Formational Theological Education—Part 1: Troubling a Metaphor

Change is coming to theological education. This is now self-evident, there ubiquitous.

In a recent keynote to new faculty at seminaries and theological schools, Dan Aleshire (Association of Theological Schools) surveyed historical shifts in theological education with an eye towards 2030 — when his audience would be mid-career. Historically in North America, he argues, theological education shifts when models of ministry shift. There can hardly be much doubt that this true today.

Aleshire suggests from his vantage point that what is coming is a formational model of theological education which tends to the full range of pastoral competencies and practices for the complex situations of ministry today. It will no longer be enough to teach the disciplines we specialize in. Not even being master teachers of our disciplines will be enough:

It will no longer be enough to think of yourself as a biblical scholar or a historian who teaches in a seminary—where your primarily professorial identity is with discipline. Formational education forces you to understand your role as a theological educator—someone who is teaching students who will stand in a pulpit and tell a congregation that something is ultimately true, or work for less than a living wage in an agency that enacts the church’s commitment to justice and mercy, or counsel troubled lives with a theologically informed understanding of human wholeness. You are teaching students whose souls are being crunched while their minds are being expanded, and it is as much your job to deal with the soul crunching as it is to deal with the mind expanding. It is a different way of being a professor. You will never stop being the disciplinary specialist that you were trained to be, but if that is all you choose to be, your work will provide less and less of what is needed as the formational model of theological education settles into the work of seminaries.

In the future, one of the great elements of teaching will be tending not only to the knowledge our students need, but also competency and character-based practices. Pedagogy, curriculum and technological innovation can support this shift, but it seems to me that at its heart is a shift of vocational understanding for theological educators.

Teaching By Way of Practices

My own field of practical theology is particularly well suited for this shift, even if many continue to question what exactly our specialty is.

Practical theology is a way of doing Christian theology with particular attention to how belief and practice are lived in the everyday. It is concerned with how Christian theology shapes everyday life and how everyday life shapes Christian theology. Among academic theologians, practical theology is a field of study concerned with supporting communities of faith (their ministers, people, institutions, etc.) in their efforts to live faithfully.

Bonnie Miller-McLemore, a prominent practical theologian and gifted educator, has often written about the challenges of teaching those preparing for ministry and other theologically-formed vocations. While her colleague at Vanderbilt University, Ed Farley, had almost three decades ago stressed the problem of the “clerical paradigm” — what he saw as an overemphasis on technical and profession know-how — Miller-McLemore has framed the dilemma as the limits of an “academic paradigm.” One way to move beyond the specialized, disciplinary entrapment we face is to think of theological students as musicians. Even the best musicians in the world continue to practice their scales. What then are those basic pastoral practices which sustain excellence in ministry today? How can theological educators teach by way of these practices?

Troubling the Metaphor

Having spent the majority of my undergraduate years as student of music, I deeply appreciate this way of thinking about theological education. It certainly offers much for those of us seeking to make the shift Aleshire proposes. Music after all, takes time to learn. Pastoral imagination too takes time — as a recent ten year longitudinal study has shown. Models of apprenticeship and disciplined practice native to the arts help us theological educators consider more carefully the performative aspects of faith and ministry in everyday life.

But there is something troubling about this metaphor that deserves serious critique and conversation. Miller-McLemore’s musical metaphor is based on classical training. This is admittedly my own background. As a music student I spent hundreds of hours in small practice rooms rehearsing my scales and etudes (much to the detriment of my GPA!). That practice-based education was complimented with courses in history, music theory, and instructional methods. This classical training formed me into a classical musician. It sought to make me into a disciplined, virtuoso performer.

I wonder though whether the future models of ministry will look like the classical performances my classical training was designed to produce. I suspect they will not. My own experience in ministry has been more analogous to my modest (mostly embarrassing) attempts at jazz improvisation. Countless folk and jazz musicians have never learned the scales, yet their performances are no less excellent. They learned in rent parties, in clubs, and all kinds of non-traditional learning.

How can theological education both attend to the whole person — body, mind and soul — along with the practice and character-based performative qualities of ministry without prioritizing “classical” education? How can we value the folk (and the improvisational) theological insights and performances as much as the classical virtuoso?

Photo Credit: “Virtuoso Board Game” by Caleb Heisey.

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