Fall 2022 | Audacious Odysseys: Charting the Future of Theological Education

How to prepare future ministers, scholars, and theologically minded public leaders for times like these? Amid the churn of forces—the volatile, unsettled role of religion in secular society, the reckonings around justice, the ordeal of student debt, the politics of polarization—is theological education in crisis? In the bicentennial year of Yale Divinity School, this Reflections issue meets the high-stakes moment with essays by YDS voices who speak to many of the most urgent questions and strategies. There’s no one path forward, but what the writers share in common is a conviction to move into the unknown future with creativity, hope, and audacity. As YDS professor Joyce Mercer ’84 M.Div. puts it, “What’s this rambunctious spirit of God asking of us?”

Cover image: Johannes Plenio/Unsplash

Reflections

From the Dean's Desk

Letter from the Dean

During World War I, George Fairman composed a hit song that used the first words of the chorus as a title: “I don’t know where I’m going but I’m on my way.” There are many people who feel that way today. And understandably: the medical, racial, economic, and political tensions that all of us feel are not simply palpable, they are throbbing. 

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Contents

hand holding glass ball reflecting beach sunrise

“This Rambunctious Spirit of God”

An interview with Joyce Ann Mercer ’84 M.Div.

There’s no crystal ball to clue us in on the theological future. An unpredictable era requires nimble skills from divinity schools, congregations, and practitioners living out a divine calling wherever it leads them.

blue artificial hand

Artificial Minds and the Coming Religious Disruption

By John Pittard ’13 Ph.D.

Do AI companions have souls? Should you invite them to church? OK if they receive communion? Theological educators need to start asking such questions. The revolution in AI consciousness is coming.

Rev. William Barber

Expanding the Theological Project

An Interview with Willie Jennings

Divinity education can help the university sharpen its vision of producing citizens of the common good—and steer Christianity to a dream of grace and liberation beyond white supremacist identity.

paper lanterns

Theological Education is a Cross-Border Adventure Now

By Chloë Starr

The global dynamics of Christianity, now unseating U.S. dominance, have much to teach North American believers about experiences of incarnation, atonement, suffering, redemption, and other marks of the faith.

shaft of light coming through a window

The Holy Spirit is Choosing Where We Go Now

By Candace Whitman '79 B.A.

Renewal awaits mainline Christianity if divinity schools and congregations can keep a gospel admonition front-and-center: Jesus simply bid us to be his disciples—not to be successful as the world defines it.

there people looking at the Milky Way

“Imagining the Best Future We Can”

By Andrew McGowan

Predicting outcomes in religion and society is a hazardous business. The variables are too complex. Prophecy about the future often becomes mere self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever the future holds, it will still require students learning to think critically, solve problems, collaborate, envision the larger story of faith, and share the gospel in people’s lives.

cross-shaped space between buildings

Keeping the Faith During In-Between Times

By Sarah B. Drummond ’93 B.A.

Foundations are shifting in religious life—and they’re not done yet. In the meantime, theological schools and ministers should take care to align their goals as closely as possible with what real people and real congregations need from faith and learning.

unfocused lights

“A Future So Bright We Can’t Fully See It Yet”

By Laura Salah Nasrallah

Many theological schools will look different in a decade or two—some trusting in their own radical evolution by imagining alternative social worlds, working toward reparations, and honoring today’s widely varied student experiences.

people in a train station

New Visions of Vocation in a Broken World

By Alison Cunningham ’84 M.Div.

A growing number of YDS students are exploring vocations outside the church, in part because of the shrinking availability of positions in congregational ministry, but also because of their commitment to reform-minded work in the larger society.

view through cross-shaped window in the door of Marquand Chapel

Keep Teaching, Keep Worshiping

By Kazimierz Bem ’10 M.Div., ’11 S.T.M.

A graduate recalls how his YDS education of foundational courses in Bible, theology, and other subjects was augmented by another indispensable element: daily worship at Marquand Chapel. That has made all the difference.

two feet on confetti-covered ground

Having Good Fun, Making Good Trouble

By Kathryn “Kat” Banakis ’03 B.A., ’09 M.Div.

An ecumenical divinity education liberates a minister to work with other faith groups while speaking confidently from her own tradition. The result is new initiatives for local healing—also new insights into her own faith.

green fern on tree stump

Fresh Alignments with the Spirit

By Jennifer A. Herdt

Global conditions of theological schools today call for new alignments with the Holy Spirit, ranging from postcolonial approaches toward traditional texts to flexible congregational skills for future ministers to reductions in tuition costs and student debts.

hands on a piano

Sound Doctrine: Musicality, Memes, and Ministry

By Braxton Shelley

Theological schools are ideally placed to produce citizens, ministers, and artists who take with them a renewed sensitivity to form, sharpened habits of attention, and a better handle on the elusive divine presence many locate in human creativity.

people on a square

Faith Seeking Understanding 200 Years Later

By Harold W. Attridge

YDS brings historic twin commitments of intellectual inquiry and practical ministry to new conditions and challenges, says this former dean of the School. Whether the aim is new ventures in Christian community or a constructive response to ecological devastation and political distress, theological education remains a grand adventure (though not for the faint of heart).

heart on window pane

Educating Mind and Heart in an Era of Upheaval

By Frederick J. Streets ’75 M.Div.

Educating mind and heart, while sharpening critical thinking, have enormous repercussions in a society animated by misinformation and reluctant to face its violent contradictions.

abstract painting

Div School as Art School

By Kathryn Reklis ’04 M.A.R., ’12 Ph.D.

My students—young adults who are inheriting a world they imagine will betray them on a planet that cannot support them—are desperate for radically alternative ways to be.

wooden chairs

Will Religion Disappear?

By Tamara F. Ravelo ’23 M.Div.

Statistical organizational declines don’t mean God is on the decline. Thinking and praying about strategy, innovation, and implementation—as well as serious listening—are next steps for congregations. 

tree against hazy sunrise

Environmental Justice and the Religious Imagination

By Tyler Mark Nelson ’24 M.Div.

Theological schools are in a position to instill future leaders with the spiritual gumption to pursue God’s will for social transformation in a climate-changed world.

drawing of two hands

Religious Imagination Beyond Doctrinal Borders

By Alice Seo Young Hyun ’23 M.A.R.

The future role of the arts in theological education will seek to understand the power of art to stir the depths of spirituality and belief, whether individuals are pursuing faith within religious tradition or well beyond it.

wildflowers

In New Terrain, New Field Guides to Congregational Faith

By William Goettler

Transformation is always taking place in the plant world—a lesson for congregations about the dynamics of the future.

Sterling Divinity Quadrangle

From the Editor: Uncommon Good

By Ray Waddle

Theological schools aim to awaken religious imagination and provide tough-minded preparation—drawing on an anthropology of human limits and potential—that no other institutions can.

Reflections is a publication of Yale Divinity School