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The curry lecturer for 2017 is Dr. A. Associate professor of preaching and ethics at candler Divinity School . Emory University professor Smith has distinguished credentials in the academy and committed service to the church. A native

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of Missouri, he completed his undergraduate work at Duke University, studying public policy and religion. While he was there, he was admitted to Phi Beta Kappa in 1990, then moved on to Oxford University,

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where he Received an M. A. degree in philosophy and theology in 1992. Then he attended Princeton theological seminary where he received his MD degree in 1995 . He was ordained in that same year and pastored

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presbyterian congregations in Dundee and western new york. For the next four years, he proceeded to work on his doctorate at Emory University, receiving his PhD In Ethics and Society. In 2004. In 2005,

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he began teaching at Vanderbilt University in the area of ethics and preaching, And in 2012 he returned to Emory University to teach in that same field since his undergraduate days, Professor smith is events to continuing interests

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and public policy and the way religious convictions can shape and be shaped by engagement with political discourse and decisions . One might think, given these concerns in this course of study, that Professor smith would be easy

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to categorize as a scholar and pastor of some distinction whose interests tend towards what he and others have called political theology. But even a cursory survey of his written and work quickly disabused, is one of the

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notion that this pastor and scholar is easy to categorize as a theologian. He is intensely engaged with history as a historian. His interests have been theological as an ethicist. He has written about the limits of

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ethics In his, particularly in his book on the 19th Century Abolitionist John Brown even taken seriously the notions of divine violence as a preacher and teacher of home olympics, He is attended to the ethical context of

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our words and has engaged with the ethical implications of those new measures which in the 19th century revivals scandalized so many as a preacher, he's interested in public policy as someone deeply concerned for the palace. He

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is passionate about the role of preaching, a man of many parts theologian with catholic interests, a pastor , and I should add one who teaches regularly, Sunday School, who is firmly grounded in the very

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public world. God has called us to love. Professor smith is not easy to categorize as, but then neither is the gospel. He seeks to help us here and proclaim, please help welcome Professor ted

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a smith. Mhm. Okay. Mhm. Thank you tom uh, that sounds like a schizophrenic curriculum vitae. So let let me give you the core of it. What I am all about right now

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is about helping especially this protestant communion in the United States called mainline, helping it think about what it means to be the church in the season of its disestablishment. And that means thinking politically, that means

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thinking about church structures, that means thinking about rhetorical structures, right? Even those will shift, it means thinking in all of those dimensions. So that means when I register in different ways in different academic

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meetings, but it's really one purpose and that is one reason, I am so grateful to get to do these lectures with you now because I think these lectures are an invitation to do exactly what I feel

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most called to do. So, I thank you for that and I thank you for the warm introduction . It is a great honor to get to give these lectures. Uh I am honoured because of the

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character and contributions of the curry family over the decades . I am honoured because of the distinguished list of people who have given these lectures. If you it is no false modesty to say that I am not

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there pierre, it's an incredible list. I'm honored because of my respect for the faculty and the leadership of this institution. And I'm honored because of the chance to get to share a pulpit with Jill and

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Danielle and jerry and all those who will lead us in these three days. What what a group of people to get to think with. I am honored to get to give the lectures, but even more

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, I think I am grateful. I'm grateful because they come at just the right time and from just the right community. So it's just the right time . I'm in the middle of, I'm right at

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the cusp between two phases of a big lily funded project rethinking or thinking again about the meanings and purposes of theological education. Phase one of that work was mostly work of listening. It was just trying to

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see what's going on out there underneath the numbers so that involve convening a series of consultations at places like saddleback church and Mandolin Theological Seminary and Howard Divinity School and esperanza College in philadelphia. And listening Listening to

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a group of 58 people who came from, across the United States, from the UK, from brazil , from South Africa and from a wide variety of traditions, A group of people who had no majority

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race among them, a group of people about 1/4 of whom were not teaching an ATS accredited schools to say what's happening in theological education. A lot of listening in that phase one in Austin Zone, melissa

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Wigginton was an essential part of that saddleback. Meeting great contributions. So now though, Phase two, you can imagine lily wants, they want me to write something out of all this right now. Just

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listen from my own self enrichment though, it has been enriching, that's for sure. So now comes the time when I need to be finding words for what I've been learning. That's where I am just

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beginning and not just my own words, but organizing others to find their words to. So this invitation comes at just the right time. And honestly, I can't think of a better community with which to

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do this work. Because Austin Seminary, I would argue excels not only in the traditional work of an 80 S. Accredited MD, of granting mainline protestant theological school. It does excel in that work and

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in a very challenging environment, but through things like beyond the walls and the College of pastoral pastoral leaders and the Hispanic ministries mission network. Austin is also right here already pushing forwards to what theological education might

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look like next, doing the current model with excellence and pushing beyond it. I really can't think of a better community with which to think about these things . So I'm grateful for the invitation. Thank you

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. Now, because I'm an academic, I need to begin by telling you what I am not going to talk about today. I need to engage in that time honored academic ritual of the disclaimer that hallowed

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. Right? So I will tell you I am not a futurist. I know I'm a bootleg historian , but I know nothing about what's going to happen tomorrow. I know who holds tomorrow, but I

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know nothing about what tomorrow holds. No futurism. And I do not come here either as a consultant . I do not have a five point plan with a snappy memorable acronym that you can take away.

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Um, I come rather as a as a friend and colleague and ministry come as a colleague and teaching and learning. And so there will be probably too much analysis. A little sneaky prescriptive is um,

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that doesn't always acknowledge itself. The ethicist comes in and inevitably more than a little preaching. Mm So I hope to think together with you in ways that sharpen up the questions before us that make visible the

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implicit logic of structures that we already inhabit and to do all that for the sake of fanning the flames of the theological reflection that already burned so brightly here at austin signs of the times, signs of the

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times. There are signs of stress and strain. Really, anywhere you look in american theological education, they are so familiar and so depressing that I won't spend a long time listing them. You already know

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that declining enrollment and financial difficulties has led. And over Newton, the oldest freestanding theological seminary in the country to sell its campus, let most of its faculty go as it seeks to become a unit of

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Yale Divinity School. Similar and over Newton and over Newton, similar pressures led the board of trustees at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge to cease offering degrees at the end of this year. Now neither of these

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schools was poor. E. D. S. Still had an endowment of$53 million in the bank . At the time the trustees decided to quit granting degrees, But when they were losing$133 each month

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, they decided that the school in its present form was no longer sustainable, Seabury Western Bangor Theological Seminary . They stopped offering degrees some time ago and that just begins the list. Many schools that are not

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closing are shrinking, enrollment has been declining for years . At most of the schools that are credited by the Association of Theological Schools. The I'll talk about that a lot. These couple days, aggregate numbers

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have been held up by a few outliers by the accreditation of new schools and the approval of new degrees . But if you look at what a consultant might call same store sales right. Uh the number of

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MTV's especially at historic institutions has been going steadily down and the schools are shrinking to follow their enrollments. So Luther Seminary in ST paul Again, don't let these names roll past you, Luther Seminary, the

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flagship of a major american protestant denomination recently trimmed its faculty by about a third, a third. Many other schools have left their faculties shrink through attrition. I have no very few that haven't. Other schools

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are joining together in various ways, like the Lutheran seminaries in pennsylvania. Others are selling their campuses like Chicago Theological Seminary, which moved to cheaper real estate further south out of Hyde park on the south side

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of Chicago or Saint paul School of Theology, which moved on to the campus of a mega church in Kansas city. Others are maintaining appearances by digging into their endowments at unsustainable rates. Still others are trying

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to cut costs by hiring contingent faculty and doing as much as they can online. You know these stories already and I don't mean to minimize them, but I also mean to say that they are not the

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only stories out there. New schools are being founded and many of them are thriving, like logos Seminary in Pasadena, which serves a global, global community , have ethnically chinese christians. Hispanic bible institutes have

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been around in the United States for a long, long time. But they are really thriving now numerically , but also in terms of their cultural power. Esperanza College, for instance, grew out of a

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K through 12 charter school sponsored by a network of mostly Hispanic Pentecostal churches in northern philadelphia and it is now a part of Eastern University. And new kinds of institutions are emerging like City Seminary in new york

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and ST Myelitis in London. I'll talk more about those later often where students aren't even seeking formal degrees . But theological education of a pretty profound level is still happening. So we are not at the end

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of theological education. We are in the midst of a great sea change. Theological education then is between the times. It is between the times in at least two senses. First of all, we are

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between, it's between the times in a kind of simple historical or descriptive sense. As Danielle Scher, the executive director of ADT's, we're not just between one model and another model. We're between one model

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and many new models. We are between the times in that historical sense. But theological education is between the times, I think, in a deeper sense , christians confess that the present age unfolds between the

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empty tomb and the wedding feast of the lamb. We are between the times of the resurrection of jesus and the great culmination of all of God's redeeming work , knowing this, knowing what time it is,

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that changes the way we understand the present, and it changes the way that we should think about. Our task for. Our task is not to come up with the best five year plan that we can

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. Our task is to discern what God is doing and some shapes of faithful response. Because theological education unfolds in history in a time between the times, christian thinking about theological education can never be less than

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fully empirical, but it must always be more. Must always be more the fourth era, 1/4 era . It's worth remembering that we have been here before . This is not the first sea change for theological

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education in the United States. And if you'll forgive me one moment of futurism, I'll say, I bet you it won't be the last. But I won't say anything on that. I don't know.

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Indeed, this kind of change. It has already happened at least three times in what became the United States. It's happened about once every 100 years for the last 300 years. Historian Glenn Miller has told

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the definitive version of this story across three very big books. I'm giving myself about three paragraphs. So hang on. And but first, the disclaimers again , theological education in the United States has always been

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endlessly contentiously, gloriously plural. But certain models of it have had the most cultural capital, the capital to define the terms of the debate, if you will at certain times, and in colonial times,

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that most established form, the form that gathered the most cultural capital to itself involved getting an undergraduate degree , which was in many ways already a theological degree and then going to live as an apprentice with an

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established minister. And if you were really lucky, you might marry into the family. A second major era came with the founding of and over seminary that and over seminary that just closed in 1807. A

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new model there that began to ascend to the most established position. Soon more and more candidates for protestant ministry. We're going to spend to a special graduate school with a residential campus and a regular faculty in

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an exclusive focus on theological education. A seminary, A seminary. It's worth remembering this, this the whole mode of a seminary, at least as we know, it goes back to 1807, So that's

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about what 10% of Christian history puts it in perspective . The curricula of these seminaries focused on classical education , heavy on the biblical languages, that was designed to produce learned christian gentlemen. And I use the

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gendered and classed language of that phrase with full consciousness because it is the only accurate description of the goal . That's what they wanted to do. At the turn of the next century though, we get a

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kind of third era, a third dispensation most of the seminaries, not not all of them, but many of the seminaries survived inform they just changed what they really were and we got these new beasts of

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the university divinity schools. It started to happen in the 1890s. As cities were growing, a changing economy concentrated more and more wealth. In the hands of a tiny number of people, panic about immigration

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swept the land. Jim crow crackdown, fake news sparked war with under other countries. Remember the main and remember friends we have been here before. At the turn of that century, a third model began

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to emerge. This model positioned the theological school as a graduate professional school, as a professional school. It sought to prepare people for the practical work of ministry and all knowledge was to be shaped to that

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end. It was not about producing learned christian gentleman , it was about producing professional pastors and I want to give you some quotes to kind of fill out this version because this is the version in which most

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of the institutions we know now. Uh this is where they got their stamp. So writing in 1919 William Adams Brown, a Presbyterian minister who was a professor of systematic theology at Union in New York made

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the connection clear. I don't know a clearer statement of it than this. He wrote more than ever , more even than the past. It has been of the Seminary of the Future must be a training

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school for Ministers men. That is to say the gendered language again on purpose, who have given themselves to a definite task. All that we do must be shaped to this end. No study must be

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admitted to the curriculum, no matter how attractive it may be, that cannot be shown to have some direct bearing on the minister's task. And conversely, no study must be admitted from the curriculum. However

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great the tax it may make on time and energy , which cannot be shown to be necessary for ministerial efficiency? What's the purpose of theological education in the professional model? Ministerial efficiency and everything that serves that

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end of ministerial efficiency is in and anything that doesn't serve that end is out. You've heard this argument , William Randi harper, the energetic baptist that john D Rockefeller entrusted with the founding of the University of

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Chicago. He shared this view. The ministry, he argued, was a profession like law or medicine . And so theological education should be like medical or legal education. These these practical ideals should display some

00:20:45.360 - 00:20:59.160

of the older ideals of the learned christian gentlemen. And this war was fought especially on the turf of the Biblical languages and especially on that, because I learned christian gentleman would need those does an efficient minister

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harper argued that, and it must be noted harper was a brilliant man and himself profoundly learned. So this is not a know nothing is um this is the president of the University of Chicago. He says

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no greater forest may be found in any field of educational work than that, which is involved in the teaching and study of the hebrew language in many theological seminaries. It may be suggested that to make hebrew

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and elective would be to lower the standard of theological education. But those who know the facts connected with this actual study of hebrew by theological students will not make this claim. What mattered harper said was what

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students would use in their ministries, and if they weren't using hebrew in ministry, it could be made an elective or even dropped entirely. The fact that this argument is familiar, lets you know that we

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are still living in this dispensation. If I give you an argument from a monastic school in the 14th century, it will seem bizarre to you that this one doesn't tells you these are our schools. So

00:22:07.610 - 00:22:19.400

advocates of this functional ist model of professional education, like harper and Brown, they won the day they drew strength from social gospel, is calling for attention to the social and ethical consequences of theology. They

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drew strength from revivalists who were concerned about results. How many souls did you save? They were legitimated by the example of the German University, which made space for theology by establishing a professional school for the

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training of ministers. More on this later, and they gained prestige by hitching Ministry to Law and Medicine in a time when the professional class in America was really beginning to consolidate its social and economic power.

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So reformers like harper and Brown, they helped make the professional model, the authorized standard in theological education . The MdF became its banner and the 80 s founded in 1918, not coincidentally in the heat of

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the fundamentalist modernist controversy by a bunch of modernist schools to impose their professional standards on all, it arose to kind of police these boundaries. But the triumph of the professional model, it should be said,

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was never absolute, probably never even a numerical majority in the United States. It faced resistance from Baptists , Pentecostals and others who stress the ministers experience of salvation over any professional education. And it faced resistance

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from catholic and orthodox traditions that stressed the holiness of the priest far more than any professional capacities. It also faced resistance and subversion from within as faculty members , you know who you are committed to the vision

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shaft like ideal of knowledge for its own sake designed curricula and taught classes in ways that did more to form students for their professional guilds than for efficient ministry . The professional model has never been all that there

00:24:00.270 - 00:24:15.640

is two American theological education and it has never been purely realized, not even in schools that espoused it , harper and his professionalizing allies did not manage to demote hebrew to an elective everywhere. Can I get

00:24:15.640 - 00:24:29.880

an amen from the OT faculty? Alright. Even at schools otherwise committed. But this is a holdover from that night, earlier 19th century model, right ? Uh, for theological schools, like many institutions

00:24:29.880 - 00:24:41.760

, they don't so much eliminate the past as attempt to reframe it. Every theological school that I know of that has been around for more than a decade . It's a bit like the city of Rome.

00:24:41.240 - 00:24:59.550

Some old structures are preserved even after the world for which they have been built is gone. Other structures , old structures fall down only to have their various parts reassembled into seemingly new structures. Still others are

00:24:59.550 - 00:25:14.180

brought to rubble, but then they define the contours of the land on which people try to build something new. And so many theological schools have remnants of that old classical curriculum of the 19th century. I'd

00:25:14.180 - 00:25:27.910

wager you do here, and many of them also have traces of that apprenticeship model of the 17th and 18th centuries, and many of them contain also elements of monastic and priestly formation that are even older than

00:25:27.910 - 00:25:45.280

that. These are old cities in which we dwell with complex structures and they are all mixed together with the modern university's commitment to research as a good in itself. So no pure forms here. Schools of

00:25:45.280 - 00:26:00.070

the 20th century never purely realized the ideal of professional education and some traditions actively resisted it. So, my argument is not that this became all in all , but that it gained the kind of cultural power

00:26:00.070 - 00:26:11.670

to define what countered is normative. Glenn Miller, himself, a baptist, points this out With an anecdote, he says in 1960, if a public high school in the United States was going to ask

00:26:11.670 - 00:26:30.370

a minister to give the prayer at baccalaureate, who did they invite odds are very, very good that they would invite a minister with a professional education from an ATS accredited school. That's cultural power. Further

00:26:30.370 - 00:26:45.850

evidence, I'd argue of this cultural power comes in the in the migration of traditions who might have once opposed this ideal of professional education, They still migrated to it. Evangelical schools began to join after World

00:26:45.850 - 00:27:00.050

War Two, catholic schools began to join the 80 s in 1966. Pentecostal schools began to come in in the nineties. All this flowing to the model , It shows its power and this in shock click

00:27:00.050 - 00:27:11.100

faculty learned how to make a case for their studies in the name of a professional ideal, Hebrew gets to stay. But how do you argue that Hebrew gets to stay? We'll see. Actually studying Hebrew

00:27:11.100 - 00:27:21.390

will make you a better preacher. It's not Hebrew is good in and of itself, any pastor would need to know this. That's an argument that might work in Orthodox Judaism, right? It doesn't work

00:27:21.390 - 00:27:32.870

here, but it's good for ministerial efficiency when the when the opponents of a model have to make their arguments in the terms of a model, then you can see it's power now, of course, as

00:27:32.870 - 00:27:45.350

all of this, enlarging happened, this changing this plural. Izing, the model itself is getting transformed , It expanded so much that I don't think it is accurate to call it any more professional education.

00:27:45.040 - 00:28:02.370

Certainly many schools would actively reject that language, but a certain corelogic grew stronger even as it took on many forms and I call it model M. So model M. And it's after lives M is for

00:28:02.370 - 00:28:15.740

mobilization, M is for mobilization. Let me apologize for the kind of clumsy, abstract and falsely technical qualities of a phrase like model. Um sounds like I know more than I do, but I want

00:28:15.740 - 00:28:30.780

to stick with the term because I need one that transcends some of the usual categories. Professional as the Dominican sister and really the greatest sociologist of catholic theological education practicing today. Katarina Schuth what she helped me

00:28:30.780 - 00:28:45.270

see professional just isn't broad enough and it is a super loaded term. It can lead us astray so we need something that is both more broad and less specific. I'm proposing model m as a concept that

00:28:45.270 - 00:28:56.840

has those qualities. And in proposing it, I don't mean here's that academics disclaimer. Again, I don't mean to name an essence that has some concrete actuality. I simply mean to introduce a concept with

00:28:56.840 - 00:29:11.900

some Curis tick value, a tool that can help us lift out the implicit unspoken logic of our institutions so that we can hold that up for critical theological scrutiny. I call it model, um because it

00:29:11.900 - 00:29:25.420

has been informed, especially by Charles. Taylor's account of what he calls the age of mobilization in Taylor's great big story, the age of mobilization arises with the early modern period. It comes after a pre

00:29:25.420 - 00:29:37.870

modern way of thinking about the world that Taylor calls the Anshan regime and it proceeds the late modern age of authenticity that Taylor says we're increasingly entering. Now , I will say more about this typology in later

00:29:37.870 - 00:29:51.360

lectures for now though, let me just offer a quick sketch of the big story Taylor wants to tell . The insulin regime featured institutions like the Kingdom, the family and the church. Now two things marked

00:29:51.360 - 00:30:08.990

the Ancien regime. Understanding of these institutions first, they were necessary mediators of ultimate goods like peace, life and salvation. And second, they were established entirely apart from the efforts of any humans in the

00:30:08.990 - 00:30:27.500

present. Now, these institutions might be understood as established by God or by nature or by blood or by ancestors, whomever what defined them. Was that was there given quality? You didn't get together with

00:30:27.500 - 00:30:38.640

a bunch of people who believed like you did, and kind of like the same music to start a church in medieval France. The church existed before you . You were born into it and it was sustained

00:30:38.640 - 00:30:55.460

entirely apart from your efforts that and it mediated ultimate salvation. That's the insulin regime. The age of mobilization retains the view that institutions are this next phase . Age of mobilization. It retains the view that

00:30:55.470 - 00:31:10.930

institutions are necessary for mediating ultimate goods. They still mediate the big stuff, but it introduces a key shift now. Institutions like the nation and the church are not taken as eternally given, but as things

00:31:10.930 - 00:31:22.030

that we humans acting right now make and choose. We, the people of the United States come together in a social contract to create the nation. It's not eternally existing. It wasn't given to us.

00:31:22.040 - 00:31:33.930

We make it through a contract people who agree with one another on key points of doctrine and congregation. They come to gather to form a congregation. The congregation is really different from a parish, right?

00:31:33.940 - 00:31:48.730

And this congregation is a new sort of institutional form . It's the institutional form proper to the age of mobilization. The institutions are still significant. They still mediate ultimate goods, but the agency and creating and

00:31:48.730 - 00:32:01.050

sustaining them is ours. God might guide us, command us, encourages support us, fix what we do wrong, but we're the ones who exert the decisive agency in building these sables, these saving institutions

00:32:01.100 - 00:32:14.340

. That's why you've got to mobilize people to do the work. It's an age of mobilization. What taylor cause the age of authenticity gains traction among some cultural outsiders and elites, think Frida, Kahlo and

00:32:14.340 - 00:32:25.290

D. H. Lawrence and the beats, right ? Living in the late 19th and early 20th century . But after World War Two, the Sixties, it spreads steadily in its influence. This age of

00:32:25.290 - 00:32:42.230

authenticity way of living in the world radicalizes the age of mobilizations, emphasis on individual choice. If the age of mobilization featured, people coming together to choose and create institutions that mediate ultimate goods. The age

00:32:42.230 - 00:33:00.320

of authenticity stresses the significance, the sacred significance of the choice itself. This makes the creation or sustenance of institutions an entirely secondary concern. It's the choice itself. It's that something speaks to me, that's

00:33:00.320 - 00:33:17.660

what makes it, that's what endows it with real saving power. Presbyterians never really had an insulin regime moment, not even in Geneva, not even in Scotland, but you can trace the three age we

00:33:17.660 - 00:33:34.050

are native native to an age of mobilization. Most protestant denominations in the US are, but you can trace the three ages that taylor describes in european and american Catholicism. It moves from a universal church that's

00:33:34.050 - 00:33:47.840

prior to any individual believer and organized into parishes that exist prior to any member of them, to a de facto denominational Catholicism, in which even those born in the faith experience themselves as choosing it. That's

00:33:47.840 - 00:34:02.310

the age of mobilization dispensation and they certainly choose their congregation, even if they call it a parish, to what critics today now call a cafeteria Catholicism, where individual believers take up practices and join communities that

00:34:02.310 - 00:34:15.520

are meaningful for them that might or might not be institutionalized. You like lexi Oh, davina, alexia Davina, do you need a parish optional? I want to argue that the prevailing model, the most

00:34:15.520 - 00:34:28.640

validated and validating model of theological education right now that I've been talking about this, this model that was honed at the early part of the 20th century. It reflects the visions and values of the age of

00:34:28.640 - 00:34:40.620

mobilization. So our core theological schools, the ones that still have a lot of the cultural capital schools like this one, schools like mine, they are age of mobilization institutions. So I want to try

00:34:40.620 - 00:34:59.060

to describe some key features of this model for you . Some key features of the model. First, let's start here. Theological education provides, you know , it's bracketed more or less required resources. This

00:34:59.060 - 00:35:09.160

is a crucial point. The knowledge in model, in the knowledge that a theological school passes on whatever that knowledge is, whether it's knowledge of an ancient language, whether it's knowledge of history, whether it's

00:35:09.160 - 00:35:22.600

knowledge of theology, whether it's a skill like pastoral care or preaching, whether it's a kind of know how wisdom, even a virtue, whatever it is that a theological school gives you, it gets construed

00:35:22.610 - 00:35:42.030

in model, um as a kind of resource. These resources then are not good in and of them . Whoa, They're not good. What happened there julie? Maybe you can just flip forward. I'll

00:35:42.030 - 00:35:52.630

tell you about it though. These resources are not good in and of themselves. All right. It's not enough that you just have the resources and the resources a good thing. What the resource lets you

00:35:52.630 - 00:36:07.670

do in model in thanks is it lets you move on to and again, ordained this bracketed here. But some kind of paid work leading a religious religious ish. Maybe it's an NGO against state killing or

00:36:07.670 - 00:36:23.350

something like that, but a religious ish institution. Do you see the crucial role for the institution here ? The resources shape people who are, the knowledge becomes resources for people who will lead these institutions.

00:36:23.930 - 00:36:37.890

That institution can take all kinds of different forms in model, in model um is very elastic in these ways. But what matters here is that in model Ems vision, that institution is not, is not

00:36:37.890 - 00:36:55.500

sacred in and of itself. That institution achieves a kind of sacred work by pursuing some this worldly purpose beyond itself. That is it works for the transformation of individuals and society in this age. And that

00:36:55.500 - 00:37:08.160

transformation, that's the work that is of ultimate significance . Again, part of the power of this model is just how much it can stretch to include because the transformation that gives meaning to this whole system,

00:37:08.310 - 00:37:24.910

the transformation that gives meaning to a model and model of theological education. It can include things like winning lives for christ, or starting a movement to increase the use of solar panels, or getting abortion banned

00:37:24.910 - 00:37:40.200

, or reforming the liturgy, or working for reforms in the judicial system that recognize that black lives matter on and on what really matters is that the transformation that is worked is worked in this age. That's

00:37:40.200 - 00:37:53.180

where the theological education and model m finds its real tell us its real meaning, its real purpose in giving people, I'm gonna dare to touch a button and giving people resources. That's what you get in

00:37:53.180 - 00:38:13.200

class. That let them lead institutions for the transformation of lives and society in this age. That's an age of mobilization vision of the world. This model , m this professional education expanded and revised. This

00:38:13.200 - 00:38:28.160

fits with an age of mobilization. So some challenges to model in challenges to model them. I want to argue that seeing this alliance between the prevailing form of theological education and the age of mobilization, I

00:38:28.160 - 00:38:43.590

want to argue that this can explain a large number of the stresses that theological education is currently experiencing. Model. M school struggle in an age that is no longer an age of mobilization. We've got institutions

00:38:43.590 - 00:38:57.670

that were built for one social world that no longer there is rapidly going out of existence. But before we go any further, I want to say what many of you have probably been ready to shout Taylor's

00:38:57.670 - 00:39:10.850

big story is primarily a story about the white north atlantic. It has some real heuristic value I think in describing majority white communities in Germany France, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, it's

00:39:10.850 - 00:39:28.200

pretty good for that. It has limited and complicated value in describing circuits between Ghana Nigeria Kingston, new Orleans, Jackson, Atlanta Harlem and the south side of Chicago. It has less value in describing circuits

00:39:28.200 - 00:39:43.150

between spain, Portugal, texas, California, Mexico , el Salvador and brazil. And it has even less immediate value in describing Korea, japan china and diaspora, IQ asian communities in north and south America

00:39:43.820 - 00:39:55.480

. So seeing this parochial quality of Taylor's story is important but it doesn't invalidate the way that I'm using this story. It says it's not a story about everyone and everything, which he says it's not.

00:39:55.480 - 00:40:04.850

But then he writes as if it is, uh , it doesn't invalid. You know, that I'm doing that to write disclaimer, disclaimer, boom, big claim. Oh, but I said I wasn't

00:40:04.850 - 00:40:19.650

saying that that's why you do that ritual, right ? But I, but I mean, it I'm it's an age of authenticity and sisters and brothers. I am sincere. Yes. All right. I

00:40:19.660 - 00:40:32.070

do want to say though, that the parochialism of Taylor's story doesn't invalidate the way I'm using that story because what I mean to describe is a particular conception of theological education that arose with the age of mobilization

00:40:32.080 - 00:40:46.300

and now struggles because it no longer fits with church in the society in the United States. One reason it no longer fits is that the student generation of the mostly white communities that really established this model and

00:40:46.300 - 00:40:59.090

made it normative, enforced it on others. That the student generation of those communities have moved on to an age of authenticity. And another reason it no longer fits is that christians in the United States are

00:40:59.090 - 00:41:12.700

increasingly plural in their races, ethnicities, cultures and traditions. They don't necessarily fit this story at all . So for a growing number of people, neither talk of the age of mobilization nor talk of the

00:41:12.700 - 00:41:25.240

age of authenticity can tell their stories. But if someone has another story entirely, it's still not a story that connects immediately with Model M and it's still not a story that fits right away with model.

00:41:25.240 - 00:41:42.350

Um, institutions. Alright, stress stress model. Um, no longer fits a growing number of people . It no longer fits the deepest patterns of our shared social world and we see signs of that strain

00:41:42.350 - 00:41:52.630

at every point in the model. So, I want you to kind of look at each of the points first. I think there is a there is a growing lack of fit between the life course promised

00:41:52.640 - 00:42:09.510

by model m and the desires and realities of student lives today. Let's start with the desires. There is a subjective dimension to this as more and more students are ambivalent about leading institutions and especially ambivalent about

00:42:09.510 - 00:42:22.350

leading congregations. If you, even in my very few years and theological education, I've noticed this shift . We have a growing number of students of seeker students right there there to explore there. They're thinking

00:42:22.350 - 00:42:35.560

things through and they would be very ambivalent about moving right away into the leadership of an institution that was going to work for the transformation of the world, even if as an auburn study and the surest sign

00:42:35.560 - 00:42:46.090

of this is the decline of MTV's right. And the growth of all these other degrees now in Auburn study says that a lot of the people who do Emma's are actually end up doing something like model limits

00:42:46.090 - 00:43:00.310

, just kind of a shortcut to those professional roles . But there is no doubt from the larger set of numbers that there is less. This model, this life course speaks to fewer and fewer students.

00:43:00.600 - 00:43:14.320

There is also an objective component to this lack of fit between model M and current life courses. Current careers, it shows up especially in relation to placements in congregational ministry. Now, if the desire to

00:43:14.320 - 00:43:29.470

lead institutions is shrinking and it is the number of opportunities to lead institutions, especially congregations, that's shrinking even more. Again, you all know these numbers in 2009, I'm looking for more current data right

00:43:29.470 - 00:43:45.570

now, but in 2009, 350 presbyterian students graduated from the 10 p 10 Pc USA affiliated schools were seeking a full time called to ministry 350 but there were only 220 full time first call positions available.

00:43:45.580 - 00:44:01.870

350 students chasing 220 jobs. And that doesn't even count. The awesome presbyterians who graduate from CANDLER. Yeah, just saying Model M is struggling to keep its promises. Then even to a smaller number of

00:44:01.870 - 00:44:16.320

students who want those promises kept. So in terms of both objective opportunities and subjective desires, there's just a lack of fit between the promises of Model M and the life courses of students. Second, there's

00:44:16.320 - 00:44:29.480

a growing gap between the kind of authority offered by Model M schools and the kind of authority that is valued in leading institutions elsewhere. I've written about this as a shift from the authority of office to an

00:44:29.480 - 00:44:45.440

authority of authenticity model m evolved really to secure the authority of office. It promised that you would get in this office a competent professional, one who had received the resources for leadership and interlocking institutions validated that

00:44:45.440 - 00:45:00.100

process. Right. Church bodies of various kinds ascent assessed vocations and readiness, professors at schools gave grades . That's a credit to the schools in which the professors worked and from which the students receive their degrees

00:45:00.190 - 00:45:15.350

together. All of these institutions legitimated a person to exercise the authority of office of leading an institution. But really now that whole network, I would argue , is breaking down that whole path to a legitimate

00:45:15.350 - 00:45:30.140

authority with the rise of an authority of authenticity, credentials like a degree from an accredited school. Do not matter in the same way. What matters is if the performance of the office rings? True and

00:45:30.140 - 00:45:44.010

so Td jakes Joyce Meyer and others can become some of the most prominent pastors in the country without an earned degree from an at school. That's a big development in american society. They are gaining their authority

00:45:44.020 - 00:45:55.250

in another way, a way that formal accredited theological schooling, it's not just that it doesn't help, it's that it can actively stand in the way of gaining that kind of authority at the same time that

00:45:55.250 - 00:46:07.100

the standard for what counts as authority is shifting the guarantors of the old order, no longer police the standards of model in with the same vigor. The very again, these are things, you know,

00:46:07.100 - 00:46:22.980

the very mainline denominations that so insisted on the authority of the rightly educated, professionally educated pastor. Now create all kinds of routes around those requirements. Presbyterian commission ruling elders, methodist, local pastors, Episcopal

00:46:22.980 - 00:46:37.140

deacons. What's new is not that there are pastors without full scale professional education that's older than America. What's new is that these pastors are operating in the very denominations that did so much to establish theological education

00:46:37.140 - 00:46:50.340

as professional education. AtZ has made similar moves. It's not just that ATS has pluralized the standards for what counts as an M. Div and it has extended its just, it's, they're very plural right

00:46:50.340 - 00:47:02.830

now richly plural, it's been something of an achievement . It's that that's now approves more than 250 degrees beyond the M. Div. More than 250 degrees . Like an M. A. In urban ministry

00:47:02.840 - 00:47:15.680

or an M. A. In youth ministry. I'm not talking about 250 M. Dives. I'm talking about 250 degrees with so many degrees and so many standards for degrees. It becomes hard to know

00:47:15.680 - 00:47:29.040

just what that's approval means. And so it's hard to sustain the authority of office that fits with Model M. Now this may be a good thing truly , I'm not saying this may be a good thing

00:47:29.050 - 00:47:38.750

. It may make for a more apostolic church. It may be a bad thing. It may be an inevitable thing. My point now is not to evaluate the change, but just to note that it

00:47:38.750 - 00:47:52.520

is happening that it both reflects and drives the dissolution of the authority of office that is integral to model M let me know one more point of stress. I could go a long, a long time about

00:47:52.520 - 00:48:01.300

these stresses, but I've just got three. So here's my third one more point of stress. It comes in the final stage, the moment in which the institutions that graduates leave go out to transform the

00:48:01.300 - 00:48:14.930

world. Now this still happens. This still happens . I was hearing stories about James lee last night . Uh It happens, graduates go on to change the world all the time. But with the decline

00:48:14.930 - 00:48:25.960

in the cultural capital wielded by religious institutions, that ability to work transformation is not as clear and strong as it used to be. I'm going to talk more about this this afternoon when we go to politics

00:48:25.980 - 00:48:40.080

. But for now it's just worth remembering that picture of when Eugene Carson Blake stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church President of the National Council of Churches, future General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. When

00:48:40.080 - 00:48:58.710

a man with these offices, these institutional ties Stood on the podium at the 1963 March on Washington. It was a very big deal, very big deal because of that kind of authority to transform society that

00:48:58.710 - 00:49:12.220

these institutions had. Now, if someone holding these same offices today stood in a similar place, Friends , it would not be as big a deal, it would mostly be significant to the constituents, who

00:49:12.220 - 00:49:22.800

would be glad to see that their organization had a seat at the table. That's different. That's different than the influence of model M This is not just a story about declining influence of religion in America.

00:49:22.810 - 00:49:37.110

That's not true. It's not even a story, first of all about the declining of mainline protestant influence . It's a story about the changing role of institutions in legitimating authority. What this means for model M

00:49:37.120 - 00:49:51.010

is that it's not clear that it can keep its promises just because you get the resources doesn't mean you're going to get to lead the institution. And just because you get to leave the institution doesn't mean you're

00:49:51.010 - 00:50:05.150

going to get to change the world. In noting these pressure points, I'm trying to argue that the prevailing model of theological education is under pressure because of deep, deep social structural changes. Now, I

00:50:05.150 - 00:50:17.060

have very mixed feelings about these changes. I am a cradle model ever. I was born to this , formed by it. It has set the course of my life, I would say. I know

00:50:17.060 - 00:50:30.200

from the inside some of the worth and some of the limits of these model and institutions. But however , we feel about these changes, they are well advanced now and they are not just internal to schools

00:50:30.210 - 00:50:44.140

. So we can't fix them with policies that are internal to schools. They are all around schools. They are the ocean in which we swim. They are the whole ecosystem in which the schools live.

00:50:44.150 - 00:50:57.870

And that is changing now. Sociology is not destiny . And even the deepest social changes do not determine our responses, but they are, I think one of the modes through which God demands a response from

00:50:57.870 - 00:51:12.450

us and that's what I want to turn to now , responses to the pressure on model. M different institutions are responding to these pressures in different ways. I want to say again right off the top that

00:51:12.450 - 00:51:23.310

some schools like City Seminary, a lightly accredited community in new york that works with recent immigrants, mostly from Africa, schools like this are thriving. That's because they are native to this age. They are

00:51:23.310 - 00:51:37.550

built for it. But I see more established schools , schools that feel the pressure of being built for other times. I see them responding in multiple ways . The first way I'd say is just to stay

00:51:37.550 - 00:51:52.370

the course model M and it's after lives. You can stay the course if you've got enough money in the bank Endowments and the ongoing gifts of an older generation that still believes deeply in model M. and

00:51:52.370 - 00:52:05.920

wants to see it thrive, can keep a school going. The most recent number I saw says that schools have close to$7 billion dollars in endowment assets . It's a lot of money. It seems possible

00:52:05.920 - 00:52:19.040

to keep going as we're going now. In one way it is, but in another way it isn't for even when we do all the same things, even if we teach the same classes in the same

00:52:19.040 - 00:52:30.570

way as on the same campus is even if all the other parts of the world in which we're doing these things have changed, then the social meaning of our actions has changed because the meaning of our actions

00:52:30.570 - 00:52:38.710

is not just what we mean for them to be , the meaning for our actions is how they show up in a network of other institutions and network of readers. And if that has all changed, then

00:52:38.710 - 00:52:50.210

what we're doing has changed as well. I think here of what happened to some forms of Christianity that had long been established state religions when they came to the United States. It's happened with lutheranism, but

00:52:50.210 - 00:53:05.470

it's really clear with Catholicism. Catholicism had no room in its ecclesial ology for becoming a denomination. It wasn't, it wasn't there? But when Catholics came to the United States in large numbers, that is

00:53:05.470 - 00:53:17.620

what Catholicism became, even if the words and the theological books stayed the same for more than a century , and they did, even if the liturgy did not change, even if everything stayed the same,

00:53:17.630 - 00:53:32.800

it came to mean something different in this new constellation of institutions. I think something analogous will happen to theological schools that seek to remain the same. This steadfastness, maybe don't hear this strongly, It may

00:53:32.800 - 00:53:45.870

be desirable, it may be admirable, it may even be faithful, but it's going to have a new meaning. It's going to mean something different to do what we've always done. So, A second

00:53:45.870 - 00:53:54.590

response is what I call the rationalization of model M and here, I mean, rationalization in a kind of Iberian sense where you have, you have to tell us you have this end goal, this ultimate

00:53:54.590 - 00:54:07.930

value, ministerial efficiency, and what you do is streamline everything towards that end value. How do you streamline where you cut all the costs that might that you can, in order to still accomplish your goal

00:54:07.930 - 00:54:19.160

, you might move to contingent faculty, online education , shrink your campus. None of those things are strictly necessary for ministerial efficiency. You might change the way you assess degrees, right? You might do

00:54:19.160 - 00:54:32.780

competency based assessment, you might move to other models , all a streamlining of the process towards that ministerial efficiency. What I want you to see is that none of these reforms that I call the rationalization of

00:54:32.780 - 00:54:46.220

Model M These are the debates that rage across at schools now. None of them change or challenge the deep logic of model. Um they're just trying to do Model M more efficiently. Again, that may

00:54:46.220 - 00:54:57.580

be a good thing to do, but we should be aware of what we're doing and what we're not doing when we make those kinds of moves. A third response is what I call the plural ization of

00:54:57.580 - 00:55:13.200

Model in the plural. Ization of modeling schools that follow this approach also, I think stick with the core logic of Model. Um what they do is stress new pluralities. At every point, we're going

00:55:13.200 - 00:55:23.060

to provide more kinds of resources than we ever have before to people who are going to lead more kinds of institutions. Maybe not just christian, maybe of other faiths. Maybe what we're gonna do is provide

00:55:23.070 - 00:55:36.020

resources to lead ngos to do community organizing, but we're plural izing here, the kinds of resources were plural. Izing the kinds of institutions and we're plural . Izing the kinds of transformation that can be worked

00:55:36.020 - 00:55:51.790

in society. Do you see how this is a meaningful shift on one level, but it doesn't change or challenge that deep logic of model. M A 4th response involves what I call the hybridization of the

00:55:51.790 - 00:56:05.480

school mixing model, um, with some very different models. Often I, and I say this not wanting to give away any secrets, but often students and faculty, we do this on our own without

00:56:05.480 - 00:56:22.570

official permission, hacking the curriculum to pursue goods. It does not intend you meant it as professional formation , but we're doing it or as spiritual exploration. It's not supposed to happen. Sometimes hybrid models are

00:56:22.570 - 00:56:37.840

more centrally planned, approved and directed. I think Austin's beyond the walls, initiatives are a great, healthy, thriving example of this hybrid kind of form . These hybrid models do not do away with model

00:56:37.840 - 00:56:51.550

and patterns, they just add to them. And I think that these hybrid models are going to be a place where many of our strongest institutions can live in a transitional time. Pretty that's that's evaluative.

00:56:52.030 - 00:57:04.970

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good place to live enlisting these responses. What I hope to show our that many things that people get all hot and bothered about that can seem like radical innovations like online

00:57:04.970 - 00:57:15.890

learning or competency based assessment. These are simply new ways to do model them. So the problem is not that they're still doing the same thing this might be worth doing, it might be are calling the

00:57:15.890 - 00:57:29.950

problem is the self delusion that comes with thinking that what we're doing is something totally new when what we're doing replicates the deep logic of the prevailing pattern. I think it helps to see this logic of model

00:57:29.950 - 00:57:43.920

m so that we can gain greater self awareness about what we're already doing and assess our core commitments and then make wise, faithful decisions about what it means to live into those commitments in the present. Neither

00:57:43.920 - 00:58:00.490

progress nor decline. This is it neither progress nor decline. It's tempting to think about the changes underway in theological education as either world historical progress. We are shaking off the shackles of white mainline professionalism and

00:58:00.490 - 00:58:15.630

headed to a brave new world of possibility. It's also attempting to think of it as world historical decline . Theological education is going down the drain since Bart and the neighbors reformed Protestants and I trust there are

00:58:15.630 - 00:58:31.240

a few here. We have been pretty good at avoiding big stories about progress, but we remain vulnerable to narratives of decline and it's in our society now is more vulnerable than ever to narratives of decline.

00:58:32.120 - 00:58:45.610

And so it's important to theologically criticize these narratives as vaulter Benny. Mean, no christian theologian, surely , but one of the greatest thinkers about the significance of Messianic hope. I know, as he wrote

00:58:45.620 - 00:58:59.490

, the overcoming of the concept of progress and the concept of the period of decline are two sides of one and the same thing. The overcoming of the concept of progress and the concept of the period declined

00:58:59.500 - 00:59:09.210

are two sides of one and the same thing, I think that's right. And here's where the theology of history that frames this whole project is more than a little window decoration here. Now. Between the

00:59:09.210 - 00:59:22.240

times, there is a sense in which every moment is equidistant from an equally present to the reign of God. It is always now and not yet always present and always yearned for. And so we christians

00:59:22.240 - 00:59:36.850

can and should talk about things getting a little better or a little worse. Sure, but we will tell no great big historical narratives of progress or decline . I think that theological conviction is essential for faithful

00:59:36.850 - 00:59:49.580

navigation of these times between the times. We are not living in a period of world historical decline for theological education at the same time, we're not living in history. That is just one endless thing after

00:59:49.580 - 00:00:00.000

another. An endless procession. We are living in a time of deep historical changes that pose important questions to us. Not always new questions sometimes. Just the good old questions with some new ferocity and specificity

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

. And they are the old questions that H Richard Niebuhr who gave these same lectures years ago at the high water mark of Model M. They are the same questions he put at the center of christian life

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

, what's God doing and what is the shape of faithful response? These are the questions before us now in a sea change of theological education, and I look forward to thinking about them with you. In