The December 28, 2009 Alban Weekly
Claudia Greer on December 28th, 2009
Claudia Greer is on vacation this week. She will supply a “resource blog” for next week’s Alban Weekly.
Please post your comments regarding the December 28, 2009 Alban Weekly here.
Thank you, and happy new year!
Great article by Sally Simmel who articulates concisely a vision of the importance and opportunities for attending more carefully to the theological education of lay people as a lifegiving and faith (in)forming journey. She provides a primer for how to get started, and she lays out a solid rationale for why! Thanks.
I liked your article and find that you have brought to my attention of how important lay people are and the challenges that we have when we feel called to be the church. I do preach often and I have this a challenge and I need to read to get ideas of how to put a sermon together. I have a minister who supports me and encourages and often I ask him or her to critique my sermon or words for me. Usually, they are very supportive and suggest. I like to read and need to read books that reflect my theology. I appreciate weekly report and find helpful.
I have seen many beautiful sunsets and sunrises in my 67 years and appreciate the beauty of creation. I have Aboriginal friends that have taken me on a spiritual journey and they have showed me how beautiful creation is and how important it is to be part of Mother Earth.
Thank you for your suggestions of reading materials.
Blessings and happy new year
Linda Parsons,
Newmarket, Ontario
While church people may come with their questions for theological inquiry, the harder problem is how to bring non-church people into the hermeneutical circle. We can assume church people are already there.
I just taught a class on “science, religion, and worldviews” with a couple of physicists for an elderhostel program. Many participants had strong, even professional, scientific backgrounds with little knowledge of religion or the options in theology. For the most part, they were not “religious,” though religion interested them. Nor were they dogmatic in rejecting religion. One question from an economist (a Unitarian-Universalist) was particularly to-the-point: “How should folks committed to tangible evidence and the ‘rule of reason’ understand religion?” Many of our brightest youth in church have to ask themselves that and leave the church because they do not find a reasonable answer.
One biologist–a longtime friend–just wants religious people to stop interfering with science and scientists. He thinks the creationist versus evolutionist battle is wrong-headed on the grounds that it violates NOMA (“non-overlapping magisteria” as laid out in Stephen Jay Gould’s book, Rocks of Ages). There are deeper issues at stake than just the autonomy of science and scientists, though my former teacher, John Cobb, Jr., tells me that NOMA can work for some immediate practical issues.
Unfortunately, our progressive churches have not done well, even with our own members, in communicating alternatives to the biblical literalism that defends the Bible as a science textbook. With a number of “new atheists” writing books in opposition mainly to the fundamentalist, dogmatic, intolerant understanding of religon, we need to face them squarely in adult education in the liberal old-line churches. We don’t have to let either secular humanism or fundamentalism define us and our views of religion. We do need to be secure in our own views, which means theological reflection in the church on science, religion, and competing worldviews.
The article by Sally Simmel makes a world of sense to me. Indeed, there is a far greater hunger for theology among laity than most clergy I encounter appreciate. My guess is that more published work in this area would be well received, particularly by those over 62 and under 42, for use in small group settings as well as individual study and reflection.
Bill Walker, former DCM, FL Conf, UMC, and former Florida Conf. lay leader.
As a lay leader working to build discipling communities and equip transformational leaders, I have some concern with the focus on theological education for laity. Over the last ten years I’ve worked as a consultant and coach for pastors and lay leaders (ELCA). Only 15% or less of the pastors I meet have a heart for discipleship and see themselves as leaders. So, I wonder if theological education will create different results with the laity?
Those of us called to transforming churches from inwardly based, closed systems into externally focused missional communities have not seen that as the focus of our seminaries. So, until seminaries are prepared to lead us into missional disciple-making, I hesitate to get excited about theological training for lay leaders coming from the seminaries.
Peace,
Gregg Burch
Publisher
TransformingChurch.com
Network Organizer
Transforming Leaders Initiative
http://www.TransformingLeadersInitiative.org
Thanks very much for this thougthful piece on the need for theological education for the whole people of God.
I have two additions to this piece, that I think are complementary additions.
First, I have been shaped for many years by a very helpful essay by Edward Farley, called “Can Church Education be Theological Education?”. Farley argues that too little education in the church involves “ordered learning.” Such learning is the kind of learning that anyone who knows “how to clone animals and humans and measure germs on Mars,” has mastered in other endeavors. Ordered learning requires learning something conceptually foundational and then something more complex and then something even more complex. Moving through levels of complication to a level of sophistication is something many people of faith do on a regular basis, but irregularly or not at all in matters of faith.
This leads to my second addition to this fine reflection on theological education. The piece refers to lay theological education as “continuing” education. I would argue it is not actually continuing education, which usually refers to education at an advanced level for those who already have a high level of knowledge in a field. The professions make reference to continuing education as short term educational experiences that continue on the foundation already laid in degreed education. Lawyers, doctors, social workers, educators, clergy, even pilots do continuing education to keep up with their field.
The sort of theological education that needs to flourish for lay people is not first of all continuing education. What is needed is an ordered learning that begins by laying foundations and layers increasingly complex conceptual thought on these foundations.
I believe the reason we call lay theological education, continuing education, is that it does not result in a degree and it frequently happens at the margins of a theological school as something of an “overload,” on the teaching schedule of seminary faculty.
I couldn’t agree more that there is a need for theological education for the laity, even a deep and abiding hunger. Such education, however, will likely only really happen in earnest when we attend to building a new set of “mediating” institutions for providing such education.
Outstanding article on theological education for lay people as well as for offerings where lay and clergy may learn together. This is a very exciting time in which to be alive, to be a person of faith and to be in theological education. There is tremendous opportunity for all of us to learn, to grow, to heal, to challenge, to explore and to deepen. We at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary are opening our doors in new ways to lay and clergy for short residential courses, online offerings, one time lectures and ongoing classes. The possibilities are endless, and we are developing our offerings together with those who are seeking to learn and grow. What are some of the questions you would like to explore?
I may have said this before, but small churches are missing an opportunity to gain some real experience for their church by not asking retired pastors if they would consider coming out of retirement. I did, five years ago and although at times it has been difficult, I have enjoyed working with this small group and feel renewed in my calling and in faith.
Sally’s article rings true on a number of levels, as others have said.
I like her practical suggestions. I have worked hard to use lay educators, but there is a thing in ‘the blood’ still which tends to result in clergy being asked instead. In one way at least this is good: in the respect that many clergy feel underused on the teaching side and want more opportunity. We need more situations where clergy and laity are learning and teaching together.
I also like the idea of reflection groups of for people in similar roles/workplaces and a combination of face-to-face and online time.
Also the important thought that lay people ‘reword’ what they hear for themselves. I think the phrase ‘make our own meaning’ is more powerful. It is when people realise things for themselves without just being ‘told’ that learning makes most impact.
Excellent. Question: Is part of the problem that ‘holy language’ can get in the way of open dialogue & communication. Terms like Theology can intimidate those from other disciplines, esp when clergy-types haven’t taken effort to see where other words might be more useful in describing how Theology can play out in the real world.