Category Archives: theological education

Young Seminarian Visits Old Theology Professor

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Introduction

Previously, we listened as a confused young seminarian visited with a progressive bishop. Our troubled seminarian explained to the bishop that he had lost faith in the conservative Christianity of his childhood and inquired whether he might have a future in a progressive church. After three sessions, the young seminarian left just as confused as he had been beforehand, if not more. (To pick up on the story, see the posts of October 7 & 17 and November 4.) After his disappointing series of meetings with the progressive bishop, the young seminarian decides to meet with a professor of theology about whom he has heard some intriguing things. This old professor has a reputation for being orthodox in doctrine and morals but not combative or judgmental. Having taught theology for over 40 years and written many books, the old professor is well acquainted with the history of Christian theology from the first to the twenty-first century and with contemporary issues in theology. Above all, he is known for his honesty and moderation.

Setting: After having previously set up an appointment by phone, our confused young seminarian knocks on the old professor’s office door.

Professor: Come in.

Seminarian: Thank you, professor.

(The old professor closes the book he has been reading and moves from behind his desk.)

Professor: Have a seat. Would you like water or perhaps a coffee?

Seminarian: No, thank you.

Professor: What’s on your mind?

Seminarian: Where to start? I hope you will not be offended if I am brutally honest. I’ve lost faith in the conservative Christian faith I was taught in church. Driven by the obligation to be honest with God and myself, I examined doctrine after doctrine of my inherited faith and found them doubtful. I thought I should not continue to hold to a teaching about which I felt uncertain. I visited recently with a progressive bishop in hope that he could help me sort out what I believe and how I could continue in some form of Christianity. You can imagine, then, how shocked I was when I discovered that the progressive bishop admitted that he lies to his church every Sunday. He uses such traditional Christian language as incarnation, miracles, resurrection, salvation, Holy Spirit, atonement, etc., and allows his people to think that he means what the church has always meant by these terms. In fact, however, he believes none of it and justifies his dissimulation by saying he believes these things interpreted metaphorically. I found it all so disheartening. Can you help me?

Professor: I will try. But you need to be patient. To get a handle on the problem we need to move logically from the foundations to the issues with traditional Christianity that most trouble you. Our first goal is to find the most fundamental point at which your thinking departs from the logic of orthodoxy. You need to ask yourself, “Was that departure warranted?”

Seminarian: Okay. I don’t know for sure where that point is, but when I spoke with the progressive bishop, I said something like, “Well, I suppose it all started with the Bible. Before I entered seminary, I believed that everything the Bible says is true because it is the inspired word of God….”

Professor: We will get to the Bible, but first allow me to share some general observations about the transition from childhood faith to mature faith. As children of Christian parents grow up in the home and in the church, they accept what they receive from these sources as unquestionably true. And this is a good thing. Children need simplicity, certainty, and a clear identity; they do not have the maturity to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty. At some point, however, they must learn to deal with challenges to inherited faith and embrace it as their own. Ironically, those children of the church who decide to attend seminary to prepare for ministry face greater challenges to their faith than those who take another path. In seminary they are introduced to the academic study of the Bible and theology. Nothing is taken for granted. Every fact, doctrine, and practice that is taught in church as “what we believe” or “what the scriptures teach” is placed in doubt. In academia, every doctrinal claim must be backed up with persuasive evidence before its validity and truth can be admitted. And even in faith-affirming schools under the guidance of conservative teachers, students must read the works of atheist, deist, liberal, and progressive authors. Many beginning students find this experience shocking, disorienting, and horrifying. What they experienced in their lives up to that point as matters of prayer, reverence, worship and comfort they now hear dissected, debated, and doubted. Even blasphemed! Many students find that seminary study dilutes, cools, and sometimes shatters the faith they received from their parents and churches.

Seminarian: That’s my story exactly! I entered seminary with a sense of God’s presence and confidence in the truth of the Bible. By the time I left, God seemed distant and the Bible no longer seemed sacred. Why does seminary study have this effect on some students?

Professor: I have a theory about that. Would you like to hear it?

Seminarian: I’d love to hear it! Because it does not seem plausible to think that everything my parents and church taught me was wrong and that I needed to attend a seminary to discover this.

Professor: I do not believe that what your parents and church taught you was wrong. But I think you may have formed the impression that what you learned in church was not only right but self-evident, certain, and so obviously right that no right-thinking, good person could object. Now I am sure that neither your parents nor your church made such a bold claim, but perhaps you took this expectation with you to seminary.

Seminarian: I certainly did not expect to have my faith so thoroughly deconstructed!

Professor: Now for my theory. Academia does not understand the way faith works in real life. Modern academia is a laboratory, designed originally to examine critically every inherited belief and practice, looking for superstitions, fancies, and opinions masquerading as knowledge. It had rather reject a dozen true beliefs than risk being taken in by single false one. It prefers never-ending criticism to the slightest commitment. For above all, it does not wish to be fooled. It would prefer to be teleported naked to a White House gala dinner than to be exposed as naïve and gullible to its peers. The academic study of the Bible and theology follows the same pattern. It feels obligated to challenge traditional Christian beliefs from every angle: historical, logical, and metaphysical. Never has a belief system been so criticized by so many for so long with so little results. Rarely does this history yield a credible claim to have falsified an essential Christian teaching.

Seminarian: Then why do so many seminarians get confused by it?

Professor: Because they enter seminary thinking wrongly that their inherited faith is so obviously true and certain that no serious objections can be made against it! Implicit in this naïve faith is the notion that the unimpeachability and certainty (for me) of the Christian faith is part of the faith itself. That is to say, they accept the absurd idea that the faith can be falsified merely by showing that it could be false. As the student encounters a barrage of historical, logical and metaphysical objections to Christian faith, they lose their naïve confidence in the impregnability of the fortress of faith. Then comes their greatest mistake: they conclude that, because they are fallible and a cherished Christian belief could be false, they ought not remain unreservedly committed to the faith they were handed by the church. They unwittingly accept the enlightenment view that it is better to reject a dozen true beliefs than risk being taken in by single false one. What young seminarians overlook as they enter the world of academia is the nature of faith. The preaching of the gospel of Christ does not call us to gnosis, absolute knowledge and complete certainty, but to faith. If Christian beliefs were as self-evident as 2 + 2 = 4, it would not be called faith. The terms “self-evident faith” or “proven faith” are contradictions.

Seminarian: Wow! I’ve never encountered this perspective before. My head is spinning. I’d like to think about it for a few days before we continue.

Professor: Of course. You think about it and we’ll set a time to meet again.

Seminarian: Thank you. I will check in soon.

Professor: Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye.

“A Wizard Ought to Know Better”

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Ordinarily, I do not take the time to respond to virtue-signaling public pronouncements from progressive universities and woke academic departments. But today I am making an exception. Below I quote verbatim and in full a statement made by the Dean of Yale Divinity School, Gregory E. Sterling on behalf of YDS. I feel compelled to reflect on the statement for three reasons: (1) I know Sterling and his work in biblical studies. And I was surprised to hear these views coming from him. (2) Many of my undergraduate students have, after graduating from the university where I teach, attended YDS and other elite seminaries and divinity schools. Some studied under Sterling himself at another university. YDS presents itself as a place with an institutional culture, in Sterling’s words, of “appropriately and adequately applying biblical principles and knowledge to critical issues of the day.” In other words, my Christian students get the impression that the YDS takes the Bible seriously as a religious and moral authority. (3) Whereas the Dean’s press release reads like a typical a virtue-signaling pronouncement about public policy, it also makes a theological argument that I find egregiously misleading. In paragraph four Sterling (an expert biblical scholar) says, “There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion.” I will focus much of my analysis and criticism here.

There so much I’d like to say about this Statement. Every line is carefully crafted and every word artfully chosen with a certain audience in mind. But I must limit myself to some comments on a few rhetorical stratagems found in paragraphs 2-3 and deal briefly with the substantive argument in paragraph 4, where the Statement makes a foray into theology. I have numbered the paragraphs for easy reference and bolded significant words and phrases. The Sterling/YDS press release reads as follows:

Statement by Dean Sterling on today’s Supreme Court decision

06/24/2022

Yale Divinity School Dean made the following statement today.

1. Today the Supreme Court overturned five decades of federal protection for abortion that sprang from the Roe v. Wade decision. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision returns the issue to states, which undoubtedly will come to reflect the political divide of our country.

2. The decision culminates a decades-long effort by those who identify as pro-life. But is this decision pro-life or pro a particular ideology? Will those who lobbied for it now lobby for expanded medical support for the women who carry babies to term? Will they lobby for benefits for the unwanted children who are born? Will they lobby for the support of poor people who will not be able to care for additional children? To be pro-life means far more than to oppose abortion.

3. There are millions of American women who feel violated by today’s decision. They understand that this is not only a decision about abortion, but about women’s rights. The decision is a step backward for human rights. Does it portend the reversal of other rights—as some have already suggested? Is the elimination or suppression of individual freedoms pro-life?

4. The pro-life stance is often linked to Christianity and there are many people who are genuine in their faith who will support the Supreme Court’s decision, including members of the YDS community. It is, however, a more complex issue than some acknowledge. There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion. The only text that deals directly with a fetus is Exodus 21:22–25, and it makes a distinction between the penalty levied on someone who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry versus an injury to the woman herself. The former results in a fine; the latter in the lex talionis (an eye for an eye etc.). In other words, it distinguishes between a fetus and a human being. Simplistic appeals to the biblical traditions are just that, simplistic. Christianity is supportive of human life, but we must work through our traditions with care. It is not at all clear that today’s decision reflects a text like Exodus 21:22–25.

5. This decision will not heal our country. It will only exacerbate the divide that already exists. May we find ways to promote life, not political agendas. May we find ways to discuss our differences, not build higher walls.

Highfield’s Comments

Paragraph #2

In paragraph #2, the Statement speaks of those who “identify as pro-life.” Clearly, by referring to the opponents of abortion in this way the Statement insinuates that they are not really and truly advocates of God-created human life in its fullness. Then follows a series of four rhetorical questions that place in doubt the sincerity of pro-life advocates. The paragraph concludes with this assertion: “To be pro-life means far more than to oppose abortion.” Perhaps it does…but why imply that pro-life advocates do not know this and do not care for children unless they are still in the womb? What is the point of the argument in this paragraph? Is it supposed to justify abortion?

No. It seems to have another purpose. Its effect is to subvert the pro-life movement’s claim to possess the moral high ground. The first rhetorical question in the paragraph makes this clear: “But is this decision pro-life or pro a particular ideology?” This question insinuates that pro-life justices and their supporters may have cynically adopted pro-life rhetoric to advance a hidden agenda of a less noble pedigree. The use of the word “ideology” is revealing. This highly loaded term seems here to mean a system of ideals with the appearance of reasonableness and moral rectitude but in reality a sanctimonious sham concocted to cover selfish and irrational interests. Additionally, the author by accusing others of nurturing a sinister ideology implicitly claims to be innocent of the same sin (Matt 7:3).

Paragraph #3

Paragraph #3 deals with the subjects of “rights” and “freedoms.” According to Sterling, the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States to return the issue of abortion to the legislative process is “a step backward for human rights.” Two things strike me about this claim. (1) When someone uses the phrase “a step backward” we ought to perk up our ears. Progressives think they know which direction history is supposed to move and in what moral progress consists—toward greater and greater liberation from all limits on pursuing individual happiness. As stated here it is simply question begging, virtue signaling, and preaching to the choir.

(2) It implies that the right to abort a child is a human right. Why a human right? What is a human right anyway? A human right is a right inherent in being a human being. Before the modern era such a right was called a “natural” right—as opposed to a legislated or constitutional right. But modern progressives don’t believe in natural rights because they don’t believe in natural law, which is the only reasonable foundation for natural rights. And of course the ideas of natural rights and natural law imply a moral lawgiver and Creator of nature. Such ideas are anathema to progressives. Ignoring the question of the grounding of human rights, Sterling classifies the right to abortion as a right given with our humanity. As a human right it is unalienable by the legislative process and, therefore, ought not to be returned to the legislative arena.

The irony here is that the most basic human right conceivable is the right to life. No other right can take precedence over this one because if you are not alive you have access to no other goods. Is a preborn human baby a human being? If so, he or she possesses all the rights inherent in being human. In contrast, the freedom for a woman to abort her unborn child cannot be a basic human right because not all humans can make use of this right. If it is a right, it must be derived from other more basic rights, natural or legislated. Hence the Statement’s appeal to human rights turns out to support a position opposite to the one it intended to defend. If human rights exist at all—a presupposition necessary for the efficacy of Sterling’s argument—preborn human beings most certainly possess them. For the concept of human rights makes no sense at all unless they are acquired by nature and not by law. And the human right to life trumps every other right.

In a point of clarification, this document uses the term “human being” in two different senses. When the Statement speaks of the human rights of women, being human is an ontological or natural status. Only in this way are these rights exempt from legislative reversal. However when Sterling speaks of preborn babies, he determines the humanity of a being according to its legal status. In this move he shifts from appealing to human rights to appealing to legislated rights. However the argument that restricting abortion violates human rights will not work unless being human is an ontological status. And if being human is an ontological or natural status, preborn human beings also possess human rights. The modern legal distinction between being a fetus and being a human being is a legal fiction, false in truth but useful in law. By definition, however, all human rights are possessed by all human beings.

The paragraph ends with this question: “Is the elimination or suppression of individual freedoms pro-life?” The expected answer to this rhetorical question is “No.” But the question is ambiguous in the extreme. Is any and every imaginable freedom under consideration? Or are only certain freedoms meant? In any case, the implicit argument in the question is viciously circular. For it assumes that the “freedom” being suppressed is a legitimate freedom or right—human or legislated. But that is precisely the question being debated with respect to abortion. Additionally, the meaning of “pro-life” in this question is being distorted to mean something like “pro-happiness.” Though it may not promote happiness in the short run, lawfully suppressing the action of destroying innocent life is clearly defending life. The rhetorical question in its present ambiguous form implies that any restriction on “individual freedom” is anti-life. This assertion is manifestly false.

Paragraph #4

Paragraph #4 seeks to delegitimize appeals to the Bible and Christian ethics in the debate over the legal status of abortion. Sterling does not venture to construct a case for the Bible’s support or condemnation of abortion. His objective is wholly negative, that is, to create doubt about the Bible’s usefulness in the pro-life argument.  It is important to emphasize that Sterling does not directly address the ethical and moral question about abortion. He carefully limits himself to the legal/political dimension.

Paragraph #4 begins with the assertion, “The pro-life stance is often linked to Christianity.” Sterling speaks here as if the “linking” between Christian ethics and the question of abortion is something artificial, an arbitrary connection that one makes for reasons not inherent in Christianity or in the desire to protect preborn human lives. Clearly, Sterling wishes to weaken or break that “linkage.” Why? Two possible reasons come to mind. (1) Many people wish to support abortion but do not wish to renounce Christianity completely. Breaking the link would make this position possible. I assume Sterling also falls into this category. (2)  The Bible and Christianity are still respected in our culture by many people who do not practice Christianity and don’t know the Bible or Christian doctrine very well. If Sterling can delink the Bible and abortion he can deprive the opponents of abortion of a potent weapon in the debate.

The notion that the Bible has nothing to say about the morality of taking the lives of preborn human beings when it otherwise takes an interest in every dimension of life—sex, marriage, divorce, drunkenness, greed, anger, and so on—is completely absurd on the face of it. How could someone who knows the Bible as well as the Dean of YDS maintain such an implausible thesis? Perhaps an extra-biblical ideology is at work?

The most controversial assertion in the YDS statement is the following: “There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion.” This claim asserts bluntly the “delinking” of Christianity and the question of abortion. The first thing to notice is that this declaration is not an ethical claim—not directly anyway—but a legal/political claim. When Sterling says that the Bible does not support a “ban” on abortion, it seems that he is speaking of a legislated, secular law and not of a moral obligation. In other words this sentence asserts that the Bible (and Christian ethics based on the Bible) does not demand that abortion be made illegal and punishable. In this assertion delinking the Bible with abortion bans, Sterling does not explicitly offer an opinion on the moral status of abortion.

Almost everyone in our society recognizes that it is impractical for legislators to make illegal every act they believe to be immoral. The assertion that the Bible does not support a ban on abortion is wholly negative, designed to defeat or make doubtful pro-life arguments from the Bible. As worded, Sterling’s delinking statement leaves open the possibility that Sterling considers abortion to be an immoral act that must nevertheless be permitted legally for practical reasons. But he makes another statement later in the paragraph that seems to imply that abortion is permitted morally.

As one piece of evidence for the Bible’s lack of support for the pro-life argument, Sterling reflects briefly on Exodus 21:22-25, which is the only place in the Bible that deals with anything like abortion:

22 “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (RSV).

This text prescribes the penalty for injuring a pregnant woman in such a way as to cause her to have a miscarriage. The penalty for causing the loss of the baby is a fine, not the death penalty as would be required in the murder of a person already born. In commenting on this text, Sterling asserts that this text “distinguishes between a fetus and a human being.” With this interpretation, Sterling goes beyond his prior negative claim that the Bible does not support an abortion ban. His comment seems to imply that the text’s distinction between a fetus and a human being even supports the moral permissibility of abortion. But, as I will show, Sterling’s interpretation is questionable.

Old Testament ethical texts are set in the social world of the Ancient Near East and are notoriously difficult to understand. We are constantly tempted to judge OT ethics by modern progressive standards. I don’t have the space or expertise to engage at the level required for a full discussion. But even the casual reader can see that the text won’t support Sterling’s disengagement (or support) theory.

(1) This text is set in an extensive section of case law concerning personal injuries of different types (Ex 21:12-27). The section prescribes different penalties depending on the nature of the injury and the intentions of the guilty party. Interestingly, different penalties are imposed for the same injury depending on the social position of the injured party. Consider the case of the master and his slaves (Ex 21:20-21, RSV):

20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money.

Like these ancient laws, modern jurisprudence of personal injury also takes into account the severity of the injury and the intentions of the perpetrator in determining the penalty. But unlike ancient near eastern law, modern jurisprudence does not (in theory anyway) take into account the social status of the victim in determining guilt or penalty. Here is my point: in this section on personal injury—which includes the text dealing with the penalty for causing a miscarriage—possessing a different social status, though meriting a different standing before the law, does not deprive one of human status. Neither the slave nor the pre-born child—what Sterling calls the “fetus”—receive justice from the law equal to that given to a free adult person. But inequality before the law does not in the Old Testament imply that the slave or the pre-born child are understood to be something other than human. The Bible does not draw this inference—Sterling is wrong here. He reads a modern legal invention back into the Bible.

(2) The text in Exodus 21:22-25 does not deal with an intentional act of causing the death of a baby. It is an accident consequent on a fight among others. The woman is a bystander injured by the disputants. The miscarriage is not caused by the woman or with her consent. Hence we do not know what penalty would have been imposed for an intentional act by the mother or by someone else that results in the preborn baby’s death. There are no laws in the Bible covering intentional abortion. Ancient Jews and Christians held new life to be so precious that an intentional act causing a miscarriage was unthinkable.

(3) In this text (Exodus 21:22-25) the unborn child is treated as valuable. That is clear, and causing a miscarriage even unintentionally through negligence is punishable. Sterling’s conclusion from this text that the child is a “fetus and not a human being” does not follow and, more egregiously, as I pointed out above, this assertion reads a modern legal distinction back into the Bible, a cold and dehumanizing one at that.

Christianity and the Morality of Abortion

Let’s leave aside the legal question and concentrate on the moral question. In supporting his argument that “There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion” Sterling employs an interpretative strategy that every beginning graduate student in theological studies learns to avoid. It cannot be that the dean of an elite divinity school, himself an expert in biblical studies, doesn’t know better. But I doubt his audience will call him out for it because most of them agree with his conclusion and the rest are afraid to object. It’s the kind of legalistic reasoning that Jesus criticized the Pharisees for employing to escape their obligation to honor their fathers and mothers (Mark 7:10-12).

Because the Bible does not specify in so many words every particular act, method, place, and time we are forbidden to do something, these interpreters conclude we are free do as we please with this silence. Instead of seeking God’s will in all sincerity and giving their all to be faithful to Christ in every situation legalists seek to justify as biblically permissible pursuing their own desires by sophistry and legal nitpicking. Elite biblical scholars know better, and I have found that when they begin to talk this way to the public—instead of in their scholarly accent—they are disingenuously using the proof text method of “ignorant” people against them.

Christianity’s ethical demands cannot be reduced to a list of commands and cases. The law and the prophets, Jesus and his apostles, teach us what sort of person to become. We are told that we do not possess the right to life and death over other human beings. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are told that our bodies are not our own. The body is for the Lord’s service (1 Cor 6:19-20). People who know and love Jesus, who have listened to his teaching, who have practiced his ways, and who have been transformed into his image don’t have to ask whether or not they should welcome their human child into the world or kill it before it sees the light of day. They know the answer. They are not looking for an escape clause.

Conclusion

In the second movie of the Lord of the Rings series “The Two Towers,” when Tree Beard the leader of the Ents saw the devastation Saruman Lord of Isengard had visited on Fangorn Forest, he exclaimed angrily, “A Wizard ought to know better!” When I look at the statement from YDS I think to myself, “A dean of a divinity school ought to know better.”

Yale Divinity School Dean Publishes Troubling Statement on Abortion

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Below I quote word for word and in full a public statement by Gregory E. Sterling, Dean of Yale Divinity School decrying the United States Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade. “ I do not discuss purely political and legal matters on this blog. However this statement ventures into theology and morality, which are subjects I care about deeply and transcend political divides.  Near the end of the Statement, Sterling makes two assertions that I find troubling:

“There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion.”

And…

The Bible “distinguishes between a fetus and a human being.”

Today I will post the Yale statement for you to read and ponder. In a day or two I will post my reply. I’ve inserted a hyperlink (if it works!) that will take you to the original statement posted on the Divinity School webpage.

The Statement reads as follows:

Statement by Dean Sterling on today’s Supreme Court decision

06/24/2022

Yale Divinity School Dean made the following statement today.

Today the Supreme Court overturned five decades of federal protection for abortion that sprang from the Roe v. Wade decision. The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision returns the issue to states, which undoubtedly will come to reflect the political divide of our country.

The decision culminates a decades-long effort by those who identify as pro-life. But is this decision pro-life or pro a particular ideology? Will those who lobbied for it now lobby for expanded medical support for the women who carry babies to term? Will they lobby for benefits for the unwanted children who are born? Will they lobby for the support of poor people who will not be able to care for additional children? To be pro-life means far more than to oppose abortion.

There are millions of American women who feel violated by today’s decision. They understand that this is not only a decision about abortion, but about women’s rights. The decision is a step backward for human rights. Does it portend the reversal of other rights—as some have already suggested? Is the elimination or suppression of individual freedoms pro-life?

The pro-life stance is often linked to Christianity and there are many people who are genuine in their faith who will support the Supreme Court’s decision, including members of the YDS community. It is, however, a more complex issue than some acknowledge. There is no biblical basis for the ban on abortion. The only text that deals directly with a fetus is Exodus 21:22–25, and it makes a distinction between the penalty levied on someone who causes a pregnant woman to miscarry versus an injury to the woman herself. The former results in a fine; the latter in the lex talionis (an eye for an eye etc.). In other words, it distinguishes between a fetus and a human being. Simplistic appeals to the biblical traditions are just that, simplistic. Christianity is supportive of human life, but we must work through our traditions with care. It is not at all clear that today’s decision reflects a text like Exodus 21:22–25.

This decision will not heal our country. It will only exacerbate the divide that already exists. May we find ways to promote life, not political agendas. May we find ways to discuss our differences, not build higher walls.

End of YDS statement.

Next Time: Please read my detailed analysis and critique of the YDS statement to be posted soon.

What Does It Mean To Be An Educated Person?

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What does it mean to be an educated person? This question assumes that becoming an educated person is a valuable goal. Also presupposed is the fact that people are not born educated but must achieve this state through a process of learning. What, then, does one need to learn and how may one become an educated person?

Perhaps the first thing on which to get clear is that one does not need to know everything to be considered an educated person. To begin with, human beings cannot know everything. Much about nature, human history, and culture is not known by anyone or has been forgotten. Future human beings may discover and invent many things hardly imaginable today. Additionally, there is too much knowledge available even now for any one person to master in a lifetime.

The educated person of fifth-century B.C. Greece or eighth-century Persia would not be considered educated for life in twenty-first century America or France. Your ability to negotiate life in rural America won’t sustain you in New York City. Nor could the New Yorker make it on the farm. These examples hint at the nature of education and the basis of its value. Education is a process of gaining at least the minimum of knowledge and skills needed to thrive in a particular society and age.

I think it is helpful to distinguish between acquisition of technical skills—brick laying, cooking, farm animal care, or welding—and acquisition of social skills, the so-called “liberal arts.” In our society we don’t consider a person “educated” simply because they are skilled at husbandry or car repair. We reserve the label “educated” for a person who possesses the knowledge and skills that enable them to engage fully and gracefully in all sectors of the dominant society in which they live. Of course we need to understand our subculture as well, but we don’t need a formal education to achieve this goal. We acquire this knowledge in the same way we pick up our local dialect.

(Note: Acquiring “cultural competence” is all the rage in education circles these days. It seems to mean learning about other people’s subcultures–especially “marginalized” cultures–when what is needed is for everyone to learn how to live in the national/international culture.)

Usually, then, acquiring an education is a self-conscious process of learning the inner workings and interrelationships of the major sectors of the society within which we live—economy, politics, art, literature, law, science, technology, ethics, and religion. Since each of these institutions has come to be what it is today over a long period of time, study of their history is an essential part of understanding their present constitutions. Communicating effectively and gracefully with people from different places and backgrounds is an essential social skill. Reading, writing, and speaking well are, therefore, essential marks of an educated person. And no one can learn to write well or speak well without reading examples of well written literature.

The process of education requires some institutionalization: libraries, schools, presses, and publishers. The reason for this is simple: the knowledge and skills needed for education has been produced over centuries by millions of people living at great distances from each other and speaking different languages. This knowledge must be collected, winnowed, concentrated, and, for the last 2500 years, usually written in books. Becoming an educated person is a process of assimilating the knowledge and skills discovered and developed by many other human beings. Becoming an educated person is a social affair, a process of socialization or even humanization.

As a cautionary note, something has gone terribly wrong if education itself becomes a narrow subculture that so alienates students from the major institutions of society that they cannot skillfully and gracefully live within them.

Questions for future essays: What does it take to be an educator? What does it mean to be a theologically educated person? What does it take to be a teacher of theology?

After Whiteness by Willie Jennings—A Non-Review Review

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I hate to break promises! Well, perhaps, I’m not breaking my promise. I’m just not able to fulfill it to the degree I had hoped. In the previous post “Race, Gender, and Identity…Oh My,” I promised to reflect next on Willie Jennings, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans, 2020). I re-read the book this morning—It’s only 115 pages long—and I came away a second time with that I-don’t-get-it feeling. In part, it’s that perplexity I want to explore in this essay.

At present, Jennings is an associate professor of theology and Africana studies at Yale University. He also taught at Duke University Divinity School and served as an associate dean while at Duke. His latest book focuses on theological education at seminaries and divinity schools. As someone who has written several books and hundreds of essays, I understand an author’s and a publisher’s desire to select a title that is both descriptive and provocative. Authors want to be read and publishers want to make money. “After Whiteness” is provocative.

Jennings lets us know in the Preface that “whiteness” is not completely synonymous with being white. For Jennings, whiteness is an ideal image of a fully developed human being constructed by Europeans over centuries. This ideal is embodied in the individual white male who has mastered himself and others (especially white females and all non-white people) through scientific reason and technology. He is self-sufficient, analytical, heterosexual, and individualistic, and he objectivizes everything and everyone. According to Jennings, this ideal human being serves as a mold into which Western education—specifically Western theological education—attempts to squeeze everyone. Switching metaphors, the theological school is Procrustean bed in which those who do not naturally fit—women and people of color—are trimmed and shaped according to the ideal pattern. Note the violence in the language. Those for whom whiteness is simply the truth view this educational process as civilizing, uplifting, and empowering.

When I say of Jennings’s book “I don’t get it,” I do not mean that I disagree with him. In fact, I’ve long resisted the ideal he describes as “whiteness,” and I think theological education is long overdue for a radical reformation. I hope to voice my critique of the state of theological education in future essays. What I mean by “I don’t get it” is that Jennings presents his critique and offers his vision as a series of extended metaphors and vignettes. They convey a mood and articulate feelings, but I don’t see a clear vision of the new community of belonging of which Jennings dreams. The book’s subtitle indicates that Jennings’s alternative to whiteness is belonging. From what I read in the book, this community of belonging will be founded on a decision for mutual acceptance of everyone’s identity, their experience, and their stories. What I don’t get is how this book, with its metaphors and stories, offers a critique of “whiteness” (as defined by Jennings) that meets whiteness on its own turf and demonstrates its theological and ethical weaknesses. Perhaps my assessment on this score says as much about me as it does about Jennings. After all, to meet whiteness on its own turf and use its own weapons against it would be to grant it a kind of legitimacy.

I wondered briefly why Jennings used the term “whiteness” in his title only to explain in the Preface that he did not mean “white people.” It’s an eye-catching title, to be sure, and publishers love that sort of thing. But is there more to it? To use the term “whiteness” to describe the Western rational and scientific approach to education, whatever the term’s descriptive truth, seems to me akin to Ibram Kendi’s use of the terms “racism” and “racist” to designate those who decline to support his political policies. That is to say, it tars those who support traditional Western theological education with a term loaded with negative moral implications. Those who support traditional Western theological education, consciously or unconsciously, support whiteness. And surely no one who supports whiteness, with its oblique connection to white supremacy and white privilege, can be a good person.

What I longed to hear but did not was a critique of “whiteness” from a deeply Christian perspective, a stance of profound humility, repentance, faith, hope, and love rooted in the crucified and risen Jesus, empowered by the life-giving Holy Spirit, and directed to the God who is and shall be all in all. I did not see a vision of unity vivid enough, power enough, or profound enough to create Jennings’s desired community of belonging…a vision in which “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). For sure, the unity spoken of by Paul is not that of universal conformity to the ideal of the white male, self-sufficient, isolated, and masterful. Nor is it a unity created by everyone agreeing to accept everyone’s natural and self-chosen identity. It is the unity forged between Jesus Christ and everyone who by giving themselves to Christ are given a new identity as images of Christ who is the Image of God.