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The Rev. Ruth Meyers, PhD

Ruth Meyers headshot

Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics
rmeyers@cdsp.edu
510-204-0720
BS, Syracuse University
MDiv, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary
MA, PhD, University of Notre Dame

Curriculum Vitae

Bio:

A native of New Jersey, Ruth Meyers earned her undergraduate degree in special education at Syracuse University and taught at the elementary-school level for five years. She earned her M.Div. from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary and her M.A. and Ph.D. in liturgical studies from the University of Notre Dame. She began teaching liturgy at CDSP in 2009 after 14 years on the faculty at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. At CDSP, she served as dean of academic affairs from 2012 until 2023. A past president of North American Academy of Liturgy, she is a member of the Council of Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission. Currently an assisting priest at All Souls Episcopal Parish in Berkeley, she has also served as a priest in the Dioceses of Western North Carolina, Western Michigan, and Chicago. A long-time deputy to General Convention, in 2018 she received the House of Deputies medal “for her faithful work to share her scholarship, wisdom and deep faithfulness with all of us in the church.” She has served the Episcopal Church in several capacities: member of the Task Force on Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision (2018-2021); vice chair of the House of Deputies Special Committee on Sexual Harassment and Exploitation and Convener of the subcommittee on theology and language (2018); member of Task Force on the Study of Marriage (2015-2018); chair of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (2009-2015).

Why I Teach:

My earliest memories of worship are the early-morning midweek Lenten services I attended with my dad and older brother, and Saturdays in the church sacristy with my mother as she prepared for the next day’s liturgies. I am passionate about the power of worship to form and transform communities of faith. I chose liturgy as an academic discipline because I believed that studying worship would give me a window into what individuals and communities in different times and places believed about God. My doctoral work, a study of the development of the rites of baptism and confirmation in the 1979 Prayer Book, gave me an opportunity to explore the history of the Episcopal Church in the twentieth century. My greatest joy in teaching about liturgy is enabling students to see and understand the complex textures of worship. Engagement with Christians in the wider church, whether teaching a parish education program, leading a diocesan clergy day, or working with a churchwide task force or as a General Convention Deputy, enables me to understand worship ever more deeply.

Courses Taught:

  • Introduction to Worship
  • Liturgics

Selected Publications:

Books:

  • Praying Shapes Believing. Revised edition of Leonel Mitchell’s 1985 theological study of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (New York: Church Publishing, Inc., 2016)
  • Missional Worship, Worshipful Mission: Gathering As God’s People, Going Out in God’s Name, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies series (Eerdmans, 2014)
  • Continuing the Reformation: Re Visioning Baptism in the Episcopal Church (New York: Church Publishing, Inc., 1997)
  • Worship-Shaped Life: Liturgical Formation and the People of God, Canterbury Studies in Anglicanism (editor and contributor) (Harrisburg: Canterbury Press & Morehouse Publishing, 2010)

Chapters and Journal Articles:

  • “Spiritual Communion as a Response to Hunger for Christ,” Anglican Theological Review 104:1 (Winter 2022): 83-91; https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00033286211057187
  • “Language in Our Common Prayer,” in “Jubilate: A Conversation about Prayer Book Revision and the Language of Our Prayer,” with Katherine Sonderegger, Anglican Theological Review 103 (February 2021): 6-18.
  • “Diversity and Common Worship,” in In Spirit and Truth: A Vision of Episcopal Worship, edited by Stephanie Budwey, Kevin Moroney, Sylvia Sweeney, and Samuel Torvend (Church Publishing, Inc., 2020), 47-57.
  • “Weddings,” Liturgy (journal of the Liturgical Conference) 34, no 3 (2019). Guest editor; contributed introduction (pp. 1-2) and “‘I Will Bless You, and You Will Be a Blessing’: New Marriage Rites for The Episcopal Church” (pp. 42-51).
  • “Pastoral Offices: Looking Toward the Future,” Sewanee Theological Review 61:1 (Christmas 2017): 213-36.
  • “Re-Imagining Confirmation,” in Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Theologies of Confirmation for the 21st Century, compiled by Sharon Ely Pearson (Church Publishing, Inc., 2014) 33-52.
  • “Worship and Mission,” in Alcuin Guide to the Study of Liturgy and Worship, ed. Ben Gordon-Taylor and Juliet Day (SPCK and Liturgical Press, 2013) pp. 202-11.

Recent Presentations:

  • Worship and mission, Second Tuesdays at Two webinar, Episcopal Church Office of Church Planting and Redevelopment, June 13, 2023
  • “The Great Three Days: Symbols, Resources, and Sanity,” webinar, Associated Parishes for Liturgy and Mission, February 23, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_trG37_UQI 
  • A conversation about liturgical issues, with the Rev. Paul Fromberg, DMin, North American Cathedral Deans annual conference, April 30, 2022
  • Anglican Worship: Commentary, in “Being Anglican Learning from Global Perspectives,” Jan 19, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9_syfxG0nk.
  • “Liturgical and Prayer Book Revision: A Conversation with Deputy Ruth Meyers,” webinar for the Episcopal Church House of Deputies, January 13, 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kkz_UxDKtU