EMAIL THIS PAGE
PRINT
RSS
So in addition to discussing postmodern movies and their meaning, the conversation included the future of seminary education. What kind of training will tomorrow’s church leaders need? I suggested that seminaries must shift from their emphasis from information to interpretation. In a culture of abundance, ministers must equip their congregations to sort through an avalanche of information. How do we sort out the miraculous from the mundance, the essential from the ephemeral?
I told Scott McClellan, the sharp editor of Collide, “It’s moving the seminary education from pastor as most informed to pastor as most insightful because people no longer have an information problem. It’s not about lack of information. It’s about lack of discernment. Information is available to all. Wisdom and discernment remain rarer than ever.” So what would a revised curriculum look like? If you were starting a seminary today, what would an essential education include? You can preview the conversation here. The rest of the interview will appear in Collide's July/August issue.
|
Comments
Craig-
I love your question, "If you were starting a seminary today, what would an essential education include?"
As a seminary graduate, I'll be honest with you in saying I really struggled with finding the balance between information and interpretation. Not every class was a struggle with that however.
As a Mission student, I took a course on Islam. After a semester of studying the religion, we were given an assignment to hang out with a muslim and discuss the major objections Islam has to Christianity. It was by far one of the most practical assignments of my program. I learned more about Islam by walking into a Mosque and sitting in a prayer room with a devout Muslim woman, than I would have ever learned by sitting in a classroom.
To answer your question above, I would absolutely require some type relational assignment along with every class room learning. I don't remember a thing I read in my Islam book. But I will never forget meeting Nataka in the Muslim Mosque that day.
Great comments, Carrie. That is exactly the kind of shift I'm talking about. Can we create a more experiential learning environment? Can we move our hearts and bodies as well as our minds? Can we put the things we're learning to the test? Take it out and try out?
Perfect example--
Right on C-Mack! This is conversation is ever needed in the Black & Latino church!! Good word! I'll have to be reading the new book. Keep on hittin it!
Thanks for this Craig, and for your excellent work. I'll echo the observation that what's needed among seminary grads is interpretive capacity rather than information gathering capacity. My only question is the degree to which this can be taught. I've found many of the recommended uses of film in Leadership, for example, to be either too obvious or too contrived for my congregation or tastes. I realize you're not just talking about inserting movies into sermons, but also encouraging cultural literacy and the building of bridges. Either way though, through direct illustration, or nuanced culture awareness, the challenge seems to reside in getting people to think deeply about what a film is saying and how it fits into what is real and true in this world and God's word.
My sense is that we struggle as evangelicals right at this point because we want very clear parables, where there are white hats and black hats, and appropriately happy and side ending for the appropriate hat wearers. We don't yet seem comfortable with nuance, with shades, with mystery and ambiguity, perhaps being fearful that such undefined views too easily slip into unbelief. I showed quit of bit of "A River runs through it" at the beginning of a recent Ecclesiastes series, including the great fishing scene, and the tragedy towards the end. Wow! It seems to be an assault on some Christian's sensibilities to ponder this strange juxtaposition of glory and suffering, beauty and ugliness, life and death.
How can we help our brothers and sisters engage with the difficulties and ambiguities while still keeping them rooted in Christ, and hope, and love?
My husband recently graduated with his M.Div, and his most astonishing/helpful/sacred class was the one that required him to visit about ten ministries over a several week period. He met with the most diverse ministries you can imagine, from the most wealthy congregations outside of Beverly Hills, to a thirty-year veteran at a county morgue (which handles bodies of the homeless), to a church which rents out a local bar on Sunday nights. I was insanely jealous, for I watched how it affected his tightly constructed view of ministry. We both felt acutely that this should not be a "one, and done" course, but a lifetime of exposure and experience.
If all Christian believers would embark on such a journey . . . ? Information helps, but as you all have said, interpretation and compassion and experience and discernment make all the three-dimensional difference.