Chair of Christian Thought

Department of Classics and Religion

The Chair of Christian Thought was initiated in 1980. The original vision was to bring renowned scholars in the field of Christian thought to the University of Calgary and surrounding community. Thanks to leadership from J. Louis Lebel, President of Dome Petroleum and Chairman of the Fundraising Committee, the project reached its goal in June 1985.

About

The Chair of Christian Thought brings the academic study of religion into the wider community through community events such as lectures and symposia while undertaking the normal activities of a university professor (teaching, research and publication)

Events

Annual sponsored events include four endowed lectures:

The Bentall Lecture on Education and Theology
The Iwaasa Lecture on Urban Theology
The Lebel Lecture in Christian Ethics
The Swanson Lecture in Spirituality

Contact

Chair of Christian Thought

Department of Classics & Religion
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4
Canada

Contact Chairholder Dr. Carolyn Muessig

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Dr. Carolyn Muessig

Professor Carolyn Muessig is the Chair of Christian Thought since July 2020. She specializes in Medieval Christianity, with particular emphasis on its devotional dimensions and the contribution of female teachers and preachers in Western Europe. Among her publications are The Faces of Women in the Sermons of Jacques de Vitry and The Stigmata in Medieval and Early Modern Europe. An award-winning teacher, she works with undergraduate and postgraduate students, and has supervised numerous PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers. She is presently assessing the activities of medieval and early modern female preachers. Professor Muessig is committed to bringing together diverse communities from within and outside academe to explore the significance of Christianity in art, history and culture.

Chair Gordon Harland

Sept. 1986 – April 1987

Chair Alan Sell

Jan. 1988 – Dec. 1992

Chair Douglas Shantz

Sept. 1999 – August 2016

Past instructors

Seminar instructors 1993 – 1998

Grace Jantzen, University of Manchester
Janice Soskice, Cambridge University
Julius Lipner, Cambridge University
Ursula King, Bristol University

Bentall Lecture on Education and Theology

Dr. Howard Bentall studied for his Bachelor of Arts at the University of British Columbia. He then attended McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton where he obtained a Bachelor of Divinity degree in 1937, and in 1959 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from McMaster University. Dr. Bentall had a distinguished career in ministry in the Baptist tradition. From 1938 to 1946 he served as senior minister at First Baptist Church in Regina when its membership was listed at over 800. Later ministries included Walmer Road Baptist Church in Toronto and First Baptist Church in Calgary. From 1972 to 1992 Dr. Bentall served as associate executive minister for the Baptist Union of Western Canada. He was a president of the Canadian Baptist Federation, serving from 1956-1959, and was a vice-president of the Canadian Bible Society. In 1991 Calgary's Downtown Kiwanis Club presented him with an appreciation award. For many years he was an honorary director of Operation Eyesight Universal, and secretary-treasurer of Hawthorne Charitable Foundation.

Dr. Shirley Bentall likewise demonstrated a life of service to worthy causes and the church. She received a Bachelor of Arts from McMaster and the university awarded her an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in 1989. After she and Howard were married in 1946, she devoted herself to efforts that advanced the position of women in the church. She was a president of the Baptist Union of Western Canada (1976-77) and the first woman president of the Canadian Baptist Federation (1985-88). She served as vice-president of the Baptist World Alliance and as chair of the group's Christian Ethics Study Commission. She wrote extensively, including a regular column for The Canadian Baptist Magazine and several books. In retirement, she devoted herself to the creation of the Salsbury Community Society in East Vancouver, a housing initiative that fosters community diversity and provides support for refugees.

In the early 1980s Dr. Howard and Dr. Shirley Bentall showed their commitment to education by helping to launch the Chair of Christian Thought at the University of Calgary, a position and vision which they generously supported for the remainder of their lives. The Bentalls retired to Vancouver, B.C., where they spent their last years founding the Rivendell Retreat Centre on Bowen Island which operates in a radically inclusive way by inviting people who come to pay what they can afford. Shirley passed away in 2005 and Howard followed in 2008. The volunteer-run retreat, among other jointly created charitable initiatives, continue today as testaments to their boundless generosity, compassion, and faith.

It is a privilege to hold an annual lecture in Education and Theology in honour of Dr. C. Howard Bentall and Dr. Shirley Bentall.

Sources: Church directory at First Baptist Church, Calgary (published in 1988) & Howard and Shirley Bentalls’ obituaries.

Iwaasa Lecture on Urban Theology

Dr. Reverend Kazuo Iwaasa served as minster of Church & Society at the Knox and Central United Churches in downtown Calgary from 1973-1982. Born in Alberta in 1918 to migrant parents from Hiroshima, Japan, Iwaasa was raised in rural western Canada. A second generation Japanese Canadian who lived during war time, he was no stranger to discrimination, hardship, and heartache. In 1947 at the age of 29 a profound and transcendent awakening to the wholeness of existence, brought on by a realization of the all-encompassing love of God, created the foundation upon which his life of ministry and social service began. He became enthralled by the ‘living word’ of the Bible and the ability to create tangible social change through civil rights activism and the church. He became a member of the United Church in 1948, and until his death he regarded the community as family.

He studied theology at St. Stephen’s College in Edmonton, served as a student pastor in Tofield and as general secretary for the activist Student Christian Movement at the University of Alberta. He was ordained as a Minister of the United Church in 1959. He served at Blairmore United Church, All Peoples’ Mission in Winnipeg, and then studied art at the Southern Alberta College of Art. In 1913 he became Church & Society Minister of downtown Calgary. He received a Doctor of Divinity degree from St. Stephen’s College in Edmonton in April of 1982.

Human rights, social justice and compassion were at the forefront of his ministry. He was fully devoted to the service of his fellow man: the oppressed, the marginalized, the disadvantaged, the lost and downtrodden. He channeled his lived experience as a Japanese Canadian in the mid 20^th century into a drive to make life better for those who suffered as he had. His concern and activism for environmental protection and Indigenous rights were before his time. His humble sense of self as a ‘sinner among sinners’ grounded him in his work. He oversaw and tirelessly contributed to Welcome and Drop-in Centres, institutions which he supported while he sought to create a society in which they might not be needed.

Rev. Kazuo Iwaasa passed away in 1982 from cancer, and the life-changing effects on the innumerable lives he touched still reverberate today. His devoted and equally luminous wife Inger passed away in 2020 at the age of 90. They are survived by their daughter, a pianist and co-founder of the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival, Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, and Bob Iwaasa, a son of Rev. Iwaasa’s previous marriage to life-long friend Beverly Boyd.

Rabbi Lewis Ginzberg in 1984 on Rev. Iwaasa:

“There are people who enrich by overt gifts; there are others who enrich by their mere being. Kind as he was to many, and to many benevolent causes, his greatest gift to us was to bring into a raucous world --- a world teeming with anxiety and apprehension, and with a violence that may momentarily break out --- a sense of quietness, a sense of those eternal values which endure midst all flux and change, a sense of the dignity of the human spirit even in the moment of stress and upheaval.”

It is an honour to hold an annual lecture on Urban Theology in Reverend Kazuo Iwaasa’s name.

Sources:

Kazuo Iwaasa’s speech at the Festival of Faith and family documents from Rachel Iwaasa.

‘In memory of Kazuo Iwaasa.’ Speech given in June 1984 by Rabbi Lewis Ginzberg.

MacKenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry – Witness Kazuo Iwaasa. Calgary, Alberta May 14, 1976. Volume 53. pp. 5436 – 5439.

Lebel Lecture in Christian Ethics

Jean-Louis Lebel QC B.A. LL.B LLD was born in Longueil, Quebec and was raised in St. Paul, Alberta, before spending most of his life in Calgary. He belonged to the Roman Catholic faith tradition and was a devoted Canadian citizen, community member, businessman and scholar. He was the third chancellor of the University of Calgary from 1978 to 1982. In the Fall of 1979, he joined with Dr. Peter Craigie in the planning and fundraising initiatives that led to the establishment of the Chair of Christian Thought in 1985.

A graduate of Laval, the University of Alberta, and the Harvard School of Business Administration, he worked for Chevron Standard and was elected Vice-President and Director in 1957. He was appointed to Queen’s Counsel in 1979 and counselled with multiple law firms in addition to serving as a Director and Vice-President of his own consulting firm. A born leader, Lebel was remarkably active in many community and well-being services, most often in a leadership role, including: the Calgary United Appeal, the Vanier Institute, the Alberta Catholic Hospitals Foundation, the Canadian Institute for Child Health, the Alberta Heart Foundation, Boy Scouts and La Société Franco-Canadienne de Calgary, among many others. He served on the University of Calgary Senate from 1974 until he became Chancellor in 1978. In 1985 the University recognized his many contributions by granting him an Honorary Doctorate.

He married his devoted wife Thérèse after meeting her during his time at the University of Alberta. His family fondly remembers his time as Chancellor as a lively period in which they were able to meet a diverse array of scholars and distinguished visitors to Calgary. His primary concern during his time as Chancellor was doing good for the student community, and he was proudly able to confer degrees upon two of daughters during his time as chancellor. A photograph honours Lebel’s memory as a UCalgary Chancellor in the TFDL.

It is a privilege to hold an annual lecture in Christian Ethics in the name of J. Louis Lebel.

Swanson Lecture in Christian Spirituality

Cecil Swanson (“Swanny”) was born in 1889 in London, England. He was educated in local council schools, proceeding to public school on a scholarship funded by the London County Council on its Scotch whisky tax. He remembered the discipline as well as the excellent education. He was involved in the church from an early age, belonging to choir and Bible class. Thus it was that, just after failing to win a Cambridge scholarship, he was at church when a visiting clergyman from Saskatchewan appealed for volunteers to work in western Canada. Swanny and seven other young men embarked for Toronto in 1908 where he enrolled in the university, and graduated in eastern languages with an emphasis on Hebrew. He then attended Wycliffe College for theological studies and graduated in 1913. He was introduced to western Canada during his time at Wycliffe by going to Saskatchewan to gain experience in missions. Swanny was ordained deacon in December of 1912 and during the first half of 1913 graduated from Wycliffe, married Enid Schnieder, visited England, and moved to the Yukon to begin his ministry.

Swanny's first charge was to establish a mission at Little Salmon. His rectory was a tent, soon replaced by a log cabin, complete with turf roof. That first year he built a log church, ministering largely to Indigenous peoples of the area (likely the Northern Tutchone people of the Little Salmon/Carmacks First Nation), dog sledding, making and using fishing nets, hunting and living off the land with his wife in the frigid temperatures of the north. He was made Rector of Whitehorse in 1914. In 1918 he went to Victoria, where he became vicar of Metchosin. Swanny and Enid had two children by this time so they did some small-scale farming in order to help provide for their family. The family stayed there until 1920, during which time he instigated the building of the present Victoria Cathedral. In 1920 he was called to Christ Church, Vancouver (later to become the Cathedral). In 1922 was relocated to St. Augustine's Church in Lethbridge. Swanny spent the next ten years ministering to his own congregation as well as to several mission churches throughout southern Alberta. In 1932 he was called to St. Stephen's Church in Calgary, where he remained until he was relocated once again to Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver in 1940 as the dean. It was a busy time for the cathedral and for Swanson, especially after the events of Pearl Harbour in December 1941. People flocked to church; congregations of 1000 were commonplace, with up to ten weddings per Saturday, and evening services were broadcast.

In 1953 Swanny was called to St. Paul's, Bloor St. in Toronto. Before taking up the position he was given a memorable gift by the congregation in Vancouver – a trip to England which included attendance at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. Swanny returned to Toronto to take up what would be his final charge before retirement. In 1954 Swanny was elected bishop of the Cariboo but declined the honour, considering himself insufficiently holy.

Swanny was a member of General Synod, the parliament of the Anglican Church of Canada from 1920, and was made a member of the Order of Canada in 1978. He was chairman of the house of clergy and laity from 1953 – 1960. In 1960, at the age of 70, he retired to Calgary and was, until the time of his death, honorary associate priest at Christ Church Elbow Park. Swanny was known to many and was widely admired and loved. His aim was to preach God's love, a love which he was able to show in all circumstances. He fostered tolerance and understanding between people of different walks of life and religious beliefs. He was a very early ecumenist and lost no chance to bring different denominations of the Christian Church together. One of his most endearing beliefs was that one did not have to be solemn in church 100% of the time, and he never lost sight of the basic simplicity of all church forms and teachings. He passed away in 1984.

It is a privilege to hold an annual lecture on Christian Spirituality in the name of Archdeacon Cecil “Swanny” Swanson.

- Biographical information compiled by Betty Craigie

Chair of Christian Thought

History

Bridging the academy and faith communities