Marcus Halley on the Power of Learning, Prayer, and Place

 

By Ryan Currie

The Very Rev. Marcus Halley, T’15, T’22, has served in parishes, on diocesan staffs in Minnesota and Connecticut, and now works as the chaplain and dean of spiritual and religious life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He has authored two books, Proclaim!: Sharing Words, Living Examples, Changing Lives (2020) and Abide in Peace: Healing and Reconciliation (2021). At the center of his life’s work and vocation is the importance of theological formation for all Christians. 

Halley came to Sewanee with an M.Div. from a predominantly Black Christian tradition. He was used to rigorous thinking when it came to theology, but he found at the School of Theology a distinctive environment of formation characterized by the total integration of study and prayer. “That connection between prayer and intellectual rigor was something that really transformed my faith,” Halley says. “For all the strengths of my previous M.Div., one of the things lacking from that experience was the rhythm of prayer that helps you integrate what you’re learning in the classroom with what it means to live the way of Jesus. I left Sewanee knowing that it isn’t enough just to give people facts about Jesus or the Church, the ins-and-outs of exegesis and scholarship—we have to combine that intellectual stimulation with spiritual energizing. The two have to go hand in hand. You’ll lose your way if your theological exploration isn’t grounded in a vital relationship with Jesus.”

Relationships in general are essential for formation in the Christian life, says Halley, and Sewanee’s rural setting demands that its students “show up” with their entire selves. “You default to showing up in the community in particular ways, because to go anywhere else takes a long drive,” he says. “Some people would see that as a deficit, but I see it as a strength. It makes you engage with the people who are there, and see them as your community. Even when you disagree, you are going to run into them at the grocery store, at chapel, at Shenanigans, at the Blue Chair. I was formed in Sewanee to see the people right in front of me as my community. How do I enter into those relationships, stick with them when they’re difficult, apologize when I’ve made a mistake? They’re the community I’m called to! We can look at our society and see how needed that kind of formation is. I learned I can’t throw people away or ignore them.”

The flipside of being formed in a place like Sewanee is that students themselves have an outsized impact on shaping the institution. “I realized the Black voices of my previous M.Div. were not as present in the mostly white institutions of the Episcopal Church,” Halley says. “I tried to bring that perspective to the table and to say that we can learn from each other. This is not a one-way relationship, but a place where everyone can be transformed by this encounter. Let’s be together, because we don’t have to be separated—we don’t have to live in these traditional silos.” 

Halley points out a persistent myth about Sewanee within the wider Episcopal Church: that it is a monolithically white space. “It’s funny to me that people within the Episcopal network say that about Sewanee without realizing the irony that people outside the Episcopal Church say that about the whole denomination,” he says. “While we can admit that historically and currently, Sewanee is a very white space, we risk erasing the experiences of people of color who are actually there, undergrads and seminarians—that many of us have chosen to go there and to be there, that many of us have enjoyed our time there.”

Another myth? That Sewanee does not train “missional” priests prepared for ministry in the contemporary church with its myriad challenges. “I basically wrote a whole thesis on how that language of ‘missional’ has become problematic,” Halley says. “What Sewanee taught me was how to keep praying and how to keep learning. Honestly, that’s what the church needs to navigate whatever we’re going through—a transformation, a decline, whatever you want to call it. We need well-rounded, well-formed priests who are engaged in this life of learning and prayer, and seminaries like the School of Theology are still the best way to do that.”

Halley’s own experience of moving from one tradition to another is becoming increasingly common, especially with the advanced degree and Diploma of Anglican Studies programs. “That exchange is so interesting, because it’s turning schools like the School of Theology that were mono-denominational into multi-denominational spaces,” he says. “And that’s what’s happening in the parish! A parish priest is always talking to people from different religious backgrounds, and the more we see that as an opportunity for learning rather than conflict, the better off we’ll be.”

As a leader in the area of theological formation, including his current role as a college chaplain, Halley had this to say about the perfect Sewanee student: “If somebody comes to me about graduating, going on to the next thing, and I know they’re a person of prayer, I tell them to check out Sewanee. There are many places where you can study well. There are many places with a rich liturgical and spiritual life. But there are very few places where the two of those match up. Sewanee is one of those places. We have work to do, like every institution. But to have that work grounded in learning and prayer, Sewanee is set up perfectly to engage that work with faithfulness. The Church needs Sewanee and spaces like it.” 

February 2023