I had coffee with a student this afternoon. It helped crystallize for me one way in which seminary education can be dangerous. Note well: dangerous does not equal bad. But like many good and helpful things, it can be dangerous as well.
The danger is simply this: seminary can teach us that people are ideas to be argued with rather than neighbors to be loved.
Where did you go for coffee that helped crystallize this radical theology?
Provocative and cryptic, Daniel. But I heartily agree. Theology must always remain in service to vibrant New Creation community life, reflecting on relational dynamics and the life of God among God’s people. Once theology becomes unmoored and loses its place, becoming ideas over which we do combat, people become pawns in a variety of ways. Even in the most ‘polite’ ways over the years, how many people have been sacrificed to or as ideas? Dangerous, indeed!!
Daniel,
When you say—people are ideas to be argued with rather than neighbors to be loved—are you thinking of fellow students and professors, authors of assigned texts or both?
Both, Todd. It’s the academy’s mindset–and my own, all too often.
amen and amen.