Harold T Lewis

Preachers at funerals differ in approach. Some see the purpose of the sermon to be eulogy, to heap so much praise that the deceased becomes unrecognizable to the mourners. Others regard praise of the departed as inappropriate, as it may detract from the praise of Almighty God, which they believe to be the sole purpose of all worship. Still others opt to say nothing at all, arguing that it is disingenuous for one person to be lying in the pulpit while another is lying in the nave. In this book of funeral sermons preached throughout his forty-year ministry, Harold Lewis offers Jesus' message of the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection--hope for the dead, hope for the church, and hope for the world in which we live, move, and have our being. ""'Funerals are about hope' Harold Lewis writes in the introduction to this collection of funeral sermons. Poignant and instructive, with a mixture of wit, history, and solid theology, this compilation of sermons is a gift to the homiletic practitioner, expert and novice alike, who seeks to celebrate the life and faith of the deceased and convey to the bereaved why in the midst of death we can and do still have a living hope."" --Debra Q. Bennett, Rector Church of Our Saviour, Akron, Ohio ""Although I did not personally know any of the individuals whose lives are memorialized in these funeral sermons, I feel as though I have somehow made their acquaintance because of the vivid portraits Harold Lewis has painted. . . . Lewis does more than celebrate who these people were in earthly life. Again and again, he movingly affirms their, and indeed our own, mysterious participation in the eternal life of God."" --Joseph Downing Thompson, Jr., Virginia Theological Seminary Harold T. Lewis was ordained an Episcopal priest in 1971. He has served parishes and taught at seminaries in the United States, England, the West Indies, and Africa. Among his publications are Christian Social Witness (2001); Elijah's Mantle: Pilgrimage, Politics and Proclamation (2001); and The Recent Unpleasantness: Calvary Church's Role in the Preservation of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh (2015). He holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Birmingham (UK).

In this volume of The New Church’s Teaching Series, Harold T. Lewis surveys the teachings and witness of Anglicanism and the Episcopal Church concerning the Christian vision of a righteous social order, including the challenges of the new millennium. Beginning with the Bible’s understandings of social justice, Lewis summarizes the Anglican witness of theologians like F. D. Maurice and William Temple and goes on to discuss the Episcopal Church in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Later chapters discuss the challenges of a new social order that face the church today raised by liberation theology, third-world debt and economic justice, and questions of race, gender, and human sexuality. As with each book in The New Church’s Teaching Series, recommended resources for further reading and questions for discussion are included.

The Episcopal Church was the first in the American colonies to baptize blacks, to ordain a black minister, and to establish an African American congregation. Yet membership by blacks in the Episcopal Church has always been viewed as an anomaly. In a nation in which 80 percent of the black Christian population belong to black denominations, it has seemed incongruous to many that the descendants of slaves and the descendants of slaveholders could together find a spiritual home in the Episcopal Church. Moreover, the mode of religious expression of Anglicanism has been seen as incompatible with the black religious ethos. Attempts to explain this phenomenon frequently dismiss black Episcopalians as social climbers, and their authenticity as African Americans, and even as Christians, is called into question. Yet With a Steady Best, however, argues that blacks have remained in the Episcopal Church because they have recognized it as catholic and therefore inclusive institution. For two hundred years blacks have challenged the church to be true to its catholic claims and have used this principle as a basis for their demands for recognition. This book chronicles the steady beat of that challenge. Harold T. Lewis, former staff officer for Black Ministries at the Episcopal Church Center in New York, is a parish priest in the Diocese of Long Island, Professor of Homiletics at the George Mercer School of Theology, and Adjunct Professor of Preaching at New York Theological Seminary.