Academic Vocation in the Church and Academy Today

'And With All Of Your Mind'

Shaun C. Henson, Michael J. Lakey, Shaun C. Henson, Michael J. Lakey

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781134800407
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología

This book explores the vital, common, yet surprisingly often misunderstood and neglected vocation of people gifted to combine academic and priestly roles in church, church-related, and secular academic contexts. The works of those who unite priestly and academic functions into one vocation have been vital to the Church since its first-century foundations. The Church would have no practically informed theology or liturgy, and arguably no New Testament, if not for individuals who have been as gifted at researching, writing, and teaching as at conventional ministry skills like preaching and pastoral care. With a specific focus on Anglicanism as one useful lens, prominent voices from around the Anglican Communion reflect here on their experiences and expertise in academic-priestly vocation. Including contributions from the UK, USA, and Australia, this book makes a distinctive and timely offering to discussions that must surely continue.

PART I
Introduction and Overview

Chapter 1

Introduction

Shaun C. Henson Michael J. Lakey

The works of the faithful who combine academic and ministerial functions into one vocation have been vital to the Church since its first-century foundations. The Church, quite simply, would have no practically informed theology or liturgy, and arguably no New Testament, if not for those who have been as gifted at researching, writing, and teaching as at conventional ministry skills such as preaching, presiding at the Eucharist, and pastoral care. A long list of people have to date continued on this now familiar vocational track, and many millions have benefitted from their efforts both within and outside of the Church.

Yet among the varied possible roles available to those in ministry, about which numerous books have already been written, it is astonishing that no dedicated studies exist about the vocation of men and women we might today call ‘academic priests’ or ‘academic ministers’. That this has happened is not only surprising, but is symptomatic of a serious and recently mounting problem for the Church and academy today.

The apparent abstraction of that point is easily made concrete when a multitude of intersections shared between the Church and academy are examined. These intersections can be found in local churches, Christian and secular colleges and universities, across all diverse cultures and societies where these entities exist, and in the Christian lives of everyone who has ever discerned their gifting and calling to be from God for such a lifetime of labours.

In the following collection of chapters, we and a group of carefully chosen contributors seek to address this vocational phenomenon and material dearth directly, in a way not yet attempted. We believe that this book attests in numerous ways to the need for such a clear focus, and underscores our conviction that it must be undertaken inclusive of the viewpoints of people in several locations and different venues, and at varying levels of service. The commissioned results have returned to us dynamically as wide-ranging, multi-faceted, delightfully creative, and at points deeply prophetic.

As one exemplary lens from which to view broader attendant issues, we have drawn on the experiences and expertise of voices from around the Anglican Communion, and particularly from those who are themselves good examples of an academic priestly vocation. But it is important that readers from any ecclesiastical or educational context, in any setting where religious practice and academic expertise are valued in some combination, understand that they will find here themes and challenges familiar to them. Alongside these are constructive discussion topics featuring at least embryonic notions toward solutions. We neither imagine nor offer any pretence of unambiguous answers to the challenges that we name. After all, solutions will undoubtedly differ with persons and contexts. But we believe it is unquestionable that we are identifying a vocation undertreated to the point of a dilemma, which comes with related sets of issues equally requiring study, discussion, and resolution. While one might understandably assume that the vocation and associated matters examined here must have already received proper treatment, this is simply not the case.

Within the United Kingdom context of Anglicanism, for instance, a scholar-priest vocation is ostensibly recognised. Candidates for ordination training can even be identified as ‘Potential Theological Educators’ (PTE). Yet added to the fact that there is no body of literature on the vocation to speak of, those so gifted are offered little advice and no obvious career path into which to fit once they have been expensively trained. Even as this book is being published the validity of a category like PTE is up for debate, and in many denominations does not exist to start with.

Further to any examples that one might name from within Anglicanism or other settings, the time is ripe for a serious discussion of academic priestly calling widely conceived. The Church is actively now considering how to fund, deliver, and maintain theological education in the wake of changes and pressures in the Higher Education sector. Parallel challenges in this regard exist in the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe, Australia, and elsewhere.

We have purposefully endeavoured upon commissioning these chapters not to take the usual approach of choosing only the most widely recognisable names possible to write each one. Some of the authors are well-known, but others are far less so. This is because part and parcel of the set of problems to be addressed exists precisely for under-represented academic priestly workers in local churches, for example, as well as in multiple other more predictable locations. For some of these people the need for a voice, and for understanding and space to function wherever chance or providence has placed them, is most acute. There exists, naturally, a converse set of equivalent problems for the best-known of well-placed priests and academics, some of whom have also contributed to this collection.

This book cannot be an exhaustive treatment of such an important and multi-faceted topic. It does include, however, offerings from a realistic array of voices and venues. To be realistic, that array necessarily takes into account people working in jobs and places not always on a mental map when considering those combining priestly and academic work, as well as those who show potential to contribute. Our hope is that the chapters so assembled will open understanding in the Church and academy to the variety of roles possible, thus stimulating creative thinking and conversation toward greater support and opportunities. The individual chapters are divided into three broad sections inclusive of scholarship and ministerial practice, educational contexts, and theological reflections on the academic aspects of specific ministerial roles.

We as the editors open the entire series of corresponding topics with an introductory section setting the stage. chapter 2 asks rhetorically, ‘Is Someone Killing the Great Academic Priests of the Western World?’, while describing and explaining creatively what academic priestly vocation is, setting it in biblical, historical, and philosophical contexts. Using Austin Farrer as an exemplar, the current and growing challenges for this vital, common, yet frequently misunderstood and contested vocation are presented, introducing prospective thoughts toward constructive solutions. That chapter is followed by ‘“And Enjoy Him Forever”: Biblical and Theological Reflections on Dual Vocation’, which employs an imaginative set of theological reflections focused on recurrent aspects of all academic priestly vocations. Case studies involving St Paul (in conversation with Aristotle), John Henry Newman, Josef Pieper, and St Augustine are all presented.

Part II, ‘Scholarship and Ministerial Practice’, the first of three major sections, begins with ‘Playing Football at Mansfield Park: Christian Doctrine and the Local Church’ by Peter Groves. Groves, who is uniquely placed as a university lecturer also in charge of a prominent city congregation, shows the local Church as a proper place for serious education. He asks whether the Church at large really wants to suggest that it is possible to be a priest and not also a theologian, and why only some of those training for ordination are marked as ‘Potential Theological Educators’? His argument is that the work of encouraging the scholarly vocation will prove essential, but that to avoid contradicting itself, it must guard against the privileging of certain disciplines in or by certain places or people. Stephen c. Barton follows this with a multi-faceted and practically helpful piece on ‘Biblical Scholarship and Preaching’. Barton, also a university lecturer and active local Church priest, explores in some depth the crucial role of informed biblical scholarship in the preparation and delivery of parish preaching. Lucy Dallas, one of two Potential Theological Educators featured in the book, then explores in ‘Memory and Eucharist’ how the Eucharist as the focal point of Anglican worship creates and sustains ‘communities of memory’ in which the person of Jesus is kept central to the formation and nourishing of the identity of Christians. She highlights how the specialist skills of an academic priest can aid local worshipers in their faithful service to God. Christopher Landau, the second Potential Theological Educator, follows with a focus on a recent human guide in ‘From Thought to Desire: Theology, Priesthood and the Legacy of Dan Hardy’. Landau demonstrates how in Hardy we have a worthy role model for an approach to theological education that is centred in eucharistic worship, while being at once deeply pastoral and open to God’s sometimes surprising revelations through devoted theological exploration.

Part III, ‘The Educational Context’, turns our attentions from local Churches to conventional educational institutions. The first and third chapters are to do with aspects of theological colleges and seminaries preparing people for Church life, while the second gives insight into the Church functioning in secular academia. Mark Chapman writes in ‘The Vocation of the Theological Educator: Listening for the Divine Voice’ of the vital role of theological education in ensuring that a ‘back-and-forth communication’ between tradition and Scripture remains possible. His concern is that our talk of living the virtues of the Christian life and developing a Christian ‘character’ need not involve a corresponding downplaying of the importance of the critical faculties, which is an age-old problem when religion and academy meet. Alison Milbank follows Chapman with ‘The Academic Priest as Teacher and Tutor’. She asks what the role of a priest educator might be for buffered students at a secular university. In what sense can or should one inspire in one’s students an appreciation for wisdom, mystery, and transcendence, or even a desire for God, while labouring at an institution where one cannot even bear the title ‘Reverend’ in a faculty list? Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski turns to questions of purpose crucial for every institution of Higher Education whatever its orientations in ‘Pursuing a Vocation in the Midst of Crisis: Moving from Scarcity to Mission’. Joslyn-Siemiatkoski offers an insider’s American Episcopal take on a growing predicament in the theological education of priests and ministers who resource the Church. Writing as a professional theological educator, he asks what ought to be the purpose of encouraging a vocation pursued in the context of theological education? Who does theological education serve and how does it advance the mission of the Church?

That all leads well into Part IV on ‘Theology and Ministerial Vocation’, which starts with Australian Bishop Stephen Pickard’s ‘The Scholar Bishop: Recovering Episcopal Vows’. Pickard contends convincingly that all who take Episcopal vows, whether or not they are personally both an academic and a priest, are called to guide and encourage those who do have this important dual vocation, in a Church that needs it in today’s world. Further, he argues that combining some measure of academic and priestly ministry is not an optional extra for anyone, nor a luxury the Church can ill afford, nor the preserve of an elite – clergy, seminarians, the experts, or ‘professionals’. Rather, it is a task for all the baptised enshrined in their vows and is a corollary of their diverse ministries. Martyn Percy follows this theme of getting reconnected with the roots of all Christian vocation in ‘Walking with God: Vocational Vignettes from the Gospel of Mark’. Percy reflects on the Gospel to remind us that a vocation is not a career in the sense that another job might be, but is a life surrendered to God. Every Christian for this reason has a vocation. He acknowledges cultural and personal forces that have shaped ministerial vocation in the past, and will continue to do so in the present. These forces include diversities of gifts, yes, but still every vocation to ministry is an invitation to develop an academic mind. The academic vocation, like any spiritual calling, is an invitation to risk-taking, and sometimes contending for the work that God wants doing. For those who do academic priestly ministry, the start is at ordination. Hence we end with the beginning in Joy Tetley’s excellent chapter on being ‘called to Account – Signposts from the Letter to the Hebrews’. She writes on the whole of life as being offered in God’s service, which certainly includes the activity and exploration of our intellect. Tetley examines how this dedication makes a difference to the way academic life is approached and exercised, what God might require of the ordained academic, and she reflects on our accountability.

Samuel Wells has spent his life leading Churches alongside attachments to the academy in both England and America, and writing books for these diverse audiences. He concludes in Part V by giving a comprehensive theological reflection informed by his experiences in, ‘Places of Encounter: Hanging out Where God Shows Up’. Based on first-hand encounters that occurred during his work as a priest in a major American secular academic environment, Wells demonstrates both the possibilities and the realities of meeting God in life-altering ways within academic contexts.

We all, as editors and contributors, believe that the following work raises undeniably crucial issues. It provides a distinctive and timely contribution to discussions that are not entirely unfamiliar, but which have largely been the subject of indirect discourse, sometimes borne from vocationa...