Reading week update

This week is spring break for the Brazos Fellows, or, as we like to call it, “reading week.” It’s a good moment for the fellows to reset, take a breath, and do some reading for study and for fun (I know I am!). Next week, hopefully with renewed vigor, we’ll return to our regular rhythm of study, prayer, and work together.

This is an exciting time of year for the Brazos Fellows. They’re settled into the rhythms of our routine–the disciplines of morning and evening prayer, of sabbath practice, have become habits. They’re at home in our community and in Christ Church. They’re starting to discern a better sense of what comes next, and are preparing for it well. They’ve walked through the history of the Church–from the time of the apostles, past the great theological monuments of the patristic era, into the middle ages and the Reformation and finally modernity–and are beginning to see where they fit in this long, remarkable story. It’s wonderful to see how, through this process, things begin to come together in a way unique to each fellow.

Here’s how, Celeste, one of our alumni, describes this:

Brazos Fellows helped me understand my personal story of faith within the broader story of the Christian Tradition. Studying where we, the church, have come from has enabled me to understand better the issues facing the church today, and this awareness has helped me engage with these difficulties carefully, critically, and compassionately. The spiritual and intellectual formation that Brazos Fellows offers is truly something our world cannot afford to be without.

Would you pray for our fellows, as they return from reading week and enter into their last quarter of the fellowship year? Pray especially that the things they are learning will take even deeper root–that they would finish well, that through their study and prayer they would be drawn deeper into life with God. 

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March 13: Paul Gutacker book launch 

Come out Monday, March 13, to celebrate the release of The Old Faith in a New Nation: American Protestants and the Christian Past, written by Brazos Fellows’ director, Paul Gutacker, and just published with Oxford University Press. Old Faith in a New Nation examines how 19th-century Protestants appealed to Christian history—not just “the Bible alone”—on key issues like slavery, the role of government, the opportunities and rights available to women, and immigration.

Details:

  • Monday, March 13, 3-4 pm Central
  • Lewis-Birkhead Lecture Hall (first floor, Armstrong Browning Library, Baylor University)
  • Reception to follow in Cox Reception Hall (also first floor of ABL) from 4to 5 pm
  • Discounted books available for purchase