
Join The Rev. Dr. Sarah Coakley for the Spring Theology Lecture on Saturday, April 5, as she explores the profound role of the parish as a sacred place of healing, community, and transformation. Reflecting on the Anglican tradition’s theology of place, she examines how lockdown challenged yet reinforced the significance of physical presence in worship, prayer, and acts of mercy. Through this lens, Dr. Coakley considers how our embodied faith shapes both personal and societal renewal. Don’t miss this thought-provoking discussion on the parish as a vital witness to divine presence in the world.
Abstract
In this lecture I reflect first on the very distinctive, incarnational, role that the parish has always held in the Anglican tradition: it enshrines a ‘theology of place’ which earths individual and society into a particular location, in which Cranmer’s distinctive theology of ‘the blessed company of all faithful people’ is uniquely instantiated. The experience of lock-down both seemed to destabilize this tradition, yet at the same time interrogated its ongoing significance (which I here explore). In the second part of the lecture, I underscore the spiritual importance of such faithfulness to physical ‘place’ and ‘presence’: in sacramental observance, personal prayer, committed acts of mercy to the poor, and the quest for personal and societal healing. These themes form a cluster of meaning in our growth into deeper participation in Christ which is as mysterious as it is also rationally intentional, but in which our own bodily presence is the non-negotiable requisite for the continuation of the parish’s own life of witness. In these practices our desires are profoundly tested and changed, as the microcosm of the parish body expands to impact the societal body in which we live.