Welcome back to The Deep Dive. We have a pretty
literal stack of documents on the table today.
Yeah, it looks like we raided the back room of
a very old library. It really does. I mean, I'll
be honest with you, it looks a little dusty at
first glance. But you know the rule of the deep
dive? The dustier the archive, the more interesting
the secrets usually are once you start reading.
That is the rule. And we're looking at turn of
century church records, lists of pamphlets, bibliographies
from the early 1900s. And specifically, the biography
of a man named Henry Riley Gummy Jr. Which on
the surface might seem like a niche figure to
look at. It does. But as I was going through
this material, I realized we're actually looking
at a snapshot. of a very specific, very transitional
moment in American history. Definitely. We're
looking at how the American church tried to figure
out its own identity after the revolution. And
we're looking at it through the eyes of a guy
who just, he just refused to pick a lane. That
is probably the best way to describe Henry Gummy.
He is the ultimate and also figure. Usually...
In history, you have the guys in the ivory tower
writing the books, right? The theorists. And
then you have the guys in the trenches doing
the actual work, the practitioners. Right, the
boots on the ground. Exactly. But Gummy decided,
for some reason, to be both. Simultaneously.
So our mission today is to unpack the life of
this guy, the liturgist of Philadelphia. We need
to figure out how one man manages to be a curate
in the pink sands of Bermuda. Wow. Right. A curate
in Bermuda, a hardcore academic professor of
canon law, an international diplomat to the Orthodox
Church, and this is honestly my favorite part,
a collector of what is essentially 19th century
Twitter threads. That is a very creative way
to describe his pamphlet collection. But I'm
not wrong, am I? No, you aren't wrong. It plays
a huge role in his legacy. But we should probably
start with the foundation. Yeah, let's start
at the beginning. This is a Philadelphia story
through and through. Absolutely. Born in Philadelphia
on January 12th, 1870 and died in Philadelphia
May 29th, 1941. Okay, so let's stop and think
about that time frame for a second. 1870. Right.
The Civil War has just ended. The country is
in the middle of reconstruction. Exactly. And
Philadelphia is this booming industrial hub.
It is a city of immense wealth. but also deep
poverty and very old established institutions.
And Gummy is born right into the fabric of that
society. He is. Just look at his primary education.
He goes to Germantown Academy and the Episcopal
Academy. Which aren't just normal schools. No,
these are pillars of the Philadelphia establishment.
He is being groomed for a life of significance
from day one. And he follows that classic path
of a young man of promise in that era. He gets
his bachelor of arts from the University of Pennsylvania
in 1890. A very class - Ivy League star. Right.
But then things start to get specific. He heads
to New York for the General Theological Seminary
in 1893. Which is a prestigious move. Very prestigious.
But notice what happens next. He doesn't stay
in New York. He comes right back to Philadelphia
to finish his studies at the Philadelphia Divinity
School, or PDS. It's like the city had a gravitational
pull on him. It really did. And he doesn't just
get the basic degree and leave to start working.
This is where we see the first real sign that
Henry Gummy is built differently. He plays a
long game. He really does. So he was ordained
a deacon in 1893 and then a priest in 1894 by
Bishop O .Z. William Whitaker. I have to pause.
I'm sorry. O .Z. William Whitaker. It's a fantastic
name. That is a name that belongs in a history
book or. Honestly, a fantasy novel. I know. But
the key here isn't just the ordination itself.
It's what Gummy does after that. Right. Because
most priests get ordained, they go out to a parish,
they start working, and that's it. That's their
career. They're done with the heavy academics.
Right. But Gummy keeps studying. In 1905, he
receives his Doctor of Divinity. His D .D. from
the Philadelphia Divinity School. Okay, let's
unpack this for you listening who might not know
the hierarchy of theological degrees. Is it just
like a master's degree? Or are we talking about
something a lot heavier? Oh, much heavier. A
doctor of divinity, especially in 1905, signals
that you aren't just a practitioner. You are
an authority. It means you've mastered the why
and the how of the faith. You aren't just reading
the manual. You are rewriting the engineering
schematics. Wow. It suggests he really wanted
to understand the molecular structure of the
church, the history, the law, the deep theology.
Which perfectly explains why he eventually becomes
a professor there. The source material says he
was a professor of liturgy and canon law. Right.
And those are two very distinct, very rigorous
fields. Can we define canon law for a second?
Because to a lay person, that sounds incredibly
dry. It does? It sounds like reading the terms
and conditions of a software update. It can be
dry, sure, but think of Canna Law as the operating
system of the church. Okay. It's the legal framework
that governs literally everything, from how a
bishop is elected to how property is managed
to who can get married. It is the code that keeps
the entire institution running. Got it. To teach
that, you have to have a mind that loves order,
precision and rules. So we have this image of
Dr. Gummy, stern, academic, obsessed with rules,
living in industrial Philadelphia. Right. And
then... We look at his resume for his first real
gig as a curate. And where does he go? The parishes
of Padgett and Warwick. In Bermuda. In Bermuda.
I'm just trying to square this circle. You have
a guy who loves the intense legal structure of
the church, and he takes a job in a place that's
famous for, well, vacations. It does seem like
a massive disconnect, doesn't it? I just imagine
him packing his heavy wool suits and his massive
theological books and heading off to the tropics.
Wedding over canon law on the beach. Exactly.
But we have to contextualize Bermuda in the 1890s.
It wasn't just a resort destination back then.
It was a British colonial outpost. Ah, okay.
So for a young American priest, it was actually
a way to see the roots of the Anglican tradition
operating in a completely different context.
That makes sense. And being a curate, that's
basically the entry level, right? Exactly. The
word curate actually comes from the word cure,
as in the cure of souls. It's the apprenticeship
phase. You're doing the heavy lifting. You're
visiting the sick. You're burying the dead. You're
dealing with the messy day -to -day realities
of actual people's lives. So it grounds him.
He can't just stay in the library thinking about
canon law. He has to deal with humans. Precisely.
And that is the tension that defines his entire
life. because he comes back to the mainland and
takes on these very significant rectorates. Right.
He's at the Church of St. John the Baptist in
Germantown from 1897 to 1906. Then Grace Church
in Haddonfield, New Jersey from 1907 to 1910.
And then the big one, St. James in Downingtown.
St. James. He was there from 1913 to 1936. 23
years. 23 years. That is a lifetime in parish
ministry. I mean, just think about that timeline,
1913 to 1936. Think about what the world looked
like in those years. Yeah. He guided that single
community through World War I, the Spanish Flu,
the Roaring Twenties, the stock market crash,
and the depths of the Great Depression. That's
what really strikes me about this. If you're
a professor in a university, you can kind of
hide from those things. You can stay in your
books. Right. But if you are the rector of a
parish in a place like Downingtown, which was
a major industrial hub, you are on the front
lines. You're burying the soldiers, you're trying
to feed the hungry during the Depression. And
yet, and this is what I call the gummy paradox,
While he is doing that boots on the ground, exhausting
work, he is simultaneously holding down professorships.
It's unbelievable. He's teaching liturgy at the
University of the South in Tennessee in 1911
and 1912. And he's teaching at PDS. He is the
original multitasker. But it's more than multitasking.
It's integration. What do you mean? Being a scholar
made him a better priest because he could explain
the deep why behind the rituals to his congregation.
And being a priest made him a better scholar
because he He knew that these high -minded theories
actually had to work for real people sitting
in the pews. That's a great point. Speaking of
high -minded theories, we really need to talk
about his obsession. And I don't use that word
lightly. This man had a very specific niche.
He certainly did. Liturgy. Yeah. And specifically,
the Eucharist. He wrote two major books on it.
There's The Prayer of Consecration in the American
Liturgy in 1902. and then the consecration of
the Eucharist in 1908. And the subtitle of that
1908 book is crucial. It gives away the whole
game. Let me read it because it is an absolute
mouthful. Go for it. Okay, here it is. A study
of the prayer of consecration in the communion
office from the point of view of the alterations
and amendments established therein by the revisers
of 1789. Catchy title. Rolls right off the tongue.
Not exactly something you'd see on a bestseller
list today. No, it's not exactly a beach read.
But why does this matter? Why is he so laser
focused on the revisers of 1789? Yeah, why that
specific year? This is where we get to a core
takeaway. To understand gummy, you have to understand
1789. The United States had just become a country.
Right. And the Episcopal Church here had a major
problem. They were Anglican, which meant their
roots were in the Church of England. But they
couldn't exactly pray for the king anymore. Right,
that would be incredibly awkward. God say the
king does not fly in Philadelphia in 1789. Very
awkward. So they had to rewrite the prayer book.
But they didn't just change the names. They saw
an opportunity to change the theology itself.
Oh, interesting. The revisers of 1789, the founders
of the American Church, looked back to older
Scottish and Eastern Orthodox models for their
prayer book. And they inserted something called
the epiclesis. The epiclesis. Define that for
us. It comes from the Greek word for invocation.
It is the invocation of the Holy Spirit. In the
English prayer book of that time, the priest
basically just repeated the words of Jesus. This
is my body. And that was the moment of consecration.
It was very Western, very legalistic. The priest
says the words and it happens. The priest has
the power. Exactly. But the American Revisers
added a specific prayer asking the Holy Spirit
to come down and bless the elements. So it shifts
the power. It entirely shifts the focus. From
the priest saying the magic words to the Holy
Spirit doing the actual work, it is a huge theological
shift. It aligns the American Church more with
the Eastern Orthodox tradition than the English
tradition. And Gummy was obsessed with this.
He was obsessed because he wanted to prove that
the American Church wasn't just some watered
down rebellious version. of the Church of England.
He wanted to prove it had this special ancient
DNA. He was validating the American identity
through this one specific prayer. That explains
why he was digging so deep. He wasn't just studying
a prayer. He was studying the Declaration of
Independence of the American soul, theologically
speaking. That is beautifully put, yes. He was
showing that the American church had gone back
to the sources, back to the early church. And
he didn't just write about it. He collected the
receipts. Oh, he certainly did. This is the part
that blew my mind in the notes. The substantial
collection at the Yarnell Library of Theology
of St. Clem's Church at the University of Pennsylvania.
62 bound volumes of pamphlets. Pamphlets, not
books. Yeah. Pamphlets. We really have to understand
what a pamphlet was in the 19th century. Today,
if you have a hot take on politics or religion,
you post a thread on social media, right? Yeah,
you fire off a tweet. And it's ephemeral. It's
gone in a day. In 1890, you printed a pamphlet.
They were cheap, they were polemical, they were
angry, and they were everywhere. And usually
people read them and then literally use them
to start fires in their fireplaces. But not Henry.
No, not Henry. He saw that these pamphlets contained
the real arguments. Books are polished, books
are polite, pamphlets are raw. They show the
actual fight. Yeah. By collecting them and crucially
binding them into hardcover volumes, he was saying,
this argument matters. This history is worth
saving. It's exactly like someone today printing
out thousands of tweets about a major political
event and binding them into a book so that 100
years from now, historians can see what people
were actually saying to each other, not just
what the official record says. That is exactly
what he did. He curated the raw conversation
of his era and 62 volumes. That is a massive
physical footprint that takes serious dedication.
Which leads us to the other side of his personality.
Because he wasn't just a lonely scholar hoarding
paper in a dark room. Not at all. He was, to
use a modern term, a massive joiner. Oh, the
list of societies he belonged to is exhausting
just to read. The man absolutely loved a committee.
Let's run through the categories, because it
paints such a vivid picture of a Renaissance
man. First, you have the aesthetic, musical stuff.
The Henry Bradshaw Society, the Ecclesiological
Society, the Plainsong, and Medieval Music Society.
This tells us he loved beauty. He loved the chant,
the incense, the deep history of the art of worship.
Right. He wasn't a Puritan. He wanted church
to be a full sensory experience. Then you have
the historical stuff, the Genealogical Society
of Pennsylvania, the Historical Society of the
Episcopal Church, the American Society of Church
History, the Historical Society of Montgomery
County. He obviously cared deeply about lineage.
He wanted to know exactly where he fit in the
timeline. He deeply respected the past and he
wanted to preserve it. But then. Then we hit
the curve ball. Here we go. The Pennsylvania
Society for the Prevention of Social Diseases.
I knew you were gonna stop on that one. Well,
it stands out. It sounds very medical and frankly,
a little gritty for a high church liturgist who
loves medieval music and old books. It is very
gritty. But this is the progressive era. Social
diseases was the polite euphemism for venereal
diseases. Right. But broadly speaking, it was
about public health and moral hygiene in the
city. So he wasn't just up in the clouds debating
the epiclesis. He was worried about actual public
health in Philadelphia. Exactly. And look at
another one on the list. He was also a member
of the Christian Social Union. Who was that?
This was the era of the social gospel, the idea
that you had to improve the physical conditions
of the poor, not just save their souls. Oh, I
see. Gummi's membership here proves he wasn't
some elitist snob ignoring the suffering of the
city. He was engaged with the ugly, difficult
parts of urban life. He understood that you can't
preach high theology to people if they are sick
and dying of preventable diseases. That adds
such a great layer to him. And then there's one
more layer, the diplomat. The notes mention he
was a prominent figure in American Anglican -Orthodox
relations. And this ties right back to his obsession
with the 1789 prayer book. Remember how I said
the American prayer leaned toward the east? toward
the Holy Spirit. Right, the epiclesis. Gummy
used that theological detail as a bridge. He
actively reached out to the Russian and Greek
Orthodox churches. Wow. At a time when most Americans
were incredibly isolationist, he was saying,
hey, we actually have common ground. Our theology
connects us. He was trying to build a global
alliance of churches. That is fascinating. He's
finding friends in places where other people
weren't even looking. He was a bridge builder
at his core. He built bridges. between the past
and the present, between the wealthy academics
and the poor and the city, and between the West
and the East. So if we zoom out, we have this
incredible map of a life. He's local, with Downingtown
in Philadelphia. He's international, with Bermuda
and the Orthodox Relations. He's ancient. with
the plain song and liturgy. And he's modern with
the social reform and public health. He integrated
it all. That really is the key word for Henry
Gummey. Integration. He completely refused to
compartmentalize his life. He didn't leave his
brain at the door of the church and he didn't
leave his faith at the door of the library. And
he also managed to have a personal life through
all of this. We shouldn't forget he married Margaret
Upjohn on June 30th, 1897. A full life. A very
complete life. He died in 1941. just before the
U .S. entered World War II, and he's buried at
St. Luke's Church in Germantown. Returning right
to the soil where he started. It's a very circular
journey. So when we look at this file, this dusty
archive we opened at the beginning, what is the
big takeaway? Why does Henry Gummy matter to
someone listening to us today who isn't a priest
and isn't a canon lawyer? I think Gummy represents
the deep importance of curating your world. We
live in an age of infinite information. We are
constantly drowning in content. Yeah, that's
for sure. Begummi didn't just consume, he selected.
He selected the pamphlets that mattered, and
he saved them. He selected the theological points
that defined American identity and highlighted
them. He connected the dots. He built bridges
between ideas that didn't seem to fit together
at all, like social hygiene and medieval chant.
He was a synthesizer. He was. And I think we
need synthesizers today more than ever. We need
people who can look at the absolute chaos of
the modern world, find the connecting threads,
and bind them together into something that actually
makes sense. That brings us to our final thought
for you, the listener. We talked about Gummi's
62 volumes of pamphlets, his physical legacy
of the things he thought were worth saving. It
really puts our own digital footprint in perspective.
It really does. So here's the question for you.
If someone were to look at your life 100 years
from now, what is the collection you are leaving
behind? That's a great question. What is this
specific slice of knowledge or culture or community
that you care about enough to bind into 62 volumes
for the future? Are you just scrolling or are
you curating something that will actually last?
That is a heavy question to end on, but a very
necessary one. Something to chew on as you go
about your day. Thanks for joining us on this
deep dive into the life of the liturgist of Philadelphia.
We'll see you next time. See you then.