Beeson Podcast, Episode #
Dr. Quinn Fox
Date

>>Announcer: 

Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your host, Doug Sweeney. 


>>Doug Sweeney:

Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I'm your host, Doug Sweeney, and I'm joined today by an old friend of mine, the Reverend Dr. Quinn Fox, who serves as Chairman of the Board of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, which will host its next annual conference here at Beeson Divinity School from January 12 to January 14. We are looking forward to hearing all about the Center and its conference, which I am also playing a role in organizing and hosting. So thank you, Quinn, for being with us today.

>>Quinn:
Thanks, Doug. It's my pleasure. Always good to be with you. Although I think this is our first time being filmed on camera together. 

>>Sweeney:
Yeah, how about that? Quinn and I went to grad school together, so we've done all kinds of things together over the years. But Quinn, this is the first time we've had you on the Beeson Podcast, so let's introduce you briefly to our podcast listeners.
Maybe tell us a little bit about how you came to faith and how you got involved in Christian ministry. 

>>Quinn:
Sure, thanks. Well, like you, I grew up in the Midwest in the Chicago suburbs. But unlike you, my tradition in the church was to be part of a mainline liturgical church. And so I was a religious kid and maybe a little bit more religious than some of my fellow friends and participants in the congregation as a teenager, but it was really in my last year of high school through the ministry of Young Life that faith became personal and very real and something I got extraordinarily excited about.
My early experience with Young Life as someone who attended Young Life meetings, participated in a camping ministry, and then became a volunteer leader, that organization and its unique approach to ministry has shaped me and formed me in the way that I am a pastor even today. I would say though that as great as Young Life is and was for me, I had some intellectual questions. That was not their specialty. And so that led me to the Reformed theological tradition and to a PCUSA, actually it's a predecessor congregation, but mainline Presbyterian congregation during college that was more on the evangelical end of the spectrum. 
But being a part of that ministry and getting involved in the church, the image of a minister wearing a black robe and vestments was singularly unappealing to me, in part because of my early experience. But at the same time, ministry and theological study were very compelling. And eventually I enrolled in Fuller Seminary, which seemed like a good place for my interests, but also my lack of interest and no intention in pursuing ordained ministry.
But along the way, I had some influential people model healthy pastoral ministry, as well as a healthy understanding of both the life of the heart and the life of the mind. And eventually was ordained, my first call was as a college chaplain, so I really wasn't in the church, but I was being ordained. And a big part of my life as a pastor has been the fact that my wife Nancy also was in seminary at the same time with me and earned her Master of Divinity degree and was ordained and we shared that position as college chaplains in a Presbyterian-related Christian college. 
Being in the academic environment led me to really want to scratch the itch of further study and so I pursued graduate education first at Princeton Seminary and then at Vanderbilt in historical theology where you and I were classmates. And over those years I gradually became comfortable with the idea of congregational ministry. It was a slow road. And I realized that my vocation was to be a pastor who teaches and/or a teacher who pastors. And I found myself equally comfortable in both the academy as well as parish settings. And I sensed that I could have a role in mediating and bridging these two frequently alienated contexts. So that was sort of where I set my sights.
Having been in the Christian college atmosphere, I tried academic administration for a season in a Presbyterian seminary, And that really wasn't where I belonged. I really found my sweet spot in a more informal classroom setting of adult Sunday school. And I ended up in a teaching ministry leading the adult education initiative on the staff of a large Presbyterian church in Colorado, which at the time that I went there had some 1,000 adults registered as participants in some 20 or more classes. And these are everything from college all the way up to older adults. 
After eight years there, I was invited, really kind of lured away by the Office of Theology and Worship in the Presbyterian Church USA to direct a Lily Endowed funded program and transition into ministry, which was called the Company of New Pastors, sort of riffing off of Calvin's venerable company of pastors, but for new pastors as they graduated in seminary and moved into their first four years of ordained ministry. And this combined my interest in ministry, education, and spiritual formation. And that was really a wonderful job with great colleagues, but transition in the life of the denominational structure, a retirement, and also the fact that all good things funded by Lily eventually come to an end. 
Fourteen years ago, I was very fortunate to be invited to apply for the position as the Associate Pastor for Discipleship here at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. And I have this month just finished my 14th year here. 

>>Sweeney:
Congratulations. We do want to talk about the conference in just a minute, but I don't think I should fail to ask you a little bit about National Press. That's an unusual ministry assignment. Probably a lot of our listeners want to know. So what's that church like? What's it like being a pastor at National Presbyterian in DC? Can you give us just a one or two minute version of so what's National Press like and what's your ministry there like? 

>>Quinn:
Wow, it might be a three or four minute, but we trace our roots as the story goes all the way back to Scottish stonemasons who were part of the construction of the White House in the late 18th century. And they gathered for Sabbath worship on the grounds of the Executive Mansion. Eventually they were able to call a pastor and they became St. Andrew's Church. That congregation evolved to become the first Presbyterian Church of Washington. And the building was located initially where the Rayburn office building, which houses the Congressional Representatives' offices, where that now stands.
And so that congregation moved and then merged eventually with the Church of the Covenant, which was eventually designated as the National Church of the Denomination by act of the General Assembly. And this happened some 75 years ago. It remained covenant Presbyterian Church, but over time it became landlocked and in a very visionary move, a 13-acre campus in far northwest DC that had been a home for homeless children was purchased in the mid-1960s, and the name was changed when we moved here to our current location on Nebraska Avenue to be the National Presbyterian Church. 
The cornerstone was laid by Dwight Eisenhower, the president who was baptized, having grown up in a non-sacramental tradition. He was baptized when he joined the Covenant Presbyterian Church and over the years many presidents, elected representatives, cabinet members, staff of our elected officials have been part of the life of our congregation and many, many more who are part of government, either officially as, say, foreign service officers or in some of the various connections between government and things like trade associations. 
There are incredible number of trade associations in Washington, DC. There's even a trade association for trade associations. And so all of the concerns that are here, people talk about life inside the beltway as if it was just something really easy to fix, and all we need to do is elect somebody who will come in and shake things up. It's a lot more complex than I ever thought it would be. 
Over time in the 50 years, 55 years that we've been on this location, the culture has shifted away from a really predominant Christendom culture. And we have become more of a local congregation with strong discipleship and educational programs for children, youth, and adults, as well as a strong emphasis on local and global mission. And I was hired to lead the Ministry of Discipleship and Christian Formation, so I supervise directors and children's and youth ministries.
I've got more direct responsibilities, along with a few staff colleagues, in our ministry to families with school-age children, with young professionals, with small groups, men's and women's ministries. And my main responsibility programmatically, in addition to being one of the pastors and leading worship and occasional preaching, is our Sunday morning adult classes, where I teach along with a number of gifted volunteer teachers, and our leadership has endorsed that and really made that a priority. 
Our pastoral leadership, our program ministry leadership has historically been evangelical and more traditional theologically, despite how fraught that word has become in this country, even as our members are more diverse in their viewpoints and perspective. And so I tell people we're one of the few places where in Washington, D.C., where you can find traditional liturgical worship with a choir and a great organ, along with excellent Orthodox preaching and teaching.
We also have a service with more contemporary music, wouldn't want to leave them out, and that's becoming increasingly popular. It's an interesting time to be in Washington, D.C. The political climate is challenging. I think it's always been challenging, but it just seems like it's more so now. But I'm pleased to say that our efforts to really keep Jesus Christ as the center of our ministry have really been remarkably successful. And our people want that, and they expect this orientation and emphasis. 
When I explain what we're about, I use this image, which I think is probably accurate of the Australian sheep farming, where the climate is so arid that you just can't get enough pasture land for all the sheep to graze on. And to try to put a fence around all of it to keep them corralled would just be financially untenable. So instead they spend their money digging deep wells with cool water at the center of the grazing land and the sheep don't get too far away from that and then you don't have to worry about setting up all the boundaries. So a centered set as opposed to a bounded set. And that's how I explain what we try to do, keeping Jesus Christ at the center, realizing that good people of faith will disagree on a variety of things, but that's not what our ministry is called to be about. That's not what people want and are looking for in our worship. And so it's been a privilege to be a part of participating in that and helping to shape and form that over for almost a decade and a half.

>>Sweeney:
Well, that sounds great to me. And thank you, Quinn, for your many years of faithful service there. That's wonderful. All right, we should shift gears now and talk a little bit about the Center and the conference coming up here in January for Beeson podcast listeners. We probably should say just a little bit at the outset here about what the Center is, so let me ask the Chairman of the Board of the Center, Dr. Fox, what is the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology? 

>>Quinn:
Well, the short answer is actually, I'm going to paraphrase our website, but we're a, we came up with the word, we're a theological enterprise, and by that initiative, organization, endeavor, we don't really have a bricks-and-mortar building that's the center. We have moved around, now we're centered in Beeson. But anyway, we're a theological enterprise comprised of Catholic, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians. And our goal is to promote faithfulness throughout the church to the Word of God as that is revealed to us in Jesus Christ. 
So we're trying to promote, advance the knowledge of God's revelation as it's authoritatively revealed and mediated by Holy Scripture and, it's a mouthful here, but normatively interpreted by the Church's creedal and dogmatic tradition. Our shorthand is we are all about the great tradition, theologically. And so we don't try to avoid difficult issues that could divide us, but we seek ways in which our traditions, East and West, Reformation and Catholic, North and South, both America, North America, North and South, as well as global North and South, how all of these together might enrich one another as we pursue Christ at the center and, you know, seeking to be cognizant of the prayer for Christian unity that Jesus prayed in the 17th chapter of John's gospel. 
And so we pursue our goal through ecumenical research and conversation. And this works itself out, at least at present, through a scholarly journal, Pro Ecclesia for the Church, and through our annual Pro Ecclesia conferences for both clergy and laity. And now recently through the addition of our bi-monthly podcast that All May Be One. And so that's what we're doing.

>>Sweeney:
Marvelous. All right. So one of the things we do at the Center is host annual conferences. Quite recently, these annual conferences have been based here at Beeson Divinity School, where I play a role in organizing and hosting. Let's tell our listeners about the conference coming up this January. So what's its theme and why should our listeners think about attending? 

>>Quinn:
Well before I get to this year's conference, let me just say that our conferences, and I've been a part of these for over 15 years now, since before coming to Washington, they're unique in my experience. They're serious intellectually, although by no means inaccessible, but at the same time there's a pronounced element of liturgical structure to the time that we spend together. 
And so they're framed with services of evening prayer on Monday evening when we start, and then morning prayer on Tuesday and Wednesday, the two mornings that we have together. And then this year we'll have a concluding worship service at midday that is especially focused on our theme. And so our time though together gives a genuine ecclesial quality, these times of prayer.
It's also really quite relationally oriented. So there's ample time for interaction with the presenters and the participants, both formally following presentations and informally, and as well as fellow participants. And so we're seeking ecumenical breadth in our presenters and respondents, and that's different from your typical denominational gathering, as much as I enjoy those also. And these are top flight scholars, but very much scholars for the church. And so they're doing sort of very focused theological reflection that benefits the life of the church. 
I would say that by and large, the atmosphere is free from denominational politics, although no gathering of Christians is immune to the morally dividing social issues that threaten to displace doctrinal orthodoxy as the center of our life together as followers of Jesus. But that's why we have the conference, because there needs to be that focus. And oftentimes denominational gatherings, for better and for worse, have to focus on those other points of division. 
And then why now? Well, around the time I became executive director, I was stepping down as interim program director for the center. And that was late 2023 when you accepted the position. And it dawned on me that 2025 was 1700 years after the Council of Nicaea. And whether or not I was the first one to realize and do the math, probably not. But when I raised the issue with a few of members of the board, as well as you, that we ought to think about doing something, it became really an easy decision for Nicea and its creed to be the focus of the next conference. For some logistical reasons, we decided to move from June to January, and so we didn't really have a 2025 gathering. So this is our 2025 gathering in early 2026. 
It's interesting, along the way, I think just about everybody who's paying attention within any Christian tradition has heard about the importance of this creed and whose 1700th birthday we're celebrating, and surprisingly, especially non-credal traditions, talking about this is really important. In my own congregation, I taught a 14-week Sunday morning class with over 50 people. Who would have thought there would be that much interest? But there really is. And so I think it's a timely time and timely occasion to do the kind of reflection on the importance of the tradition, but also what does it mean for the future. And as for the mission of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, the Nicene Creed is our foundation. It says really for the first time what the great tradition is, and that's what we're all about.

>>Sweeney:
Should we tell them just a little bit about a few of our keynote speakers? 

>>Burford: 
Yeah, I've been talking for a while, and you've invited many of them, so why don't you mention some of the folks who are coming? I don't even know all of them, but I'm excited. 

>>Sweeney:
Well, the three keynoters would be Professor Marcus Plusted, who is Eastern Orthodox and teaches at Marquette University, Milwaukee. Professor Matthew Levering, who is Catholic and teaches at Mundelein Seminary in the suburbs of Chicago. And Professor Kevin Van Hooser, who is an evangelical Protestant and teaches at Trinity in the suburbs of Chicago. And then there are lots of other people who are going to be on panels, who are going to be involved in our worship services as well.
And maybe for our Beeson Podcast listeners, we can emphasize that Dr. Timothy George, our founding dean, is going to be involved in the conference. Dr. Mark Gignilliat is going to preach at the concluding worship service of the conference. I myself am going to give the banquet address and be involved in hosting the conference, so it's going to be both very much a traditional Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology conference and a little bit of a Beeson-y conference with people that our audience members are used to listening to as well.

>>Quinn:
Well, and that makes Beeson really a perfect host for this conference. Beginning with Timothy George, he was one of our early board members and was a guiding light in the early days of the first generation of the Center and now as the new Executive Director, his successor as the Dean of Beeson Divinity School, everything I know and understand about Beeson, we're all about the same kinds of things, particularly as Protestants, but when we bring in the rest of the people who are committed to the great tradition, it's really a wonderful, wonderful setting. Samford University is a beautiful campus, as your listeners certainly know. Accommodations are inexpensive, and for those who are part of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and Pro Ecclesia crowd, it's a lot nicer in January in Birmingham than an awful lot of places in the country. 

>>Sweeney:
That's definitely true. Yeah, and Beeson's a great fit. Of course, we're an evangelical Protestant divinity school, but we're very much a great tradition school. It's a wonderful fit for hosting a conference like this, a gathering like this, and we've got some friends who are Catholic and Orthodox leaders of churches here in Birmingham who are excited to be involved as well. All right, should we tell people how to sign up for the conference if they're so inclined?

>>Quinn:
Sure, well if you use a search engine you can just type in Pro Ecclesia 2026, but if you want to just type in your HTML it's pro-ecclesia.org/2026. But if you Google “Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology” or “Pro Ecclesia,” you'll get to the website and there are links that will give you the schedule, the biography of our main presenters, as well as a form that you can fill out to register and to pay for the conference, and then to learn about places where you can find lodging if you're from out of town.

>>Sweeney:
All right, friends, we'd love to have you join us. Please register online. If you want help, just drop me a line here at Beeson Divinity School. I’ll be happy to help you. Please join us for our annual conference, January 12th to the 14th on the legacy of the Nicene Creed.
All right, Quinn, we always like to end our podcast interviews here at Beeson by asking guests how our audience members can be praying for you. Believe it or not, we've got a lot of people who are faithful in prayer who listen to our podcast. How can they be praying for Dr. Quinn Fox? 

>>Quinn:
Well, I love that. I would say primarily for wisdom in my position as a pastor, and as someone who is trying to not so much for myself, but to help people who are very much here in Washington, D.C. and who are invested either directly impacted by some of the significant changes, the downsizing of the government, or indirectly. 

>>Sweeney:
You've had a lot of layoffs at your church, haven't you? 

>>Quinn:
We have, and we've had even more people who've had to make the layoffs, and it just is, it really tears them apart. And it's really difficult to know what to do with the trauma, with the emotions, both personally. So for me, and really for all of our pastoral leadership, would appreciate wisdom and discernment in that. 
And then I would say for myself personally, as well as for the ministry of the Center, as we move into the future, there's going to be some changes. I've announced my plan to retire from my pastoral position at the end of this calendar year. I'm looking forward to giving more time to teaching, to reading, to writing, and also to leading our organization and our board as we figure out, okay, what's the next chapter? What is this new generation of leadership going to be like? And how can we be faithful as we structure and dream and listen to God's leading for the future?

>>Sweeney:
Okay, listeners, this has been Dr. Quinn Fox. He is a pastor at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington. He is the chairman of the board of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. He'll be back here at Beeson Divinity School this coming January for our annual conference on the Council of Nicaea and its theological legacies in the Church today. Please do pray for him for wisdom and discernment in his pastoral ministry. Please do pray for our friends at National Presbyterian who are going through a lot of turmoil these days. And if you would, please also pray for the ministries of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology. We love you, we thank you for tuning in. And we say good-bye for now. 


>>Mark Gignilliat:

You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast; coming to you from the campus of Samford University. Our theme music is by Advent Birmingham. Our announcer is Mark Gignilliat. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our Producer is Neal Embry. And our show host is Doug Sweeney. For more episodes and to subscribe, visit www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast. You can also find the Beeson Podcast on iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify.