The Gospel of God, the Sacramental Life, and the Soundest Learning
Registration open from September 1 through November 2, 2026 (Right click the link below and select open in a new tab)
Anglo-Catholic Responses to Scripture, Tradition, and Reason
November 5 and 6, 2026, The Church of The Advent, Boston
This year, our title is inspired by a quotation from Michael Ramsey’s seminal work "The Gospel and the Catholic Church," in the 90th anniversary year of its publication. We will explore the many and varied ways in which Anglo-Catholics have responded to the frequent appeal to scripture, tradition, and reason as a framework for understanding Anglicanism; which Ramsey so memorably described as "The Gospel of God, the sacramental life, and the soundest learning."
Featured Speakers
Timothy Larsen is McManis Professor of Christian Thought and Professor of History, Wheaton College (Illinois). He is the current Chancellor of the American Society of Church History, having served as President in 2025. He has edited fourteen books, including _The Oxford Handbook of Christmas_, and has written nine, the most recently of which is _The Fires of Moloch: Anglican Clergymen in the Furnace of World War One_ (Oxford University Press, 2025).
Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff is the XVIIth Rector of The Church of the Advent, a vibrant Anglo-Catholic community that has been an integral part of Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood for more than 180 years. Long known for its commitment to liturgy, the parish is home to a world-renowned choir and music program. It is also committed to theological scholarship and holds academic conferences and colloquia that draw national and international attention. The church has also run for over forty years a weekly Community Dinner for those in need and actively supports mission and outreach work in several Provinces of the worldwide Anglican Communion. As former Dean of All Saints’ Cathedral Cairo, Canon Alistair worked extensively on interfaith matters, strengthening ecumenical dialogue and fostering community formation within the Anglican Church in the Province of Alexandria, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. Previously, he served as Senior Advisor to the World Economic Forum and developed its Council of One Hundred Leaders West-Islamic Dialogue, later known as the C1 World Dialogue of which he was Director General. He also served as Senior Advisor to Lord Carey the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury, and to the King Abdullah International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID) in Vienna, Austria. Canon Alistair originally studied Ancient History and Philosophy before undertaking advanced degrees in Philosophy of Religion and Theology, studying in London, Oxford, and Yale where he was a Research Fellow and studied International Relations and Islam In 2024 he was admitted to the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. He is a Board Member of Prayer Book Society of the United States, The Elliott House of Studies, and of Communion Partners and is the Editor-in-Chief of The Anglican Way.
Steve Rice is the Rector of St Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Winston-Salem, N.C. A native of South Carolina, he has theological degrees from Emory University, Nashotah House, and St Stephen’s House, Oxford. He currently serves on the Board of Visitors for Nashotah House. He was ordained in 2005 and has served parishes in the Dioceses of Georgia and North Carolina. In 2016, he founded The Society of St Joseph of Arimathea, a non-profit organization that has provided burials for over 1,600 infants and children. An Anglo-Catholic, he is a priest of the Society of the Holy Cross and is active in Anglo-Catholic guilds and societies. He has been married for 25 years and has three children.
Christopher Smith is the Vicar of St Alban’s, Holborn (London, UK), and an Eric Mascall scholar.
George R. Sumner was the VIIth Bishop of the Diocese of Dallas, serving from 2015 to 2025. Prior to his election, he served as principal of Wycliffe College in Toronto, Canada. Ordained as an Episcopal priest in western Massachusetts in 1981, Sumner served in a variety of capacities, including as missionary teacher at St Philip’s Theological College, Kongwa, Tanzania, a curate in an inner-city Anglo-Catholic parish, vicar on a Native American reservation in New Mexico and Arizona, and rector of Trinity Church in Geneva, NY. He holds a PhD in theology from Yale, an MDiv from Yale Divinity School and a BA from Harvard College. He is the author or co-author of several books: The First and the Last: The Claim of Jesus Christ and the Claims of Other Religious Traditions (Eerdmans, 2004), Being Salt: A Theology of an Ordered Church (Cascade Books, 2007), a commentary on Esther and Daniel (Brazos, 2013), and Life ‘in Christ’ (Wipf and Stock, 2025).
Lauren Whitnah has served as Dean of Nashotah House since August 2024. A medieval historian, Whitnah previously served on the teaching faculty of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and as research manager and associate director of the university’s Global Computing Lab. Whitnah holds a PhD in Medieval Studies and Master of Medieval Studies, both from the University of Notre Dame; a Master of Studies in History from the University of Oxford; and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Gordon College. Whitnah’s academic focus centers on devotion to saints and understandings of sacred place in the High Middle Ages, particularly in northern England and southern Scotland. She has published and presented on topics including liturgical developments in veneration in the twelfth century, Aelred of Rievaulx and the saints of Hexham, and women at the shrine of St Cuthbert in Durham.