Willie James Jennings (Yale Divinity School) joins Matt Croasmun for a conversation about the future of theology, reminding us to be looking for the opportunities in the middle of crises of theological education; he worries about the inability to hold complexity, public communication, and deep formation together in a way that shows how theology is for our very lives; he speaks to the recent aversion to pastoral ministry, which is theology for the sake of the people; he touches on the role of Christian theology in a pluralistic world, asking how theologians might learn from comedians; and he encourages all Christians to take up the theological call to courage, the call to see, listen, and and alleviate suffering, and the call to a theology of life.
Willie James Jennings (Yale Divinity School) joins Matt Croasmun for a conversation about the future of theology, addressing the Christian inability to hold complexity, public communication, and deep formation together in a way that shows how theology is for our very lives.
Seven years ago the Yale Center for Faith and Culture interviewed a diverse array of theologians about the present woes and future potential of theology. Some five years and a pandemic later, the landscape of theological education seems like it's at a crossroads. The driving purpose of Christian higher education is in question as colleges, universities, and seminaries across denominations and around the world consider how they'll move forward in the wake of stark realities this pandemic laid bare. So it's worth revisiting the conversation to see what has changed, what holds true, and what hopes we're still holding on to. For today’s episode, we're featuring a conversation between Matt Croasmun and Dr. Willie James Jennings, Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School, an ordained Baptist minister, and author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race, and more recently After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging. Willie reminds us to be looking for the opportunities in the middle of crises of theological education; he worries about the inability to hold complexity, public communication, and deep formation together in a way that shows how theology is for our very lives; he speaks to the recent aversion to pastoral ministry, which is theology for the sake of the people; he touches on the role of Christian theology in a pluralistic world, asking how theologians might learn from comedians; and he encourages all Christians to take up the theological call to courage, the call to see, listen, and and alleviate suffering, and the call to a theology of life.
Show notes
About Willie Jennings
Willie Jennings is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Africana Studies, and Religious Studies at Yale University; he is an ordained Baptist minister and is author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race,Acts: A Commentary, The Revolution of the Intimate, and most recently, After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging.
Other Episodes Featuring Willie Jennings
Production Notes
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu.
Willie Jennings: The inability of being able to think strategically, think with, um, sophistication and imagination about formation, I think this is a crisis for theology itself. In many ways, we're very flat-footed, we're like "we can't dance anymore, you don't know how to dance, we don't have any rhythm." We just don't know how to invite people and the complexity of their lives into a new way of life that is theology. What I call constricted pedagogical artery. We just don't know how to breathe and beat of a heartbeat that's theology for this world.
Evan Rosa: This is For the Life of the World, a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity. I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center For Faith and Culture. Seven years ago, we interviewed a diverse array of theologians about the present woes and future potential of theology. And five years and pandemic later, the landscape of theological education seems like it's at a crossroads. The driving purpose of Christian higher education is in question as colleges, universities, and seminaries across denominations and around the world consider how they'll move forward in the wake of the stark realities this pandemic has layed bare. So it's worth revisiting these conversations to see what has changed, what holds true, and what hopes we're still holding onto. Last week, you heard from Fernando Segovia, about the global crisis we are facing and a vision for what a theological response might be. For today's episode, we're featuring a conversation between Matt Croasmun and Dr. Willie James Jennings, associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale Divinity School. He's an ordained Baptist minister and is author of The Christian Imagination, Theology and the Origins of Race. And more recently, After Whiteness, and Education and Belonging. Willie reminds us to be looking for the opportunities in the middle of crises of theological education. He worries about the inability to hold complexity, public communication, and deep formation together in a way that shows how theology is for our very lives. He speaks to the recent aversion to pastoral ministry, which has really theology for the sake of the people and touches on the role of Christian theology in a pluralistic world, asking how theologians might learn from comedians. And he encourages all Christians to take up the theological call to courage, the call to see, listen, and alleviate suffering, and the call to a theology of life. This May will mark the graduation of another cohort of new ministers who completed the majority of their theological education under the specter of the pandemic. What crises do they face? What opportunities exist? Even now, to think theologically for the life of the world. Thanks for listening today.
Matthew Croasmun: Willie, if I may, it's great to have you here.
Willie Jennings: Oh, glad to be here.
Matthew Croasmun: Before we move on to talking about theology's future, maybe we get started with a bit of an assessment of the present as you see it from your particular vantage point. On the positive side, what is right with theology these days, what's going well? I think there are several things going well. There are a lot of people interested in theological questions, people who you would not imagine are interested in theological questions. Not only at the informal level, people on the street, churches, communities, temples, mosques, interested in things theological, but in the university, there are a lot of people and fields far and wide removed from theology who are asking theological questions: literary studies, philosophy, political theory, post-colonial theory, feminist, womanist. There's a lot of people asking theological questions. And so, I think it's an interesting time to be a theologian and to be doing theology. I also think that theology, even in places where people are depressed about the state of theology, there's still really interesting work being done. I think the big question is whether people can see the opportunity in the midst of the crisis realities of theology. I think there's a lot of good that's there. And I always think that you find people asking questions about God and really interesting places. And you just have to open your ear to hear the questions about God and life that are being asked.
So you talk about the opportunities present in the crisis, what are some of the features of that crisis as you see it?
Willie Jennings: I think the crisis really is at two, maybe three levels. One, it's a crisis of communication. Those of us who do theology, we really don't know how to communicate, not only to ourselves, but to those outside. Our ability to speak in ways that show dexterity, sensitivity, and even appreciation of the world. That's a serious problem. I think the second level of crisis is that we don't know how to think together through challenging topics, challenging issues. It's not just of course that we don't know how to, to fight or debate. I don't think that really comes to the heart of it. I think we just don't know how to find a shared project in the work and move toward bringing all the incredible mental and intellectual power that so many theologians across country, the world have, and share projects. I think kind of the third problem we have is that it's a problem of formation. We have lost the imaginative capacity for how to form theological interest and thinkers. We don't know how to do that in some ways we have never, in the last couple of centuries, we've never had to hone those skills of how to make theology attractive to people and invite people into a formation and to get people to show up. But the inability of being able to think strategically, think with sophistication and imagination about formation, I think this is a crisis for theology itself. In many ways we're like, we're very flat-footed, we can't dance anymore. We don't know how to dance, we don't have any rhythm, we're off key, we just don't know how to invite people in the complexity of their lives into a new way of life that is theology. I think for me, this was a crisis. I think all the other problems, money problems, audience problems, I think those are symptoms of this, what I call a constricted pedagogical artery. We just don't know how to breathe and beat of a heartbeat that's theology for the new world, for this world.
Matthew Croasmun: Well then let me, let's go right at it. If that's where the crisis is, and I share that, I share that sense. What would a pedagogy sufficient for this world, what would a theological pedagogy look like that's sufficient for our context.
Willie Jennings: I think we have to think theologically about the three things I just mentioned. So the first thing we have to do is start to think theologically about communication. What does it mean to communicate? What would a theology of media look like? And by that I don't mean just how do we make use of media, but what does it mean that we are inside of a, if you will, immediate modality of God, God became incarnate, right? There's a reality of communication, of openness, of receptivity that the divine life showed us that we have not been able to find. And so I think that first of all we have to start to think more holistically about communication and that comes down to not only how we write what we write about, but what we're trying to do when we write. It comes down to the kind of communal dimensions of writing projects, our communication projects as theologians, what are we trying to do? What are we trying to say? It comes down to what are we trying to accomplish with the production of our texts and what we do in the classroom, and to start to think, to be more thoughtful about those things. So a lot of that has been on automatic for us, and unfortunately, it's a kind of automation that's the steam engine. So we have to think very seriously again about that. I think this comes to the second thing I mentioned a moment ago, how do we create shared projects? And I don't simply mean the big projects that we all work on like the environment, these things are important. But how do we present theology in such a way that it always speaks invitation, always speaks sharing, always speaks, come join our work. I think in a musical metaphor, just like you're forming a band and you're looking for people who can hear the sound. So how do we, in a sense, embody, perform that kind of, of open invitation. And so I think that we have to give some serious thought to that. All of these things are not tacked on to theology. These are inherit to a theological work. So if we're doing doctrinal exploration, these things are inherit to that. And then I think the third aspect really does have to do with who we imagine ourselves to teach and want to teach, to invite and want to invite into this project called theology. And here we have to do a lot more work in opening up the kind of constricted imagination of so many in the academy, especially in the university, especially what theology is being done there. We ought to be the people who are, to use old language, the greatest intellectual evangelists in the university, inviting as many people as possible to think, not only with us, but to imagine the possibility of a theological form of life that is commensurate with what they're doing. It goes back to the idea of the good life that you and Miroslav wrote so lovely about. To invite people into a vision of the good life begins with inviting people into the possibilities of a theological reflection that is not just an activity, but could be a way of life. That's not a way of life, so foreign to them that they're scared of it, but a way of life that really is saying to them, well, this is what I've always been after. There's a lot of people and universities that are asking theological questions, but we have just to have the dexterity and the sophistication to hear the theological questions they're asking and speak to them in ways that capture their interest and imagination.
Matthew Croasmun: So there's a theological virtue of hospitality, it sounds like, that should just be something that we study and described, but that we embody in the ways that we practice.
Willie Jennings: And we have to be formed. And this gets to the other part of it. We have to take a very serious look at the formation of would be theologians, not just in theology specifically, but biblical studies, pastoral care all along the line. We have to think more carefully about the entire ecology of doctoral formation, all of that has to be put back on the table. That has been on an automatic way too long.
Matthew Croasmun: Yeah, my field, and biblical studies, were formed, almost all of us get our PhDs in religious studies, secular religious studies programs, and almost all of us then go on to work in confessional or at least in Christian seminary environments. And I think we mentioned this before but we don't even have an object to study outside of some sort of relationship with a living community. The New Testament is just a set of ancient texts that have no sense of cohesion, unless you say, oh, this is a body of literature celebrated by a particular community. That's just one example though, of the ways that what you're talking about has a lot of, there are a lot of institutional forces that you have to, one has to push against. So we have formation, that's understood a certain way for forming graduate students in terms of collaboration. There's, talk about all kinds of ways of literally just collaborating together. Nobody wants to publish a multi-authored work. Nobody wants to attend your committee. Isn't going to respect a co-authored work to speak to anyone about disciplinary boundaries. You spend your life writing books for more than twenty five people to read. You're a suspect! Yeah, you're in trouble. So every part of the, all three of the points that you've talked about, push back on serious institutional resistance. Is that part of why it's almost good or hopeful that we're at a moment of crisis? It's only a crisis that's ever going to get that array of resistances to actually just start to move?
Willie Jennings: Yeah, I think that's right. The crisis may be, the famous statement never let a good crisis go to waste. I think it's true in this regard, that the crisis may in fact, open up new possibilities of thinking about the formation of doctoral students. The problem for us is that we still have to, we still have to imagine what it might look like on the other side, because without that, we'll still be doubled down on it. And you see that right now. What we really need are more of the same in many ways. So you have to some way to start to think through, from soup to nuts, who is encouraged to move to a doctoral study. Who, once they're in a program, who is responsible for the formation of the students as they move into the program. What kind of virtues are being cultivated that are important. And then, what kind of ecology, educational ecology do you want this person in the sense to already be gesturing toward when they finish up. So all of that has to be thought through freshly the difficulty is that, in some ways, in many ways, the crucial element in doctoral work is still the apprenticeship element, that you are being apprenticed, even if it's several people, but it's still a really strong mode of reproduction, which isn't necessarily bad. But a mode of reproduction, in order to change it, you really have to get into that. You have to cut into that mode of reproduction. To say to the people who have made it by doing that, although you have made it, there are other ways, that's the real challenge. The challenge is not so much kind of institutions and superstructure, it's faculty who are convinced that the way in which they have been formed to do the discipline, think the discipline, is the right way, is the only way. And there has to be some way to help them imagine not the complete destruction of the way they do things, but maybe the reorientation of it to a really more holistic aiming toward the good life that should be at the heart of what they do. But of course, this does come back to the kind of people wanting to go into doctoral programs. Over the years I've had many students come to me, say I want to do a PhD. And in all honesty, I would say probably about a third of those who come, I would recommend to go on, not because of ability now. So it's all great minds, sharp, great grades, all that kind of good stuff. But in terms of the temperament and the vision, especially the vision, I always look for someone who wants to be a teacher, who wants to communicate the truth, if you will, to a larger world. And that's not everybody, right? Not everybody who comes wanting to do doctor work, that's not what's in their mind. What's in their mind is I really want to get my mind around the relationship between Luke, Acts, and the Gospel of John. Okay, that's a great question and I'm not against the question. But what you want is that interest inside of a wider interest. The wider interest is that I really want to teach. I really want to, there's something I want to help people see, that's what's driving me forward. Now those students are like, yeah, let's go on to a PhD because I see in you already, the kind of vision at play that is going to make not only for a fabulous teacher, but a fabulous communicator, whose eyes will be opened to not only the discipline, but what it's for. But that kind of discernment, I hate to say this, is rare.
Matthew Croasmun: Sometimes it's explicitly resisted. There are learned habits, faculty compete for opportunities not to have to teach. So the good life of the academic is apparently one that involves as little teaching as possible.
Willie Jennings: We have students who come who say they don't want to be pastors. So they would prefer to be professors. There's something really bad about that.
Matthew Croasmun: I don't want to be a pastor, so I'll train them instead. Right.
Willie Jennings: So we'll say, I just can't deal with people, I'd rather be a professor. There's a part of all of us that are introverts. We like our privacy, we like our space. We like the room with the book and the quiet. That's good. But there has to be the other side present. I'm in this space, I'm in this room with this book for the sake of the people.
Matthew Croasmun: So, we've talked a lot about kind of this somewhat intermural conversation, right? Within theology, how it operates, how it works, how it conducts its business, because those are the processes of formation by which people become who they are. But let's turn outside. You hinted at it a little bit at the beginning but in this pluralistic moment, where Christian theology isn't speaking to a Christian public, it's speaking to a diverse public, and some of it may influence Christians, but as a diverse public, what are the opportunities that you see for Christian theology to speak to this pluralistic context? Maybe starting within the university, which is a real touch point in the pluralistic conversation, but also in the broader culture.
Willie Jennings: I think there's tremendous opportunity, but I think it begins with having, in some ways, the skill and the abilities of an artist. Let's take a comic, for example, what makes a comic so wonderful, a good comic. What makes their genius so beautiful is that they say the thing that everybody's thinking, and they say it with courage and they can take the topic that's painful, difficult, challenging, and present it, but get people to laugh about it, now that's genius, right? Well, theology ought to do something like that. Not make everybody laugh, but theology ought to be able to pinpoint the thing that everybody's thinking, the difficult thing, the painful thing, the hurtful thing, offer it up and say, let's think about this in the light of what the good life might be in the face of this difficulty. That's what's been missing. What's been missing. And I think often we approach the conversation about pluralism, about diversity, about different faiths, we approach it from the outside, looking in. Rather than from the inside of the challenge. Violence is a problem for all of us. Theology ought to name the specific pressure points in violence that draw all peoples of various faiths to these crucial pressure points. The seduction of guns, the love of weapons, the money made around the development of weapons, all these kinds of things. And this is often what we miss. We don't know how to identify what a good comic is, that's really real, what people are concerned about, that's the itch, scratch that. But it takes courage. It takes courage, but it also takes an ability to hear, see, and listen, it takes senses, finely tuned to suffering and pain and difficulty and conflict and able to tease it out, name it, in a way that people can say, oh, okay. Yeah. Now you're talking about something. We tend to get really mystified by the front door of difference. That is to say, okay, here's someone who's Muslim, here's someone who's Buddhist, here's someone who's Hindu, rather than, okay, that's the front door. Can we come inside? What's inside is that, in this community, there are no sources of fresh water. Do we have something to say about that that invites conversation among these authors? I think we desperately need that ability to name the pressure points of suffering and pain. I think that's crucial for us to create projects that draw all of us together in shared work. And there's so little of that. I've been involved for many years with the moral money movement in North Carolina, and I've been a part of many voter registration drives, marches, going to the state legislature to press for this or that issue. And I'm shoulder to shoulder with a mam, or a rabbi, or someone who's agnostic, someone who hates Christianity. We all of us together doing this work. And in interesting moments, thanks to the leadership of that movement, all of us singing hymns together. Now my friends here who are not Christians, don't become Christian because of singing hymns, but they see a possibility of doing the good. Inside of a Christian frame while not being Christian, because we're focused in on crucial matters, we're touching real pressure points. That's what it takes.
Matthew Croasmun: I've had experiences like that and that those are absolutely profound and important. Is it only the points of pain that bring us that sort of connection, or is it possible to ask these questions about the good toward which we're aiming? I suppose for me, the common category might be, we want to be asking human questions, that they're not just Christian questions, or that we ask them as Christians, we inflect them in Christian ways. We think about them within a Christian tradition, but we ask human questions. Many of the Christian questions, granted certainly are about suffering and pain and loss, they're also human questions about what is my life for, what is the good life? When we relieve suffering, or we set someone free, into what? For what? Is that a shared project that we can have?
Willie Jennings: Yeah, I think so. But you don't want to play those two things off. Of course, the latter builds from the former. So we can talk about what the good life may look for this neighborhood. Once we've dealt with these new oppressive zoning laws. The conversation can then build toward possibilities of what is life for, but here we want to always keep those conversations geographically located that we don't want them to be in a vacuum. And that's always the danger for the university, the conversation about the good life can then elevate to a vacuum. And all of a sudden we've forgotten the conversation about the good life. If it's doing its work, it's about these people in this neighborhood. And we've been able to get the zoning laws and retracted, the new ones that we're going to go into effect, that we're going to destroy this neighborhood. And we were able to put in this garden, and this nice area for kids to play. Now let's continue to build on that with other conversations about what we want to be about. Now, I do think as a theologian, I'm ready, willing, and hopefully able to be a part of that conversation. And there can be a second order conversation based on that, about what the good life might look like, but I never want to lose sight of the alleviation of pain and suffering. There's never finished work. And if we can always keep a conversation about the good life connected to that, then I think we can actually have a conversation that makes sense, that actually does some work, because for me, if the conversation is about at the end of the day, what it means to have a life of reverence and worship that, that issues in the good life, that then brings us as close as possible to the heart, the beating heart of theology, then I would want that conversation to be in light of, in view of, having reestablished a healthy neighborhood. Because then it does some work, people can see, I think it's part of the problem of theology. that people can't see the connection between those two things. And you're right, we also want to have a conversation about reverence, as an example, but people ought to see the connection between that conversation and reworking zoning laws. So what do we gain at that moment? What we gained at that moment is a vision of theology that is not simply an add on, but one that was crucial to this work, so that we can say ultimately, it is my vision of reverence that really informed what I did.
Matthew Croasmun: Willy, I appreciate the conversation, looking forward to more, thanks so much for being here.
Willie Jennings: My pleasure, my friend.
Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center For Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured theologian Willy James Jennings, and biblical scholar Matt Croasmun. Production and editorial assistance by Nathan Jowers. I'm Evan Rosa, and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online at faith.yale.edu. New episodes drop every Saturday, sometimes midweek. If you're new to the show, welcome friend. Hit subscribe in your favorite podcast listening app and we'd love your feedback. Ratings and reviews in Apple Podcasts are particularly helpful, but we're just as happy to hear from you by email at faith@yale.edu. We read each comment and do our best to respond and improve the show, bringing you the people and topics that you want to hear. And if you're a regular listener, it's a huge honor that you stick with us from week to week. So I'll ask you to step up and join us. Help us share the show. Behind those three dots in your podcast app, there's an option to share this episode by text or email or social media. If you took a brief moment to send your favorite episode to a friend or share with the world, not only would you be supporting the show, you'd be sparking up a great conversation around stuff that matters, with people that matter. Thanks for listening today friends. We'll be back with more this coming week.