-
it should be academic
rather than popular or indoctrinating; only as such will it set
people free to discover and risk their own creativity.
-
it should be ecumenical
rather than denominational; only as such will it be obedient to
the Word of God and escape provincialism.
-
it should be trinitarian
and christological rather than biblicistic or religious; only as such
can it avoid the dangers of fundamentalism, liberalism, and the
ecclesiastical captivity of the Word of God.
-
it should reflect about God for God’s
own sake, but in doing that, it must show that worship of
God cannot by-pass the violence and injustice that are rampant
in the world.
-
it should openly and unashamedly use the historical
critical method, but at the same never forget the poverty of
reason, and the difference between the ground
and the content of
faith.
-
it should include a theological response to other
religions and especially to Aboriginal
spirituality.
-
its initial period of study should be full
time for 4- 6 years; part time study cannot prepare for a
competent and credible ministry today.
Context,
promise and conflict
Theological education, if then it is theological,
and if it is education,
is bound to live in tension with both church and society.
This tension is occasioned by the fact that theology
wants to serve church and world, but it wants to do so from a primary
commitment to the Word of God -
which is neither identical with the church nor with society.
The immediate
context for theological education is the church.
The churches support theological education and in
return they expect a supply of motivated and competent
ministers, and relevant theological education for an increasing
number of interested lay people.
At the same time, church people and church leaders are
often suspicious of theological colleges.
They fear that with the exercise of reason and the use of
scientific methodology, divine revelation may be subjected to
human reason, theology may be dissolved into anthropology, and
faith may be substituted by reason.
The situation is not made easier by complaints from
within the academy. Students want
less Hebrew and Greek and Augustine and trinity, and more
Pastoral Care and Urban Praxis; less form criticism and more
devotional material and sermon input.
Educators lament the fact that theological schools have
become “filling stations” for theoretical information,
rather than centres for shaping Christian disciples.
Theologians complain that the constant longing for praxis
has inflated theological curricula by so many “how to do it”
courses that there remains insufficient time for theological
reflection.
And society
views theological education with suspicion, suspecting that our
commitment to God and God’s Word is unscientific, irrational
and sectarian.
Theological education, if then it is intentionally
theological, must expect and accept these tensions at the
interface of church and society.
It must not be afraid, but it must affirm, as part of its
mission, to be the proverbial “thorn in the flesh” of
church, academy, and society.
The
aim of theological
education
Theological education is concerned with the identity,
content, and relevance of Christian faith.
As an integral part of the church’s vision, that God
through Christ has reconciled the world with himself,
theological education wants to unravel what that means, and
thereby help the church to be
the church. The
church must be empowered and enabled to echo
the word “God” in a responsible and relevant manner.
What does it mean for the church to be the “light of
the world”, “the salt of the earth”, the “body” (sw=ma
Xristou=) through which Christ wants to minister the riches of
grace into the poverty of human existence?
The word “God” has had a terrible and blood stained
history. It has
functioned to justify the killing of Jesus.
It served and serves to motivate and justify
anti-Semitisms, slavery, ethnic hatred, sexism and racism.
With God’s name dreadful weapons have been blessed and
horrible wars have been validated.
We cannot simply go on using the word “God” without
spelling out exactly what
we mean. At the same time, the theologian knows that we cannot
arbitrarily stop using the word “God”.
With the prophet Jeremiah we feel a fire burning in our
hearts (Jer. 20:9), and with the apostle Paul divine necessity (a)na/gkh)
is laid upon us to witness to the reality “God” (1 Cor
9:16). Helmut
Gollwitzer is right when he says that it is the task of
theological education to make evident what we mean when we use
the word “God”.
The
tasks of theological
education
How can that aim be best fleshed out?
How does the general aim of bringing the word “God”
out of ambiguity into clarity, issue into the tasks of
theological education?
The constructive
task. There is,
first of all, the constructive
task of training and empowering women and men for Christian
ministry. Gifts
must be recognised and developed.
Students must be instructed and motivated to hear,
understand and obey God’s word.
In the attempt to understand God's word, theological
education teaches the Old
and the New Testaments. The
bible contains the primary witnesses to the events of the word
of God, which climax in the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Church
History seeks to discern the history of the word of God in
the ongoing history of the human race.
With studies in Practical Theology (Pastoral Care, Christian Education, Homiletic,
Worship, Spiritual Formation, Mission, Evangelism, Ethics)
theological education seeks to discover the best ways in which
the word of God can modify, transform and interpret human life
here and now. And under the designation of Systematic
Theology theological education measures and evaluates the
many words by the one word which God has spoken in the life,
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This education is not primarily done by instilling in
students a data bank of theological information, which could
then be recalled to meet the needs of various situations.
Rather, students are given tools and methods, they are
given paradigms and insights, they are introduced to resources
that should enable them to creatively live with the word of God,
to let it shape their existence, and to communicate it to church
and world for the rest of their lives.
This raises two important, but controversial issues. Both issues concern primarily those who feel called to the
full time ministry.
One issue is,
whether the foundation for a life-long effective and satisfying
ministry can be laid when students study theology while at the
same time working as pastors or other part-time jobs.
My answer -
drawn from observation and from personal experience -
is a clear “No”! The
ministry is so demanding that church leaders must face this
issue. The alarming
drop out rate of ministers will increase, we will not attract
the best people for the full time ministry, and we will not
increase the needed respect for ministers, unless we make a
demanding, competent and full-time study of theology possible. Why should the study of theology be less demanding and take
less time than the study of law or medicine or physics?
The other
controversial issue is, whether a theological school should
turn out “finished products”; or whether theological
education best serves the church by providing the basics in
information, attitude, resources and methodology and then
provide the structures for a continuing lifelong theological
pilgrimage?
Much criticism of and frustration with theological
education can be met if education is seen as being a necessary
part of the minister's
total life context. The
brief time in a theological college -
I would prefer 5 rather than 3 years full time! -
would then be viewed as a few years of “withdrawal” to study
the biblical languages and the content of the Bible, to learn
methodology, to become acquainted with the basic content of
faith, and to inquire how the gospel can be related to life,
while the deepening and the widening of the educational process
will then continue in the context of praxis.
For the theological
school this would mean on the one hand that it must provide
the context and input for a necessarily limited but foundational
education, while on the other hand it must seek to accompany
the practicing minister with courses and conferences in continuing
theological education.
For the minister
him- or herself this would imply a commitment to theological
education as a part of the ministerial agenda for all of life.
And for the churches
it would mean that they provide the structures and the resources
for such a continuing education.
The present
tendency in many colleges -
part time study; evening courses; no biblical languages; no time
for theological reflection; practice driven -
is disastrous for a sustained ministry of the minister and the
church.
Critical task.
Besides the constructive task, theological education also
has the critical task
of distinguishing
“between spirits” (1 Cor 12:10; 1 John 4).
By confessing Jesus Christ as ku/rioj and as lo/goj qeou=,
by recognising the authority of the biblical canon, by
formulating creeds and confessions, the church has confessed its
identity, and with it has demarcated what traditionally has been
called heresy. Theological
education cannot avoid the question of truth. Given the
church's commitment to Christ as Lord, but at the same time,
knowing the reality of human self will and institutional self
interest, it becomes necessary to formulate norms and guidelines
by which the church's practice, theory and experience can be
measured and evaluated. Theological
education must therefore be assigned the critical
task of helping the church to be the church.
The Christian virtues of freedom and courage may come in
handy for the theologian. A
Philosopher and a historian at two of Melbourne’s prestigious
universities have said that academic freedom is hard to find
these days. Robert
Manne of La Trobe University comments: “Our radicals have either gone to water or settled into
grumpy silence. It’s
hard to say why. Fear,
material comfort, family.”
Are theological colleges fulfilling the prophetic and
critical role of theology?
Spiritual
formation. It
is important, thirdly, to recognise that we train Christian ministers and church
leaders. This
highlights the spiritual
dimension of ministry, which poses a difficult challenge for
every theological institution.
How can you teach and learn gifts given by the Spirit as
the Spirit wills (1 Cor 12:11)?
How can you unleash the creativity of students rather
than making them conform to church expectations and middle class
morality?
We need to tread cautiously.
Spirituality cannot be taught!
Courses in Spiritual Formation should be descriptive
rather than prescriptive. They
can talk about Augustine and Bonhoeffer and Nouwen and Romero,
they can reflect about prayer and suffering, but they should
release students to discover their own journey with God.
Freedom is at the heart of the Christian faith, but given
our self-interest and sleepiness, we need to find ways of
relating to ministers the awareness that freedom demands
discipline, that commitment implies courage, that credibility
presupposes hard work, and that calling entails professional
competence.
Social
responsibility. Finally,
we must understand that knowledge implies responsibility.
Knowledge shapes and changes us.
When the prophet Jeremiah says that to “know God”
means to “do justice” (22:13-19), he simply verbalises that
a responsible use of the word “God” implies engagement for
the partiality and justice that the word “God” stands for;
it implies accepting responsibility for what we know.
Theology needs to make clear, for instance, that in
contemporary Australia, the church’s engagement for
reconciliation with the Aboriginal people is an essential part
of our worship of God. Protest
against mandatory sentencing and commitment to the “Journey of
Healing” are not merely consequences of faith in Christ.
They are part of Christian faith in our given context. According to Matthew 25, Christ is not only present in the
word and in the sacrament, but he has located himself in the
oppressed and marginalised.
Being with them and for them, is not merely a consequence
of faith, it is part of our relating to God.
It is the task of theological education to make that
clear.
Theological
temptations
In fulfilling these tasks, theological education must
constantly be self-critical. It must be aware of the temptations which are inherent to its
work.
Theological education is, first
of all, in the constant danger of forgetting or overlooking
the difference between theology
and religion. We
need to be relevant, but not by endangering our identity.
We have our own subject.
We know a secret that the world does not know.
The word of God alone makes theological education
theological. If
that is forgotten, then the Old Testament scholar might as well
teach in the University department of Semitic studies, and the
church historian join the University department of history.
The second
danger is related to the critical
and scientific nature of theological education.
On the one hand, theology needs to be scientific and
critical. It has to
do with learning languages, with analysing and understanding
ancient texts, with using transparent methodologies. We cannot leave the understanding and communication of the
content of Christian faith to the subjective intuition of every
scholar and student.
On the other hand, this scientific and critical approach
implies the danger that the mystery of faith may be lost.
How, for instance, can a scientific method capture the
meaning of a text like Romans 6:9
"... we know that Christ being raised from the dead
will never die again; death
no longer has dominion over him."
How can we, who live under the shadow of death, speak
about a reality that transcends the dominion of death?
This problem lies behind the debate, in how far the
historical critical method is adequate for the interpretation of
biblical texts. I would argue that the historical critical method is
necessary for safeguarding the content
of Christian faith, but that it must not be allowed to determine
the ground of faith.
Related to this is a third
danger. Theological
education can become so fascinated with the prevalent
understanding of reality in church and society that it will only
make statements which are acceptable to the respective ethos.
If, to use an illustration from the church, in a
denomination there is a dominant view that there are no errors
in the Bible and that the Bible is equally inspired in all its
parts, and if the people who hold such view control the finances
for the college, then there is obviously a lot of pressure on
the theologians not to say what they know, and not to
communicate what is commonly accepted in the theological
community.
If, to use an illustration from the world, one accepts a
view of history according to which all events are interrelated
by cause and effect so that there can be no genuinely new event,
then it would be difficult to understand and explain the
biblical portrayal of creation, of the resurrection of Jesus
Christ, of conversion, and of final consummation.
Theological education must therefore constantly remind
itself of its primary commitment to the Word of God, and at the
same time work with a concept of reason which does not
pre-determine reality, but which “enables the mind to grasp
and transform reality”.
Finally, we
mention the constant danger of' provincialism
which, due to the tyranny of distance, is an ever present
temptation to us in Australia.
By being so far removed from the wider theological
community we may lose the vigour that comes from dialogue and
challenge. By being
situated in the context of a certain denomination, we may forget
that our commitment to the one word of God implies an ecumenical
thrust in theological education.
By being concerned with the Christian faith, we may fail
to ask in which way God may also be at work in other Religions.
By being primarily oriented toward the church, it may
forget that ultimately all authentic theological education must
contribute to making and keeping human life human and therefore,
be concretely aimed at solving the problems in and of the world.
Having alluded to the nature, aim and task of theological
education, we must now pick up a couple of intimation from the
introduction and apply them to the relationship of theological
education to the church and to the world.
Theological
Education and the Church
Theological education is rooted in the church.
It comes from the church, is sustained by the church, and
feeds into the church. On
the whole, the church does not question the need for some sort
of theological education, and theological education does not
question its commitment to the church.
And yet, in spite of this mutual recognition and
interdependence, there are often tensions between the church
leadership and theological institutions.
Why is this so?
There is general agreement that the theological college
must serve the churches. Church
leaders often interpret this to mean that it is the task of
theological education to teach and communicate the generally
accepted faith in the churches. A Church of Christ college is to
teach what Church of Christ people believe.
A Lutheran college is to teach what Lutherans believe.
An Evangelical college must be guided by the evangelical
tradition. Such
opinions are often reinforced with solid financial
“arguments”: those who pay claim the right to determine what
is taught. The
saying “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” has been
addressed to many a theological teacher.
What are the theological consequences of such an
attitude?
It raises the question of authority;
and in fact it makes ecclesiology
the dominant motif. Traditionally
Protestants have charged Roman Catholicism with subordinating
Christology to ecclesiology by making the teaching office of the
church the ultimate judge for the truth and content of faith,
and then expect theological education to teach and propagate
that truth. This
means in effect, so the Protestant charge, that the Lordship of
Christ is dissolved into the church’s self-understanding.
But do not Protestants do the same?
Only that here the “teaching office” is replaced by
“the generally accepted faith of the people”, and since it
is never the generally accepted faith of all
the people, it is in fact the faith of the church leaders
who formulate the generally accepted faith.
Consequently the “catholic” principle remains
determinative. The
decisive question is: should the faith of the people, or should
the ground and pioneer of that faith be primary?
Should ecclesiology or should Christology be the dominant
motif? There is
consensus that you cannot have one without the other, but it is
vitally important where the theological priority is placed.
What is the alternative?
Should theologians tell the church what to believe and
what to practice? No! That would
again give inordinate authority and power to a “teaching
office”. Rather,
the church and theological educators must together confess their
primary commitment to Jesus Christ.
Both must be self-critical enough to be sensitive to the
pride of power and to collective egoism, and together they must
seek structures to affirm the Lordship of Christ.
This demands continual repentance and turning again into
the future which is promised and determined by the crucified
Christ. For the sake of the church, theological education must refuse to become
a functionary of the church.
Theological education can serve the church best by a critical
commitment to the denomination in which it is situated, by
maintaining an ecumenical openness
to the whole church, and by emphasising a
responsible commitment to and involvement in the world. This brings us to our final considerations.
Theological
education and society
We live in a secular society.
Even though there is a religious veneer, and many of our
leaders still pay homage to the Christian faith, there is, as
far as I can see, a fairly wide consensus that our society and
its values are driven by a social Darwinism and economic
rationalism.
Such a vision of reality is in fundamental tension with a
faith that is focussed on the Crucified Christ and as such sees
the ultimate value of the human being not in its performance and
achievements but in their inherent divinely bestowed dignity.
We cannot withdraw from the world.
According to Romans 12:1f. worship of God takes place in
the market places of life.
Theologically and existentially the world must feature on
every theological agenda. We
are all citizens of this world and as such are responsible for
its present and future. It is also our conviction that God is the creator and
sustainer of the world. God
loves the world (John 3:16) and in Jesus Christ has reconciled
it with himself (2 Cor 5:20).
With the church, theological education is woven into the
world. Yet its
relationship to the world must be one of tension,
struggle and even dispute.
It must accept the conflict with the world in the
struggle for the best understanding and interpretation of
reality.
On the positive side we note that theological education,
like all education, uses rational and transparent methods in its
research and scientific analysis.
The Old and New Testament scholars use in their
interpretation of biblical texts the same historical critical
method as scholars would do to determine and interpret texts
from the Enuma Elish or from Aristotle.
The Church Historian observes the same methodological
steps in reading Anselm or Luther as a historian would do to
interpret Machiavelli or Locke.
Theological education shares in the struggle of making
and keeping human life human, and it seeks to equip the church
for a critical and constructive encounter with the problems and
ideologies of the world.
Yet, at the same time, The church knows a secret
that the world does not know.
The apostle Paul distinguishes between the wisdom of God
and the wisdom of the world (1 Cor 1-2; Rom 12:1f.).
Theological education is grounded in and committed to the
wisdom of God as it has been made known in the life, death and
resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This understanding of wisdom and power can only be folly
to the world because it is based on a different vision of
reality and its inherent values.
With his life, Jesus claims that true worship of God
leads to a healing identification with the marginal people of
society. With his death, he risks this understanding against the
institutional claims on God and power, and with the
resurrection, Jesus’ way is not only validated, but it is
validated in such a way that it cannot be apprehended by the
neutral, objective and scientific onlooker.
Theological education must therefore accept the role of
being a thorn in the flesh on the world.
This would mean, firstly,
that although using the method
of reason, theological education questions the autonomy
of reason. It
is the theological function of reason to receive, understand and
explicate the content of reality and of faith; it is not the
function of reason to postulate what is real and what can be
believed.
It would mean, secondly,
that theological education refuses to understand the human
person as an insignificant speck in the universe, or a
sophisticated animal, or a complex of subconscious drives, or a
mere product of history and of society.
Rather, the human person is a relational being, created
in the image of God with an inherent
dignity which the structures and institutions of the world
cannot grant.
And finally,
theology has discovered nature
as creation. It
will therefore help the church to understand that concern for
the integrity of creation is part of its worship of God.
Conclusion
We have come to the end.
Theological education finds itself at the interface
between church and world. It
wants to serve both from a primary commitment to the crucified
and risen Christ. Theological
education must help the church to be the church and as such it
also makes the best contribution to society.
TL:
Canberra,
08/06/00
.
