What does it mean to be a Christian peacebuilder and peacemaker? In addition to the capacity and willingness to listen to others with caring, compassion, and respect, it also involves Christians asking themselves questions about what God wants of us and how we understand our relationship to others who are not Christian. These questions extend to further questions about the practices throughout Christian history of Christian misssions and evangelism.
It has been these sorts of questions that have occupied the spiritual journey of my guest for this episode.
Robert (Rob) P. Sellers was a teacher in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, for 25 years. He is Professor of Theology and Missions Emeritus at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary where he taught for 18 years. Throughout his ministry, Rob has sought and still seeks to serve God’s mission in the world by engaging in and promoting interfaith friendships across lines of racial, cultural, and religious diversity locally, nationally, and internationally. He has been president of the Abilene Interfaith Council, a member of the Interfaith Commission of the National Council of Churches, USA, a member of the Interfaith Relations Commission of the Baptist World Alliance, and the past Chair of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. Rob was asked to be a non-Muslim observer in Morocco when the Marrakesh Declaration was ratified in 2016 and for the Alliance of Virtues Conference in Washington, D.C. in 2018. He was also invited to be a participant in the United Arab Emirates meeting in 2019 where The Charter for a New Alliance of Virtues was discussed and approved.
Rob considers himself a Christian pluralist who argues that an acknowledgement of the legitimacy of different approaches to the Divine is a distinctly Christian way to live in a diverse world.
In this episode, Rob shares his journey of interfaith discoveries and theological epiphanies, and provides both his wisdom and guidance in enabling us to engage in interfaith friendships and conversations ourselves.
Rob is a frequent contributor to Good Faith Media and Baptist News Global. For a good summary of how Rob integrates his concerns for interfaith friendships, his understanding of missions and peacebuilding, and his theology of Christian pluralism and Christ’s atonement, see his article, ‘Toward a multifaith view of atonement,’ in the June 10, 2021 edition of Review & Expositor.
In Part 1, my guests told of their own experiences in theological education and in taking on leadership responsibility for an institution of theological education. They also provided their own assessment of the state of theological education.
In this episode, Part 2, my guests describe how theological education is being done in each of their institutions in terms of curriculum design, in light of the decline of Christianity in the United States, and in the experience of the Covid pandemic. They conclude by offering their thoughts on what conversations still need to occur about theological education as we move forward into the future.
All Christians should be interested in what is going on in institutions that train people for Christian ministry because what happens in those institutions–how people are trained and what they are taught–finds it way, for good or not, into churches.
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s there was such dissatisfaction with theological education that the stirrings of an extensive and extended conversation about what was wrong and what needed to be done had begun. The first significant work of that conversation to appear in print was Vanderbilt theologian Edward Farley’s Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education, published in 1983. Farley’s assessment of the problem was that because of the impact the modern sciences, theological schools had become places that trained people in the increasing number of Biblical, historical, theological/philosophical, and practical sciences. He urged the recovery of what he called theologia which he defined as the capacity for judgment and wisdom or a habitus–a habit of mind and sapiential knowledge that arises from the experiences of a devoted life of faith. Farleys research was deep, illuminating, and perceptive. His conclusions and proposal resonated across the conversation. However, Farley’s contribution had a significant blind spot.
Even though no reference was made to Farley and his contribution, that blind spot was revealed and named two years later, in 1985 by the Mud Flower Collective–a group of seven feminists scholars of different races and ethnicities–in their book, God’s Fierce Whimsy: Christian Feminism and Theological Education. Their assessment of the problem is that it is due to the so-deeply-embedded-that-it-goes-unnoticed legacy of colonial imperialism and white male supremacy. Their proposal was to reveal this legacy, challenge it, and correct it. It could be argued that Farley’s contribution is an example of how deep and unnoticed this legacy is because he fails to even be aware of it and thus to acknowledge it.
As is often the case, initial prophetic voices goes unheeded. So it was with the Mud Flower Collective’s contribution.
Last year, nearly forty years since conversation of the 1980s, Willie James Jennings, former dean of Yale Divinity School, has both revived that conversation about the inadequacy of theological education and the Mud Flower Collective’s critique in his book, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. The fact of his assessment that the inadequacy of theological education is still due to the legacy of colonial imperialism and white male supremacy reveals how little has changed in forty years and how deeply the legacy in embedded.
In my mind, both The Mud Flower Collective’s and Jennings contributions in the accuracy of their assessments and in the way they demonstrated theological learning and inquiry, not only through critical analysis, but also the use of personal stories and poetry, are exceptional examples of the theologia Farley was seeking and proposing.
To tell us of their own experiences in theological education, to provide their own assessment of state of theological education in conversation with Jennings’s book, to provide us with a description of what is going on with theological education in their respective institutions, and to give us some sense of theological education’s future, I have invited three deans of seminaries and divinity schools to be my guests for a two part conversation. Each are in positions to shape and guide theological programs in the schools where they are. In this episode, Part 1, we will focus on their experiences and assessments. In the next episode, Part 2, we will focus on what is happening in their institutions and the future of theological education.
Dr. Emilie M. Townes is Dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School and Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society.
The Reverend Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas is Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School at Union Theological Seminary, the Bill and Judith Moyers Chair in Theology at Union Theological Seminary, Canon Theologian at the Washington National Cathedral, and Theologian in Residence at Trinity Church Wall Street.
Dr. Karen Massey is Associate Dean of Masters Degree Programs at Mercer University McAfee School of Theology, Associate Professor of Christian Education and Faith Development, and Watkins Christian Foundation Chair.
In this episode, I have invited back as my guest Dr. C. Michael Hawn. Michael is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Church Music and Adjunct Professor and Director of the Doctor of Pastoral Music Program in the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX and was one of my professors during my church music training at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
In the book he compiled, edited, and co-authored with a team of outstanding church music scholars (James Abbington, Emily R. Brink, Kathleen Harmon, Lim Swee Hong, Deborah Carlton Loftis, David W. Music, and Greg Scheer), New Songs of Celebration Render, Michael begins his Introduction by asking the question, “Are hymns relevant to Christians today? (p. xxv)” He goes on to say the book is an effort to address that question (p. xxvi).
The reason I think this question and this book are important is that both the question and the book are a part of a vital reckoning taking place. Christianity is struggling with its complicity in the evils of European colonial imperialism and male white supremacy that have so shaped all aspects of the cultures of Europe and the United States and the work of global Christian missions.
In the 1960s, due to the impact of secularism, it was becoming apparent Christendom was losing its influence and power and denominational Christianity was declining. Theologians were declaring God is dead and pastors were decrying the relevance of the hymns in the hymnbooks available to them for their worship planning because those hymns either did not speak to the situations in which the pastors were ministering or the theology expressed in those hymns was inadequate or false.
It wasn’t that God was not and isn’t still at work, or that the Church and congregational song were dying due to irrelevance. Rather, Christianity was and still is going through a transition of loosing itself from a dominant and questionable legacy. As Christians and their congregations began to do this, congregational song blossomed in immensely creative ways into new, what Michael calls, ‘streams.’
What we discuss in this episode is the fruit of this blossoming, especially since the 1960s and the impact of Vatican II. The book focuses on seven streams in this creative outpouring and flow. In doing so, we will get a better picture of how God is still active with, in, and through the Church and how congregational song is one of the integral means by which the Church is continuing to thrive.
This episode will be the first in a new series on democracy. In the United States, democracy is the way our cities, counties, states, and nation is governed. In many faith groups democracy is the way the faith community is governed. Democracy has provided such a vision for change both in our nation and around the world, we have a hard time imagining anyone raising questions about it or its value. Yet there are different voices that still have much to say about democracy, some of it critical.
American Indian scholars argue that the lack of acknowledgement of how democratic practices among American Indians shaped the formation of democracy in the United States continues to contribute to the exclusion of American Indians from our nation’s electoral processes.
Theologians like Stanley Hauerwas argue that by so integrating themselves into the agenda of United States politics and by accepting as their own concepts like justice, religious liberty, and democracy as our nation has defined them, churches have compromised their capacity to act faithfully as the church.
Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel argues that many indigenous cultures around the world are rejecting democracy, in part due to its being partnered with free-market capitalism, because it is destructive of the cultures and identities of those peoples, making their lives worse and not better.
The disputes over voting laws and practices reveal that many contend that democracy still needs to be improved.
We know that other nations who consider the United States to be their enemy pose external threats to our democracy, but the ambitions and aspirations of Donald Trump and the willingness of his devoted followers to use violence to seek their will and impose their way pose an internal threat to our democracy.
So, to me, democracy is something we need to think and talk about. That is the purpose of this series.
Dr. Peluso-Verdend is the executive director of the Center for Religion in Public Life at Phillips Theological Seminary. He is also president emeritus and a visiting research professor at Phillips. He is a clergy member of the Northern Illinois Conference of The United Methodist Church. Dr. Peluso-Verdend teaches seminary classes and also conducts discussion-groups with lay people on faith and democracy. You can email Dr. Peluso-Verdend to communicate with him or connect with what he is doing at Gary.Peluso@ptstulsa.edu
The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.
In 2017 The United States Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency concerning the epidemic of opioid addiction. That epidemic has greatly increased and, consequently, made terribly worse because of the Covid-19 Coronavirus disease pandemic. However, attention to the opioid epidemic was diverted due to the Covid-19 crisis. It is vital that we as the general public have a deeper and more expansive awareness of this disease so that we have the information and can seek the training that will help fight this epidemic.
There are few people better to help us understand this disease and crisis than Wayne Smith, founder and director of Samaritan Ministry in Knoxville, TN. I interviewed Wayne about the HIV and Hepatitis C crises in episode 16 of this podcast. I encourage you to listen to that episode also, because, as you will learn in the interview, these crises are interlinked and can compound each other.
The opioid addiction crisis has its roots the interplay of people seeking to control their pain, especially after medical procedures, of pharmaceutical companies’s assurances that opioids were not addictive, of the medical community over prescribing the medication, and of pharmacies accepting prescriptions on too broad a basis. Sadly, there is also are unhelpful political disputes over treatment issues that hinder progress.
Opioid addiction is not a moral failure but a disease that is treatable!
Links to the Center for Disease Control and the United States Department on Health and Human services about the opioid epidemic are here:
An interview by Pastor Wade Bibb with Dr. Stephen Lloyd about his addiction experience can be found here (the actual interview occurs at minute 52 and thirty seconds during the video:
The final year of the Trump administration and the beginning of the Biden administration has seen a flurry of issues bearing on religious liberty. There were two cases before the Supreme Court, one, Tanzin vs Tanvir, upon which the court ruled and another, Fulton vs The City of Philadelphia, the ruling of which is still pending. There was a new justice, Amy Barrett, appointed to the Supreme Court after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The riot on the capital on Jan. 6th exposed a rooting in and connection with Christian Nationalism. On the first day of the Biden administration, President Biden issued an executive order ending the travel ban of Muslims and Africans, and since taking office, President Biden has reestablished the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and reappointed Melissa Rogers as its Director.
My guest, Jennifer Hawks helps us understand each of these issues and also helps us understand more clearly the ongoing work and efforts of the BJC.
Jennifer Hawks, a native of Germantown, Tennessee, is the associate general counsel at BJC. She provides legal analysis on church-state issues that arise before Congress, the courts and administrative agencies. Hawks also assists in education efforts and responds to pastors and other constituents who have questions about church-state matters.
Before coming to BJC, Hawks was the director of advocacy and outreach services for the Family Abuse Center in Waco, Texas, where she conducted a legal clinic and led educational programs. She previously worked for two judges in the state of Mississippi and served as a staff attorney for the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Hawks also served in both paid and volunteer ministry positions in Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas. She has published papers in the journal of the Texas Baptist Historical Society and Baptist History & Heritage Journal.
A graduate of Mississippi College and the University of Mississippi School of Law, Hawks earned a Master of Divinity degree from George W. Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. She is a member of the U.S. Supreme Court, Texas and Mississippi bars, and she was ordained into the Gospel ministry by McLean Baptist Church in McLean, Virginia.
How learn more about the BJC and how you and your church can be involved go to bjconline.org.
Within the context of our nation at this time, our perceptions of Islam are driving our greatest fears. Islam is the subject of deep misinformation, misunderstanding, and political distortion. As the result, few of us have an accurate understanding of Islam or are aware that there are broad-based efforts and many Muslim activists in peacebuilding throughout the Muslim communities around the world. Consequently, it is vital, in my mind, that we hear often from the voices of Muslim peace workers. There is no better place to start than with my guest for this episode.
The child of a Jewish father and a Christian mother, Rabia embraced Islam in 1978, receiving her religious education through the Halveti-Jerrahi Order. She holds a BA in Religion from Princeton University, an MA in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from Columbia University, and a Graduate Certificate in Islamic Chaplaincy from Hartford Seminary. In 2009, her three decades of experience in spirituality and community service led to her being chosen as the first president of the Association of Muslim Chaplains.
As a theorist and investigator in Islamic peacebuilding and multireligious solidarity for justice, Rabia writes extensively and has lectured and offered workshops nationally and internationally.
Currently Rabia serves as Chaplain and Scholar with Community of Living Traditions, a multireligious organization devoted to the pursuit of peace and justice through earthcare and hospitality. You can learn more about Community of Living Traditions on their Facebook page here.
As. early as one hundred years after the time of Jesus and the first generations of Christians, Christian thinkers recognized that Jewish Christian Scripture was not exhaustive in its claim to knowledge and there was insight and wisdom into the way and truth of things in non-Christian sources. While there have always been objections on the part of some Christians to doing so, as Tertullian’s famous question, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’ indicates, the predominance of Christian thinkers have drawn from, incorporated into their thinking, build upon the ideas of, and felt the need to respond to the challenges of non-Christian thinkers. Greek philosophers, especially Plato and eventually Aristotle, have been the primary conversation partners throughout Christian history but these have not been the only ones.
Because of Western culture’s preference for definitions of truth being unchanging, stable, and absolute, the Christian West has been slow to dialogue with and embrace insights from Eastern philosophies which tend to have more dynamic worldviews. However, with the rise of such things as theories of relativity, quantum physics, process thinking, insights into paradigm shifts, and deconstruction thinking, that reluctance is changing.
For much of his life, my guest, Dr. Marc Mullinax, Christian theologian and Professor of Religion and Philosophy at Mars Hill University, in Mars Hill, NC, has found helpful insights and wisdom for living one’s life wisely, healthily and peacefully, and for the Christian faith in the ancient Chinese resource, the Tao Te Ching (You have already met Marc in episodes 10 and 11 of this podcast). Marc was not satisfied with the translations of the Tao he was using for the courses he teaches on Eastern/Asian thought. Consequently, he has provided us with a new and especially accessible translation of his own–Tao Te Ching: Power for the Peaceful.
There are three things that make this new book so valuable. The first is the care and quality of the translation. Marc’s target is us all, not just scholars or experts. In this he has succeed. His translation is easily read and understandable. The second, as a creative element, Marc has added sayings from around the world, from all periods of history, and even from popular culture that mirror the teachings and insights of Tao. The third is Marc has added notes and reflections after each block of verses that increase the accessibility and one’s understanding of the teachings of Tao.
Marc is also doing an ongoing Youtube podcast which you can find here or, by typing into the search box the title of the book, Tao Te Ching: Power to the Peaceful.
From the beginning of the Church on the day of Pentecost just after our Lord ascended back to God, congregational singing and, in particular, hymns have been a part of Christian worship. Two of Christianity’s earliest documents, the New Testament letters to the Ephesians and Colossians, use the same trilogy of words to describe the music of Christian worship. Ephesians 5: 18-19 (NRSV) reads, ‘…but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts…’ Colossians 3:16 (NRSV) reads, ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.’
Both congregational singing and hymns have had a varied and sometimes controversial history throughout the Church’s existence. In the earliest experience of the Church, congregational singing was almost exclusively the music of worship, especially during the times of persecution. After the conversion of Constantine, when the Church gained status, power, and wealth, when Latin became the mandated language of worship, and when monks and priests were often the only people who could read, singing in worship came to be done mostly by choirs. It was not until after the Protestant Reformation, when the mass was rejected as the pattern of worship by numerous Protestant groups and scripture was translated into the languages of the people, that congregational singing once again became the dominant form of music in worship. However, due to the influence of the Calvinist or Reform tradition within the Protestant Reformation, congregational singing was limited to psalmody, being the language of scripture. Hymns, understood as texts having been written by human hands, were looked upon with suspicion. It was only gradually that hymns became accepted back into worship. Once they did, however, collections of them into hymnals came to be the primary worship books of many Protestant denominations. There have been times when the words ‘hymn’ and ‘congregational singing’ have been synonymous. When the global evangelism and mission efforts began in the 1800s, hymns were the most useful resource for proclamation, worship, and discipleship efforts. With the rise of seeker-oriented worship services in the 1980s and 1990s, a sharp distinction was made between hymns, seen as a part of traditional worship and choruses, preferred by seeker-oriented services.
As degrees in church music have developed, courses in hymnology have been required and for nearly one hundred years, a Society, The Hymn Society, has been devoted to the hymn. Recently The Hymn Society formalized a project that was always an understood dimension of The Hymn Society’s efforts–The Center for Congregational Song.
My guests help us to understand more fully the hymn, its definitions and uses, and the work both of The Hymn Society and The Center for Congregational Song.
J. Michael McMahon has served as Executive Director of The Hymn Society since September 1, 2018. An ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Mike is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Washington Theological Union, a Master of Arts degree in liturgical studies from the University of Notre Dame, and a Doctor of Ministry degree from The Catholic University of America. From 2001 until 2013 Mike served as President and CEO of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM). For nearly thirty years he worked in full-time church ministry, most recently from 2013 to 2018 as Minister of Music at National City Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Washington, D.C. Prior to 2001 Mike served churches in Virginia and Delaware as a full-time pastoral minister in the areas of music, worship, and Christian initiation. In addition to his full-time work as a pastoral minister, music director, and association executive, Mike has taught in the Department of Theology at The Catholic University of America and has been featured as a speaker and clinician for numerous regional church gatherings and national music organizations. He is the author of a book on Christian initiation, has written numerous articles on worship and church music for a variety of journals, and has contributed to several books on music ministry. He served as an advisor to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Subcommittee on Music in developing its national liturgical music guidelines, “Sing to the Lord” (2007). A native of Pittsburgh, Mike has long been a resident of the Washington area and currently lives in Montgomery Village, Maryland, with his husband Ray Valido.
BrianHehn is Director of The Center for Congregational Song. Brian is an inspiring song-leader equally comfortable leading an acapella singing of “It Is Well” as he is drumming and dancing to “Sizohamba Naye.” Experienced using a variety of genres and instrumentations, he has lead worship for Baptists, Roman Catholics, United Methodists, Presbyterians, and many more across the U.S. and Canada. He received his Bachelor of Music Education from Wingate University, his Master of Sacred Music from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, and is certified in children’s church music (K-12) by Choristers Guild. He has articles published on sacred music and congregational song in multiple journals and has recently co-authored two books on drumming in the church published by Choristers Guild. While working for The Hymn Society as the Director of The Center for Congregational Song, he is also adjunct professor of church music at Wingate University in Wingate, North Carolina and lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his wife, Eve, and son, Jakob.
The music for this episode is from a clip of a song called ‘Father Let Your Kingdom Come’ which is found on The Porter’s Gate Worship Project Work Songs album and is used by permission by The Porter’s Gate Worship Project. You can learn more about the album and the Worship Project at theportersgate.com.