A colleague at another seminary once bragged about his institution’s approach to Christian education. “We don’t do buffet style,” he told me. “Many schools try to give the student a selection of ideas to choose from; we just tell them what is right.” Being “right” was the coveted badge of honor; forming minds that could think and grow was an afterthought.
Other examples of dogmatism in religious higher education are not hard to find. A professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, in Pennsylvania, was pushed out over his use of the word “myth” in reference to the Old Testament. In recent years, Calvin College has investigated two professors—releasing one—over the question of a historical Adam.
That approach to belief in the seminary, while not indicative of all schools of theology, is not rare. Classrooms can be places of real education, but they can also be camps for dogma. And that’s troubling. Many seminary students are second-career individuals, so this may be the only time a professor gets to open the door to new insights before the students trek off to their ministries, where they will be looked to by parishioners as experts. Unless seminary professors put our students (and ourselves) under the microscope, examining the motivations and commitments behind our beliefs, we will be creating monsters, un-self-aware and unchallenged ministry leaders with a dangerous stamp of approval provided by their seminary degrees.
Religious educators who train religious professionals play a powerful role in our society; we can either reinforce assumed facts about our own religions and stereotypes of others, thereby encouraging prejudice, or we can identify our intellectual gaps and personal wounds that make us human, overcome them, and perhaps live out the golden rule of loving our neighbors as we would have them love us.
Avoiding the potential pitfalls is not easy. As a seminary professor teaching core classes in history, world religions and worldviews, and philosophy, I understand that my students arrive with a faith perspective and have ministry plans, and I want to respect that context. Finding the right balance, however, is where my other hat comes into play.
Not only do I teach in a seminary context, I also teach for an undergraduate religious-studies program offered in cooperation with the university next door. It is no secret that traditional seminary education does not always share the goals of many religious-studies programs. While the seminary is focused on producing a better Christian for ministry, often in a specific tradition, the religious-studies student’s job is to study the Christian—or adherent of any other faith—as the subject, with the hope of understanding the nature of religion.
Religious studies as a field is evolving, with many educators arguing for a distanced, scientific approach. The benefit to studying the religious like an object in the laboratory—a benefit disregarded by many seminaries—is that it provides students an opportunity to slip the surly bonds of their worldview long enough to become the object of study. While they are getting into the cultures, beliefs, and contexts of other religions, they discover what drives themselves as well as what drives people in other faiths.
Suddenly, their own religious fervor—that which looked entirely divine and even infallible—is humanized. To paraphrase Hamlet, there are more things on earth than are dreamed of in your theology. Such discoveries are invaluable to students preparing for ministry leadership, which is why I incorporate those religious-studies principles in my seminary classroom.
Finding such empathetic moments is not always easy. There are, however, four suggestions that seem to work in my classroom. Perhaps these four should be considered obvious, but—depending on the professor and the seminary—the reality seems often far from it.
Acknowledge your own limitations and personal intellectual revelations. Students can (and do) look for mentors in their professors, so if we pretend to have absolute infallibility—or act like complete tools—we should not be surprised when we discover little clones doing the same. There is nothing wrong with students knowing that their professors have their own questions, doubts, or limitations. We should model humility and self-examination if we want to see it in our students.
Not all books on world religions are equal. To see another perspective, students need guidance in finding quality sources for research. If they need to understand or discuss the views of another person or belief system, they should be required to read books from that perspective, rather than critiques of that perspective by its opponents.
For example, when I want my Christian students to understand a worldview like atheism, I do not give them the latest Christian critique, which may be designed to set up the winner of the debate. Instead, I require students to read texts by atheists. Students must first hear that voice to understand it. Our classroom discussions on those texts are telling, and I often hear students saying things like: “I thought he was going to be a jerk, but he was very fair when discussing Christianity”; “I now see that atheists can be reasonable people, rather than immoral fools”; or “I wish I could express my beliefs as well as he did.”
What such responses tell me, as a professor, is not only that my students discovered something pleasantly surprising in the experience, but also that they came to the texts with serious misconceptions. Destroy the misconceptions by having students read primary sources they would not pick up on their own.
Lectures and books are helpful, but nothing replaces the opportunities that come from face-to-face conversation. In one class, I have my students interview someone of a different religion or worldview. I often receive e-mails from students confessing that they do not know of anyone they could interview outside of their Christian circle—which speaks volumes as to their preparedness for leadership.
It is then that I make a suggestion or point them to a local mosque or temple. As seminary students are often those with intense enthusiasm for their religion, I have to apply certain rules. For example, they are to ask certain questions that are provided for them and they are not allowed to proselytize the interviewees. The experience is a real trial for many of them, but it forces them to listen instead of talk. After they write the paper describing the interview, they must deliver a draft to the interviewee to be sure that person’s answers were represented fairly. If the person corrects the student, the student must make those changes before turning in the final paper to me.
Responses from students upon completing this project are telling: “I found out that my understanding of Islam was not based on what they actually believe”; “I was surprised at how often I interrupted her. I’m not that great of a listener after all”; and “I expected him to be dogmatic, but he was very friendly and was interested in learning from other faiths.”
Not every student follows the rules and not all have their epiphanies. One student told me he doubted that he would ever view Muslims in a positive light. Nevertheless, the number of students who benefit from the assignment is always higher than the number who don’t.
Make the classroom an active, small-group learning experience. Have students discuss a controversial subject or reading. It often surprises certain students to learn that there are disagreements on beliefs or ideas that had seemed extremely clear and simple.
Rather than pushing students to believe one proscribed doctrine, there is more value in leading them to the possibility that the world is bigger and more complicated than they had previously imagined. In that approach, the classroom becomes a human laboratory, where each person’s perspective is a chemical waiting to be mixed with another. That can lead to fresh ideas or explosive conversation; either way, something is discovered and learned.
An openness to others is not to say that seminaries can never be definitively Christian in mission. True learning cannot occur, however, when education is simply a self-aggrandizing tool. Faith may seek understanding, as seminary communities like to say, but understanding requires self-awareness. If any questions are off the table, then the educational game is fixed and folly.
I am not the only seminary professor with these concerns. The interview project I assign, for example, is an amalgamation of projects I was assigned as a student or observed in a colleague. However, a great many seminaries and Christian colleges continue to put so much emphasis on “the right doctrine” that the forming of a whole person—someone whose life bears the empathy required for living the golden rule—is ignored.
When that occurs, we have failed both the student and the religious community that the student will one day lead or support. The daily news reveals plenty of religious leaders who believe they alone are “right”; but we could sure use a few more who model critical thinking, humility, and grace.