In a special ceremony last month, Perkins School of Theology formally installed two endowed chairs: Dr. Rebekah Miles as the Susanna Wesley Centennial Professor of Practical Theology and Ethics and Dr. Ted A. Campbell as the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies. Both appointments began on June 1, 2021, but the formal installation of the two chairs took place on September 26 in Perkins Chapel.
Maddox Intro
The event began with an introduction from Randy Maddox, William Kellon Quick Professor Emeritus of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies at Duke Divinity School. Maddox offered a brief introduction on Outler and Susanna Wesley, and their connections to Perkins’ Wesleyan heritage. Maddox served as co-author of Wesley and the Quadrilateral, along with Miles, Campbell, Scott Jones and Stephen Gunter, and is general editor of the Wesley Works Editorial Project, which Perkins has been participated in since its inception in 1960.
Maddox described Campbell and Miles as both fitting holders for their respective chairs, given their contributions to scholarship and their passion for Wesley studies.
“These installations build upon the leading role that SMU has played over the last seven decades in the formation of Wesleyan/ Methodist studies as a scholarly field,” he said. “And they highlight efforts over the last decade (endorsed and extended by Dean Craig Hill) that have led to Bridwell Library holding the largest collection of Wesley manuscript items outside of England, and to the graduate program at SMU currently comprising the strongest cohort of faculty at any research university for guiding doctoral studies in Wesleyan / Methodist history, theology, and ethics.”
As part of the installation, Campbell and Miles each delivered a lecture.
A Day in the Life of John Wesley
Campbell’s lecture, “A Day in the Life of John Wesley,” challenged common perceptions about Wesley by examining a pivotal day in his life, Monday, April 2, 1739.
“Wesley has been depicted a man of action, traveling throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, preaching, debating, defending himself from attack by mobs, advocating for the poor, empowering women to preach and calling for the abolition of the slave trade,” he said. “But there was another side of John Wesley, hidden from public view, that reveals a much more quiet and introspective side.”
Campbell drew on Wesley’s letters, private diary and published Journal to chronicle the hours of April 2, the first day that Wesley “invaded” the parish of another clergyman and preached without authorization. While it was an eventful day, more than half of Wesley’s waking hours were spent in solitude, time in which he meditated, sang, prayer, penned letters and wrote in his journal – a pattern which, Campbell said, was typical for most of the days of Wesley’s life.
“He seemed to find his energy from study and reading and writing and prayer and quiet, alone or in very small company,” he said.
Campbell noted that minutes from the early Methodist conferences advised lay preachers to “steadily spend all the morning in study, or at least five hours every four and twenty.”
As Wesley’s diaries show, Wesley did this every day until his death.
“The cultivation of study, reflection, reading and writing that we try to inculcate at Perkins is not merely preparation for Christian ministry,” he said. “Hopefully it is instilling a character of consistent study, conversation, reflection, reading and writing that will guide a Christian leader to their last days, as those habits did for John Wesley.”
Campbell, Professor of Church History, was appointed Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies. The late Rev. Dr. William J. Abraham held the chair from 1995 until his retirement in 2021. The chair was established in 1982 in honor of Albert Cook Outler (1908 – 1989), a longtime faculty member at Perkins as well as a distinguished Methodist theologian and philosopher. Outler made crucial contributions to the scholarship of John Wesley including a critical selection of John Wesley’s work published in the Library of Protestant Thought which led to his leadership in the Wesley Works editorial project, now The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. Funding for the chair was provided by the Texas Annual Conference. The chair is designated to promoting the study of John Wesley, as well as his brother Charles Wesley and other leading Methodist thinkers.
Holy Dying, Covid and Other Problems
Miles delivered a lecture entitled “Holy Dying, Covid and Other Problems.”
“I’ve been thinking about how the pandemic will shape our culture over time,” she said. “COVID-19 has changed our relationship to death. Death has become so much more present to so many of us in recent years. It offers an opportunity to think about holy dying, and holy living in preparation for our dying.”
Miles noted that the plague decimated a large portion of the population in Europe in the middle of 14th century. There were not enough doctors and nurses; many caregivers died themselves. There were too few grave diggers, and not enough graves. There were not enough priests to deliver Last Rites. Death came suddenly, robbing people of the chance to prepare spiritually for their deaths.
“Out of this came the Ars Moriendi, or The Art of Dying,” Miles said. “This was a tradition that talked about how you die, the prayers you prayed, that became more popular over time.
Medical advances have since changed the way that people die. As death moved into medical facilities and into funeral homes, people had less connection with death and dead bodies. Dying seemed less imminent. Miles cited Michael Banner, who writes that modern medicine has extended life but also extended “the long dwindling” at the end of life.
“COVID accelerated these changes, by further medicalizing death and dying, and in many cases, further distancing families and communities both from the dying process and the dying persons themselves,” she said. Miles recalled haunting images in news reports of patients dying alone in hospital rooms, without religious rites, without family physically present.
Miles concluded her lecture thought-provoking questions:
“What does it mean to grow in hope over one’s life? How does one train in the virtue of hope in one’s life? As we prepare for death, what is the ground of our hope? With the decline of religious communities, people no longer have those training grounds in hope that allow them to prepare. How are we going to respond to Generation Z, that doesn’t see hope in the future? How can we provide narratives so that their deaths can be transformed as well?”
Miles, Professor of Ethics and Practical Theology, was appointed Susanna Wesley Centennial Professor of Practical Theology and Ethics, a chair vacated by Dr. Evelyn Parker, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, who retired in 2021, and who was named inaugural holder of the chair in 2015. The chair was established in 2014 by a $2.5 million gift made by an anonymous donor through the Texas Methodist Foundation. It honors Susanna Wesley, frequently referred to as “the mother of Methodism.” Her sons, John and Charles Wesley, led a revival within the 18th century Anglican Church that sparked the emergence of global Methodism generally and the Methodist Episcopal Church in the American colonies. Historians point to the “practical divinity” embraced by Susanna and her sons John and Charles after her.
The ceremony concluded with the two chairholders each receiving an engraved desk chair as part of the ceremony. The program concluded with a reception in the Blue Room of Bridwell Library.
Miles and Campbell’s lectures may be viewed in a recording of the gathering on YouTube. (Note: Due to technical problems, only portions of Maddox’s talk are audible.)