Presidential Vision for the Seminary

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I. I’ve always been suspicious of dividing things in two. I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe it comes from subconscious childhood trauma. In fact, some of my earliest memories are of wanting the whole thing, but being told that my older brother and I had to divide it in two. Cake. Candy bars. That last hamburger, sitting on the grill, begging to be eaten. Even Kleenex. Kleenex? Yes, we used them a half a tissue at a time. After all, I was raised by the generation that sacrificed through the Great Depression. I would go for the whole thing. Then I’d hear those dreaded words: “Boys, you’re going to have to divide it in two!”

As I got older and began to delve into philosophy and theology and critical theory, it was a relief to realize that I’m not alone in being uneasy with dichotomy. Almost 40 years ago, C. P. Snow wrote about a malignant bifurcation that he saw growing between two primary academic cultures: the Humanities and the Sciences. “The number 2 is a very dangerous number,” he warned. “Attempts to divide anything in to two ought to be regarded with much suspicion.” [1]

Rev. Joe Small directs the Presbyterian Church (USA) Office of Theology and Worship in Louisville. He recently applied Snow’s suspicion quite thoughtfully to our situation in the contemporary church:

True enough of Presbyterians. But when you keep thinking about this, the tendency to divide things in two isn’t a uniquely Presbyterian problem. Across Western history, dualisms and simplistic bifurcations have frustrated intellectual coherence in philosophy and theology, and pitted “us” against “them” in international political, racial, and ethnic conflicts. In 20th Century genocidal movements, this phenomenon has led to unspeakable results, from the Ottoman Empire through the Nazis and on to the Holy Land and Serbia and Rwanda and Indonesia today. And now, after the 911 attacks on the World Trade Center, our world finds itself locked into an alarming binary opposition that appeals to the deepest of religious loyalties: the world is construed in terms of “Islam vs. the Great Satan,” or alternatively, between the United States and an opposing “axis of evil.”

When reality is divided in two in any area of life, one side risks being reduced to definition in terms of the other. Complexity is simplified into caricatures. My identity tends to be determined in contrast to what I find strange about you. Your realities can too easily be reduced to my perceptions. And any hope for wholeness disintegrates into polarization and fragmentation.

II. Of course, the longing for wholeness is at least as ancient as the tendency we’ve just outlined to divide things in two. The desire to see things comprehensively as a unified, coherent whole–to perceive an underlying unity and integrity in the midst of forces that would divide and separate and fragment–has been equally persistent and undeniable across the ages.

Our Judeo-Christian tradition has deep sources in the Hebrew Scriptures, the New Testament, and early Church theology that encourage us to refuse ultimate dichotomies, and instead to expect to discover an overarching coherence, integration, and wholeness to existence. In the Hebrew scriptures, the concept of shalom provides an indispensable starting point. Most people who’ve heard even a few sermons know that shalom is typically associated with peace, completion, fulfillment, and wholeness. In broad theological Old Testament usage, the idea of shalom indicates a sweeping vision of the Creator’s purpose for the wholeness or integrity of the creation. The hope for ultimate shalom is an intrinsic aspect of the divine salvation promised to God’s people. It’s God’s own act, not a human achievement. Shalom is the alternative–made possible through covenant relationship with God–to the kind of conflict, violence, and fragmentation that result from human sin and idolatry. It envisions a comprehensive integrity or well-being not only on a personal but also on a cultural level: physical, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual. It indicates the accomplishment of God’s purposes for God’s people, for human society, and for the world.

In the New Testament, this broad sense of shalom carries over in blessings we still repeat in worship: “May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). It’s also evident in various New Testament uses of the word holos (whole or all) including multiple uses in Mark 12:28-34. In the New Testament, holos is a word that indicates comprehensiveness, entirety, completion, and occasionally refers even to physical integrity that results from healing.

How do we move from destructive binary oppositions to the biblical understanding of wholeness that I’ve just sketched? Some of you who know me well may already be thinking about my affection for threes. Of course this isn’t a simplistic issue of arithmetic. You might not expect me to admit it if you know my Bonaventurian tendencies, but I honestly don’t believe that adding something to every dyad so as to make a “3" can fix every problem. Especially problems as complex as the ones we’ve been talking about here. Still, to whatever extent two’s may lean towards troublesome polarization, threes have at least on occasion been helpful in offering glimpses of broader, more comprehensive and integrated visions of wholeness. When employed with care, threes can be helpful in breaking through dichotomies, and false polarizations that otherwise become enemies of wholeness.

People who’ve noticed this over the history of the United States have tried persistently–so far without much success–to expand the two party system that pits Democrat against Republican into multiple parties. Our Interim Dean, Jana Childers, tells me that there’s a classic axiom in Rhetoric that governs the use of illustrations and phrasing: “If two, then three.” Apparently, listeners have an intuitive sense of wholeness connected with things that are grouped in threes. The thought just seems more complete. In conversation with James Noel of our faculty, I’ve been trying to understand something similar that seems to operate in the difficult interfaces of cultures and races that we spoke about earlier. There are dozens of contemporary contexts around the world where the powerful divide reality in two as a way to pit “us” against “them” and thus marginalize and exploit the powerless. Too often, these binary oppositions are drawn along racial, ethnic, or cultural lines. In the American South: Black and White. In the Cold War: East and West. In the Civil War or Korea or contemporary economic globalization: North and South. On the other hand, if 2 becomes 3, polarizing assumptions get messed up. Lines are blurred. Static, binary oppositions become more complicated. It’s harder to define your own cultural identity merely in opposition to someone else’s. There’s more space for people to be who they are, both culturally and individually. A powerful example of this may be found in more nearly multiracial or Creole cultures like those in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Brazil. There, to the extent that intermarriage occurs and multicultural integration is realized, attempts to define oneself racially or subculturally over/against another group become untenable.

For a moment I’d like to focus on a particular moment in history when inserting another element into a troublesome dualism led to a groundbreaking transformation in Christian theology. Early Church leaders and theologians struggled mightily against binary oppositions that made it impossible to adequately appreciate the mystery of God’s unique self-revelation in the human Jesus. Those who didn’t recognize God in this Nazarene appear to have regarded him simply as a human being–a mistaken Rabbi or a wandering sage. At the other extreme, Docetists and modalists emphasized Jesus’ divinity at the expense of his real humanity. Arians tried to resolve the problems of Christology by intensifying the binary opposition. Humanity and divinity were defined in opposition to one another. And on this dichotomous assumption, in order to be truly human, Jesus couldn’t possibly be divine in the same sense as the God of the Old Testament.

You won’t be surprised to hear me say that it was trinitarian thinking that eventually opened up this discussion and introduced new possibilities. Possibilities that allow our understanding of the relationship of humanity and divinity in Christ to be reconceptualized in a much more creative and fruitful manner. It wasn’t just God in Jesus Christ that had to be reckoned with. It was also the ongoing reality, presence, and power of God experienced in the church–the community of faith in Jesus. What the New Testament calls the Holy Spirit. As more fully trinitarian patterns of thought emerged in response to the church’s recognition of the living God in both Jesus and the Spirit, attempts to think about the relationship of humanity and divinity in Christ became much more vital and productive. In the fourth century, Gregory Nazianzen articulated a dynamic trinitarian understanding of God’s intrinsic relatedness and mutual self-giving that opened up vast new horizons for Christian thought in a famous sentence that was later picked up and quoted by John Calvin: “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish them than I am carried back to the One.” [3]

What had seemed an intractable dualism had been transformed into a creative and dynamic apprehension of new spiritual, intellectual, and practical possibilities for shalom. Instead of defining God over/against humanity or the world, the sovereign Lord of the Old Testament was now recognized as the infinitely self-giving One: the One whose being is in relationship. The One in whom free, gracious love overflowed for us as God entered time and space once for all in Jesus Christ, and who dwells in human hearts and lives here and now as the Holy Spirit.

This unprecedented new apprehension of God opened up the possibility of an entirely new economy. The typical economy of scarcity assumes what we now call a “zero-sum-game.” An ultimate binary opposition. A cosmic either/or. Resources are finite. If I win, you lose. If you get, I do without. Instead, the recognition of God’s triunity opened up an economy of ultimate abundance and generosity: an economy of shalom or wholeness. Global resources or human resources might well be finite. But God’s divine resources are infinite. If God is indeed triune, shalom can move from ideal to reality, because God’s infinite grace and generosity overflow abundantly and constantly for the flourishing of creation and human life through Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Christians acknowledge the opening up of this radical new possibility for shalom every time we baptize a new member of the community of faith or celebrate the Eucharist together. In fact, one of the traditional tests of a faithful Eucharistic Prayer of Thanksgiving is the extent to which it articulates and acknowledges these new possibilities of wholeness for the creation, opened up through God’s trinitarian self-giving in Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit.

III. What would it mean to seek wholeness of this sort in theological education for ministry? All theological seminaries, and especially those historic Protestant denominations deeply rooted in Western traditions of thought and higher education, face plenty of persistent dualisms and binary oppositions. Skepticism in the church, and discouragement among students, about the hard intellectual work required in seminary, as if it were peripheral or unnecessary to the practical and spiritual tasks of ministry. The tendency to pit theory against practice, or to worry about which is prior, or to explain one in terms of the other. The conduct of intellectual life in such a way that it has no intrinsic relationship with spiritual life, or with action that aims towards transformation in the real world. The inclination to talk and think about seminary and church as separate communities, whose needs and interests are at odds. The reluctance to embrace the financial and business realities of operating a seminary as part of its true purpose. As we focus on opening up these and other educational dualisms, the solution won’t be a simple arithmetical one. Still, I’d like to explore together how we might open up some of these persistent dichotomies as we pursue wholeness together in our educational vision for San Francisco Theological Seminary at the turn of the 21st Century.

As we gear up here at SFTS for a strategic planning process that propels us towards a new vision for the next era of our life together, we’ve been settling into a threefold pattern of wholeness that expresses some of our deepest shared values. Our current Mission Statement, embraced in the year 2000, highlights the trinitarian pattern of God’s saving mission of wholeness to the world, even as it directs us towards another classic threefold Christian paradigm for preparing people for leadership in Christian worship, belief, and living:

As we’ve sought to articulate this superb mission statement in simpler, more memorable ways, we’ve begun to talk about “embracing the triune God’s mission of wholeness for the world through preparing whole Christian leaders for the whole church.” In Mark 12:29-31, Jesus summarizes the highest priority of human life by quoting the Old Testament commandments that we love the Lord our God with all the heart, mind, and strength, and that we love our neighbors as ourselves. One way of allowing Jesus’ words to shape a common educational vision for us here at SFTS is to take our cues from this text as we sort out what it means to educate for wholeness.

If Christian leaders who come to us are to love the Lord our God with their whole hearts, theological education will have a strong emphasis on comprehensive spiritual formation and worship. This is something SFTS has helped pioneered for the whole church. Our chapel in San Anselmo is full or nearly full every day. Worship services planned for our southern campus draw together students and faculty from a stunning array of backgrounds and cultures throughout Southern California. Our practices of worship cultivate our awareness of God’s reality, presence, and power as they model for our students the creative worship planning and leadership skills necessary to sustain the spiritual life of a congregation. Our faculty and programs in Christian Spirituality bring the spiritual traditions of both the Reformed and the Ecumenical Church to bear on both the individual lives of our students and alumni, and the spiritual hungers of the churches they’ll lead.

If Christian leaders who come to us are to love the Lord our God with their whole minds, theological education for ministry will emphasize comprehensive theological formation and hard critical thinking. That means continuing to place high priority on the classical academic disciplines: Biblical Studies, the History of Christian Tradition, Theology and Ethics, Global Mission. It also means pursuing these classical disciplines in the most innovative and responsive ways, listening to both the global church and the secular academy as we stay abreast of the latest issues, concerns, and methodologies that rise to the fore from either quarter.

If Christian leaders who come to us are to love the Lord our God with their whole strength, and to love neighbor as self, theological education for ministry will emphasize practical formation. That means continuing to place high priority on practical theology: Homiletics, Worship, Pastoral Care, Christian Education, Evangelism, Church Leadership. It also means continuing to provide educational leadership in requiring actual, hands-on mentoring in specific practices of ministry for specific cultural expressions of the church in specific contexts. Practices that prepare people to make a real difference in the real church and the real world.

As we pursue wholeness of heart, mind, and strength in our educational endeavors, we have the incomparable resources of the Graduate Theological Union, a collaborative relationship with Claremont School of Theology in Southern California, and hundreds of close relationships with congregations and governing bodies and seminaries and ecumenical partners of the Presbyterian Church.

What does “wholeness” in Christian leadership look like? Leaders who love God with their whole heart, mind, and strength. Leaders who integrate the spiritual, intellectual, and practical disciplines of ministry. In the person and work of the incarnate, crucified, and risen Lord who comes and comes again, we have the picture and pattern of wholeness in Christian leadership that we need to make all of this tangible. Through the Holy Spirit, this same pattern applies to the wholeness we seek to facilitate in the one Church, Christ’s body. In the gospel of John, the Word who became flesh declared himself to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In the Reformed tradition, we continue to know and follow the risen Christ as our Priest, Prophet, and King. Jesus is the pattern of leadership we follow in living out what it means to love the Lord our God with all the heart, mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Heart, head, and hand. Loving, knowing, and serving God. Spiritual, intellectual, and practical formation for ministry. The early church took this threefold pattern of educational wholeness with the utmost seriousness as it formed its catechesis around the Lord’s Prayer, the trinitarian baptismal creed, and the 10 Commandments. The magisterial Reformers to whom we look as the founders of our Protestant tradition–Luther, Calvin, Bucer, and others–regarded this same threefold pattern of catechesis as the basis for appropriating fully-orbed Christianity. This is an understanding of educational wholeness that has deep roots right here at SFTS as well. Emphasis on this same threefold pattern goes back at least to our second President, the Rev. Warren H. Landon, who led the seminary from 1910-1928. The same triad was picked up by President William Oxtoby, Landon’s successor. And then in the 1990's, our current mission statement articulated it in terms of spiritual formation, critical theological reflection, and the skills and arts of ministry. [4]

My hope as your new President is that in the coming era of SFTS’s history, we might unite around a fresh reaffirmation of this age-old pattern of educational wholeness. That we might hold together and integrate these three irreducible aspects of formation for Christian ministry, “embracing the triune God’s mission of wholeness for the world by preparing whole Christian leaders for the whole church.”

That brings us to one final point. A crucial reason we need whole Christian leaders is in order to have, insofar as it may be possible, a whole church. As we think about that short phrase, it’s clear it can be taken in a number of ways. I’ve chosen it very carefully because I want us to push it in all of those ways. And as we do, let’s return in our thoughts to that overarching biblical concept of shalom–wholeness–integrity–that we spoke about a few moments ago.

I purposely waited until now to identify what I believe is the most malignant and debilitating binary opposition we face on the contemporary religious landscape. You won’t be surprised when I name it. It’s the tendency we all have to classify everyone we meet, every comment we hear, every book we read, and every church we visit on a dichotomizing spectrum that ranges from “Liberal” on one extreme to “Conservative” on the other extreme. The tendency to try to figure out in every conversation where the person we’re talking to stands on that continuum, relative to where we stand. The tendency to perceive and position ourselves at the center of that continuum, so that we can better maneuver the rest of the church towards our views on our favorite theological or ethical or social or political issue. With what I’ve said already tonight, it should be obvious that at the very least, I hope our vision of educating for the whole church will mean that San Francisco Theological Seminary reaches out to students and congregations across this polarizing theological continuum, and refuses to play into this macro-dichotomy that threatens to split every major historic American denomination in two.

Instead of playing into a polarizing theological continuum, let’s open up our hearts and minds–taking our cues from our gracious triune God–to a genuine spectrum of theological perspectives. A spectrum is quite different from a continuum, though we sometimes confuse them in our language. A spectrum is displayed by the light. It’s actually a manifestation of the light as it refracts the three primary colors into a brilliant bouquet of more subtle and complementary hues. The individual colors in a spectrum blend into and enhance one another. They don’t compete with each other or seek dominance over one another. They exist together as a whole that’s greater than any individual part.

But there’s more to educating for the whole church. It means being a seminary that intentionally seeks, supports, and values students and faculty and staff and administration and trustees from the whole range of cultural and racial heritages that comprise the Western United States and the Pacific Rim. It means being a seminary that determines its educational priorities through the discipline of listening to–and with the goal of serving–the whole church, whether “whole” is measured generationally, or geographically, or by congregational size or denomination, or by ethnicity and race, or by nationality, or by urban and suburban, or by municipal or rural, or by gender, or language, or by most pressing social issue, or by theology.

And it means, above all, being a seminary that persistently places before the church the pattern of Jesus Christ, the embodiment of God’s wholeness whom we love, know, and serve, as we seek together the shalom that the triune God intends for the whole creation. As we hold forth the generous economy of abundance that we embrace by faith in the limitless resources of that gracious God.

Friends and colleagues, let’s not settle for just a piece of that expansive vision. Let’s not be satisfied with fragments of God’s purpose for the creation. The world is desperate to see us holding together what the forces of evil relentlessly try to tear apart. In the name of the God we know in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, let’s insist on the whole thing!

Endnotes

1. C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures; and a second look (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 19640, 9.
2. Joseph Small, “Church Fears,” in Committed Conversation, Church Issues Series Number 2. (Louisville: Presbyterian Church [USA], 1999)
3. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 40.41; cf. John Calvin, Opera Selecta, Edidit Petrus Barth, Vol. III (München: Chr. Kaiser, 1926) 131 (1559 Institutes I.13.17).
4. Robert B. Coote and John S. Hadsell, San Francisco Theological Seminary: The Shaping of a Western School of the Church, 1871-1998 (San Anselmo, First Presbyterian Church, 1999) 143

[photos by Steve Schenck/Schenck & Schenck Photography]