Teaching Theology

Students that Shine

We talk about a student “shining” in class. Do we know what that really means?

For this we must go back to what is now a common description of the task of theological education – teaching for transformation. This widespread concept has a problem; the emphasis seems to be on changing the student, that we must transform them from what they are to what they could or should be. But is that the full story?

What if we used the word transfiguration instead?

This word refers back to the time when Jesus appeared to three of the disciples, shining in his glory. But the glory was not given to him, it was what he possessed, what he was, what he would be – because that is what he is. Jesus was not transformed from one thing to another, he was transfigured. It was just that his reality was, for a few moments, allowed to shine through.  It was a display of what was there, but hidden until then.

It seems to me that this is a very important thing to say about our teaching of students. We have the task of providing the opportunity, encouragement and help for the glorious things inside the heart and mind of the student to shine out. There is plenty of talk about creating the right learning “space” for our students (not so much physical space as mental and psychological space). The objective of transfiguration says that we need to create space for our students to shine.

What sort of shining? There is no doubt that all our students will all shine one day. They will be restored by the power of the resurrection to what humanity was intended to be. Then there will be plenty of shining glory around them, plenty of dedication, plenty of clarity, plenty of creativity, plenty of sweet reasonableness – they may even be on time to lectures if lectures are still allowed in the new heaven and the new earth! All of this is there in the seed now and we want it to flower before then. We want glory before glory. To achieve that is the job of the teacher.

So, this creates a number of key questions: What is the glory already there to be displayed? How will it be different for each student? What keeps the glory from being revealed? What can the teacher do to create the space where it can be revealed?  These are vital questions but a different set of questions which arise from the transformation concept we are used to dealing with.

Now we had better come down the mountain. Sometimes the only thing shining in the lecture room is the data projector. Students are often not what we would like them to be, let alone what they really are, glorious in Christ. We need transfiguration but we also need transformation.  We have to bring something, the teachers have to cart in the glory sometimes. Students also have to become what they presently are not.

But, when all’s said and done, transformation concepts are not enough. Transfiguration is the flash of glory for a while, which we pray for and work for, and which leaves us, with Peter on the mount, longing for it to be permanent in our students.

We will have to wait for that and, meanwhile, we could do with a bit more transfiguration ourselves.

Are we necessary?

Against the right expressed by the Catholic church to possess the authoritative interpretation of scripture (and therefore the right to define doctrine), the reformers asserted the right of private judgment. With William Tyndale, they wanted the boy who follows the plough to read scripture for himself and decide what it says. For that, they also had to assert the perspicuity of scripture – that the meaning of the text is clear to the ordinary Christian. Why then do we need lecturers in biblical studies and theology?  There are two frequent responses to this question.

Firstly, there is that of the cynical onlooker.

This assumes that we have decided to make things complicated in order to make ourselves indispensable. In other words, our job is all part of an enlightenment professionalism which refuses power to traditional authorities and instead creates a knowledge elite. This has power over ordinary people by being the only ones who have the knowledge and understanding that those people need but do not possess – in law, medicine and the church. It is just such a role that many in emerging churches reject today and so do not use traditional theological colleges as they otherwise could.

Secondly, there is that of the horrified historian.

This says that the Reformation, in asserting the right of private judgment and the perspicuity of scripture actually led people to see so many different truths that today, if David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopaedia is to be believed, we have over 20,000 different denominations. This view holds that even the reformers realised the consequences of their assertions and quickly put in place statements of faith to constrain the interpretation of scripture. Soon after that, some of them started killing each other for exercising the right of private judgment.

Clearly neither of these responses is adequate. Can we find a space between perspicuity and authority within which we can operate as teachers?

Parker Palmer says some useful things about this. “A learning space has three major characteristics, three essential dimensions: openness, boundaries and an air of hospitality”[1]and “The teacher is a mediator between the knower and the known, between the learner and the subject to be learnt.”[2] We can say that it is the learner’s job to learn and she can do it. In that respect, we hold to perspicuity. Yet it is also a task that should not be done alone. It should only be done “together with”.[3]

Firstly, it is done together with the Church – that has been doing it for a long time now and in many different cultures and situations. A hermeneutical community of one walking behind a plough reading the New Testament is in an un-necessarily weak situation.

Secondly, it is done together with an informed guide who, in the categories of Palmer, encourages openness, sets boundaries of speculation and creates a hospitable space where the work can be done together. Such a guide makes available the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church over two thousand years and among as many cultures, and creates the learning space which makes the work of the student possible and joyful.

That is our necessary task.

Call the midwife

Every job has its occupational hazards and one such hazard for lecturers is thinking too much of ourselves. We stand in front of people day in and day out. They listen to us (well most of the time). We can require things of them. We have letters after our name. And we are very useful – how would students learn without us?

Many of the models we use to describe our work feed this attitude. Teacher, example, guide, leader. Maybe what we need is a model which puts us in our place.

Rosemary Guenther writing about spiritual direction uses the model of midwife. Apply this to our job and immediately we are in a different atmosphere. The midwife does not give birth to something new, the midwife is not the focus of attention nor is she as important as the one giving birth.

Of course, she has seen it all before. Hopefully she also has given birth, and here she is now, standing by to help this wonderful process take place safely and well in another person.

The birth of new understanding, new relationship with God, new abilities to serve, will happen not in you the teacher but in the student. You can be a great help in these processes of giving birth. Your enthusiastic presentation of the concepts involved, your very person as an exhibit of what the students would love to be – academically, spiritually and in ministry – is often greatly used by God in their formation. But it will happen in them.

And, fundamentally, it will happen not because of what you do in the classroom but because of what the Holy Spirit does in the mind and heart (although, thank God, the two are sometimes linked by His grace).

I don’t know whether Mary had a midwife, but if she was around when the angel came to Mary, perhaps the angel would have said to the midwife also “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost – but thanks for helping”.

Don’t tell your students the truth

Let me say at the beginning that keeping the truth from your students is a good idea. Students don’t deserve the truth just by registering for the course. Some sit there in front of you thinking that they do; that they have spent good money to buy the truth and now you should deliver; that your job is to give them the product they have purchased.

But if they want truth, you should make them work for it. Teaching theology is not just saying things that are true. It is helping students see and experience the truth for themselves. You are not there to convey them up the mountain on the ski  lift of your lecture but to help them climb the mountain for themselves, with you beside them and holding the rope.

Or, to put it another way, you are not a rich kind uncle, but a poor cunning educator. You are helping them with a process not giving them presents. The earlier in a lecture you give them the truth as a present, the less of the educative process you are able to conduct.

And sometimes the best way to the truth is through what is not true, so why not sit on the edge of the desk, look them in the eye and show them the power of the arguments for the wrong position? Lead them up the garden path and, when it is clear that all they have arrived at is the compost heap, guide them back and show them the right way forward.

Now, I know that there is a role of truth telling in theological education. Truth has been entrusted to us and we have to be faithful stewards of that truth. But students also have been entrusted to us and we must attend to their development into thoughtful theologians and Christians as well as filling their back packs with the golden bricks of theology. We do them no favours for the future unless we show them that there will be a difficult theological task to be done throughout their ministries – enabling the Word of God to speak into the complicated and varied situations they encounter, thoughtfully and with power. And it would be good to get into the habit of thinking deeply about it now.

This has relevance, not just for future ministry, but also for the classroom situation in the present. If you want your lectures to be “interesting”, it will not be enough to show lots of funny, pretty pictures on the screen. You will have to lead your students into the dangerous dark wood of ideas. Or to use yet another metaphor in this already ridiculously metaphor-laden article, you are the ship pilot whose job is to take them out into the storm before you lead them into the harbour – since that is the best way for them to understand the harbour. Now that is interesting, and a lot of fun for both sides of the desk.

But there again, maybe much that is in this little article is not true, just an example of what we are talking about.

Kissing and theological education

At first sight, these two pleasurable activities do not seem to have anything in common so let me say first what I am not trying to say. The management mantra KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) is of little use when you try to apply it to such a complicated task as theological education, except in a very reductionist way. Nor do I wish to fall into the contemporary trap of using sentimental or even romantic language to describe our relationship with God. So, what do I mean?

The Poet Robert Bridges speaks of a kiss as “passion with peace” – and anyone who has had a loved one in their arms knows exactly what he means when he talks of this strange combination of feelings.

Not that we encounter either of these, that often, in the classroom. However together, just as they best describe a good kiss, so they also describe good teaching. Am I pressing the analogy too far? Maybe a little tongue-in-cheek? I don’t think so. They are the two things students recognise quickly and to which they most enthusiastically respond.

Passion for the subject is well documented as a key component of teaching which produces good learning. It makes possible, even inevitable, the interest of the class. And almost always some of the passion for the subject rubs off on the students.

Peace? Yes, certainly. It is the sense that you, the teacher, are there where you should be, at peace with yourself and the students – that you don’t fear the students or their questions but you are peacefully open them. Even that you are having a good time. This is a key pre-condition for student engagement and enjoyment.

If I was to give two fundamental reasons why teaching doesn’t work, they would be a lack of passion for the subject and a lack of peace in the teacher.

Now, all this is a far cry from the crude measurement of the feedback forms we usually use at the end of a module. These assess the quality of our notes, our timekeeping, how comprehensively we cover the subject, our use of visual aids (even if they are more of an impediment than of use) and so on. They generally miss all the important things which make teaching outstanding – a bit like a kiss reported on afterwards using a feedback form!

In this new year of 2013, maybe we can all look for more “passion with peace” in our lives as well as our teaching.

Most theological colleges are mostly happy places most of the time. However, experienced theological educators know that they can easily be damaged by anger, which is rarely too far away.

Henri Nouwen talks about the quiet internal anger of many ministers –their congregations are not responding to teaching and leading, not changing, even becoming a weight on the minister’s life and feelings. In the same way, lecturers can nurse anger towards students who do not care, are not trying, have little commitment to the subject they love, perhaps do not give enough respect, and above all do not allow the teacher to feel fulfilled. Often the job is not as we would like, it and which lecturer does not know the occasional quiet anger at so much administration these days?

But students also have problems with angerl. Recently, I conducted a poll to try and discover not just what students in class were thinking but what they were feeling as well. Anger came out as an issue. Mostly the anger was directed at other students disrupting classes by coming in late, doing emails in class, and so on. Occasionally anger is directed at the college; students invest a lot of precious money in a course these days and sometimes they are cross that they are not getting all they should, especially if a college is struggling.

Leaders – Principals and Rectors – are often tired and have plenty of tensions which can easily spill over into anger. Looking over the fence at more successful colleges can take the route from envy to anger – even towards God and his calling for them. Petty disputes in the staff or too much selfishness can cause sleepless nights and angry days.

Inter-staff anger is possibly the most common. Crossness with our colleagues, whether in leadership over us or not, is the hazard of every organisation and there are those who would say especially of Christian ones. Some of it is because of badly defines job descriptions, some of it is personality, some of it is problems in the lives of those involved, some an inability to tolerate weaknesses in others.

How do we deal with anger in a Christian way? Ephesians 4.26 is not just useful for married couples;

“In your anger, do not sin, do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.”

Three things are said here. Firstly, anger is not in itself a sin. It is a human condition. It can also be righteous anger, for the sake of the kingdom, as with Jesus when he cleansed the temple. You have to say, though, that there are few anger situations in which there is nothing of self.

Secondly, in an occasion of anger, for instance in a college, there is great potential to sin – gossip, unkindness, party spirit, lack of humility, are all there in the wings waiting to come on stage. It must be the Christian task of everyone to ensure that anger does not spill over into sin, so far as it lies with them. Not an easy thing to do when you remember that sin occurs in our thought life as well.

Thirdly, we are asked to work for a quick resolution to the situation of anger – in ourselves and with the other person if relevant. Momentary anger is human. Nursed, continuing anger is horrible, for us and for those with whom we are angry and it harms the work of God in a college.

Let us hope that not too many people get cross with me for raising the subject.

Being Human

If there is one little piece of theology all theological educators need to know about, it is anakephalaiosis or, if you prefer the Latin to the Greek, recapitulatio. But first let us take a step back a little and say why.

The tendency in our institutions is to contrast the human with the spiritual. We say that our job is to help the spiritual formation of the student – and what a shame that the human side of them gets in the way. Indeed, we say that the students are “only human” when talking about disciplinary proceedings.

Now there is a school of thought that says one needs the other. Only as you become more mature in your humanity can you become mature spiritualty and, since Pastores Dabo Vobis, this has been the accepted wisdom in the training of priests in the Roman Catholic Church. But I doubt that this is the correct relationship between the two – after all, as no less a theologian than George Lindbeck points out, some at least of the great saints of the past could not have been described as mature human beings and calls Francis of Assisi to witness[1]. But perhaps they were human beings as intended by God.

We must, of course, distinguish between humanity and sin. Even though they seem to have been mixed up in a complicated way after the fall, it is far too easy to just throw the baby out with the bathwater and avoid both sin and humanity, which is what we have often been guilty of doing.

Anakephalaiosis says that Christ re-headed humanity and so redeemed it. He was the second Adam, restoring, sanctifying and exemplifying what it means to be human. As Athanasius so beautifully puts it. The image of God was defaced in humanity so, just as it is necessary when a portrait is badly defaced for the original sitter to come back and sit for its restoration,  the second person of the trinity, in whose image we humans had been created, came in the incarnation to sit for the restoration of that image of God in humanity.

Therefore, the highest spirituality is to be human as God intended. That expresses the very image of God in us, the very imitation of Christ. Now, there are two big consequences of this truth for theological educators;

Firstly, let us rejoice in the humanity of our students and encourage it. Fun, joy, satisfaction in work and pleasure in relationships, peace in nature, honour, reality and a good laugh – along with much more. We must be teaching our students the godliness of these things.

Secondly, this truth has implications for our curriculum. If true humanity is true spirituality, then the study of society and culture, history and literature, even  politics and psychology, are no longer in the curriculum to help us understand them, those to whom we need to preach the gospel, but become a part of understanding us, what we should be. And the riches of the best of our history and culture, where even non-Christian writers have sometimes seen clearly what is true and glorious about humanity, become helps to our spirituality.

Humanity and spirituality are not two separate things existing in opposition in our colleges and seminaries. Ultimately they are the same thing. How I wish I had been told that when I was at college. Students in our colleges are often just at the point of trying to understand themselves as human beings with all the emotions and longings that involves – and debating how all this relates to their spiritual lives. Of course that relationship is complicated but this truth is a vital piece of the puzzle.

You can be sure that your students are watching you to see not just what sort of teacher, or even what sort of Christian, but what sort of man or woman you are. And they are right to do so.