Wollaston Research Seminar: A Feast of Creation?

The Rev’d Dr Elizabeth Smith to present: A Feast of Creation?

Christians have joined the growing chorus lamenting the climate crisis and its effects on nature and on vulnerable humanity, especially the poor. Energy is coalescing around liturgical acknowledgement of the value of ‘creation’—both God’s creative action and the universe it produces. Ecumenical efforts are pressing toward a feast or season that raises both the act and fact of creation to the praise and thanksgiving of assemblies across denominations, from the Orthodox and Catholics where the initiatives began, to Anglican, Reformed, Lutheran, Methodist, and Pentecostal fellowships and associations. Still, there are many issues and unanswered questions that lie between the desire for such prayer, and the shape that the prayer might finally take.

A recent paper of the Rev’d Dr Smith has been made available for pre-reading below: “A Feast of Creation?” Australian Journal of Liturgy 19(2) 2024: 59-75.

PRESENTER

Elizabeth Joyce Smith AM (born 1956) is an Australian Anglican priest and hymnist. She has published three collections of hymns, and several of her hymns have been included in the ecumenical hymnal Together in Song. Ordained a deacon in the Anglican Church in Australia in 1987, Smith became a priest in 1993. She earned a PhD from the Graduate Theological Union, where she focused on feminist hermeneutics and liturgical studies. Her doctoral thesis was published in 1999, with the title Bearing Fruit in Due Season: Feminist Hermeneutics and the Bible in Worship. She has served on the Liturgy Commission for the Anglican Church of Australia since 1997. In 2018, she was commissioned to write a hymn for the installation of Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy. In 2020, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for her contributions to liturgical scholarship and to the Anglican Church of Australia.

Join our mailing list by contacting research@wollaston.edu.au. Zoom invitations and pre-reading will be distributed to this list in advance. All in-person seminars are held in the Gerald New Room, Wollaston Theological College, Mt Claremont 6010.