Formation in the postmodern seminary

Abstract

This essay grew out of the several meetings and discussions of a group of "new Deans" convened by the Wabash Center for Teaching Religion and Theology. Most of us had been Deans for a year or two. The opportunity to think like a Dean led me to reflect on the ways that late-stage capitalist individualism forms and shapes our academic work even as the emphasis in the academy is on the deconstruction of economic, cultural and political systems. In particular, academic leadership in the seminary led me and continues to lead me to think of theological education more expansively than seminary curricula alone. Theological education is about the cultivation of an expansive and capacious imagination, a formation that is both critical and constructive of how Self and Other operate in contemporary social systems. Formation thus emphasizes both personal development and also the development and transformation of a world in need of it. As an international student and scholar, it was always evident to me that the academy was a microcosm of the U.S. cultural and political context. I had dived deep into some of these concerns: Gustavo Gutierrez' liberation theology, Charles Taylor's notions of Self and Authenticity, and Denis Turner's political mysticism and its relevance for the global Catholic church. These scholars had formed my thinking about theological education and the continuing potential of their reflections have deepened in and through my experiences as a Dean. Formation, as Gutierrez, Taylor and Turner may argue, is to unearth and acknowledge the many ways in which our cultural, political, economic and psychological identities intertwine with Western modernity, shaping us and our desire. Further, the critiques of Western modernity and the persistent clarion calls for reforming culture, politics, economics and self-identity also form us. In seminary contexts, these twin competing and contradictory forces also form and shape, creating particular energies that a Dean must navigate. In what follows below, I track these overarching movements to paint a larger picture than the demand for a "manual" on how-to-do theological education today in view of a capacious and expansive theological imagination. Formation, as I shall show, is largely unthought in this larger scale. It happens unconsciously, against the backdrop of cultural, economic and political intersecting contexts articulating particular features of Western modernity and postmodernity. As new Deans, we experienced being thrown into a roil of competing cultures that often stretched our energies to execute the more mundane programmatic issues facing us. Part of the intellectual leadership that was we realized that we needed to engage in is an age-old principle of the Christian tradition: ecclesia semper reformanda est. The church and the academy must constantly reform and reconstruct, building even as we tear down the edifices of prejudice and exclusion. The postmodern seminary engages in intellectual and spiritual practices that integrate both

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