00:00:11.040 - 00:00:22.000

A lot of my energy for this work. It comes out of a conviction that we're in the middle of a sea change in theological education. The kind of shift that I, as I've said before,

00:00:22.000 - 00:00:39.320

has happened in the United States about three times over the last 300 years. Now. A particular edge to this project, though. It comes out of the repeated experience of watching people myself among them Grapple

00:00:39.320 - 00:00:58.040

with this change in mostly managerial language. We talk about enrollment numbers and funding models and relative positions in various markets of money, students, faculty and status in moments of wider vision. We discuss long term

00:00:58.040 - 00:01:12.850

goals and mission statements. These things matter. Jerry's talk gave us anything I think it is to teach us to respect the work of the act. The one immersed in a godly way in the cares of

00:01:12.850 - 00:01:26.830

this world. I respect the work of a good manager and I know that it is necessary for all other earthly goods to flourish. But I have been worried that our focus on the means was keeping us

00:01:26.830 - 00:01:41.250

from the conversations that we need to have about the ends of theological education. And so I've tried to keep my focus in these talks on those ends of theological education. What is all this for? What's

00:01:41.250 - 00:01:53.880

the tell us of theological education? It's a better question. I think it's a question we need to have before us, but it is a slippery question because the power of managerial logic is so strong in

00:01:53.880 - 00:02:09.270

our times that it can permeate even what looked like attempts to move beyond it at saddleback. I learned how to talk about be hags. You may know this acronym, big hairy audacious goals. Be hags

00:02:09.280 - 00:02:23.410

! They have be hags at saddleback. They achieved them a term. It's a term coined in a classic Harvard Business Review article by James Collins and jerry porous for goals that involve quote, a huge daunting

00:02:23.410 - 00:02:42.460

challenge. Something like climbing mount Everest or putting a man on the moon. Be hags are audacious, but they are in principle achievable by us within the horizon of history. Now be hag stretches managerial logic

00:02:43.140 - 00:02:55.580

, but it does not shatter it, it just improves it. And many of the proposals that I hear for a telus of theological education, many of the mission statements of schools that I read, they

00:02:55.580 - 00:03:12.460

do not direct the school beyond the horizon of history . They do not depend on God to do much of anything. They are not fully theological tell. Oy, they are be hags in theological dress.

00:03:13.440 - 00:03:32.020

Managerial logic is wildly, it is widely, it can creep even in through the best theological language. It might inform definitions of a telus of theological education like training leaders for Christchurch or raising up a generation

00:03:32.020 - 00:03:53.540

of church planters, or even forming faithful witnesses all kinds of good things, really good things, pastoral excellence, tecnologia, knowing God truly to name just some of the best recent candidates, all of them

00:03:53.540 - 00:04:06.540

, in spite of the intentions of their authors, can be pressed into the role of this. Tell us the problem is not with the content of the proposed Tell us the problem is with the temporal register

00:04:06.670 - 00:04:19.990

in which they are considered. Because fully s scatological hopes, the hopes that should give life to our seminaries, churches and other institutions. They live in a time that is now and not yet, but

00:04:19.990 - 00:04:33.550

the goals of most institutions, even when they are dressed up in their theological best, they operate within an imminent future. They are the kinds of things we could approach through curriculum reform or a really vigorous

00:04:33.550 - 00:04:50.570

five year plan. The challenge, I think, is to maintain a richly s scatological vision of theological education, one that sees all our efforts at education as between the times dependent on the victory of God's

00:04:50.570 - 00:05:06.600

love that is present now, even as it awaits final consummation. So what would that kind of vision look like? The word of God comes to us this day from the 31st chapter of the Book of

00:05:06.600 - 00:05:20.350

Jeremiah versus 31 through 34. Listen with me, for what the Spirit says to the church this day , The days are surely coming, says the Lord , when I will make a new covenant with the

00:05:20.350 - 00:05:31.420

House of Israel and the House of Judah, it will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. A

00:05:31.420 - 00:05:44.690

covenant that they broke though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my

00:05:44.690 - 00:06:00.760

law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God. And they shall be my people No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, No, the

00:06:00.760 - 00:06:15.120

Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord , for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. This is the word of the

00:06:15.120 - 00:06:29.980

Lord. Thanks be to God and this is the tell loss of theological education. I will put my Torah within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God. And they

00:06:29.980 - 00:06:44.670

shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other no, the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. The glory is

00:06:44.670 - 00:07:02.390

in the details God announces that God will make this covenant in God's own time. For God's own reasons , the people do not work their way there. God gives them this knowledge and this is I think

00:07:02.390 - 00:07:18.470

the key to the whole thing. God gives them this knowledge because God desires to be known and I would argue only God can give this knowledge. This is not just because the people lack the cognitive capacities

00:07:18.470 - 00:07:31.580

to think their way there. The barrier is not merely a lack of mental ability. The barrier as the prophet sees is sin and because the sin is against God, only God can forgive the sin.

00:07:31.580 - 00:07:45.050

That's that last line. Remember all of this will happen for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. It is the forgiveness of sin . The overcoming of sin and love that makes the

00:07:45.050 - 00:08:01.870

intimate knowledge of the new covenant possible. That's this last line that God's desire to reconcile us to God's self even at great cost. That's what starts this whole process in motion. It is sin that keeps

00:08:01.870 - 00:08:18.240

us from knowing God. God forgives sin, overcomes sin with love gives a new covenant, and this covenant bears fruit in the fulsome knowledge of God. Now, this knowledge of God has many dimensions as

00:08:18.240 - 00:08:31.000

walter Brueggemann has argued what the prophet describes as knowing halfway clearly has what we might call a cognitive dimension . It involves being able to recite the saving history . You have to know stuff right? It's knowing

00:08:31.010 - 00:08:43.410

, being able to tell this story, but it also has an affective dimension. It's about a disposition towards God, A fear of the Lord, a trust in the Lord, a deep ascent to the

00:08:43.410 - 00:09:01.760

lordship of God. And this knowledge has an ethical dimension. one could not know God in this way and not live by the law that God has inscribed in our hearts, cognitive, effective, ethical.

00:09:03.510 - 00:09:22.020

The knowledge of this new covenant is all transforming and all encompassing God shares this knowledge with all from the least to the greatest scholars dispute whether the least here designates the smallest people, Children or the poorest and

00:09:22.020 - 00:09:37.950

most marginal members of society. That question is interesting , but it's not decisive. What's decisive is the all that governs this range. They shall all know me. Whatever the tell us of theological education involves

00:09:37.960 - 00:09:50.930

, it is not just knowledge for some of God's people. As I was saying yesterday in the in the round table conversation, it's not a trickle down theory of knowledge here. It's really not, it's

00:09:50.930 - 00:10:03.690

not that it goes through the thin conduit of whatever pastors can deliver it is, they shall all know me from the least to the greatest. That's the end of the talus of theological education. It is

00:10:03.690 - 00:10:18.360

saving knowledge in all of these dimensions. Life altering knowledge for all, crucially, this knowledge is not a means to any other end this knowledge of God . It's not a condition of the new covenant covenant

00:10:18.370 - 00:10:28.370

, like once you know me in this way, well, then we'll have the covenant, right? It's not a condition of the new covenant, it is the content of the new covenant. It is

00:10:28.370 - 00:10:43.260

the gift that God gives in making covenant. It is not of instrumental value, not even for the transformation of the world, this knowledge of the of the new covenant, this fruit of the new covenant

00:10:43.290 - 00:11:01.150

, it is the very stuff of salvation saving knowledge of God. Just is the tell us of theological education and this knowledge does not come through our efforts . We know this because all of the agency and

00:11:01.150 - 00:11:11.830

this passage is God's, God says I will make a new covenant, I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. God is the subject of these verbs here, Right

00:11:11.830 - 00:11:24.310

, Gods, the gods, the doer, in case we miss the point, the profit does not just stress that the agency of God is active, but the Prophet negates the agency of humans. The

00:11:24.350 - 00:11:39.410

eschatological vision is that they shall no longer teach one another or say to each other. No, the Lord, for they shall all know me our efforts at theological education. Then we don't approach the ideal

00:11:39.410 - 00:11:50.920

as symptomatically getting closer and closer over time, until finally give God gives us just a little boost over the top. No, no, no. The the end for which we hope is a real negation

00:11:50.930 - 00:12:07.660

of all our teaching and learning. They do not continue. Take that in for a minute. A b hag is, let's put a man on the moon. This kind of hope though, is let's

00:12:07.660 - 00:12:24.000

cease to exist. That all the cosmos, my glory God or something. I can this be the mission statement for Nasa. No, This negation is in the tell us, we don't continue in our

00:12:24.000 - 00:12:37.940

efforts for by the grace of God. All from the least to the greatest shall know the Lord. So this oracle I'm wanting to say is both a negation and a promise. It is a negation.

00:12:37.950 - 00:12:50.650

It is not yet. No longer shall they teach one another. A negation that shatters the pretensions of our projects in this age. And it is a promise. And now, surely the days are coming

00:12:50.040 - 00:13:01.220

. A promise that makes possible all the teaching and learning that we do in the meantime, for all of our efforts unfold in response to the good news that the love of God is stronger than the sin

00:13:01.220 - 00:13:16.380

that keeps us from God. The good news that God desires to be again in right relationship with us to be known by us. The vision reveals the seminary to be an interim arrangement, a form into

00:13:16.380 - 00:13:33.790

which we pour extraordinary effort in the hopes for a promised day. Oh, great day! When nothing like a seminary will be necessary or even possible. That's not a b hag. That's hope. This

00:13:33.790 - 00:13:48.180

kind of vision lets us hold all our earthly arrangements a little more loosely. I think reform is not dictated as absolute. We cannot even posit. And this is the way I was thinking about this project

00:13:48.180 - 00:13:56.400

when I started I thought when I started that what we needed to do was to get the end right ? We get to tell us, we fix the tell us there and then what we do once we

00:13:56.400 - 00:14:07.730

get the right one for our time is that when we formed the institution backwards from the Tell us right ? That's what if you remember, William Adams Brown gave us that yesterday, said the tell us his

00:14:07.730 - 00:14:18.000

ministerial efficiency. Everything that serves ministerial efficiency is in everything that doesn't serve ministerial efficiency is out. I thought, okay, it's probably not ministerial efficiency anymore . I find the new term. I plug it

00:14:18.000 - 00:14:28.230

in there and we and we keep going. But the more I dig into this project, the more I realize is it's not just that we need a change in the end, but we need a change

00:14:28.240 - 00:14:41.980

in the logic about through which we think about the end. We need not just that be hag. We need a real tell loss. Now, if this doesn't mean that our earthly arrangements are not important

00:14:41.990 - 00:14:52.250

, these are our lives, these are the lives of people we love. They are of great importance . Loving our neighbors means pouring our efforts into these earthly institutions, but it does mean that their form

00:14:52.250 - 00:15:05.340

is not absolute. We cannot even posit this absolute goal, as I was trying to do towards which we should revise our practices and institutions as if there were many ways to achieve that one absolute goal.

00:15:05.340 - 00:15:16.260

And what we needed to do was to adapt our methods to our time and place to reach that goal , always revising and refining our efforts with that goal in mind, ministerial efficiency. No, this gets

00:15:16.260 - 00:15:31.370

the shape of our human action wrong, I think , But we cannot achieve the real tell us the real end. It's not ours to achieve. It cannot therefore function as a goal. For us it

00:15:31.370 - 00:15:43.950

lies beyond our best efforts, but it is not just beyond our best efforts. This is the key here. It's also behind our best efforts. It's not just not yet, but also, thanks be

00:15:43.950 - 00:15:58.850

to God. It is now it is already as christians. We are not aiming at a goal but responding to the grace of a new covenant that is already present in its promise, responding then does not

00:15:58.860 - 00:16:18.170

fit the rational actor model of human behavior. It's not aiming towards a goal, but it is still meaningful human behavior, It's not irrational and it need not slip into relativism, we can argue. We

00:16:18.170 - 00:16:34.740

can have intelligible arguments about the quality of responses. We can, even within the larger logic of response , formulate certain derivative goals that can guide institutions and can guide our managerial work. Those things come back

00:16:34.740 - 00:16:47.940

in right, they come back in, but they come in in a chastened form. All right now , those of you who have suffered through the previous two lectures, you can all you can already I

00:16:47.940 - 00:17:02.010

I know I know you can already hear the contrast with the prevailing model of theological education this much maligned model limb, but deep in the heart of model limb, there is an instrumental logic that finds its

00:17:02.020 - 00:17:15.500

end. It's tell us within what Charles taylor has called the imminent frame. That is theological education passes on skills, knowledge, habits, virtues, even humility can play this role like if theological education is

00:17:15.500 - 00:17:29.350

supposed to cultivate humility to make people good pastors, then this is what will happen. These things become resources for the leadership of institutions that achieve transformation in this age. But Jeremiah is speaking about a knowledge

00:17:29.350 - 00:17:42.760

of God that is not the means to some other end. Jeremiah is speaking about a knowledge of God that is the source and end of all creation. And Jeremiah speaks of a transformation, a reconciliation that

00:17:42.760 - 00:17:59.880

only God can achieve, not a goal that we might attain if we just finally started the right new degree program, it is easy, I think, to give lip service to Jeremiah's vision, it's harder

00:17:59.880 - 00:18:11.960

to live into it. As I said earlier, the managerial Logics of model um have a sneaky way of transforming the saving knowledge of God into a resource and the hope of the new covenant into a goal

00:18:14.030 - 00:18:26.760

. It is hard for us goal driven people to learn how to respond. And I think examples of past faithful responses can guide us, if only by analogy. So, I want to lift up one

00:18:26.760 - 00:18:41.530

such set of faithful responses. And you have heard others in Daniel's lectures and in jerry's lectures, my set overlaps a little bit with jerry's. I want to focus on a monastic tradition of learning, which

00:18:41.530 - 00:18:56.670

I want to go ahead and call theological education that traces its roots to Benedict of Norcia. I do not lift up this early Benedictine response to call us to replicate it as if the social conditions in which

00:18:56.670 - 00:19:10.620

this movement took faithful forms could be simply reproduced. There is no way back machine. This is a romantic fantasy that would be unfaithful to the insights of the form itself. So, I do not pretend

00:19:10.620 - 00:19:21.360

that this response, and I also don't want to pretend that this response was that was without sin. It fell short in many ways, but I think there's something we can learn from attending to it,

00:19:21.740 - 00:19:37.250

maybe with some loving scrutiny, so to attend uh that we can think by way of analogy and here I will return to that safe, safe space, that safe space of the academic disclaimer. I am

00:19:37.250 - 00:19:52.030

no past Ristic historian uh, here at all. Uh I'm american history, I do quite a lot of but this is really just pillaging here that I'm engaging in. And I do it with a constructive

00:19:52.030 - 00:20:07.370

intention, do it within a constructive intention, a present ist intention to spur are thinking about what we are called to do, thinking about one faithful response so that we can think about our own learned ignorance

00:20:07.530 - 00:20:25.490

, learned ignorance. Benedict of Norcia assessed many different forms of radical christian asceticism in the first five centuries of the church and discerned the need for a relatively modest rule establishing a monastery that was to be what

00:20:25.490 - 00:20:37.580

he called his words. From the prologue to the rule, a school of the Lord's Service. Benedict's Monastery is first of all, a school. Study was always part of Benedict's vision from monastic life,

00:20:37.590 - 00:20:53.240

but study was not as it was for Casio Doris integral to amongst vocation. It was not a resource that could be mobilized towards goals of holiness. It was not goal driven at all. It was like

00:20:53.240 - 00:21:04.070

the work and the prayer of monks. These two were not goal driven. You didn't do the work in order to achieve some goals. The work was by its nature secular, it was circular, it

00:21:04.070 - 00:21:17.600

was, it was cyclical, it was repetitive. Right? You did the work in order to immerse yourself in the work and also to occupy your hands so the devil wouldn't take them over. It made

00:21:17.600 - 00:21:30.080

sense only as part of the larger work of seeking God. It was utterly subordinated to this. Thus Gregory, the great Benedicts biographer who jerry just talked about could describe him as santa Renesas at Sapienza and

00:21:30.080 - 00:21:55.220

dr Oz knowingly ignorant and wisely unlearned, knowingly ignorant and wisely unlearned. There is within this phrase a paradox that I think most contemporary forms of theological education have lost. Can you imagine that for a minute

00:21:55.220 - 00:22:12.080

mission statement? We seek to cultivate learned ignorance? Our graduates are wisely unlearned. All right, let's have a capital campaign around that. I mean, good luck, right. We seek to cultivate learned

00:22:12.090 - 00:22:32.730

ignorance. Benedict's vision of learning has a germ of the negativity that I think is there in Jeremiah by negativity here. I just mean not yet that shatters our human pretensions. This is not. And this

00:22:32.730 - 00:22:45.910

is a shout out to the rowdy faculty crew in the overflow room. This is not the skepticism of Neo Confucianism, which holds that we could never attain full knowledge of ultimate things because I want to argue

00:22:45.920 - 00:23:00.160

such skepticism forgets the now the gift of saving knowledge already present in its promise and ends and nihilism, Gillian Rose, nor is the is this kind of not yet this negativity, This is not the scientists

00:23:00.160 - 00:23:15.030

. Um that says, we do not know everything yet even as it maintains that everything is potentially knowable , No, such a vision forgets both what has already been given and what cannot be attained by our

00:23:15.030 - 00:23:30.350

own efforts. Benedicts learned ignorance is a deeper paradox , one in which ignorance lives not at the boundary of knowledge as if the two divided the world between them over here is ignorance and over here is learning

00:23:30.350 - 00:23:44.270

Nous, No, no, no. In Benedict's picture, the ignorance lives at the heart of learning Nous. The more you know, the more you are, the more deeply you are ignorant and this

00:23:44.270 - 00:23:56.410

is not just that familiar phrase of the more you know, the more you know, you don't know , it's deeper than that. It's the more you know the more deeply ignorant you are knowingly ignorant wisely

00:23:56.420 - 00:24:14.340

unlearned. Thanks be to God Gregory I think to borrow and jerry's background just fills this in. I'll give you just a paragraph. Gregory extended this vision in his reflections on what he called compunction. This

00:24:14.340 - 00:24:26.870

compunction known by the spiritual sense he said it is the fruit of real learning and Danielle. I couldn't help but think the mark of compunction and it's not just the mark of something that is more real that's

00:24:26.870 - 00:24:44.970

happening internally you would say I think the better way to say it is the stuff of compunction and Gregory is tears, tears. This is the wisdom of tears. What tears? No what tears know that

00:24:44.970 - 00:25:03.310

words cannot say mm compunction. Gregory wrote is like a sting. God pierces us as with a spear and that piercing opens us to God. It shatters the satisfactions of this world and creates in us a

00:25:03.310 - 00:25:17.390

longing for the one whom we truly desire. But the work of compunction here crucially. It's not just a means to other ends for the grace of God is such that the opening to God is one.

00:25:17.390 - 00:25:30.380

And the same with being filled by God. It's not a method, it's not a means to other ends. Indeed it is that gift of fullness. It's the giving of the fullness that breaks us open

00:25:30.390 - 00:25:41.000

. So not a method where you make yourself empty and then you're filled. But rather it is a giving of fullness that hope that breaks us open, right? That is, and that openness is itself

00:25:41.000 - 00:26:00.760

the reception of fullness, as Gregory wrote. She who with her whole soul desires God certainly already possesses the one she loves. She who with her whole soul desires God certainly already possesses the one she loves

00:26:00.770 - 00:26:21.960

. He who with his whole soul desires God certainly already possesses the one he loves. There is the paradox of learned ignorance in this vision. Wisdom and ignorance now and not yet are joined together and not

00:26:21.970 - 00:26:37.410

as a complex resource that can be deployed for the achievement of other ends, but as the great end for which we are made. This is what it's all about. Benedict and Gregory describe a moment of

00:26:37.410 - 00:26:52.500

negation that relative eyes is all are learning at the same time, they described that negation that wounding as the shape of our love for God and the stuff of God's love for us, absence and presence,

00:26:52.510 - 00:27:11.580

emptiness and fulfillment. They are right together in this just as they are, I would say in the ascension. That's another sermon though it is this paradox that makes theological education theological not just in its subject

00:27:11.580 - 00:27:27.290

matter but in the mode of its existence. What would it be to be a house dedicated to such learned ignorance? There is much to be praised in model limb, especially its social concern. And here

00:27:27.330 - 00:27:37.920

asked me if you want to hear about how social concern is part of this, I'll try to say it. But the paradox named by the monks, I think, speaks a word of judgment to model

00:27:37.920 - 00:27:51.170

ims vision of theological education as providing resources for other projects. Even when that vision is not taught in any class, even if it is actively resisted in a class or in a lecture like this one,

00:27:51.840 - 00:28:03.770

it is part this instrumental quality to theological knowledge. It becomes part of the deep curriculum of so many of our institutions. And what do people really learn at a school? They learn the deep curriculum,

00:28:04.640 - 00:28:15.550

they learned that time. The sense of time that a school presses on them, it takes ministers who graduate from our school is often a while to get the semester out of their body. They're used to

00:28:15.550 - 00:28:26.230

cramming and it takes a while to get their bodies . That's not on that, That's not in the , that's not on any curriculum, but it is one of the deep formation. All pieces of the

00:28:26.230 - 00:28:37.360

way we teach. It takes a while to be formed into the time of a pastor. We're christmas and easter matter more than finals week. Right. What would it be like for a school to have

00:28:37.920 - 00:28:48.440

to have a liturgical time within its own rhythm? It's a similar kind of formation. I think no one tells you or they might, but in some classes people will tell you, hey, what you're

00:28:48.440 - 00:29:03.460

learning here is not of merely instrumental value, but the whole enterprise teaches you that the whole thing and we carry it in our bodies even when that vision is not taught in a class, even when it's

00:29:03.460 - 00:29:17.030

actively resisted and it is all the more powerful because it is not spoken because if it's not spoken, you can't resist it or it's harder working by analogy to the monks faithful response, we find ourselves called

00:29:17.030 - 00:29:30.110

to imagine theological education, in which at least theological knowledge is not a resource for other projects, but an end in itself. And we find ourselves called not to pursue a goal of transformation, but to

00:29:30.120 - 00:29:45.300

respond to a transforming grace that has already been given . Now. I think the clearest way to pursue these thoughts will be perhaps the most uncomfortable way will be through a series of practical questions, because the

00:29:45.300 - 00:29:57.580

real difference has become clearer the closer to the ground we come. I've already talked about the political significance of theological education and I hope, as you've heard what I've said today, that lecture comes into sharper

00:29:57.590 - 00:30:10.870

focus now in the last lap of the last lecture , we're almost done. I want to very briefly take up three further questions that I think break open with the erosion of model m like model. Um

00:30:10.870 - 00:30:23.170

had a pretty good answer. It was working now that that model is eroding these questions come out as hard again first. What's the relationship between theological education and a person's day job, how we make our

00:30:23.170 - 00:30:41.740

living 2nd? What kind of knowledge should theological education cultivate? What kind of knowledge should we cultivate? 3rd, what's the relationship of theological education to the higher education sector? It's the relationship of theological education

00:30:41.740 - 00:30:53.780

to higher education, the day job? What's the relationship of theological education to a person's career to the way she or he makes a living model? Ems answer is that theological education gives people resources that allow

00:30:53.780 - 00:31:06.880

them to pursue careers, Leading institutions for the transformation of the world, and the promises that those institutions will pay a living wage and offer stable benefits, that theological education will offer resources that enable one to

00:31:06.880 - 00:31:22.550

thrive in a career. After all, that's what distinguishes what we usually mean by theological education from mere christian education. That's for amateurs, right? This has always amused me. How did how did the

00:31:22.550 - 00:31:37.330

stuff for amateurs get christian education? And this is stealing? But it's happened for model M theological education should prepare people for good, satisfying, life sustaining bill paying day jobs as I, why else would

00:31:37.330 - 00:31:48.130

they pay tuition? As I argued yesterday, that promise is not as certain as it used to be . You've got fewer jobs, more part time work , lower pay, lower barriers to entry for competitors

00:31:48.140 - 00:32:02.550

without as much or maybe any theological education. All these factors make Model Ems connection of theological education to a day job less stable than it was. The question for us, therefore, comes alive again.

00:32:02.560 - 00:32:17.000

What should be the relationship between theological education and the ways a person makes a living? 11 50? It's worth noting that in many traditions in the United States, including some that are thriving. Most visibly

00:32:17.130 - 00:32:31.170

, the assumption has never been that theological education gives resources for a career. That's long been true for hispanic bible institutes whose graduates usually pursue ministry alongside a job that pays the bills. But I also mean

00:32:31.170 - 00:32:45.860

to suggest the possibility of an even deeper shift than one to that so called bi vocational or tent making model. I want to suggest a shift in which theological education is not only not linked to a career

00:32:45.340 - 00:33:02.740

, but it's also not instrumental to not primarily primarily trying to provide resources for pastoral work on any pay scale. So it's a real unhooking of theological education from what Ed Farley called the clerical paradigm. That's

00:33:02.740 - 00:33:13.680

what it's mostly about. Let me give you to real world, contemporary examples of what I'm talking about and for those who say it can't be done, it matters that these are happening in our world right

00:33:13.680 - 00:33:25.240

now, and both are financially viable and neither has a massive endowment. Okay, the first comes from ST Myelitis College in London State Religious College, grew out of the Alpha course, anybody here done the

00:33:25.240 - 00:33:38.560

Alpha course? Yeah, yeah. You know, it it's a strenuous course in theology for les adults . It swept through and eventually beyond evangelical anglican circles , people took the course, not because they had

00:33:38.560 - 00:33:49.550

any intention of becoming priests, they kept their day jobs, they just wanted to grow in their faith . And when they completed the course, when people in large numbers started to complete the Alpha course,

00:33:49.590 - 00:34:01.020

they started to ask, well, what's next? Where is the bait? Of course, uh what's the graduate level Alpha course? And Saint Myelitis College was the answer. Founded out of trinity Brompton,

00:34:01.140 - 00:34:15.050

an evangelical anglican megachurch in London. It's not a phrase that I ever thought I would speak an evangelical anglican megachurch in London, but such a thing exists and it is trinity Brompton. It offered more and

00:34:15.050 - 00:34:30.130

more advanced studies in theology to people studying it with no intentions of turning it into a career. Soon as the classes escalated in intensity, the students were working at a level comparable to the level attained in

00:34:30.130 - 00:34:45.640

the traditional schools for priests at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham and elsewhere. And so, ST myelitis started to, I mean, why not let people who really want to be priests into these classes? And

00:34:45.640 - 00:35:00.980

now it trains more people for the priesthood than any other school in England, including the historically established schools . What matters here, what is crucial for understanding and what I hope they do not betray is that

00:35:00.980 - 00:35:14.750

the non career trajectory is the center of the school . Those who want to study to prepare for a career are welcome, and there's some special classes for them on the side, Right, But the center

00:35:14.750 - 00:35:27.110

of the school is a study that is not a means to any other end. It's almost an inversion of our model here often, right. Where it's basically professional training. If you don't want the profession

00:35:27.110 - 00:35:36.420

, you can come, you know, and kind of learn and adapt it to yourself and maybe there will be some classes that are especially for you. This this is the flip of that, its theological

00:35:36.420 - 00:35:47.380

education that isn't towards any career, but you can still come and you can make it work. It is rather in the language of Harvard theologian Mark Jordan . Theological education. There is, quote, an

00:35:47.380 - 00:36:07.210

ongoing exercise in christian adulthood. It's a great phrase , theological education as an ongoing exercise in christian adulthood . The historian Justo Gonzalez is thinking along similar lines when he calls for quote, an uninterrupted continuity between

00:36:07.210 - 00:36:22.530

christian education as it is provided in the local church and that which is available to more advanced students. An uninterrupted continuity, he says, quote, theological education must be a continuum leading from cata critical teaching

00:36:22.530 - 00:36:36.110

through the continued education and growth and discipleship of the entire church, to the training of pastors and leaders , to the most sophisticated levels of research and reflection . Now this would represent a real break from model

00:36:36.110 - 00:36:52.460

m but not as hostile, Gonzalez notes, not from all of christian history for it's only relatively recently that the highest levels of theological education have been reserved for those going into full time leadership of religious institutions

00:36:52.930 - 00:37:07.160

. That's the anomaly, not theological education as an ongoing exercise of christian adulthood, that's the norm. Let me give you another example that brought this home to me. Being part of this project has just

00:37:07.170 - 00:37:22.590

it has been a blessing. It has brought me in contact with remarkable people and it has let me over here some amazing conversations I I am better than I ever imagined and I am thankful for that Maria

00:37:22.600 - 00:37:34.730

, One of the people I've met is Maria Leeuwangh , who is the Dean of City Seminary, a remarkable school in new york that engages in theological education especially with recent immigrants. Leaders of congregations come,

00:37:34.740 - 00:37:50.760

teams of leaders come, congregants come because the boundaries between leaders and congregates are often pretty fluid in these growing churches, families come together all for theological education . Now, Maria herself has a rich and complex

00:37:50.760 - 00:38:05.670

personal formation, the new york raised child of parents with roots in Hong kong who maintained an audio mission to overseas chinese communities, Taiwan and mainland china over many years. In many formats, they were faithful

00:38:05.670 - 00:38:19.870

from cassettes to digital. Still are Maria, she is at least bi cultural, also has a doctorate from Colombia. She is profoundly faithful and more than a little savvy and she is immersed in the vision

00:38:19.870 - 00:38:32.080

of her seminary. So one of the privileges I had was to get to over here a conversation between her and a very smart, faithful grant officer of a foundation with roots and liberal protestantism, it should

00:38:32.080 - 00:38:45.170

be said, not that foundation that has supported so much of my own work, but another one, the officer was trying to understand what they did at City Seminary. So she said people come to you

00:38:45.180 - 00:38:59.740

and they get a degree. No Maria said we don't currently offer a degree program but we have one in the works, we have a non degree certificate program in urban Ministry and we offer lots of conferences

00:38:59.740 - 00:39:15.100

on topics people care about. Okay, the officer said, but they come to you to get some kind of certification that lets them serve in ministry. No Maria said, well they do get a certificate

00:39:15.100 - 00:39:27.580

but most of our people are already serving in ministry . Okay? But the education they get with you lets them move to a better job. No, not necessarily. Most of them stay in the same

00:39:27.580 - 00:39:40.430

job, but they do it with a deeper sense of vocation but they get a raise. No, no, not usually they just keep going. So then there is this moment of exasperation, I can

00:39:40.430 - 00:39:53.940

see, I can see the grand officer at the end of her rope and she says, so why do people go to city to city seminary? And Maria says because they want to know more about jesus

00:39:54.520 - 00:40:13.900

and how is present in the city? It was a long silence after that answer, Maria was not trying to be cheeky, it was not a sarcastic response, it was not a condescending response. In

00:40:13.900 - 00:40:22.420

a way the question was as much a puzzle to her as she was to the grant officer. She was just answering it. Why do they come? Because I want to know more about jesus, why

00:40:22.420 - 00:40:38.140

else would anyone ever do this? Do you have other motives? We can be so steeped in model limb that it is very difficult for us even to imagine any motives for students or any modes for schools

00:40:38.150 - 00:40:54.550

beyond professional preparation, because they want to know more about jesus. That's not a day job, that's not a means to some other end, even a means to some other very good end. That's life

00:40:54.550 - 00:41:13.190

itself and life abundant knowledge. What kind of knowledge should theological education cultivate? And here I will just give you this one charming. I hope you'll hear echoes of jerry's reading of Gregory in your mind.

00:41:13.320 - 00:41:25.550

You already know. Model limbs, answer the prevailing model directs that theological education should give students knowledge that can be useful. That can be a resource for a career in leading religious ish institutions that work for

00:41:25.550 - 00:41:39.650

the transformation of the world. As I said yesterday . Other models survive, especially an older ideal of classical learning. Hebrews in the house that comes from 19th century seminary traditions and a vision shaft like ideal

00:41:39.650 - 00:41:53.580

of knowledge for its own sake. That comes from faculty formation and graduate programs and academic guilds. Now the bargains that get made between these models give us the structure of the curriculum that prevails in most model

00:41:53.580 - 00:42:07.940

m schools, bible history, systematic theology and maybe a few other fields. They're taught in a mixture of classical and Byzantine catholic styles, both for the kind of cultivation of learning for a learned person and

00:42:07.940 - 00:42:21.520

also a cultivation of knowledge, research knowledge for its own sake. But this is done with an eye to their utility for ministry, which is most fully realized in the so called practical fields, which are

00:42:21.520 - 00:42:37.980

closely tied to particular tasks performed by a certain kind of protestant minister. So classical and vision shaft will acknowledge get applied and so in the end, more or less integrated into model. Ems functional is um

00:42:37.990 - 00:42:45.720

, sound like a curriculum. We know, I mean, I don't know. Austin's curriculum sounds like a lot of curriculums. I know now this model has been criticized from many different angles. I want

00:42:45.720 - 00:43:00.200

to surface just two of those criticisms here. The first is my broken record. This application model makes theological knowledge. It makes even the bible instrumental. It makes it a means to other ends and so

00:43:00.200 - 00:43:15.390

distorts it at its core. Even right content, even good content. The best content known and used in wrong ways goes wrong. It's not about what's taught, it's about how it's inscribed in a larger

00:43:15.480 - 00:43:24.090

web of meaning. The second criticism is also familiar . None of this original to me, but it's not what I've been saying to you over and over for the last two days, so it might feel

00:43:24.090 - 00:43:39.760

new. And that's this model neglects the role of practice in generating theological knowledge. Those of you who are pastors know this. The practice of ministry is not just a formless void to which you apply what

00:43:39.760 - 00:43:52.350

you learned in seminary. Eat it, laughter is appropriate. Yeah, it is itself. And this came out in one of the questions in the round table yesterday. A couple of them. I think

00:43:52.360 - 00:44:06.630

ministry is itself a sight of the redeeming work of God. And because it is a site of the redeeming work of God, it is a place where theological reflection is required and called forth. It is

00:44:06.630 - 00:44:23.310

a place where deep theological learning takes place, practical or practice rather can generate theological wisdom, recall here Gregory on the active life of serving the neighbor, I think these critiques together suggests that we should cultivate

00:44:23.310 - 00:44:34.220

theological wisdom that is. And here here's a motto . I'd love for you to take away. If if we were at saddleback, I'd say, write it down, write practical, but not pre professional

00:44:35.390 - 00:44:47.450

theological wisdom that is practical, but not pre professional , practical, but not instrumental. This is distinct from what I would call the vulgar pragmatism that can mark model M but it is also distinct from the

00:44:47.450 - 00:45:04.530

knowledge for its own sake of the vision. Shafik alternative practical, but not pre professional. Such knowledge can involve intensive study, even intensive study of texts , just as a Gregory and Benedict knew. But

00:45:04.530 - 00:45:15.170

this work is framed not as a pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, nor even as the cultivation of a certain kind of character as in the classical ideal, But as a search for God as it

00:45:15.170 - 00:45:30.380

was for Benedict and Gregory, it is itself a practice reading hebrew then can become a practice and it is pursued in conjunction with other practices of prayer, charity work for justice, proclamation of the word,

00:45:30.550 - 00:45:40.420

celebration of sacraments, care of souls and more. A quick aside, if you want to know where , where all this connects with work for justice, I'd say it's a flip of model M and model

00:45:40.420 - 00:45:52.090

. Um you learn stuff here that then let theological stuff that then guides you in your work for justice for the transformation in the world. But then the work for transformation in the world. It's not a

00:45:52.090 - 00:46:01.380

site where you learn anything, it's just a place where you apply the real knowledge that you already got here. What if you turn that around? What if you say, do you want to be able

00:46:01.380 - 00:46:20.660

to read the book of job? You want to then then spend years spend years working trying to get people to understand that Black lives matter. That is a generative source of theological wisdom. It comes in

00:46:20.660 - 00:46:31.880

a way prior to the study, then you study right and then oh these texts make sense. You want to be able to read the psalms, do things that will make you some enemies, wow.

00:46:31.890 - 00:46:46.730

Now you can read the songs right? Ah you want to be able to read Gregory as well as jerry does serve as a pastor. And now this rule for pastors lights up in a different kind of

00:46:46.730 - 00:47:00.800

way. Now it doesn't say, it only moves in that way. But what it does is say that the practice itself is generative of theological wisdom Puts the two back I think into a right relationship.

00:47:01.080 - 00:47:15.720

The word, What does this look like? The word tangles up my late modern presbyterian tongue. But jerry's already said it so I I can say it . Theological education might even be pursued as a practice

00:47:15.730 - 00:47:30.120

of holiness. Let me tell you another story about what I mean. one of the participants in the consultation at Howard it was a man who is a leader in the Ethiopian Orthodox church in the D.

00:47:30.120 - 00:47:39.080

C. Baltimore area. And the only reason I I don't use his name is that I haven't been able to contact him since I wrote this by email and I don't want to quote him without. Uh

00:47:39.090 - 00:47:53.350

so let it be anonymized. This is the largest Ethiopian Orthodox community outside of Ethiopia. He is thinking a lot about theological education these days because the current generation of priests and his tradition were trained in Ethiopia

00:47:53.360 - 00:48:06.270

and they were trained in a manner that stretches back for centuries Millennia. When I asked him to tell me about his own theological education, he said, well you know, first I moved in with a

00:48:06.270 - 00:48:23.830

holy man in the desert, I did his chores . Then I memorized the psalms And the four gospels and the book of Isaiah, the 5th Gospel, he said. Then he studied Petrus sticks but not

00:48:23.830 - 00:48:37.720

his history as theology, memorizing a lot of this too. And he learned gets the ancient language of the liturgy. And in his final year as the culmination of his studies, he learned the postures for

00:48:37.720 - 00:48:49.890

public and private prayer. The pinnacle is how you hold your body. The challenge now, he said , is how they are going to raise up the next generation of priests. The young people don't always

00:48:49.890 - 00:49:02.100

want to go to Ethiopia. Imagine that their parents are not so sure they want them to go. And he said, they would not even know how to sit in a holy Man's house if they did

00:49:02.100 - 00:49:15.560

go. I remember saying they couldn't even get started . You have to understand, he said. For us, the holiness of the priest is all without holiness. There is nothing. Well, I was

00:49:15.560 - 00:49:27.340

like, well, let's talk about that. But and and and how he says, though, will we raise up holy priests? Should we start a school? And then he just laughed and laughed.

00:49:27.350 - 00:49:38.950

Deep belly laughs as if this were the silliest idea in the world that a school could impart holiness. And he knows schools. He has a demon from a good one, but he also know he knows

00:49:38.950 - 00:49:52.650

what they can do, but he also knows their limits. And he thought the idea of a school promoting holiness, the kind of holiness he's talking about . It was just a category mistake. It was

00:49:52.650 - 00:50:08.110

like a duck teaching calculus. It's just does it have to be like that? I think it all depends on the kind of knowledge that we seek to generate and share. It depends on the kind of

00:50:08.110 - 00:50:21.860

knowledge, the kind of wisdom that the school prizes the question, and i it might have already formed in some of your minds. The question is not whether we should have a learned clergy, of course

00:50:21.860 - 00:50:39.620

, the church needs and deserves demands. A learned clergy. The question is what kind of learning that clergy should have, and a professional degree does not exhaust the possibilities. In fact, as my friend

00:50:39.620 - 00:50:54.960

knows, and he is as learned a clergy person as I have ever met, multiple, modern and ancient languages, with big chunks of the bible, memorized a deep knowledge of christian theology and profound bodily

00:50:54.960 - 00:51:10.940

wisdom. Is this not a learned clergy person? Can you show me an ATS graduate who is so much better than it would call that whole tradition into question as he knows a professional education? It's not

00:51:10.940 - 00:51:30.260

just that it can't teach everything is that it makes some kinds of learning very difficult. Indeed, it actively opposes, actively blocks some kinds of learning. And here, I want to add just as a

00:51:30.270 - 00:51:44.470

placeholder that the real question before us is not about the meaning of a learned clergy. The real question before us is the meaning of a learned church. And here, I want to add just as a

00:51:44.470 - 00:52:02.760

placeholder checks, I can't cash today, but I think an emphasis on holiness could fit with the desire of students and the modes of leadership that are necessary in an age of authenticity, not by accepting authenticity

00:52:02.770 - 00:52:22.840

uncritically, but by taking it in and transforming it , letting it die as the ideology that it is and be reborn as something that is really alive Alright , relations to higher education, All of these make

00:52:22.840 - 00:52:37.290

me uncomfortable. This one is excruciating for me. What kind of relationship should theological education have to the sector of society and the economy that is known as higher education? This question plays out in an obvious

00:52:37.300 - 00:52:50.900

and immediate way on the campuses of research universities that have schools of theology that have divinity schools, What could justify the inclusion of a school of theology as part of a modern research university? Really concretely,

00:52:50.910 - 00:53:02.670

for real, what reason can we give a provost for our ongoing existence? But this question, it's concrete, I think, on a university campus, but it is in play for every kind of theological

00:53:02.670 - 00:53:15.920

school, because it's a question about our basic self understanding. And it is a question that is especially acute now, as higher education becomes more and more wary about religion. In fact, I'd say one

00:53:15.920 - 00:53:29.860

of the few places that classical secularization theory is very accurate is in the modern Western academy Model. M has an answer to this question that has stood up for more than 200 years. It was forged in

00:53:29.860 - 00:53:43.770

the new and reformed German universities that became the template for research universities around the globe. Following Immanuel Kant Friedrich Schiller Marker argued that theology could have a place in the University of Berlin, but it should not

00:53:43.770 - 00:53:58.330

be grouped with the so called lower faculties that did basic research for theological knowledge did not meet the standard for such work. It should rather have its place among the so called higher faculties of law and medicine

00:53:58.340 - 00:54:07.390

and in case you think this is a promotion, just remember that content slider marker are putting philosophy among the lower faculties, right? That's, that's where the real prestige is. But you can have these

00:54:07.390 - 00:54:22.480

so called higher faculties around to as applied professional disciplines . So theology had a place in the Modern Research University as applied knowledge, That model carried over to the United States, where theological schools came to be

00:54:22.480 - 00:54:37.150

primarily professional schools. Remember that transition I was talking about that happened right around the turn of the last century. As professional schools, Theological schools can justify their existence through the social significance of their work.

00:54:37.250 - 00:54:49.360

The argument goes like this. Hey, whether you believe what they believe or not, religious institutions really matter, they're an important part of our society. Therefore it matters that they have good leadership. You

00:54:49.360 - 00:55:00.100

wouldn't want a bunch of crazy fundamentalists leading these things , would you? The university therefore has an interest in training people for this kind of leadership, just as it has an interest in training people for leadership

00:55:00.100 - 00:55:13.590

and professions like law, medicine and social work. After all, one, not one need not believe the law is just in order to believe that it matters, so to one need not believe that what

00:55:13.590 - 00:55:27.330

churches or synagogues or mosques or temples believe is true , in order to believe that they matter as social institutions. Now, this is the core justification that is offered for the study of theology, not not

00:55:27.330 - 00:55:39.960

religion, which can be assimilated to the social sciences or history and sometimes literature. But I mean theology , this is the core justification for the study of theology on every research university campus that I know it

00:55:39.960 - 00:55:54.260

is usually not the preferred justification of the faculty. It might not fit our self conceptions, but in the end, it is the one that makes the theological school possible. It fits the provost self conception

00:55:54.740 - 00:56:06.030

, and it is this, but it's not again here. It it's not just on the university campus . This is all of theological education. This is also the case we make to the state, which

00:56:06.030 - 00:56:22.770

guarantees the loans which keep this whole system afloat right ? It shapes the relationship of theological education to the whole sector of higher education. You can already sense the problem. Schleicher markers, plan won a place

00:56:22.770 - 00:56:36.760

for theology in the modern university, but it did so at the cost of claims to truth, because the case now depends on the utility of theological knowledge . It allows one to be agnostic about the truth

00:56:36.770 - 00:56:54.230

of whatever theology has to say that bracketing of the true for the sake of the useful, that instrumental Izing of theological truth for the sake of social impact . That argument for how theological education fits with higher

00:56:54.230 - 00:57:15.040

education, that matches exactly the logic of model limb . We trace those steps through for you again, that bracketing of the true for the sake of the useful that instrumental Izing a theological truth for the sake

00:57:15.040 - 00:57:27.450

of social impact. Why this stuff really matters, is because it will let you change the world. This is the logic of model M and this is the logic of a professional school within the university.

00:57:27.830 - 00:57:45.700

So this is how theological education understands and is understood by higher education in its relationship to the sector. So, if we were to move away from model m, how would we define the relationship between theological

00:57:45.700 - 00:58:01.160

education and higher education? Now, I'm convinced we could hold on for a while, probably until I retire by becoming to higher education, something like what the appendix is to the body, a relic of

00:58:01.160 - 00:58:16.840

an evolutionary road, not taken, not necessary, but not really that dangerous and very costly to remove . We could hang on like an appendix, but of course, the real reason to get this right

00:58:17.420 - 00:58:30.770

is not to win the approval of some hypothetical provost , but to figure out what it is that we are doing. And so we need a better answer , then let's be an appendix. Maybe that answer

00:58:30.770 - 00:58:51.440

comes through expanding the sense of what counts as professional education. Maybe it means making it schools of practical christian wisdom might play out in lots of different ministries . Maybe it would look something like an alliance and

00:58:51.440 - 00:59:01.810

here, I think in the universities especially, it might look like something of an alliance with the critical humanities. The humanities are gasping for their place in the modern university to right, don't don't know how

00:59:01.810 - 00:59:17.790

to make their case. So this critical humanity's movement , maybe we could we could align with that. Or maybe it would mean moving to a somewhat more distant relationship to accredited higher education the way it's practiced

00:59:17.930 - 00:59:34.530

in research universities, it might mean saying actually, that's not the primary category under which we should be considered. We're a fun, we're not a subset of higher education were a fundamentally different kind of enterprise

00:59:36.820 - 00:59:49.680

. I think we've got to be asking questions like these right now, What I've called model em has been under intensive intellectual pressure since at least the 1980s , which saw Edward Farley's stinging critique. I've already

00:59:49.680 - 00:00:00.000

referenced it of the clerical paradigm, and then the great wave of thoughtful work that arose in response, but the model remained entrenched. I think those critiques didn't succeed in large part because there were no material

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

reasons to change. No school really had to change , but there are plenty of material reasons to change now. Schools are going to change. We are going to move to new models of theological education in

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

the coming decades. I don't know what they are , and as I've argued before, the changing ecology arounds us means that even those of us who keep doing what we're doing will be doing something new.

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

So my hope is that these lectures have given the questions before us a little more clarity and a little more urgency, but most of all, I hope they have filled you with confidence. Theological education has

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

changed many times over the centuries. If model um passes away, or if it becomes transformed as a minority report, theological education will continue, it will continue, not because we will get the answers to

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

these questions right. It will continue because God desires to be known. It will continue because God has promised that the days are surely coming when we shall all know God, from the least of us to

00:00:00.000 - 00:00:00.000

the greatest, for God will forgive our iniquity and