Mary Lee Talbot
Staff writer
The V. Rev. Samuel Glenn Candler, dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta since October 1998, will be the preacher for the 10:45 a.m. Sunday morning service of worship in the Amphitheater.
His sermon title is “I Sing a Song of Parish Ministry.”
Candler is one of three pastors who will preach during Week Five due to the cancelation of the Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, for health reasons.
Candler will preach at the 9:15 a.m. morning worship services Monday to Wednesday in the Amp.
His sermon titles include “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham,” “God Is Not Fundamentalist” and “Parish as the Practice of Vaccination and Blessing.”
The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton, senior pastor for Chautauqua Institution will preach on Thursday. His sermon title is “Ephphatha!”
The Rev. Robert Franklin, former director of the Department of Religion and senior pastor of Chautauqua Institution, will preach on Friday. His sermon title is “A Grandmother and a Garden: Modeling Moral Leadership.”
Candler commits himself to the community and diversity of parish life.
An amateur pianist, he had intended to become a jazz musician before he was called into the priesthood. Deeply valuing the role of music in prayer, he has served on liturgy and music committees in several dioceses.
While serving as dean of Trinity Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina, in the 1990s, Candler was a member of the Governor’s Commission on Race Relations, where he called for removing the Confederate battle flag from atop the South Carolina State House. He believes that the Church follows a social and civic call to justice for all. His vision for the Christian Church is that “we are a great beloved community, loved and called by God to serve various local beloved communities, faithful both to a great God and to our local identities.”
Candler was raised on a farm in Coweta County, Georgia. He received his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from Occidental College in Los Angeles. He received a master of divinity degree, magna cum laude, from Yale University Divinity School. In 2021, he earned a doctor of divinity degree, honoris causa, from the University of The South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Ordained as a deacon in 1982 and as a priest in 1983, Candler has served five differently sized parishes in the Episcopal Church in Georgia and South Carolina.
Candler has been an adjunct professor in the Anglican Studies Program at Candler School of Theology at Emory University, where he has taught both Anglican Theology and the Book of Common Prayer. He is known for his optimistic and progressive vision of traditional Christian church life, and life in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.
Committed to interfaith relationships of good faith, he has been a member of The Faith Alliance, an interfaith network in the city of Atlanta; and World Pilgrims, a group committed to taking Jews, Christians and Muslims on interfaith pilgrimages together. He writes a commentary called “Good Faith and the Common Good,” online at goodfaithandthecommongood.org; and he is an occasional writer for Episcopal Café, found online at episcopalcafe.com.
He has served on a variety of boards and organizations, among them The Episcopal Church Pension Fund, The Westminster Schools in Atlanta, the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in New Haven, the George West Mental Health Foundation in Atlanta, the Compass Rose Society of the Anglican Communion, the Cumberland Island Conservancy, and the Magnetawan Watershed Land Trust Association. He is serving as a deputy to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church for his 10th term.
