Teaching Theology Isn’t Like Teaching History?

published on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by admin

By Dr. Brian Bantum
Assistant Professor of Theology
Seattle Pacific University

In my undergraduate creative writing courses my professors were concerned with cultivating my skills of expression and observation. These were evaluated not on the basis of my knowledge of Morrison or Faulkner or how they drew upon philosophy or critical theory. My knowledge of Faulkner and Morrison were displayed in the incorporation of them in my descriptions, in my prose. During this time I learned that I needed to display my intent, not explain my intent. I needed to move the reader into sympathy, not explain why this character should have sympathy. In my moments of political fervor and explicit idealism the comments were simple: do not tell, show.

As I think about my own preparations as a teacher and as a scholar, I look at the faces of real students for whom I have sole responsibility. I am somewhat struck by how ill-prepared I am to train them to be theologians, to express their lives with God in the world, and how well equipped I am to be describe other people’s descriptions of God.

In my best moments, I hope my own writing and scholarship displays who God might be in the world and who we might be in relation to the one who loves us. But this is sometimes at odds with my own training in graduate school and the demands of my guild. The training of a graduate student is the formation of a teller, an explainer, a scholar of scholars. Scholarly work is the evaluation of texts.

Do not mistake what I am saying. We need those descriptions of other’s descriptions. We need folks to show us the patterns of thought and practice over time. This is part of my vocation and calling. But is this the goal? Is this what I want my students to become? What would it mean to see them as poets? To ask them to develop the eye of writers, observing patterns and details in the most unexpected places? To hope to cultivate in them the possibility witness, whether through words or forms of life, displaying God in the world in such a way that it cuts us and reveals to us who we truly are?

I am now beginning to realize the challenge of teaching theology is not in establishing the relevance of my subject within an array of subjects and disciplines. Writing and reflecting on a syllabus, settling on a set of terms to master is easy. But I suspect theology is more than this. Teaching theology is about cultivating the practice of theology. It is about participating in the formation of students who can begin to see God’s call upon them and movement in the world, and artfully display these perceptions in their own life (and hopefully their own writing!) In part, theology might be about ensuring a proper understanding of historical moments and the progression of thought in the Christian tradition. But what if we imagine our vocation as something closer to our colleagues in creative writing where our goal is not to form knowers, but poets?

I don’t know if my teaching will do this. I hope it will. But I am sure that it is a whole lot harder than what I was trained to do.

Dr. Bantum received his PhD and Master of Theological Studies degree from Duke University. His first book “Mulatto Theology” will be published by Baylor University Press.

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Slavery in Africa’s Past: Some Tentative Thoughts on Its Christian Shame and Glory

published on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 by admin


By Dr. Esther Acolatse
Assistant Research Professor
of Pastoral Theology and Global Christianity
Duke Divinity School

Recently President Obama and his family visited Ghana and like all African Americans before them took a pilgrimage to a former slave castle in Cape Coast. Though I recall not only his words but the expressions on his face, what struck me most was the demeanor of Sasha Obama. She peered through the hole in the wall through which slaves were tunneled to the dungeon, averted her eyes, and began twisting the hem of her blouse as she looked up at her father. Obvious signs of discomfiture, but tinged with what seemed like embarrassment. But why?

I’m probably the only Ghanaian who’s made the trip to the slave castles, even taken touring groups and has waited outside as they retraced the steps of former slaves, waited in the damp, dark dingy dungeons and came out through the now famous “door of no return.” Perhaps one day when I’m old enough I may have the courage to go through the place without the visceral responses that I have experienced in the past. I’m trusting my body not to recall where it has been before – in the loins of some forebear who’s walked that mile. And no one can tell me such things are not possible, especially people who’ve built a religion around an Adam and Eve and a “Fall.”

Back to the discomfiture and embarrassment I sensed in Sasha’s expression. Our people say that before the stranger dips his fingers into the communal pot, a villager must have shown him the way. Of course Africa had its form of slavery before colonial times, but it was nothing like what pertained before the emancipation bills and its aftermath. The closest inhumanity then was the 7th century Arab raids of sub-Saharan Africa in which slaves were transported to parts of Asia, and the documented female shrine slaves in parts of west Africa. Otherwise the common form of slavery known in traditional times was the kind that increased land ownership for the master. This is because the concept of individual land ownership was unknown in Africa. Land was distributed according to the need of the family for farming and domicile. The more people one had to farm a land the more land one could receive. Raiding neighboring villages for slaves, usually of other ethnicities, was not unusual for the wealthy and powerful. But usually the slave became integrated into the family with the opportunity to wealth as well as rise in military rank during war if he fought.

In the case of slavery on the coastline of Africa, sheer selfish greed and avarice from two unlikely sources colluded. The economic crisis which plagued Europe in the 14th century sent the Portuguese who had mastered the art of navigation on high seas to search for resources in distant Africa. They landed on the coastline of West Africa and raided it of its gold and ivory, naming present-day Ghana the Gold Coast, and the Ivory Coast was named so for its wealth in ivory. What tipped the scales was that the Europeans, who also brought with them religion, particularly the English Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries who established themselves as the biggest Christian denominations on these shores, discovered not only converts but cheap labor. The chiefs on the coast were more than willing to pay in slaves for rum and gin. Today, the Ghana House of Chiefs ─ a body comprising all the country's traditional kings and chiefs ─ has placed a plaque on one of the castle's walls, asking for forgiveness.

Perhaps the reason I’m unable to enter and retrace the steps of slavery is because I share a double heritage of guilt and shame ─ an African from Ghana and a Presbyterian Christian (I’m still working out which identifier takes priority). I find I still have only tentative answers for the questions raised by the atrocities of slavery and Christian??? complicity in it. How is a church atop a dungeon that houses human beings to whom a liberating gospel has been preached possible? How does one worship the God of all peoples ─ according to the Bible brought by these same missionaries ─ and treat them inhumanely? How does one sing and pray and preach at least on Sunday mornings and go buy human beings and dehumanize them, rape and torture their women the rest of the week, and many times immediately following worship? More to the point, what must it have felt like for these bound and chained humans to hear singing and praise in honor of a god of love?

If the gospel indeed has the power not only to free from sin but give power to overcome sin because of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, then it is fair to assume that chapel or no chapel these were in no way Christians. Products of Christendom perhaps, but not those who have been confronted with the claims of Christ and given accent to them, and turned their lives over and asked that they be continually transformed.

Most missional religious traditions have their own history of compromise with political power and privilege, and of complicity in violence that has marred human history. My own tradition, Christianity, for instance, has been, on the one hand, a force that brought the message of God's unconditional love for and acceptance of all people. On the other hand, its history, sadly, is also marked by crusades, insensitivity to Indigenous cultures, and complicity with imperial and colonial designs including slavery and its attendant effects to date.

Such ambiguity and compromise with power and privilege continues to be part of our Christian heritage and shows up in places where discrimination in any form goes unnoticed, unchallenged and unchecked. All the places and times when we “gain the world and lose our souls” individually or corporately we make the gospel ineffectual. In light of the history of slavery, it is to our shame and to God’s glory that there are African Christians both at home and in the Diaspora. We see resplendent, the power of the gospel to transcend borders and transmitters and recipients. The gospel had full effect only in places of confession and repentance and desire for restitution. These are always the seeds and fruit of forgiveness. It is more than time for these to occur. Various trips to Elmina or Cape Coast castles may be therapeutic and cathartic, but we need a more enduring ritual that translates into flourishing for all.

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Gifts from Tiffney

published on Monday, August 10, 2009 by admin

By Dr. Willie James Jennings
Associate Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies
Duke Divinity School

The Rev. Tiffney Marley, MDiv ’96, rendered years of honorable service to the Office of Black Church Studies (OBCS) and the Divinity School, and we are greatly indebted to her. She stepped down from the directorship of the office after spring semester 2009.

I remember when Duke Divinity School Dean Greg Jones and I recruited Tiffney away from an administrative post in the Fuqua School of Business at Duke and back to the Divinity School in 2003. She served as the first non-faculty, full-time administrator of the OBCS, and under her leadership every aspect of the office improved.

Not only did Tiffney help us achieve new heights of administrative coherence, but she deepened and expanded our already strong network of relationships with the black communities in Durham, the Triangle and the Piedmont. She also strengthened our ties with our alumni through multiple efforts including establishing a regular presence for the Divinity School at the important Hampton Minister’s Conference. Tiffney also helped strengthen the school’s international ties in Peru, Haiti, Brazil and multiples places on the African continent. She was the glue that held together our pilgrimage programs, whether in Brazil, South Africa, Uganda, Durham or anywhere in between. Tiffney brought top-flight organization, joyful enthusiasm, creative energy, and unrelenting effort to each and every pilgrimage.

Scores of students rightly appreciate Tiffney’s efforts to increase field education opportunities in historical black churches and church-related organizations. All seminarians but especially black seminarians had in Tiffney an unfailing advocate and supporter in their theological formation. She also was the best host for the Divinity School’s annual Gardner Taylor and Martin Luther King, Jr. lecture series. Our distinguished guests, as well as academic and administrative colleagues from other institutions, repeatedly remarked to me how helpful Tiffney was to them. I often heard the words “first-class,” top-notch,” “professional,” and “classy” connected to Tiffney’s name. In addition to this wonderful work, during several years Tiffney served with me on the Duke University-wide MLK celebration committee, taking on even more tasks and carrying them out with superb efficiency.

I was especially pleased with what Tiffney modeled for students daily, a woman of color in ministry who was, to quote a famous preacher, “unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian.” Tiffney understood the dignity that flows from the rich legacy of black Christian existence in the world, and she unrelentingly bore witness to that dignity in every meeting, every conversation and in her every administrative gesture.

As my esteemed colleague Professor W.C. Turner often said to me, “Tiffney is an African princess that has come among us.” Princess indeed, but she was not royalty spared all indignities or crowns of thorns. Tiffney had to face what many woman of color in ministry have to face every day − frequent times of resistance to their leadership rooted in chauvinism, sexism and racism. One of the continuing tragedies of church life in the west (and especially in America and in black America) is the refusal to receive fully the gifted leadership of women, especially young black women. In her time at the Divinity School, Tiffney worked to turn that tragedy into triumph. We are a better place because she often graciously, but always tirelessly, tried.

During my years as academic dean, I could not have asked for nor received a better co-laborer in caring for students. Academic deans are the bearers of secrets. So I know the students that really brought her great joy, and the ones who poured sorrow into her soul. Yet what Tiffney gave them far outweighed what they gave her. She loved them, everyday, she loved them.

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