites about African-Americans have, until recently, focused on pre-Emancipation history, particularly on plantations. The center hopes its work can contribute to a growing world of African-American historical interpretation focused on urban, 20th-century Black life.

An unaccredited seminary with neither buildings nor faculty — yet buttressed by a robust endowment — EDS is determining what particular offering it will bring to the church in its current iteration.

In the spring of 2023, EDS parted ways with Union Theological Seminary, through which it offered a residential, degree-awarding program. At the time of the announcement, the Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas, the former dean, said the disaffiliation positioned the school to offer the kinds of “flexible formats, creative pedagogies, and innovative credentialing opportunities” students now seek.

A year and a half later, many questions remain as the school emerges from 12 months of strategic planning: Should the school seek reaccreditation? Does it need a faculty? What academic programs, if any, might it offer?

“We’re kind of flying the plane as we’re building it,” said Bucklin, who began in her role August 1.

Being unburdened by overhead costs gives EDS time to consider those questions and find the gaps in current theological education offerings, Bucklin said.

A 2015 EDS graduate, Bucklin succeeds Douglas, who served as dean from 2017 to 2023 and then as interim president until June of this year. Bucklin has served since 2018 as canon to the ordinary in the Diocese of Northern Michigan in Marquette. She plans to keep working from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as dean of EDS.

As the daughter of the late Rt. Rev. James Kelsey, former Bishop of Northern Michigan, Bucklin grew up in a ministry family and was formed by the church. Kelsey’s tragic death in 2007 prompted Bucklin, who has a Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan, to reconsider her professional calling.

“It was one of those moments where life is just flipped upside down and you reevaluate everything,” she said.

She joined the staff of the Diocese of Iowa as a lay leader of children and youth ministry. In 11 years with the diocese, she oversaw young adult ministry, communications, congregational development, church planting, and lifelong formation.

She didn’t have ordination in mind when she enrolled at EDS.

“I really just wanted some good theological formation that would kind of put me at the same level as my clergy colleagues,” she said. “And then, part way through my education at EDS, I planted a little church and started needing those sacramental tools in order to live into my vocation. And, so, by the time I graduated I was on the ordination track.”

She was initially hesitant to pursue orders. Her father and other mentors had always affirmed the role of lay leaders, and that’s how Bucklin had envisioned herself living her calling.

“I didn’t want to change who I was, and I had seen that happen with others where they got ordained and all of a sudden, they [felt] they had to live into what felt intimidating in terms of the ‘mother knows best’ or ‘father knows best’ model,” she said. “And what I found was that I could still be Lydia while I was ordained. I could still be called into a ministry of reconciliation and healing, just in different ways as an ordained person.”

Since graduation, Bucklin has remained connected to her alma mater. In the past year, Bucklin has convened listening sessions seeking feedback from among the school’s 1,650 living alumni on what they found valuable about their formation at EDS, and the needs they have in their current ministries.

Bucklin said those conversations revealed gaps in the traditional theological education landscape, which is designed to equip clergy to serve in a different context than where many find themselves. In particular, Bucklin said there is a need in the church for training related to “community engagement in an intercultural context.”

“This model of one priest per congregation is no longer the norm for most places in the Episcopal Church,” she said. “… What we found is that there are a lot of needs that are really different for the church right now that the seminaries haven’t been able to keep up with, just because of the fast pace of the changing church.”

How EDS plans to meet those needs remains to be determined. Bucklin said it could look like offering certificate-granting continuing education programs. Another opportunity is in Clinical Pastoral Education, especially for students living in rural areas where the long distance to CPE placements are prohibitive, she said.

“EDS could partner with a diocese or with another school to offer a hybrid-remote CPE experience, where someone could find a local hospital or prison or chaplaincy location and then we would hold the online cohort to do the formation piece of it,” she said.

She also would like EDS to offer writing labs for up-and-coming scholars.

“It’s a hard time to be a scholar and theologian, especially for emerging scholars and theologians. I would love to find ways that we can support the writing and advancement of theological thought in fresh ways for those folks who are called into that ministry,” she said.

The school does not plan to resume a Master of Divinity program, the standard offering of a seminary.

EDS traces its origins to the 1974 merger of Philadelphia Divinity School and Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, both of which were founded in the mid-19th century. Facing declining enrollment and a deficit, the EDS board of trustees voted in 2016 to stop granting degrees at the end of the academic year.

The school sold its Cambridge campus and affiliated with Union Theological Seminary in New York City, allowing Episcopal seminarians to enroll in EDS’s Anglican studies program at UTS. The partners announced their disaffiliation in March 2023, halfway into the decade-long term of their agreement.

In its next chapter, EDS is well-positioned to host online learning groups, as the school was an early adopter of distributed learning, said Bucklin, who completed her M.Div. through the school’s hybrid program.

“In a lot of ways, that cutting-edge, different way of doing theological education has been part of the EDS story, she said. “Now we’re seeing more seminaries that are doing that, but that’s definitely part of my hope for what we continue to do, is that we make theological education accessible to people.

“I think there will always be a place for the residential seminaries and that standard three-year program, and I think it’s a ‘both/and,’” she added. “I wonder where those gaps are that EDS can, in a noncompetitive collaborative way, work together with other seminaries and formation programs in diocese and supplement what’s already out there.”

At a time of decline in the church and among seminaries, Bucklin’s outlook on theological education is expansive. As many schools are downsizing or eliminating programs, EDS has resources to share, she said.

“I take that responsibility really seriously in terms of how we can be generous and, in hospitality with the other seminaries, how we can share resources,” Bucklin said of her school’s $80 million endowment.

Similarly, as parishes are increasingly unable to sustain a full-time priest, Bucklin said it’s time to equip more laypeople for the work of the church.

“What this shift in the church has resulted in is the need for not just ordained folks to talk about theology and to use their gifts for ministry, but really … for everybody digging in to use our baptized gifts for collaborative shared ministry.”

Without buildings to maintain or faculty to support, administrative costs at EDS are low. The school’s sole footprint is the office space it leases at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City. In addition to Bucklin, the staff includes a director of programming and operations, a director of strategy and operations, and a part-time office assistant. The school is seeking a communications manager. The next high-priority hire, Bucklin said, is to bring on someone to oversee theological formation and develop curriculum.

“I want to assure you of my ongoing commitment to having all our communities be places of safety and security where God’s people can promote God’s mission and ministry in the world,” said El Camino Real’s bishop, the Rt. Rev. Lucinda Ashby.

The public statement, she added, intended to address “some odd accusations and the spread of misinformation about safety,” rooted in “suspicion [that] may arise when a person becomes afraid or feels disconnected from what we are about.”

The “odd accusations” were raised in an August 22 report by The Christian Post about a Title IV complaint against Ashby, the Rev. Ruth Casipit-Paguio of Holy Family Episcopal Church in San Jose, and two diocesan officials. The complaint alleges that Casipit-Paguio failed to run background checks on church staff and volunteers for eight years, in violation of diocesan policy.

The Christian Post’s source, the advocacy website Anglican Watch, claims that “a known pedophile listed on a state sex offender registry attempted to become involved with the parish” and obtained keys to the church.

This person’s status as a sex offender was allegedly discovered by another parishioner, who found his name listed on California’s sex offender registry, popularly known as “Megan’s List” after a 1994 Federal Law that required publication of convicted offenders.

When Casipit-Paguio became aware of the situation in December 2022, “the parish removed the offender from leadership. Still, Casipit-Paguio allegedly declined to report the matter to the police, as required by law. Moreover, neither parishioners nor other parishes were alerted to the issue, thereby placing children and others at risk,” Anglican Watch claimed.

Carole Bartolini, El Camino Real’s communications director, told TLC: “It is inaccurate to say that there was an individual on the registered sex offenders list in church leadership at Holy Family. What is accurate is that there was an individual on the sex offenders list who attended Holy Family for a brief time, but that person had no involvement in either church leadership or youth work.”

An anonymously filed Title IV complaint against Casipit-Paguio was allegedly dismissed by a diocesan reference panel. Bartolini said of the Title IV complaint against Bishop Ashby, “The intake officer for bishops dismissed the matter, and the complainant has the right to appeal that dismissal.”

El Camino Real’s statement noted that the diocese’s Board of Trustees contracted with Church HR, an outside firm, in the fall of 2022, “to ensure that we are up to date and following California State Law, Mandated Reporting guidelines, Safe-Church practices, and other issues around employment law and safe working environments.”

During 2023, church leaders were required to undergo background checks and to be fingerprinted, in compliance with California Law AB 506, which was enacted on January 1, 2022, but did not go into effect until 2024, the diocesan statement said. The diocese also paid for retired clergy to be fingerprinted, and maintains the safeguarding compliance records for all non-parochial clergy.

All church leaders, the statement said, are also required to have Safe Church training, which is more extensive than the training required by state law. “We are proud to hold ourselves to that higher standard of training and protection for all of God’s children,” the statement said.

“The diocese continues to monitor each parish’s compliance and record keeping, including Holy Family,” Bartolini said.

El Camino Real, Ashby’s statement added, also implemented a workplace violence prevention policy and mandated a 12-session anti-racism training for clergy, lay leaders, and those involved in diocesan governance, “recognizing that safety has many meanings.”

Voting often is seen as a righteous act, or even a moral duty, and churches have a long history of encouraging people to vote. The Episcopal Church’s Office of Government Relations has launched an extensive “Vote Faithfully” toolkit before Election Day in November to help churches and dioceses in the United States encourage voting and otherwise engage with secular governance.

The toolkit includes six bulletin inserts and graphics sized for social media or use in newsletters, and all materials are available in English and Spanish. The bulletin inserts are intended for use beginning September 15, two days before National Voter Registration Day. Other inserts describe how to vote, why it is important, and how to detect misinformation in political campaigns.

The office has produced an Episco-Pols public policy podcast since early 2023, and the most recent episodes focus on voting. “We have this privilege of living in a democratic republic, where our voices are heard, so we have a chance to weigh in,” said Rebecca Linder Blachly, director of government relations, in the episode introducing the topic. “The planning, as we approach November, needs to happen now.”

The increased incidence of violent political rhetoric “raises the importance of embodying healthy civic engagement,” said Alan Yarborough, who as church relations officer leads the election engagement effort.

Separately, a brother at the Society of Saint John the Evangelist is developing a video series to be released weekly beginning in September, culminating in an in-person and online vigil on Election Night. The purpose is “to explore the Christian call to engage politically, how we do that faithfully in 21st-century democracy, while committed to God and the upbuilding of the common good,” said Br. Lucas Hall.

The videos will feature conversations with guest speakers, and seek to reinforce that there is a “meaningful vocation or call for the church as a collective and for us as individual Christians to to reckon with questions in the political realm,” he said.

“There’ll be one final video that comes out after Election Day,” he said. In his interviews with each speaker, he asks, “How would you encourage people listening to this to think and to act and to pray with these political questions that we’ve raised?”

St. Stephen’s in Richmond, the largest church in the Diocese of Virginia, is very engaged in political discourse, but it stops short of urging parishioners to vote. Rector John Rohrs said the parish has large contingents of supporters of both major presidential candidates, and he worries that a get-out-the-vote effort might be seen as too political.

He knows many parishioners will be upset after the election, so he’s planning a “Week of Compassion” beginning the Sunday after the election, “creating a number of opportunities for our congregation members to engage in active ministry and service in the community together, all ages, you know, some daytime events, some evening events, some weekend events, intergenerational opportunities,” he said. Specific plans are still in development, but are likely to include volunteer work in the parish’s food ministries, and volunteer construction or maintenance efforts with community partners.

The church will continue a tradition of creating “turkey boxes” to donate at Thanksgiving, as an intergenerational effort. “One of the things the children have done is make cards or little pieces of art to put in each box and to sort of send prayers and well wishes,” said the Rev. Cate Anthony, associate rector.

Leading to the election, she will lead a weekly “Sacramental Citizenship” workshop based on a program she developed as an Episcopal Church Foundation fellow.

“The program looks to help participants form their own sense of personal ethics, using the Baptismal Covenant, which is, I think, an ethical document,” she said. “We use the Baptismal Covenant to sort of parse out personal values.”

Then the program applies those values to hot-button issues. “So we talked about war, climate change, abortion, and LGBTQ rights, specifically focusing on marriage,” she said. The group will meet on Wednesdays, and the meeting on the day after the election will be devoted primarily to prayer.