Interview with Edward Farley From the web site Resources for American Christianity

Transcription

1 Edward Farley on the state of Theological Education in the United States Interviewer: Tracy Schier Over several decades, Edward Farley s views on theological education have been well-informed, persistent and eloquent. As writer, lecturer, and, currently the Drucilla Moore Buffington Professor Emeritus of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University, Farley has been an important participant and shaper of national conversations about the state of theological education in the U.S. and the challenges it faces: challenges internal to the academy as well as those from the wider church and culture at large. Farley is the author of ten books, two of which are often cited as catalytic in the ongoing developments within theological schools: Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); and The Fragility of Knowledge: Theological Education in the Church and the University (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988). He has also co-authored two books and contributed chapters to another seventeen. In addition, Farley has written scores of articles for such publications as The Christian Century, Christianity and Crisis, Theology Today, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, among many others. Page 1 of 1

2 A graduate of Centre College in Kentucky and the Louisville Presbyterian Seminary, Farley received his doctorate in Philosophical Theology from New York and Columbia University. He did post-doctoral study at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Before joining the Vanderbilt faculty in 1969, Farley taught at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and DePauw University. He was granted the status of Life-time Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University in 1994 and has received numerous awards. These include the Earl Sutherland Award for Excellence in Research at Vanderbilt and the American Academy of Religion Award for Excellence. He has received several Lilly Endowment grants and was a Lilly Fellow in Religion. This conversation is edited. Q. Can you talk about some of the changes that have occurred within the past twenty or so years within theological education that bode well for both the individuals who receive it and for the church as a whole. A. Bear in mind my knowledge of and experience in theological education is limited to mainline Protestantism. The new demography of the seminaries (women, minority, and third world students) that began prior to the 1980s introduced major curricular, pedagogical and ethos changes. Distance learning and on-line programming are just now making an appearance, and the non-accredited schools may be taken the lead in this. Whether these sorts of non-traditional programs are a step forward remains to be seen. A third change reflects the new pluralism. Most would agree that the schools concern for gender, minority, and sexual orientation issues was long overdue. The next step could be commitment to global and even inter-religious pluralism. Commitments to pluralism as such are widespread and taken for granted. Certainly this is a real gain for theological education. Another change has to do with programs and degrees designed for students who are not seeking ordination or even a career in a religious setting. The development of two-year Masters of Theological Studies degrees in several schools testifies to an interest in, actually acceptance and encouragement of, a population that wants to undertake serious theological study even while they pursue careers in other fields like law or social service. I think this is reflective of lay persons who want more than congregational education can give them. Page 2 of 2

3 Q. In the early 1980s you wrote: Theological schools have compared themselves for generations to schools of law and medicine, yet their graduates do not seem to have the divinity equivalent of the physicianscientist or the dialectician-lawyer. Please talk about this observation and what prompted it. A. In a sense this was the central problem of my book Theologia. Modeled on other graduate schools and on specialized European scholarship, the theological schools were organized into independent fields of study, roughly divided between theoretical and practical fields, all of it aiming to hone the professional skills of the minister. The professionally skilled minister was to be the equivalent of the well-trained lawyer or physician. But it all fell apart. The students learned (at an introductory level mostly) a variety of specialty languages and methods; thus, church history, ethics, or New Testament, and, they studied ministry-type subjects, more or less sealed off from the theory part. What dominated the scene were the independent specialty areas, and hence, very little theological education survived as useful in the parish and other settings of work. The subject-matter rarely came together to produce a useful, powerful, distinctive, and disciplined way of thinking that would pervade all aspects of ministry. Q. As you look around what other opportunities for change do you see existing? A. There are several such opportunities. As I see it, there is a real need for a few very strong graduate programs in the practical fields. Areas such as homiletics and pastoral theology have been slowly building over recent decades a kind of theoretic base, the main requirement of a credible graduate program. It would be unfortunate if 20 or 30 schools all offered graduate programs in these areas. In a utopian mood, I hope that the schools with strong graduate programs already in place would get together and agree on which ones might emphasize certain fields. Thus, for instance schools A and B would commit themselves to building a strong graduate program in homiletics; schools C and D in pastoral theology, etc. A second opportunity has to do with the African-American criticism and contribution to theological education. African-American teachers and administrators are present in almost all of the mainline theological schools. Page 3 of 3

4 They do have a certain read on the situation, not only about African-American students and their needs, but about theological education itself. What has not happened as yet, at least as far as I know, is a major work on theological education by African-Americans. An intense and extended set of conferences on the subject is long overdue. A third opportunity has to do with the laity. There is clearly a new seriousness about lay theological education in Protestant and Catholic congregations. (I don t sense much going on in the judicatories: the Diocese, Presbyteries, and Conferences.) A significant number of lay persons are responding to theological education programs sponsored by their denominations. To date the seminaries do not seem to have responded much to this. In my view every seminary needs to take up the challenge of lay theological education by way of brief courses, night courses, certification programs, and the like. Q. You have written that seminaries must respond to the world. What must they do or change in order to be responsive to culture, demography, and so on? A. I see this as the most important and difficult challenge facing theological education. Of course they have responded to culture by embracing the new pluralism and with that the issues of various victimized populations. But all sorts of things are going on in the lives of individuals, in cities, suburbs and countrysides, in science, literature, and the arts, in politics and economics that alter, challenge, enrich, even endanger religious and human life. One would hardly know this in an inspection of a seminary s curriculum. Most schools remain commited to the centuries-old curriculum of bible, church history, theology (and ethics), and practical theology. Insofar as that commitment holds, it presses the schools to continue re-appointing faculty along these lines. And this makes it very difficult for them to open up new areas of study. A theological curriculum would be very enriched, certainly more responsive to the cultural scene, if it appointed faculty in such areas as religion and science, or the arts, or other religious faiths, or politics. It is interesting that some 60 years ago or so, when the missionary movement was still thriving, there was more interest in teaching about other religions than there is now. Q. It seems that the rigidity, if that is the right word, of the academic fields makes it difficult for theological schools to restructure. Page 4 of 4

5 A. In many ways the faculties of theological schools are like the faculties in other professional schools although I would say that specialization is even more of a problem in schools with large post-m.div. programs than in the regular seminaries. It is a sociological point: what constitutes the self-identity and primary loyalty of a faculty member is his or her field. Just like the rest of the academy, faculty members have their own guilds and they work out councilmanic agreements between their field and the others. I won t monkey with your area if you will leave mine alone. In such a situation it is difficult to change the paradigm, the basic structure, or even blur the lines of fields so that there is mutual exploration of commonalities, and exploration of the whole course of study and how it shapes the student. Q. Can you comment on how theological education deals with questions of popular religion? A. I have become more intrigued in recent years with the question of popular religion. I have a kind of double attitude toward it. First, popular religion is the primary location and carrier of faith. That is, it is faith s natural sphere and expression, the sphere of actual religious behavior and belief, the passionate piety of people of faith. Second, popular religion can be unself-critical, ethnocentric, narcissistic, absolutistic, literalistic, and mythological. Does theological education either in the seminaries or the congregations have anything to do with this? Should popular religion get the attention of the church s leadership? If my years in theological schools are typical, it seems that theological education fairly much passes over the problem. Its graduates seem quite content to ignore the literalistic and mythological aspects of popular religion. Ministry often seems to be conducted in the language and notions of popular religion even when the minister s own popular religion had become self-critical by way of a theological education. Q. I would like to get back a little more on your thoughts about educating the laity. A. I see a very real, growing need for a theologically educated laity. Theological thinking, after all, need not be just a professional phenomenon restricted only to clergy. I see lay persons as having an important role as theological educators in their own congregations. The obstacle here, of Page 5 of 5

6 course, is that this paradigm is largely absent from the typical parish. The notion that there is a need for theological study for the laity hasn t truly arrived yet. A revolution of what genuine education would mean, especially for adolescents and adults, has yet to take place in the congregations. One step in that revolution, probably its most important condition, is the existence of theological trained lay persons able to teach their peers in such areas biblical history, exegesis, or social ethics. Q. Finally, would you like to talk a bit about the case for having theological studies and/or religious studies in the secular university. A. This is truly a thorny and elusive topic. It can be short-circuited by defining theological studies as what religious institutions do and religious studies as what secular ones do. But that doesn t make the problem go away. The two terms can also stand for different approaches or ways of study. But here too there is a way of so defining them that they are simply incompatible. Religious studies people see theological studies as necessarily conversionist, advocacy-oriented, or as privileging a single religion. Theological studies people see religious studies as attempting a descriptive neutrality that is indifferent to the very phenomenon of faith. Both views are caricatures. If the issue is not simply where a religion is studied (a college or a seminary) but what and how it is studied, the problem is to get beneath these caricatures. Can a specific faith, Islam or Christianity for instance, be studied with unqualified commitment to scholarship, criticism, and historical and sociological evidence? Of course. Can a specific faith be studied as a faith, with the attempt to uncover and understand its power, attractiveness, or authenticity? Of course. Are the two things incompatible? I can t see why they are. Can the second, the approach of theological studies, take place in a secular university without compromising the commitment to scholarship. Since it is itself a type of scholarship, I don t see why it would. Page 6 of 6