Bishop Stuart Ruch on Human SexualityOn Friday evening, April 16 and Saturday morning, April 17, Bishop Stuart Ruch of the ACNA Diocese of the Upper Midwest (based in Wheaton, Illinois) visited the Hillsdale College campus and offered some constructive teaching on human sexuality at the request of the Anglican Student Fellowship. The talks were well attended by a wide representation of the campus Christian community, including evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. On Friday evening, he spoke on the deeper prevailing spiritual realities that have led to so much confusion about human sexuality in our current culture. In particular, the bishop noted the deep parallels between modern notions of "self" and its relationship with our inherent materiality and the ancient error of Gnosticism, and how the doctrine of the Incarnation challenges both the same way. On Saturday morning over breakfast, he and his wife Katherine provided a more focused teaching on God's purposes for marriage more generally, and his intent that husbands and wives be fruitful with each other more specifically. This powerful presentation focused on childbearing as an exercise of discipleship, and explored the ways the Anglican tradition in particular has dealt with the issue of family planning (with a quick look at the fateful 1920 and 1930 Lambeth Conferences). Download recordings and PDFs from Bishop Ruch's talks below. Understanding the Anti-Christ Applying the Theology of the Body to our Lives Today talk given at Hillsdale College on Friday, April 16, 2021 by Bishop Stuart Ruch, Anglican Diocese of the Upper Midwest Download audio recording below: 
Be Fruitful and Multiply The Marital Vocation of Childbearing and Discipleship talk given at Hillsdale College on Saturday, April 17, 2021 by Stuart and Katherine Ruch Download audio recording below:
Download PDF handout referenced by Bishop Ruch in his presentation: 
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Liturgy as Evangelist: |
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| 2021-2_liturgy_as_evangelist_the_bcp_and_the_gospel.mp3 |
Audio of subsequent Q&A below:
| 2021-2b_liturgy_as_evangelist_q_a.mp3 |
Equip Pastors' Panel
"How Does Communion Edify and Equip
the Believer for Daily Life in Christ?"
at Hillsdale College, March 28. 2019
featuring
Ben Cuthbert, Pastor of College Baptist Church
Adam Rick, Rector of Holy Trinity Parish and College Chaplain
Bob Snyder, Assoc. Pastor at Countryside Bible Church and Lecturer in Religion
featuring
Ben Cuthbert, Pastor of College Baptist Church
Adam Rick, Rector of Holy Trinity Parish and College Chaplain
Bob Snyder, Assoc. Pastor at Countryside Bible Church and Lecturer in Religion
Download the audio recording:
| equip_pastors_panel_on_holy_communion_march_2019.mp3 |
View Facebook Live stream (by Equip Ministries):
The below file is an audio recording of the devotional study Fr. Adam led for the Hillsdale College InterVarsity Spring Break Mission Team on Monday night, March 11, when Holy Trinity Parish hosted them for dinner, worship, and teaching.
The focus text for the study was Romans 12:1-2. Of additional interest is Charles Taylor's magnum opus, "A Secular Age."
The focus text for the study was Romans 12:1-2. Of additional interest is Charles Taylor's magnum opus, "A Secular Age."
Audio File:
| 2019-3_harnessing_the_porous_self_iv_spring_break_mission_team.mp3 |
Hidden Glory: the life of God in the mundane
Luke 2:52
Luke 2:52
This is a talk I gave to Hillsdale College's InterVarsity chapter during the regular Thursday night worship gathering "Soma." Using Luke 2:52 as my starting point, I explore the obscurity of Christ's life in the thirty years before he began his public ministry, and what that teaches us about the presence of God's glory in the mundane day-to-day grind of our lives. On this basis, I encourage the students to continue to be faithful and grow in love and obedience regardless of whether or not they "feel" God's presence, because they can be assured that's he's there.
| 2018-11_hidden_glory_iv_soma.mp3 |
The below file is an audio recording of the devotional study Fr. Adam led for the Hillsdale College InterVarsity Spring Break Mission Team on Monday night, March 5, when Holy Trinity Parish hosted them for dinner, worship, and teaching.
The focus text for the study is Amos chapters 3 through 5.
The focus text for the study is Amos chapters 3 through 5.
Audio File:
| 2018-3_getting_religion_right_iv_spring_break_mission_team.mp3 |
Cover Art:
"Woe Unto You, Scribes and Pharisees" by James Tissot, 188601894, opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, Brooklyn Museum, New York
A Reluctant Saint
Life Lessons from St. Gregory of Nazianzus
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talk given to The Catholic Society of Hillsdale College
Conviviuum, Thursday, February 15, 2018
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talk given to The Catholic Society of Hillsdale College
Conviviuum, Thursday, February 15, 2018
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| 2018-2_conviviuum_a_relunctant_saint.mp3 |
The above lecture was given at a weekly gathering of The Catholic Society at Hillsdale College called Conviviuum. It is based on a blog post originally written for The All Saints' Writers' Block on May 10, 2011. The full text of the original blog post can be read below, or found here.
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Yesterday was the feast day of my all time favorite figure from the early church, the fourth century bishop and theologian Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390). Though one day late (I was detained, ironically enough, by my efforts to finish an essay on an aspect of Gregory’s theology), he must yet command some of our attention.
Gregory is known primarily for his theology. He is preeminently the theologian of the Trinity, a truth long recognized by the church, which very shortly after his death boldly acclaimed him Gregory the Theologian for his crucial and groundbreaking insights about this very doctrine. For Gregory, the doctrine is the absolute centerpiece of Christian revelation and the fundamental bedrock of salvation, so much so that he can say:
Gregory is known primarily for his theology. He is preeminently the theologian of the Trinity, a truth long recognized by the church, which very shortly after his death boldly acclaimed him Gregory the Theologian for his crucial and groundbreaking insights about this very doctrine. For Gregory, the doctrine is the absolute centerpiece of Christian revelation and the fundamental bedrock of salvation, so much so that he can say:
I consider the Trinity the only true devotion and saving doctrine. (Oration 43.30, Funeral Oration on the Great Saint Basil)
What Gregory means is this: the Father reveals himself to the world through the Son, incarnate, dead, and resurrected for our sakes. We have communion with the Son by the Holy Spirit, who mystically unites the Church to God through Christ in scriptural and sacramental illumination. Without all three, salvation is moot and our faith is powerless. But wonder of wonders! God is irreducibly Three-in-One-and-One-in-Three, and so Gregory boldly declares that our faith is not in vain!
But I must confess, it is not primarily Gregory’s doctrine that draws me to him. Gregory was an extremely dynamic personality. In the course of his life, he studied and mastered the highly esteemed art of oratory and became a sort of fourth century Billy Graham, helped form the monastic foundation of his friend Basil for whom the latter is widely acclaimed even today, healed schisms in his father’s church and elsewhere by his preaching, wrote the first dedicated reflection on the art and dignity of pastoral care, was pulled from retirement on several occasions by adoring fans, single-handedly revived faith in the Nicene Creed in the Roman capital Constantinople by his preaching alone, was acclaimed Archbishop of that city by a crowd after a ray of sunlight landed on him in a dimly lit church, gained the favor of an Emperor and presided over an Ecumenical Council, and still had time to record several thousand lines of finely tuned poetry about his life and his theological contemplation. All the while, he survived storms at sea, stonings in church, assassination attempts, political machinations, the attempts of his own friends to use him to their advantage, and, horror of horrors, overbearing parents.
What is striking about how God managed to providentially use Gregory in all these things is the way in which Gregory himself endured it all kicking and screaming. Gregory was an introverted and very sensitive soul, and his rote reaction to crisis was, somewhat humorously, to run. He ran away when his father forcibly ordained him to the priesthood. He ran away when his friend Basil forcibly ordained him to the episcopate. He ran away when his father’s church tried to make him his father’s successor as bishop after the latter’s death. He ran away when the political tides turned against him at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Gregory loved to run. And better yet, Gregory loved to complain about it. Considering his flare for the dramatic, Gregory was without a doubt a reluctantsaint. By the end of his life, Gregory was left a frustrated and wounded man who felt that he had failed in all the trials he’d been forced to face and, most tragically of all, had been failed by his family and friends, who were often the ones who forced him into these trials in the first place. Gregory died believing that his life’s work—work he wouldn’t have done had he not been cajoled by others—was for naught.
But my how God used Gregory mightily! His doctrinal synthesis became thestandard for the eastern church almost immediately after his death, and in translation he heavily influenced Jerome and Augustine and the whole of the western church as well. His sermons set the rhetorical bar for all Christian preaching for centuries, where they were preached every year on important feast days in Constantinople well into the second millennium. His thoughts on pastoral care heavily influenced such giants as John Chrysostom and Pope Gregory the Great. When subsequent generations were tasked to, as John of Damascus put it, “think theologically,” they invariably meant by this “to think like Gregory the Theologian.” Even Protestant favorite John Calvin found “great delight” in Gregory’s vision of the Triune God. To have him on your side is to have a very influential friend indeed.
Gregory for his part saw none of this. But that great Triune God in which he delighted saw it all. His hand was truly heavy on his servant Gregory, and he used him mightily. Indeed, that selfsame Holy Spirit Gregory so loved to contemplate and defend continues to return the favor to this day. Gregory is still our man on so many points. But perhaps on no other does he better teach us than this: God providentially preserves those who love him, and even amidst, as Gregory says, “calamities of soul,” God makes their names great. It is, in the last analysis, Gregory’s vision and example of divine providence that makes him a dear companion in the faith for me, and for which I remember him most fondly:
But I must confess, it is not primarily Gregory’s doctrine that draws me to him. Gregory was an extremely dynamic personality. In the course of his life, he studied and mastered the highly esteemed art of oratory and became a sort of fourth century Billy Graham, helped form the monastic foundation of his friend Basil for whom the latter is widely acclaimed even today, healed schisms in his father’s church and elsewhere by his preaching, wrote the first dedicated reflection on the art and dignity of pastoral care, was pulled from retirement on several occasions by adoring fans, single-handedly revived faith in the Nicene Creed in the Roman capital Constantinople by his preaching alone, was acclaimed Archbishop of that city by a crowd after a ray of sunlight landed on him in a dimly lit church, gained the favor of an Emperor and presided over an Ecumenical Council, and still had time to record several thousand lines of finely tuned poetry about his life and his theological contemplation. All the while, he survived storms at sea, stonings in church, assassination attempts, political machinations, the attempts of his own friends to use him to their advantage, and, horror of horrors, overbearing parents.
What is striking about how God managed to providentially use Gregory in all these things is the way in which Gregory himself endured it all kicking and screaming. Gregory was an introverted and very sensitive soul, and his rote reaction to crisis was, somewhat humorously, to run. He ran away when his father forcibly ordained him to the priesthood. He ran away when his friend Basil forcibly ordained him to the episcopate. He ran away when his father’s church tried to make him his father’s successor as bishop after the latter’s death. He ran away when the political tides turned against him at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Gregory loved to run. And better yet, Gregory loved to complain about it. Considering his flare for the dramatic, Gregory was without a doubt a reluctantsaint. By the end of his life, Gregory was left a frustrated and wounded man who felt that he had failed in all the trials he’d been forced to face and, most tragically of all, had been failed by his family and friends, who were often the ones who forced him into these trials in the first place. Gregory died believing that his life’s work—work he wouldn’t have done had he not been cajoled by others—was for naught.
But my how God used Gregory mightily! His doctrinal synthesis became thestandard for the eastern church almost immediately after his death, and in translation he heavily influenced Jerome and Augustine and the whole of the western church as well. His sermons set the rhetorical bar for all Christian preaching for centuries, where they were preached every year on important feast days in Constantinople well into the second millennium. His thoughts on pastoral care heavily influenced such giants as John Chrysostom and Pope Gregory the Great. When subsequent generations were tasked to, as John of Damascus put it, “think theologically,” they invariably meant by this “to think like Gregory the Theologian.” Even Protestant favorite John Calvin found “great delight” in Gregory’s vision of the Triune God. To have him on your side is to have a very influential friend indeed.
Gregory for his part saw none of this. But that great Triune God in which he delighted saw it all. His hand was truly heavy on his servant Gregory, and he used him mightily. Indeed, that selfsame Holy Spirit Gregory so loved to contemplate and defend continues to return the favor to this day. Gregory is still our man on so many points. But perhaps on no other does he better teach us than this: God providentially preserves those who love him, and even amidst, as Gregory says, “calamities of soul,” God makes their names great. It is, in the last analysis, Gregory’s vision and example of divine providence that makes him a dear companion in the faith for me, and for which I remember him most fondly:
It is necessary to accept every turn of the rudder by which God leads me out from both struggle and storm, till he has harbored me in a fair haven: if indeed he did not build the vessel to no purpose, but toward a good and well-intentioned end. (Poem 1.1.6, The Second on Providence, 112-116)
Rest assured, my weary friend. His intention with you was very good, and he has harbored you in a fair haven indeed.
Fr. Adam Rick
A prayerbook Christian with a patristic twist.
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