ATC Speakers 2026
The Sublime Sermons of Anglican Poet-Priests
Paper 1: George Herbert
Dr. John Baxter is Professor Emeritus of English at Dalhousie University. He is author of Shakespeare’s Poetic Styles (1980; rpr. Routledge, 2005) and co-editor of Aristotle’s Poetics by George Whalley (McGill-Queen’s, 1997). Recent articles include: “Learning to Spell: ‘Church-monuments’ and the Art of Reading,” The George Herbert Journal, Volume 44 (2023): 63-83; and “George Herbert’s ‘The Church-porch’ and the Native Plain Style,” The George Herbert Journal, Volume 46 (2025): 55-76.
Speaker
Dr. Christopher Elson serves as a Professor of French and Canadian Studies in the King’s-Dalhousie Joint Faculty. He is a King’s-Dalhousie Carnegie Professor. Dr. Elson began his post-secondary education in the Foundation Year Program at the University of King’s College and graduated magna cum laude with a Joint Honours in Philosophy and French in 1986. After a year teaching in a French lycée in Lille, he completed an MA in Dalhousie’s Department of French. He honed his teaching skills as a tutor in the Foundation Year Programme from 1989-1991, and subsequently resumed his graduate studies at the Université de Paris IV (Sorbonne), where he focused on the relation of contemporary Poetics and Ethics. He also studied at the Collège International de Philosophie and received his Doctorat de Troisième Cycle (nouveau régime) in 1995.
Respondant
Paper 2
Fr. David Curry is a graduate of King’s College, Dalhousie University, Hfx, NS, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts, and Trinity College, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1982. He has taught at Trinity College and the University of King’s College and for 28 years was Chaplain at King’s-Edgehill School, Windsor, NS where he taught English and Philosophy in the International Baccalaureate Programme (retired June 2025). He has served at the Church of the Advent, Boston, Massachusetts, in the Combined Parishes of Liscombe and Port Bickerton, NS., and is currently Rector of the Parish of Christ Church, Windsor, NS. He has lectured and published on matters of theology, literature, history, and liturgy and has been a frequent contributor to the Atlantic Theological Conferences for decades. He and his wife Marilyn live in Falmouth, NS. They have three children and currently four grandchildren.
Speaker
Fr. Gethin Edward was born and raised on Prince Edward Island. A cradle Anglican, he grew up attending St. Peter’s Cathedral in Charlottetown, where his faith was formed and fostered by the Common Prayer tradition. During his teens, encouraged by the communities he found at the St. Michael’s Youth Conference and the chapel at King’s College, Halifax, he discerned a vocation to the priesthood, and after marrying his wife, Meg, in 1999, entered the divinity program at Wycliffe College, Toronto. He was ordained a priest in 2010, in the Diocese of Saskatchewan. Having returned to PEI in 2021, he is now priest-in-charge of the parish of Georgetown, and also a spirtual care provider at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Charlottetown.
Respondant
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Paper 3: John Donne
Fr. Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff, first studied Ancient History and Philosophy before taking advanced degrees in Philosophy of Religion and Theology, studying in London Oxford and Yale where he was Research Fellow and also studied Islam and took a Degree with international Relations. After ordination, he worked on international and development issues before working for Lord Carey the 103rd Archbishop of Canterbury and appointment as Senior Advisor to the World Economic Forum where he designed the Council of One Hundred Leaders West Islamic Dialogue. A former Dean of All Saints’ Cathedral Cairo he has worked extensively on interfaith matters as well as sustainable development while based in the Middle East and Europe as well as North America.
Speaker
Dr. Patricia Robertson holds a BA from the University of Winnipeg, a Master’s of Christian Studies from Regent College in Vancouver, and an MA and PhD from the University of Ottawa. Her doctoral thesis was on the sermons of John Donne; she has published on Donne, Milton, and Joseph Conrad. She taught in the Foundation Year Programme at the University of King’s College, and then was the King’s Registrar for 12 years. She is currently teaching part-time in the English department of Dalhousie University.
Respondant
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Paper 4: John Keble
Fr. George Westhaver is the Principal of Pusey House, a Fellow of St Cross College, and a member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. George’s research focuses on E B Pusey and the Oxford Movement, sacramental theology, the allegorical interpretation of the Bible, and the artistic expression of Christian doctrine. He is a contributor to The Oxford Handbook on the Oxford Movement, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, and an editor and contributor to three Pusey House conference collections: A Transforming Vision (SCM 2018), Christ Unabridged (SCM 2020), and The Dove Descending (James Clarke & Co, 2025).
Speaker
Fr. John Matheson is the Rector of the Parish of Saint Andrew and the Archdeacon of Southwestern New Brunswick.
Respondant
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Paper 5: Austin Farrer
Fr. Patrick Curran recently retired from the chaplaincy of Christ Church after 25 years in the post. He served as thge Archdeacon of the Eastern Archdeaconry of the Anglican Diocese of Europe from 2001 to 2015. Curran was educated at the University of King's College, the University of Southampton and ordained after a period of study at Chichester Theological College in 1985. He has served the Anglican Church in Heavitree, Bradford, Bonn, Vienna and Valletta.
Speaker
Alan Hall lives in Fredericton NB with his wife, three children, and his dog, Tuckerman. He has been teaching in the Great Books Programme at St. Thomas University since 2008. Before that was a FYP Tutor and also taught in the History of Science and Contemporary Studies Programmes at the University of King's College. He studied at King's and at the University of Toronto. He is currently a postulant in the Diocese of Fredericton and is working on a MTS at Wycliffe College.
Respondant
Paper 6: Robert Darwin Crouse
Dr. Neil G. Robertson is Professor of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of King's College in Halifax, Canada, serving as Director of its Foundation Year Program. He was also the founding Director of the Early Modern Studies Programme at King's. He did his undergraduate degree at the University of King’s College and his doctorate is from Cambridge University in Social and Political Sciences. His publications include Leo Strauss: An Introduction (2021) and, as co-editor, Hegel and Canada (2018), Descartes and the Modern (2008) and Philosophy and Freedom: The Legacy of James Doull, (2003). His writings focus on the question of the nature of “modernity”; he has written on Augustine, Dante, Luther, Hooker, Shakespeare, Descartes, Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau, as well as more contemporary thinkers such as George Grant, Leo Strauss, and John Milbank. He is a series of editor of the Works of Robert Crouse publication project and a co-editor of Robert Crouse, A Theology of Pilgrimage (forthcoming). Very much as an amateur, Neil sings opera and has sung bass roles such as the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and Sarastro in The Magic Flute.
Conference Preacher
The Rev’d Canon LCol (Rtd) Dr. Gary Thorne, Dunelm, M.M.M., grew up in Saint John, NB, Canada, in the 1950s in an urban poverty from which he took refuge in the inner life. Before retirement, concurrent with twenty-three years as chaplain in the Canadian Military, Thorne served as rector of rural and urban parishes for twenty-five years, and as university chaplain for sixteen years. Thorne came to know divine friendship and the continuing conversion of the soul through the sermons of Dr Robert Crouse in the late 1970s. In response, he currently promotes the legacy of the teaching of Robert Crouse for the renewal of the Church.