Episcopal Press and News
Burnham To Direct Trinity Institute
Episcopal News Service. May 3, 1984 [84092]
NEW YORK, (DPS, May 3) -- The new director of the highly-regarded Trinity Institute is a scholar and church leader in the areas of religion and science, and American cultural values.
The Rev. Frederic Burnham, Ph.D, currently president of the Association of Episcopal Colleges, will become Director of the Institute Sept. 1, 1984. In the interim, he will be acting as consultant to the Institute staff for future planning.
His appointment was announced here by the Rev. Robert Ray Parks, rector of the Parish of Trinity Church, the institute's parent organization.
Trinity Institute was founded in 1967 to nurture theological renewal in the Episcopal Church through the continuing education of its clergy. The Institute's annual National Conference, featuring addresses by major figures in contemporary religious life, regularly draws 10 percent or more of Episcopal clergy, making it the largest effort of its kind for the 3 million member body.
As director of the Institute, Burnham will be responsible for keeping abreast of and discerning theological issues vital to church and society, and designing conferences and workshops to engage the priests and bishops of the Episcopal Church in exploring them.
In addition to the Conference, held in New York and San Francisco each January and in Kansas City in alternate years, the Institute publishes a seasonal journal of theological reflection, PHOS, offers quarterly book subscriptions with study guides to help clergy keep up with the literature of their field, and co-sponsors events of interest to the broader church with other agencies.
Burnham, who has published, taught and spoken widely on the relationship between science and religion, spoke most recently at Princeton and Wesleyan Universities on "American Values: Past, Present and Future;" and in December addressed a National Council of Churches consultation on Faith, Science and Technology.
He was educated at Harvard College, Cambridge University, Johns Hopkins, and the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and holds degrees in literature, divinity, philosophy, and the history of science (Ph.D). He has been a fellow of the Church Society for College Work, the Episcopal Church Foundation, and the Society for Values in Higher Education and an Associate of the Danforth Foundation. He has also been the recipient of research grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Philosophical Society.
In addition, he serves on the executive committee of the Education in Society program unit of the National Council of Churches and as a trustee of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. He is a past trustee of the Anglican Fellowship of Prayer.
Burnham will be the third director to serve the Institute. He succeeds the Rev. Durstan R McDonald, Ph.D, who became dean of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest Jan. 1, and founding director the Rt. Rev. Robert Terwilliger, Ph.D., who was elected suffragan bishop of Dallas in 1976.
Before coming to New York in 1978 to assume the presidency of the Association of Episcopal Colleges, Burnham taught history of science and served as assistant dean for graduate studies at Wayne State University in Detroit.
In addition to his academic work, Burnham has maintained an active interest in parish-based ministry. He currently serves as associate rector of St. Joseph of Arimathea Church in Elmsford, N.Y., and as rector of the Memorial Church of All Angels, a summer chapel in the Catskill Mountains. At Trinity he will be active on the parish staff. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1967.
He is married and has two sons.