Online Theological Education: Three Under-Theorized Issues

Online Theological Education: Three Undertheorized Issues Edwin Chr. van Driel Pitsburgh Theological Seminary ABSTRACT: Many conversations about online theological education concern the feasibility of delivering particular courses or disciplines online. Much less atention has been devoted to the relationship between online delivery and theological education as a holistic formative enterprise. In this essay, I invite further relection on three such formative aspects of theological education that are undertheorized: education as a form of apprenticeship, the essential place of worship, and ecclesial formation. I n the last 15 years, a multitude of essays and books has been published that relect on and advocate for the value of online delivery for theological education. These publications were writen in the context of a much wider debate about the efect of online learning on higher education as a whole. Recently, my own institution looked at the possibility of online delivery of some of its courses. As a group of faculty members read through the literature, I realized in our conversations that litle of this material addresses the deepest concerns of those who are hesitant about this form of theological education. The issue is not, I believe, that proponents do not want to engage what gives their colleagues pause; rather, it is that concerns about online delivery are often grounded in deeper convictions about the nature of theological studies in general, and that many of these convictions themselves have remained at the level of intuitions and have not been theorized explicitly in the literature. The conversation about online learning, however, cannot move forward without taking a look at these deeper-lying convictions. One value of the current conversation about online learning is that it forces us to make these convictions explicit. My aim in this article is to articulate three such undertheorized issues that give some theological educators pause. To be clear: my claim is not that online theological education will not be able to successfully negotiate these three issues. My claim, for now, is simply that the conversation has not taken these three issues suiciently into account. Theological Education, Volume 50, Number 1 (2015): 69–79 69 Online Theological Education: Three Undertheorized Issues Implied models of education Online delivery privileges a particular model of education in which the instructor must take on a diferent role than in the traditional face-to-face format. Rather than being the pivot of a residential classroom, the instructor’s job is to facilitate the learning of the student by creating environments in which the student can actively engage and thereby master the material.1 The question is therefore whether this model of teaching and learning is optimal for theological education. Teacher-centered and subject-centered models Mary Hess, a prominent proponent of online theological education, argues that it does. In several publications, she draws on a distinction made by Parker Palmer between two models for teaching and learning.2 On the one hand, there is the teacher-centered model, which “depicts a process in which the responsibility for learning is clear—the expert shares information that the amateurs take in.”3 Palmer illustrates this model with an abstract drawing in which the teacher, the expert, sits between “the object of learning” and the students, the amateurs. Arrows, symbolizing streams of information, move from the object to the amateurs, but all have to pass through the mediator, the expert.4 On the other hand, there is the subjectcentered model. Here Palmer’s drawing shows a network of “knowers,” all surrounding a “subject,” with arrows going both between the central subject and the knowers and to and from the knowers themselves. No 1. Hanover Research Council, Best Practices for Distance Delivery of Theological Education (2009), 12–13, www.hanoverresearch.com. 2. Mary Hess, “What Diference Does it Make? Digital Technology in the Theological Classroom,” Theological Education 41, no. 1 (2005): 77–91; Engaging Technology in Theological Education: All that We Can’t Leave Behind (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Litleield Publishers, 2005), 5–11; see also Hess’s unpublished paper “Atending to Embodiedness in Online, Theologically Focused Learning” (October 2000), htp://www. academia.edu/666289/Atending-to-embodiedness-in-online-theologically-focusedlearning. The distinction comes from Palmer’s The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998); see especially 99–106. Lester Ruth appeals to the same distinction in “Converting My Course Converted Me: How Reinventing an On-campus Course for an Online Environment Reinvigorated My Teaching,” Teaching Theology and Religion 9, no. 4 (October 2006): 240. 3. Hess, “What Diference Does it Make?,” 77. 4. See Palmer, The Courage to Teach, 100; Hess, “What Diference Does It Make?,” 78; Hess, Engaging Technology, 6. 70 o p en f o r u m Edwin Chr. van Driel separate “teacher” is identiied.5 This, says Hess, illustrates the fact that in this model all are teachers in some way, just as all are learners. . . . Indeed, the fundamental task of a teacher in this model is to get out of the way suiciently to allow learners to engage the central topic; to create an environment in which direct relationship and direct engagement with the subject is possible.6 Having laid out these two diferent models of education, Hess argues that the second model, which is clearly more in line with the best practices of online education, is also “more adequately descriptive of teaching and learning within theological education” than is the irst, thus allowing her to make a case for the natural compatibility of theological education and online learning.7 If these are the two options, Hess is no doubt right that the second model its a theological school beter than the irst one. After all, theological education is, in the end, about geting to know God beter, so the object of theological schooling is never at the teacher’s disposal in the way the teacher-centered model assumes it to be. But is it helpful to narrow our choices to these two options? Apprenticeship model A third option is to think about education as a form of apprenticeship, learning a craft from a master craftsperson.8 A craftswoman teaches her apprentices by inviting them to join in, by enticing them to engage with her in the craft. In such a model, the teacher is not the expert who mediates between the “knowers” and the “subject” of learning, because learning a craft does not consist of hearing about the craft; it involves engaging in it. The apprentice is handed the tools and put to work. At the same time, the 5. See Palmer, The Courage to Teach, 102; Hess, “What Diference Does It Make?” 79; Hess, Engaging Technology, 7. 6. Hess, “What Diference Does It Make?,” 81. 7. Ibid. 8. See Stanley Hauerwas, “Carving Stone or Learning to Speak Christian,” chap. 7 in The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 108–121. open forum 71 Online Theological Education: Three Undertheorized Issues teacher is not simply the facilitator of direct interactions between students and subject. Rather, she is the role model, and the apprentices learn by imitating what the teacher does. If education is understood as a form of apprenticeship in which the students learn by imitating the master craftsman, one has to ask to what degree this form of education is compatible with online delivery. Apprenticeship presupposes a “thick” relationIf education is ship. The apprentice follows the craftswoman around. He does not understood as a form just receive formal instruction, but of apprenticeship in he observes the craftswoman at which the students work and joins in. The question is learn by imitating whether in an online environment the master craftsman, the relationship between teachers one has to ask to and learners can be thick enough what degree this for apprenticeship to lourish. Consider the following examform of education is compatible with online ples of the results of these kinds of relationships. A seminary profesdelivery. sor goes to a church where one of her former students is the pastor. As the church service unfolds, led by the graduate, the professor has the strange feeling of looking at a relection of herself. It is not that the pastor leads the service in exactly the same way the professor would have done. The words, the gestures, are the graduate’s words and gestures, not the professor’s. Still it is observable that the student has been formed by her teacher. From taking the professor’s classes, but also from observing the professor lead worship herself in the seminary chapel, from discussing worship forms over lunch and relections during oice visits, the student has adopted an ethos that is now shaping her own liturgical practice. The professor was the master practitioner; the student the apprentice. Although the student brings her own personality to the task and leads worship in a way appropriate to the context in which she serves, the ways in which she engages ministry were profoundly shaped by her professor. Or imagine this one: on the occasion of his ordination, a student sends a note to one of his former teachers and his wife saying, “You both have been such a wonderful support to me during my journey towards ordination. From giving me words of wisdom and encouragement to extending “ 72 o p en f o r u m Edwin Chr. van Driel hospitality to me, what a blessing you have been. I am so very grateful for the wonderful example for a life in ministry that you have set for me and my seminary peers.” The student identiies the teacher as more than an instructor; he was a role model. But the student could only say so because he had a chance to observe the teacher and his family as they shaped their profession into a way of life. If this is at the heart of teaching—and according to the apprentice model it is—how can this way of being be transmited if the education is delivered online? Seminary worship The second issue concerns the essential place of worship in a theological school. Given that virtually every seminary and divinity school has a worship program, there is a striking lack of relection on the place of worship in theological education.9 Nonetheless, there are at least three arguments for the importance of seminary worship. Building interpersonal relationships First, regular common worship has a radical inluence on the interpersonal relationships among a community’s members, which in turn can have a profound efect on the classroom atmosphere. Theological studies are not only a mater of the mind but also of the heart. As teachers, we challenge some of our students’ deeply held opinions, worldviews, and beliefs. To do so efectively can only happen in a climate of trust. Worshipping together in chapel, kneeling to pray, and receiving bread and wine together are ways in which such mutual trust is built. Cultivating an environment of pastoral care Second, common worship cultivates an environment of pastoral care for students and other members of the community. Theological education can lay huge burdens on students. Besides the classroom challenges, there are 9. Since the 1960s, only three journal articles and one collection of essays have been published on this topic: Robert W. Duke, “Seminary Worship,” Theological Education 2, no. 1 (1965): 42–46; J. Robert Nelson, “The Seminary—Academy and Chapel,” Theological Education 1, no. 1 (1964): 53–62; E. Byron Anderson, “Worship and Theological Education,” Theological Education 39, no. 1 (2003): 117–130; and Siobhán Garrigan and Todd E. Johnson, eds., Common Worship in Theological Education (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010). open forum 73 Online Theological Education: Three Undertheorized Issues often inancial pressures at the home front and diiculties in combining study with family life. Ecclesial judicatories add their own expectations and desires, and all the while students are in a continuous mode of evaluation and discernment. Although many of our students have home If worship is also congregations, not every local essentially embodied, faith community is atuned to the speciic needs of seminar. . . the question is how ians. Moreover, many students schools will shape their common worship life as are expected—not least by their schools—to take leadership posithey move to an online tions during Sunday worship in format. the form of internships, thereby, often for the irst time, making the transition from participating from their pews to leading congregations “up front,” which may challenge their ability to worship. The seminary chapel is therefore a place uniquely set apart and equipped to address the stresses of seminary study and to name these in the presence of God. “ Worshipping in community Third, as I argue elsewhere, worship is intrinsic to theological education given the unique object of theological studies: God.10 As David Kelsey has argued, the goal of a theological school is “to know God truly.”11 God, however, cannot be known and not be worshipped. There may be gods whose being does not implore and demand worship, but not the God of Israel; not the God of Jesus Christ. “The God of Abraham praise” is for Hebrew and Christian Scriptures an intrinsic part of our response as we come to know God truly. Because theological study is essentially a communal project, the worship intrinsic to the theological enterprise is to be communal as well. Because of the particular object of a theological school, God, the rhythm of the school’s life thus ought to be shaped by worship, just as the rhythm of theological studies in medieval cathedral schools and friaries—diferent from, for instance, the academic studies of law or 10. See my “A Theology of Seminary Worship,” forthcoming. 11. See David H. Kelsey, To Understand God Truly: What’s Theological About A Theological School (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992). 74 o p en f o r u m Edwin Chr. van Driel medicine—were shaped by the Liturgy of the Hours and celebration of mass. In an article arguing that embodied presence is not necessary for theological education, John Gresham introduces a distinction “between those areas such as worship where embodiment is essential to an incarnational faith and other areas such as education where the incarnationality can be expressed in other ways.”12 If my arguments regarding the relationship between a theological school and worship cohere, this distinction will not hold. Worship is an intrinsic part of theological education and cannot be separated from it. If worship is also essentially embodied, as Gresham argues, the question is how schools will shape their common worship life as they move to an online format. Ecclesial formation The irst issue I raised about the relationship between online learning and education as a form of apprenticeship concerns all academic disciplines that work with this model of education. The second issue, about the essential place of worship, pertains singularly to theological education. The last issue, ecclesial formation, concerns only those who are training for ordained ministry. One of the most frequently raised issues about online theological education involves the question of the relationship between online learning and the spiritual formation of students.13 But the literature is silent when it comes to the question of the relationship between online theological education and what I propose we call “ecclesial formation.” By this kind of formation I mean the preparation of the student for ordination 12. John Gresham, “The Divine Pedagogy as a Model for Online Education,” Teaching Theology and Religion 9, no. 1 (2006): 27. 13. See for instance Stephen D. Lowe and Mary E. Lowe, “Spiritual Formation in Theological Distance Education: An Ecosystems Model,” Christian Education Journal 7, no. 1 (2010): 85–102; Mark A. Maddix and James R. Estep, “Spiritual Formation in Online Higher Education Communities: Nurturing Spirituality in Christian Higher Education Online Degree Programs,” Christian Education Journal 7, no. 2 (2010), 423–434; Mary E. Lowe, “Spiritual Formation as a Whole-Person Development in Online Education,” and James Riley Estep Jr. and Steven Yates, “Challenges and Opportunities for Online Theological Education,” both in Best Practices of Online Education: A Guide for Christian Higher Education, eds. Mark A. Maddix, James R. Estep, and Mary E. Lowe (Charlote, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2012): 55–63 and 65–77 respectively. open forum 75 Online Theological Education: Three Undertheorized Issues as a fundamentally catholic event. Both in Roman Catholic theology and in important strands of the Protestant tradition (Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran, and Presbyterian), ordained ministry is seen as entrusted by Jesus Christ to the wider church, not to the Students are not just individual minister. Ordination is to the whole church’s ministry of Word ecclesially formed by and Sacrament. Pastors minister in what happens in the a particular place but represent the classroom but also, wider church, and, in the end, Christ and maybe equally himself, in that local community. importantly, in the Diferent ecclesial traditions express this understanding of ordination in relationships that a variety of ways. In episcopal tradiare being formed in tions it is illustrated by the special the communal life on relationship between the bishop and campus. the clergy. In my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), it is the reason why an ordination to Word and Sacrament is not performed by a local congregation, but by the council that represents the wider church, the presbytery.14 In her ordination service, a candidate makes promises concerning her relationship to the wider church, not a local congregation.15 PC(USA) pastors are not even considered members of local congregations; rather, they are members of the regional presbytery.16 Traditionally, residential seminaries function as the community where candidates for ministry are ecclesially formed in an awareness of their place in the wider church. Students who may know only one, or a few, local congregations are brought together with fellow ordination candidates rooted in very diferent locations—geographically, socioeconomically, racially, “ 14. The Book of Order 2011-2013: The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Part II (Louisville, KY: The Oice of the General Assembly, 2011), G-2.0701, 36. 15. For example, she promises to be instructed by the confessions of the church; to be governed by the church’s polity; to abide by its discipline; to be a friend to her colleagues; to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church (not a congregation, but the church); to serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love (not a particular people, but the people that are part of the church); to be active in government and discipline; and to serve on the governing bodies of the church. See The Book of Order, W-4.4003, 122–123. 16. The Book of Order, G.2.0704, 36. 76 o p en f o r u m Edwin Chr. van Driel culturally, and theologically. By going to chapel together, eating in the common room, living communally in the dorms, joining in family play dates, and sharing personal joys and woes, these students learn what it will mean to serve together in one church. In that sense, the formative nature of the residential campus is a holistic experience. Students are not just ecclesially formed by what happens in the classroom but also, and maybe equally importantly, in the relationships that are being formed in the communal life on campus. When it comes to spiritual formation, proponents of online delivery often argue that students could just as well be spiritually formed through online connections as on a seminary campus; and, in fact, that leaving students in the context of their own families and faith communities may lead to deeper and more lasting religious formation than by gathering them in a school.17 While this may be true for spiritual formation, the same does not hold for ecclesial formation. The later rather entails venturing out of one’s local context and being placed in the context of the wider church. If seminary campuses have traditionally been the conduit of such kind of sustained ecclesial formation, the question is how students will receive it if delivery is online. Concluding observations If one relects on the three issues raised above, one will notice that all three of them are concerned with theological education as a formational experience of which classroom interaction is only a part. There is the master-apprentice relationship between teacher and student that reaches beyond the classroom into the dining room, the chapel, or even the teacher’s home and family. There is the common worship that is an intrinsic part of a theological school. And there is the common life of a campus community as a vehicle for ecclesial formation. The question is how these aspects of theological education will be shaped if the delivery of our education is online. In the literature, much thought is given to how particular subjects, disciplines, and courses can be taught efectively online, but much less atention has been paid to the relationship between online delivery and theological education as a holistic formative experience. 17. See Hess, “Atending to Embodiedness,” 4 (see n. 2). open forum 77 Online Theological Education: Three Undertheorized Issues In this respect, it is unfortunate that some proponents of online learning speak about residential campus teaching in a rather dismissive tone, as the “lofty ivory tower” from which teachers “demand that students leave home and hearth to climb that tower and join them there.”18 In an oft repeated claim, Mary Hess describes the residential campus as a place that is actually artiicial and abstract compared to the incarnational and embodied learning that could have taken place in the student’s home environment: “Why should we automatically assume that leaving home or work and entering a physical space labeled ‘classroom’ should in some way automatically enhance learning”?19 If the three issues I have raised are critical to theological learning, then there is actually a pedagogical warrant for asking students to leave their home environments and join residential campuses. By dismissing the residential life of a theological school, proponents of online delivery ignore the question of how the formative experience of a residential campus can be efective for their own students. It should be granted that in general the importance of residential life for theological education is undertheorized, not just in the literature on online learning but also in the literature on theological education in general.20 It should also be said that the issues raised above challenge—in not dissimilar ways—commuting students or students enrolled in evening or part-time programs, even if these are ofered on residential campuses. For both reasons it is fortunate that the conversations about online learning force us to relect more intently on the pedagogical efects of seminary campus life. As I emphasized at the beginning of my essay, my arguments should not be construed as a wholesale rejection of online theological education. In fact, I can imagine that in particular contexts the solution to the issues I 18. Gresham, “The Divine Pedagogy,” 26 (see n. 12). 19. Hess, Engaging Technology in Theological Education, 65 (see n. 2). Repeated by Gresham, “The Divine Pedagogy,” 27 (see n. 12); Lowe and Lowe, “Spiritual Formation in Theological Distance Education,” 97 (see n. 13); Maddix and Estep, “Spiritual Formation in Online Higher Education Communities,” 427 (see n. 13); Mark A. Maddix, “Developing Online Learning Communities,” in Best Practices of Online Education: A Guide for Christian Higher Education, eds. Mark A. Maddix, James R. Estep, and Mary E. Lowe (Charlote, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2012), 34. 20. A notable exception is Jackson W. Carroll, Barbara G. Wheeler, Daniel O. Aleshire, and Penny Long Marler, Being There: Culture and Formation in Two Theological Schools (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997). 78 o p en f o r u m Edwin Chr. van Driel have raised is more online theological education. For example, many parttime and evening programs now consist mainly of classroom encounters with very litle space for worship, community building, and mentoring and apprenticing. If my arguments hold, for those kind of programs, a beter form of theological education may be to ofer most individual courses online and to devote the face time one has with the students to worship, fellowship, advising, and events like interdisciplinary relection on theological education as a whole. But for a program to make such a choice is contingent on a wider conversation about theological education as a holistic formative experience. Finally, introducing the option of online theological education is sometimes presented as a form of justice. Online learning ofers the opportunity of a theological education to a previously underserved and often less privileged category of students. The issues raised above amount to the question of whether online learning can ofer students the full formative experience that theological education ought to be. If it turns out it cannot, then online theological education, while without doubt still valuable, would nonetheless be second class to theological education ofered at a residential campus. And that too is mater of justice and injustice. Edwin Chr. van Driel holds the Directors’ Bicentennial Chair in Theology at Pitsburgh Theological Seminary. He was the chair of the Formation and Online Learning Taskforce at this institution. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank my colleagues Leanna K. Fuller, Angela Dienhart Hancock, and L. Roger Owens, and my spouse Kimberly Miller van Driel, for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. open forum 79