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Thank you President Wardlaw, you know, you're nervous when you're in the pulpit, but you're even more nervous when they put up a screen and then behind it or your colleagues. So this kind of creates

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schrodinger's cat kind of thing to think about during the Mhm. The task of giving a convocation talk is daunting. On the one hand, you were asked to say things of some general importance. Otherwise I

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would show you pictures of my granddaughter who is charming . On the other hand, you are asked to say something that is of interest to the particular audience gathered here this morning in Shelton Chapel in about a

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half an hour. You will have drawn conclusions about at least the second part of my assignment, I want to talk this morning about whiteness and social class in the context of mainline seminaries in north America.

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I begin with two initial observations. The first is that the reform tradition within Christianity wants to transform society . Our academic Dean Dave Jensen wrote in 2015 about this impulse within reform Christianity. When writing about spirituality

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, the reformed faith, he wrote stress is a paradox human beings are to use Calvin's language totally depraved , yet they are called to be agents of transformation and grace in a broken world. Reform spirituality thus

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never gives up on the world or seeks to escape it in a more nearly perfect world of the church this very political year, Anyone with an internet connection in our country cannot help but notice that the american

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political left, right and center agree society needs to be transformed senator, self avowed democratic, socialist and insurgent presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has been out to create a political revolution, one that will transform our country

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economically, politically, socially and environmentally, the Republican nominee for president. Business mogul Donald J Trump also agrees that there's a lot of work to be done to fix what is broken in America. According to

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his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in july , our country is more or less in a shambles , but by electing him, we can make America great again, not to be outdone glass ceiling shattering

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. Democratic presidential nominee. Hillary Rodman Clinton also wants to be known as a change maker. So my first completely unclear for observation is 2016 is a year in which many of us, whether Christians or not

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are concerned with transformation. My 2nd observation is this americans struggle to have productive conversations about race and class . The number of times that black men are killed or shot by the police with no evidence of officers

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feeling under threat seems almost beyond counting The killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri in 2015 sparked a level of public frustration regarding the way that state power As concretize in the 18,000 plus law enforcement

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agencies in the United States is experienced by persons of color in the social media. This frustration has expressed itself through a series of memes first black lives Matter , and then in an apparently innocent aristotelian move from

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the specific to the general All lives matter. And then more recently, yet in response to the intentional targeting of police in Dallas and baton Rouge. Blue Lives Matter. Now, I dare say that no

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one in the chapel this morning is surprised by my contention that americans have difficulty in speaking about race. White people though seem to have a free pass As Toni Morrison noted in 1991. In this country,

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american means white and africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after a hyphen. But my further point here is about the difficulty we have in talking about social class, as

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more than one observer has noted the fact that americans don't talk about class is a key element of how the class system works. Now. You all know the favorite term to describe americans. We are all

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middle class or are we? The term is used very imprecisely in the context of people having vastly different amounts of money, but the concept of class is not exclusively about one's personal income or household wealth.

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Social class involves practices, perceptions and attitudes that are considered normal for a given social group. Pablo Picasso allegedly remarked that he never wanted to be a rich person, He just wanted to be a peasant with

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lots of money. Mm he he might be onto something there. Now class shows itself in a myriad of ways the Swiss Army knives really, you know , I was issued by the Swiss Army. Two

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enlisted men had a bottle opener because soldiers drink beer . The model of Swiss Army knife for officers had a corkscrew because officers drink wine, encouraging your child to take banjo lessons and not violin lessons is an

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expression of social class. Now I want to talk this morning about race and class and theological education in the context of predominantly white denominations and predominantly white seminaries . I've chosen to address this topic for three reasons

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. First, there is clearly a national shouting match going on about race and class, witness the occupy movement. Now I call it a conversation, but that implies a level of listening and dialogue that often

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are missing. 2nd, I believe that churches and their institutions seminaries in particular can make a contribution to improve american society so that it more fully shows the signs of justice and peace that God wills for all

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of us. And third issues of race and class are with us every day here on this campus. They are present in the classroom when we're having discussions , they are present when we post on social media

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and they are present when we talk about money, I'm going to make three main points in my talk first, progressive white christians have a problem with whiteness and with social class. Second, mainline seminaries can

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make a contribution to discussions about race and class. & 3rd, and finally, I want to say a little bit more about what that contribution might look like because I think that the main purpose of seminaries

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is to train church leaders. My suggestion will be frames in terms of the explicit curriculum of schools. So 0.1, progressive christians have a problem when it comes to whiteness and social class. Let me begin

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with the definition of terms I learned in Evil Doctors school. That that's always a good way to frame your argument. Is to begin with the definition of terms by progressive christians. I mean many perhaps most

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members of denominations like the Presbyterian Church, Usa, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ , the Episcopal Church, and my own denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. These denominations share

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a set of common affirmations regarding the dignity of all human beings as bearers of God's image. They also share a set of affirmations about the need to analyze social structures and not just individual conduct for conformity to

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God's will for creation. All of these churches affirm that women can and should be in leadership positions in church and society. They believe racism is wrong, as demonstrated again recently by the action of the General

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Assembly of the PC USA this year, which finished actions needed to add the bell har confession to the denominations book of confessions, with the exception of the United Methodist Church. All of these denominations also are

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glbt Q. Affirming that is all of these denominations affirm the dignity and aspirations of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and queer persons on a par with the dignity and aspirations of others. It is also

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the case that these progressive denominations are overwhelmingly white. Despite working to become more welcoming to persons of color , there is an emerging literature about whiteness and white privilege. Theologians and others are noticing that part of

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the problem with entrenched racism in the United States is the fact that white people often think that their phenotype is the normal or default setting for human beings and that persons of color are somehow variations. Being told

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that white is a color in this sense, or the very fact, or that the very fact of being white confers certain advantages comes as a shock. Robin Dangelo has coined the term white fragility to refer

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to the discomfort that white people may feel when issues of race are voiced, even in seemingly rather innocuous ways, helping white people identify their whiteness is important work. My point in particular, though, relates

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to the intersection of both whiteness and social class. That other thing, americans don't like to talk about . Progressive christians have a problem connecting with white people who do not share their liberal political views and who

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do not share the progressive theological views. In other words, progressive christians have a problem with connecting to white folks who do not share the same social class . Here's what I mean. Text sample for many

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years, a professor at ST Paul's School of Theology has written extensively about the difficulty that mainstream christians have relating to what he calls hard living people people without much formal education. People whose jobs are low paying

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and low status. In the introduction to his book Hard living people and mainstream christians, he wrote, I once addressed a group of 50 mainstream pastors from a good size denomination parenthesis. He means Methodists.

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Mhm. I told them of my research and ask if any of their churches included hard living people. You're asking the wrong denomination. Someone said those are not our people. The fact that those are not

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our people bears more analysis than I can undertake here in his research sample discovered that working class white folks often engage in practices of resistance against middle and upper class people. These practices of resistance include doing the

00:15:05.190 - 00:15:28.100

bare minimum on the job, intentionally using profanity around creatures and driving pickup trucks. Another of these practices is carrying guns. So, to summarize my first point, progressive christians do not connect well with working

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class whites for a couple of reasons. First, dealing with whiteness itself is a problem and second, acknowledging differences of social class is a problem. So now we're moving to my second point, that probably

00:15:43.880 - 00:16:03.380

means I'm a third of the way done. Mm . Yes. So my second point is that main line theological seminaries, which are affiliated with overwhelmingly white denominations, can contribute positively to discussions about race and

00:16:03.380 - 00:16:22.520

class. These schools can train leaders who are competent to cross the cultural divides that separate many white progressive christians from hard living, working class white people doing this work is the job of seminaries, because seminaries

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are part of the credentialing and gatekeeping process in the churches students, you know what this means? They are part of the process through which a layperson aspiring to church leadership, moves like Dante from hell to

00:16:47.510 - 00:17:15.380

purgatory to the paradise which is ordination. Okay, I'm glad that there are Dante fans in the audience . Now doing this work is also the job of seminaries because seminary's actually do change students, whatever else

00:17:15.380 - 00:17:36.900

the theological education is, it is set of carefully crafted experiences that systematically d center students from some of their assumptions about God race, class and christian community and then move students to more complex set of understandings

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about self church culture and leadership. So are there any brand new students here? Would you please self identify by raising your raising your hand? Okay, so to all you new incoming students, I say

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this please fasten your seatbelts and make sure that your tray tables are in the locked and upright position. There will be turbulence to put it another way if newly minted white pastors are to know that they have

00:18:14.430 - 00:18:30.770

white privilege and that they are bound up in societal and denominational structures that often reproduce such privilege. And if they are to be motivated to be agents of transformation consistent with the teachings of their churches, these

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desired outcomes will happen because seminaries have been part of the conscientious ization of students. Now, at this point, I want to anticipate a plausible objection and I'm sure behind the screen, three or four of

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my colleagues are writing a note to this effect right now and the plausible objection goes like this. Surely progressive seminaries know about the tangled problems of race and class. You can't swing a dead cat at an

00:19:10.120 - 00:19:29.550

academic meeting without knocking over people on their way to a discussion of race and class and gender. It's kind of what we do. So I'm sure that theological schools are already addressing these issues. This is

00:19:29.550 - 00:19:48.010

a great objection and it activated in me what is sometimes referred to as the librarian, jean? Yeah , there's no shame in it. So I went to the World Wide Web and I downloaded all the

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academic catalogs from all the seminaries at all the Pc US affiliated schools and I looked at him. I discovered that seminaries vary widely in how much explicit attention they pay to social class and race in their curricula

00:20:07.540 - 00:20:23.740

. When I looked at academic catalogs for the keyword , race and racism in course descriptions, I found there was a range. The range was from one seminary that had zero courses with those words in the

00:20:23.740 - 00:20:42.670

title to another seminary. At the other end of the spectrum, which had 11 Courses open to empty of students that had race or racism in the title and the median number of courses per seminary was two

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. So half of the schools had less than two courses and half had more than two. So I take it that some had one which is the loneliest number. Yeah, or zero. Well, I

00:21:07.370 - 00:21:26.400

said, this is exciting. I looked through all the catalogs for words related to social class in course descriptions and I found a range from zero two, seven and the median number of courses, which I

00:21:26.400 - 00:21:49.550

found was one. So because this is the median , this means that half of schools had less than one course explicitly talking about social class. I also found a total of four courses that use the term

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white or whiteness in course descriptions. One such course contrasted the work of white feminists to women, ist and motorists to theologians. Another course at a different seminary mentioned white privilege in the context of critical race

00:22:07.390 - 00:22:22.670

theory. A sidebar Brother Bodman, I'm going to use your name in vain here. One of the benefits that looking at so many seminary catalogs is I came across a lot of very interesting course titles.

00:22:26.640 - 00:22:44.990

Professor Bodman teaches a course with a snappy title of murder, Mayhem and betrayal. Yeah. And I give it the silver medal, but I award the gold medal for course titles in courses at PC USA

00:22:44.990 - 00:23:10.550

schools. To this course, Jesus has peasant organiser , urban trickster, rainforest, shaman and hip hop profit. I bet there's a waiting list for that course. Okay. Mhm. To summarize the data

00:23:11.340 - 00:23:26.710

according to the course descriptions and academic catalogs at PC USA affiliated schools for the last academic year. Yes . Some attention is paid to race in class in the curriculum. Now, I freely recognize that my

00:23:26.710 - 00:23:41.860

way of documenting the level of attention paid to these important themes undercounts the amount of discourse that actually goes on at Pc USA schools. I freely admit that . And there's probably a foot note here that says

00:23:41.860 - 00:24:03.230

that too. But here's my point when half the schools have two or fewer courses discussing race and half have one course that talks about social class. I suggest that there is some room for improvement. There

00:24:03.230 - 00:24:18.000

is room for improvement. It seems to me, even at schools which have declared that they are anti racist or whose student populations contain a higher proportion of persons of color than does the Pc USA as a

00:24:18.000 - 00:24:34.270

whole. Also want to point out, I'm not picking on the Pc USA. I just got tired of looking at course catalogs and I'm confident if I did this for Elka schools or um see schools that

00:24:34.820 - 00:24:53.660

the results would be similar. If anyone wants a student worker job, I'll let you do that for me this far. Mm. Okay. I obviously nervous because I'm using humor to deflect serious content.

00:24:55.940 - 00:25:11.830

So let's refocus. My second point is that mainline seminaries can contribute to a discussion about whiteness and social class and they might be able to do a little bit more so part three. What might a little

00:25:11.830 - 00:25:38.010

bit more look like first? I think seminaries should place students and ministry settings with various social classes of white people, including poor whites. Graduates of mainline seminaries consistently say that field placement experiences are very important

00:25:38.010 - 00:25:56.270

to their training. When asked, for instance, about the three most important influences on educational experience at seminary experiences in ministry consistently our number one far and away at all, mainline schools, including ours.

00:25:56.140 - 00:26:12.180

Now, graduates of these schools say field placement is helpful for three reasons. One, it increases vocational clarity helps people figure out if they want to work in a congregational setting or not to. It increases

00:26:12.180 - 00:26:32.330

their skill in pastoral arts, students are given a chance to go on mission trips and to preach and so on. Finally, students say that placement in ministry settings increases their understanding of the actual needs of

00:26:32.340 - 00:26:53.230

people, so seminary's can improve the way that they address whiteness and class privilege by increasing the number of opportunities that they provide for students to be with a wide variety of white folks. Second seminary's should take

00:26:53.230 - 00:27:14.210

notice of the rise of the so called gun culture . In texas, concealed carrying of handguns is authorized by law, and the State Legislature has even insisted that concealed handguns be allowed on public college and university

00:27:14.220 - 00:27:33.040

campuses, private colleges and houses of worship may opt out of these requirements by posting the appropriate signs. And as you know, this is a weapons free campus at seminary texas monthly, the posh magazine which

00:27:33.040 - 00:27:55.410

builds itself in good texas fashion as the national magazine of texas, Devoted most of its April 2016 issue two guns, the editors said in an introductory essay , no issue is more divisive in America right now

00:27:55.420 - 00:28:11.640

than guns. There are few agnostics on the topic . You are either a gun person or you're not . And with the increasing frequency of mass shootings and especially since 20 Children were killed in Newtown Connecticut in

00:28:11.640 - 00:28:37.450

2012, most americans views on the subject have only hardened in mixed company, you're now wiser to discuss politics or religion. Mhm. Now gun culture is appealing to different people for complex reasons. Subscribers to

00:28:37.460 - 00:28:57.770

gun and garden magazine, for instance, are also probably not going to be subscribers of Combat handguns or prepper and shooter magazine. The gun culture is distinctive to the United States as his constitutional protection of the

00:28:57.770 - 00:29:15.170

right to bear and keep arms overturning long established legal president. In our century, the Supreme Court has ruled that the right to bear arms is an individual right which must be honored by all levels of government

00:29:17.440 - 00:29:37.090

. Now analysis of gun culture also surely encompasses understanding the harm that guns do to people. Yeah, discussion about approaches to curtail gun violence is passionate. Policy approaches that will decrease the killing of innocent people

00:29:37.270 - 00:30:00.820

, require patients becoming aware of new information, discussion and nuance sometimes lost in discussions of gun violence is the empirical finding that most people in America who die from guns have committed suicide. I think theologians and

00:30:00.820 - 00:30:19.240

pastors need to show the same diligence and nuance in thinking about gun culture as elected officials and policy makers . My suggestion that seminaries talk about gun culture is consistent with the call issued by the General Assembly of

00:30:19.240 - 00:30:41.660

the Presbyterian Church USA in 2010. In its resolution gun violence, Gospel values mobilizing in response to God's call. My point here is that theological seminaries should be talking to students about gun violence and gun culture

00:30:41.240 - 00:31:04.480

. Professors should be talking about these issues in classes on a systematic basis. I have one more suggestion . Seminary should establish a graduation requirement that students demonstrate critical awareness of their own social locations, including white

00:31:04.480 - 00:31:26.360

privilege, in the case of white students, such competency is a more demanding goal than the promotion of tolerance or celebrating multiculturalism. I become convinced by thinkers like Audrey, Lorde, Peggy, McIntosh and Ruth

00:31:26.360 - 00:31:41.290

Frankenberg. That approach is to issue of race, which focus primarily on multiculturalism, just don't get to the heart of the matter. Instead, we are better served by thinking through the rich set of factors

00:31:41.290 - 00:32:02.810

and contexts that make a human being who she is through stronger concepts like intersectionality, intersectionality, posits that human persons are simultaneously persons with a gender identity, a socially constructed race, a social class, religious

00:32:02.810 - 00:32:22.380

beliefs, political views, favorite football teams and opinions about whether or not real barbecue uses pork or beef . It's all going on at the same time and I won't say more about that or we will all

00:32:22.390 - 00:32:42.930

miss lunch maybe on the face of it. My suggestions may not sound especially theological. The reason I think lies in the nature of our problem, in how to respond faithfully to race and class in our

00:32:42.930 - 00:33:04.610

current american context. We've fallen and redeemed american christians are not primarily confused about the nature of sin. What grace means or what is justice, the majestic to boy of christian theology. Instead, I think

00:33:04.610 - 00:33:24.360

we need help overcoming the naturalness of an everyday, always already life world for bourgeois, white progressive christians are problems are about the logs in our own white eyes. The master's tools are not up to this

00:33:24.410 - 00:33:42.030

task. Before I conclude, let me recapitulate my main points. I have argued that progressive white christians have a problem relating to some white people, in part because of the way that social class and whiteness

00:33:42.030 - 00:33:59.560

operate. Moreover, I've argued that white mainline seminaries can make genuine contributions to discussions of race and class , because of the key roles that theological schools play in credentialing and shaping church leaders. And finally,

00:33:59.940 - 00:34:16.890

I have proposed three meddlesome ways that theological schools might change in order to further diminish the deleterious effects of racism and class privilege, and to all the students in the audience. This morning, I say you

00:34:16.890 - 00:34:37.690

should be actively asking questions about race and class during your theological education here. That's why we take your money. In conclusion, I want to offer to signs of hope. The first comes from my own

00:34:37.690 - 00:34:54.130

denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Like other mainline churches, my denomination is working to be more hospitable to persons of color, immigrants and the growing number of persons who fall under the broad umbrella

00:34:54.140 - 00:35:15.570

of spiritual but not religious. The CIA has established a working group for ethnic specific and multicultural ministries. There are seven of them. They serve the following groups. African descent, including african american, afro

00:35:15.570 - 00:35:40.570

caribbean and African nationals. American indians and Alaska natives , arab and Middle eastern asian and pacific islands, latino cross cultural conversations. Now, these six emphasis are probably not all that surprising. Here's the 7th

00:35:40.570 - 00:36:01.750

emphasis, european american. This ministry seeks to involve european descent members of the alka and partners of other ethnicities in being visible and active as anti racist witnesses for multicultural church. Now, I think this is

00:36:01.750 - 00:36:22.570

a sign of hope. It's hoped that important cultural dimensions of our lives are not alighted or erased. Maybe all christians are hyphenated, even if all americans are not. 2nd sign of hope is the commitments

00:36:22.570 - 00:36:38.420

of faculty who teach at mainline seminaries. I've been conducting research about the conceptual maps that faculty members have in their heads as they teach future ministers at the four main line schools that are part of my study

00:36:38.570 - 00:36:57.830

, I found remarkable agreement about what professors are trying to do when they go about their job. As faculty members teaching students At the heart of their teaching professors strive to do four things They want to shape

00:36:57.840 - 00:37:16.200

pastoral character. They want to sharpen and develop skills for word and sacrament ministry skills in teaching and preaching and worship. They want to help students become competent in nurture, such as caring for members and equipping

00:37:16.200 - 00:37:37.840

them for christian service. And finally, they want to shape graduates with daring graduates should be leaders, they should be engaged in outreach to their community and world beyond the setting of the parish or congregation now

00:37:38.430 - 00:37:58.370

, unless these findings appear trivial or obvious. Let me point out that I've interviewed dozens of professors at this point and no one I've interviewed has said, all I do is teach bible or church history or

00:37:58.370 - 00:38:15.540

worship. Everyone talks about teaching their discipline in the context of shaping competent ministers. If I'm correct, that race and class are part of the way in which human beings make their way in the world,

00:38:15.490 - 00:38:36.530

then these dimensions of intersectionality impinged on character, ministry and word and sacrament the nurture of others and daring leadership. In short, I am hopeful that mainline seminary faculty want to be part of a transformational dialogue

00:38:36.530 - 00:38:50.040

about social class and race, and not by standards . As our vice president of student affairs and vocation , Jackie Saxon might say, it's our job.