1 - Theology Tomorrow

Theology Tomorrow
Hugh T. Kerr

HISTORIANS, it is said, are prophets in reverse. Well, maybe. Today, we are somewhat skeptical about historical interpretations of the past and even less impressed with the predictions of futurologists. "One day at a time" is as much as many can manage. And yet, as we enter the last decade of the present century and get ready for a new century, thoughts about yesterday, today, and tomorrow crowd in upon us.

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There is also something about theology itself that positions us between the times and forces us to face tomorrow as we try to evaluate the past. John A. Mackay, the imaginative founder of THEOLOGY TODAY, liked to speak of "rowboat philosophy." By taking a bead on the receding shoreline, we can move forward toward our destination. "The way to tomorrow," he wrote, "ties through yesterday."

More recently, Jaroslav Pelikan has defined tradition as the living faith of the past, while traditionalism is the dead faith of the present. And, he adds, that it is usually traditionalism that gives tradition a bad name. Preaching at a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial service, the Rev. Suzann Johnson of Mariners' Temple Baptist Church in Lower Manhattan, used the passages in Genesis about passing on a blessing from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob as the basis for a homiletical refrain addressed to seminarians-"What are you passing on?" She told about her track experience at high school when she ran in the girls' relay race and how important it was to pass on the baton to the next runner. That is an almost perfect illustration and definition of "tradition," and it captures both the anguish and the expectation of living between the times.

II

Greatly daring, let us project three major issues now upon us that will probably engage us for the next several years. They have to do with theology, the seminaries, and the church and its ministry.

The changing character of the seminary campus is the first issue that requires careful attention because it will certainly affect much of the conventional theological curriculum. What is happening on the seminary campus is the dissolution of the older homogeneous dormitory quadrangle structures in the face of a significant increase of women

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seminarians, older second-career people (often with families), and the appearance in increasing numbers of Asian and Third-World students.

Protestant seminary enrollments have been mostly stable in recent years, but there are fewer seminarians coming directly from college. The typical seminary campus today is a much more complex community than in the past, and, indeed, "community" may not be the right way to describe the context of contemporary theological education. All of the newer seminary groups bring with them eager and often impatient instincts to get on with the basic work so as to get out into some form of ministry. The niceties of academic distinctions, the erudite discussions about methodology and hermeneutics, the curriculum tracking from introductory to advanced courses, these and other conventional trademarks of yesterday's theological education will seem to many of the new seminarians as tedious and irrelevant.

There are two obvious implications that stem from this campus refiguration. One has to do with faculties and whether they will respond creatively to the new kinds of students, listening to them, and preparing lectures and course materials to take them into account. And the other implication relates to the churches and whether they will become receptive of women, second-career people, Asians, and others. Churches, like seminary campuses, have also been mostly homogeneous faith communities. Can they adapt to the new situation already upon us? (For background statistical data on this whole development, see the Spring 1988 issue of Theological Education, the journal published by the Association of Theological Schools).

The widening gap between the church and its seminaries and the development of religious studies departments in colleges and universities poses a second major issue for the near future. Theological education, preparing candidates for church ministry in some form, is as old as the church itself, but the academic study of religion is only about fifty years old. When the late George F. Thomas was inaugurated in 1940 as Professor of Religion at Princeton University, over considerable faculty opposition, a trend began that has since spread to virtually every college and university campus in the country.

This academic development is in many ways ambiguous. Certainly scholarly research has been magnified, partly because of the general academic pursuit of excellence among colleges and universities, and partly because religious studies departments have had to make their way and fight for their existence within secular and scientific structures which are, presumably, only interested in objective research.

But "the widening gap" mentioned above is apparent in the dominance of collegiate faculty over seminary faculty in the larger academic guilds, such as the American Academy of Religion and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. These societies and their corresponding journals exist and thrive quite apart from theological education and seminary faculties. There is, of course, some overlapping, but for the most part seminary personnel have no equivalent professional societies.

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There are two exceptions to this generalization. One is the Catholic Theological Society of America which participates under the academic umbrella of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion but which maintains its own ecclesiastical and theological traditions. The other exception is the Society of Biblical Literature which enrolls a large number of seminary faculty simply because seminaries are still the places where the biblical languages are studied and taught. (For a controversial discussion of the dilemma involved in the academic study of religion, see the article by John W. Dixon, Jr., "What Should Religion Departments Teach?" THEOLOGY TODAY, January 1990.)

The friction between particularism and pluralism is a third issue that has already emerged in our midst and will surely require increasing attention as the years pass. Each side of the issue points to a problem. Parochialism and provincialism, denominationalism and confessionalism, historically rooted traditions and accustomed rituals and ceremonies-all such conventional patterns are challenged by our emerging global awareness that there are other traditions, other people, other faiths, other cultures, and other ways of thinking and knowing.

The problem for pluralism is how to avoid a tepid, innocuous, non-committal relativism. The problem for particularism is how to retain one's own identity and integrity and, at the same time, be open to other options. (For some probing discussion on this matter, see the symposium articles, "Reflections on the Religions," in this issue of THEOLOGY TODAY as well as the Critic's Corner item on "False Tolerance, False Unity.")

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These are some of the issues and problems that THEOLOGY TODAY Will need to explore in future numbers of the journal. We are pleased to announce that the editorial staff has been augmented with the addition of two new editors, Thomas G. Long and Patrick D. Miller, Jr. Readers are already familiar with the name of Dr. Miller who has been serving for several years as Book Editor, and many will recall the incisive article by Dr. Long, "Job: Second Thoughts in the Land of Uz" (April 1988). An additional word about the new editors may be in order.

Tom Long is Professor of Preaching and Worship at Princeton Theological Seminary. A graduate of Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina, he planned to be a physician, but the courageous preaching of a local minister on civil rights turned him toward seminary. He received his doctorate from Princeton Seminary in 1980 after serving as pastor in Atlanta and as professor at Columbia Theological Seminary. He has been involved in editing the Journal for Preachers and Homiletic. In demand as a preacher, he finds time to write and is the author of Shepherds and Bathrobes (1987), The Senses of Preaching (1988), Preaching and the Literary Forms of the Bible (1989), and The Witness of Preaching (1989).

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Pat Miller, Professor of Old Testament Theology, Princeton Seminary, is a graduate of Davidson College and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia where he also taught and served as Dean. He took his doctorate at Harvard University, and over the years he has served on various church committees, on the editorial board of Interpretation, and as Secretary-Treasurer of the Society of Biblical Literature. He is the author of Interpreting the Psalms (1986), The Divine Warrior in Early Israel (1973), and Sin and Judgment in the Prophets (1982). At the present time, he is the Old Testament editor for Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching.

With a background of forty-six years of continuous publication and with a reading audience of over 14,000 subscribers, THEOLOGY TODAY looks to the future with a sense of mission and promise. The troika of editors are committed to do their best to keep readers informed and alert. We may not qualify as prophets, but we will try to "discern the signs of the times."

There is an old story, associated with Thomas Aquinas and re-told by Karl Barth, about two medieval monks who spent many hours discussing the nature of the future life. Would heaven be, they wondered, very much like what they deduced from the Scriptures and their own experience, or would it be quite different? They made a pact that whichever of them passed over the great beyond first would try to send back a message, affirming or denying what they had long discussed. They had already agreed that the future would be "aliter," otherwise than what can be known or imagined, but in what way? Eventually a signal came through to the survivor which he deciphered as "Totaliter aliter." And that "totally otherwise" message may well be what we need to hear for theology today and theology tomorrow.

Hugh T. Kerr

JAMES I. McCORD
1919-1990
The Honorary Chairman of our Editorial Council died, February 19, 1990. As President of Princeton Theological Seminary for nearly twenty-five years, he gave strong support to THEOLOGY TODAY. A memorial tribute will appear in our next issue.