Seven Things I Wish All Pastors Knew About Academics—Part 1

Recently I gave an invited talk at Villanova University on Christianity and postmodernism. In that talk, I took as a springboard for my reflections the fact that I had recently been encouraged (by my pastor) to leave the non-denominational evangelical church where my family and I had been attending for nearly two years. A video of that talk is available on my personal blog and so I won’t rehash that account or my argument regarding postmodern Christian existence that attends to it. Instead, here in this two-part blog post, I want to offer a short (and quite informal) series of thoughts that I have about what I wish pastors knew about academics as they relate to us in the congregations that they serve.

Christian Identity and the Academy

I do not mean for this essay to be exhaustive and I do not intend for it to be universally applicable. On the one hand, I will largely have in mind pastors in generally evangelical Christian contexts, and on the other hand, I will largely be thinking of academics who find their research to intersect with and raise questions for their Christian identity. Of course there are pastors operating in traditions for whom these thoughts will seem trivial and unnecessary and there are academics whose areas of research simply will not likely raise the sorts of concerns underlying my reflections here.

That said, even if the following reflects no one else’s experience, it does reflect my own and, if the response to my Villanova talk is any indication, I am not the only one hoping that more pastors would incorporate the following realizations into their ministry.

Four (of Seven) Realizations about the Academics Among You

I believe that if more pastors knew these seven things about academics, then fewer academics would feel isolated from their own ecclesial communities.

1)  Academics, as academics, are not pastors—and we are not trying to be.

The ecclesial authority that rests on a pastor is not the same authority that rests on a professor. Though there are likely to be many areas in which the practices of each are similar (study, reflection, writing, speaking, teaching, etc.), the mantle of responsibility and authority is not the same in each case. Just because academics are good at some things does not make us good at everything.

Often confusion and mistrust result from the suspicion that academics are threatening to the office of the pastor. This is unfortunate and rarely grounded in reality. Academics should be threatening to sloppy thinking, falsehood, unjustified assertions, and resistance to critique, but these are all things that pastors should seek to avoid as well. Indeed, if pastors saw academics as resources in the way that they see coaches, business owners, and civic leaders, then the life of the mind and the life of faith might be more commonly integrated in churches.

 2)  Academics generally understand that disagreement does not imply disunity.

A frequently heard claim in Christian communities is that unity is of central importance to the life of the church. Although this claim is biblically based and probably well motivated in most cases, it is important to get clear on what is meant by “unity.” Unity could variously refer to geographical location, ministerial impact, teaching content, theological doctrine, social mission, liturgical style, denominational tradition, etc. In all cases, the context is usually what determines the referent and application of the term. So, in the context of a church that has multi-sites, the emphasis is likely to be on being “unified” in relation to a specific ministerial impact (hence the need for video-links so that the same pastor can be at several places at once, etc.). Or, in the context of a denomination that has recently split over theological issues, “unity” is likely to get developed in relation to theological doctrine. Further, in the context of a denomination that might be global, the importance of unity in relation to teaching content and liturgical style might be what holds the diverse local congregations together as “one” church.

Other examples could no doubt be offered, but the point is that it is not obvious what “unity” means without having the difficult conversations that attend to it. That said, because many pastors are worried that such difficult conversations will lead to “disunity,” appeals to “unity” can often serve as a way of shutting down those voices in a community who might genuinely be interested in thinking more carefully about what the community says about itself. Welcoming critical engagement is what allows for the specific notion of “unity” to be definitive of a specific community in a way that is not merely about self-protective insularity.  Indeed, one of the gifts that academics might contribute to their Christian communities is precisely the ability to help facilitate such engagement in productive ways.

3)  Appeals to “non-negotiables” are often problematic for academics due to a general comfort with ambiguity.

There is extremely little that an academic understands to be “non-negotiable” in the sense of it being “obviously true.” Instead, when things are said to be off the discursive table, as it were, this usually indicates a reinforcement of historical particularity, which is itself a contingent product of a long history of negotiation (for status, identity, power, and influence). This is not to say that academics are opposed to “objective truth,” but simply that objective truth is held as such by individuals who find themselves in situations that demand interpretive awareness, historical understanding, and epistemic humility.

That said, when an academic asks questions about things that are presented as “non-negotiable,” this does not necessarily mean that she rejects the truth of the claim being considered, but probably that she is interested in getting clear not only on what is being claimed, but why it is being claimed in this particular way. Accordingly, most academics admit that multiple interpretations of the same thing are possible and that is ok. That said, there are times when academic expertise is precisely what allows for deciding well between the relevant interpretive options. Given that academics are comfortable with ambiguity, the repeated biblical insistence that we only “seek through a glass darkly” might open spaces for viewing the engagement with academics as a valuable resource for living in light of the continued mystery that attends Christian truth.

4)  Asking critical questions is a primary way in which academics build relationships.

Whatever else academics are, they are readers. Yet, reading is not merely the acquisition of information, but the building of relationships with a diverse set of views, thinkers, texts, and ideas. These relationships are then the fabric out of which an academic weaves her own professional identity, the resources out of which she constructs her own authorship, and the discourse that enables the development of her own voice. In other words, reading is radically relational. Being able to read well while resisting the temptation to be swayed by everything that one reads is crucial if one is not simply going to be an observer of a conversation, but a participant in that conversation. Accordingly, asking critical questions is a sign of taking something seriously and, hence, of wanting further engagement with it. Too often pastors assume that asking such questions is a sign of arrogance or unbelief. Notice, though, that in the first case, the arrogance would seem to rest more at the feet of the one who finds questions to be threatening (“Who are you to question me?”), and in the second case, knowledge would be something so fragile that it can’t recognize its own limits (hence self-criticism would be replaced with self-protection). Importantly, academics are likely to take seriously the biblical passages in which God encourages us to “come reason together” (Isaiah 41:1), and Jesus praises the person who admits that he doesn’t have it all figured out (Mark 9:24).

More to Come

That covers four of the seven things I wish all pastors knew about academics. This two-part blog post is regrettably much too brief to allow me to develop these claims in much detail. However, I hope that it might motivate the sort of thinking that will invite the continued engagement between communities of faith, their leaders, and the academics among them in ways that cultivate trust, rather than the suspicion that leads to exclusion.

In the final three realizations I will move from the more-or-less functional role of academics in faith communities into the spiritual and psychological realities that we encounter.

For Part 2 of this post go here.

For a downloadable PDF of both “Seven Things I Wish All Pastors Knew About Academics” posts go here.

Photo Credit: “2015 Williams Baccalaureate” by Williams College – CC by 2.0

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