Reflections on spirituality in Anglican theological education

I. Introduction

What I would like to do in this paper is to share some reflections on the role of spirituality in Anglican theological education. This is an enormous topic and I can only touch on a few points that I have found particularly important, namely an understanding of the present context of theological education, an awareness of the contributions of the Anglican tradition, and a need for a theological grounding of Christian spirituality. I want to begin with a discussion of some of the factors at work in the present crisis in theological education as I have experienced them. This crisis cuts across all denominations and faith groups, including our own. I bring to this examination a basic theological assumption that many would agree with but that is anything but assented to in the wider world of theological education as I have come to know it. This assumption simply is that spirituality is not an add-on to theological education but is the matrix in which and out of which all Christian theology is and needs to be done. Evagrius of Pontus spoke to this point long ago when he defined a theologian as a person of prayer.1 The teaching and learning of Christian theology and the doing of ministry always need to be done by men and women of prayer in the context of a community of prayer. I also want to touch briefly on the unique contribution that the Anglican tradition brings to any discussion of spirituality and theological education. This contribution is possible because of our continuing rootedness in historic catholicity and our indebtedness to the evangelicals in our tradition who have helped us understand the importance, within a believing fellowship, of not just talking about, but experiencing the risen Christ. But then, as Brother Martin Smith, the Superior of the Society of St. John the Evangelist has recently reminded us, "the spirit of orthodoxy [itself] is evangelical because it is concerned with how Christ is encountered in faith by contemporary human beings in all the fullness of his life and being."2

In the concluding section of this paper I want to say something about the risk that the very success and appeal of spirituality in the wider culture poses to a recovery of Christian spirituality and the practice of spiritual direction. I am referring here to spiritual direction not as a full-time specialty, although that may be the vocation of some, and certainly not as the province of a spiritual elite, but always as an important and regular part of pastoral ministry and of living out faithfully our own discipleship.

I will close with some thoughts on the importance of a theological and ecclesial grounding of spirituality, especially for those doing spiritual direction, not only as a way to root spiritual direction in Scripture and the tradition but to aid us in perceiving things we otherwise might not see, and also to help address the various destructive, usually implicit, theologies that so many of those who seek spiritual guidance have internalized.

II. The Crisis in Theological Education

It is no exaggeration to say that theological education in our time is in a state of crisis. The widespread lack of grounding of theological curricula in any authentic spirituality, especially in seminaries in the liberal Protestant tradition, is, as I have already suggested, a major contributing factor to this state of affairs. My own realization that there is something wrong with the way theological education is being done is not an insight that came suddenly. In retrospect I can see several influences that contributed to this growing realization. What first comes to mind are the deficiencies of theological education that I have personally experienced, my own in the late 50s and early 60s as well as, more recently, theological curricula with which I have become familiar since 1985 when I began teaching pastoral theology, and later ascetical theology, at Colgate Rochester Divinity School and later Bexley Hall Seminary in Rochester, New York.

A word of explanation about the Divinity School in Rochester might be helpful at this point. Since the late 1960s the Divinity School has been an incorporated partnership of two liberal American Baptist Seminaries (Colgate Rochester Divinity School and Crozer Theological Seminary) and a small Episcopal School of Theology, Bexley Hall Seminary. Both Crozer, known for being the alma mater of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bexley Hall, which was founded in 1824 in Ohio by a freewheeling Bishop with the unusual name of Philander Chase3, chose Rochester when it became necessary for them to move from the locations where they had been founded, Crozer from Chester, Pennsylvania, and Bexley from Gambier, Ohio. Currently Bexley Hall, renamed Bexley Hall Seminary, is engaged in differentiating administratively from Colgate Rochester Divinity School, a process which will result in complete independence by 2001.

Looking back at my own theological education at Yale Divinity School, it was assumed that rigorous intellectual formation in the traditional disciplines of Biblical Studies, Theology, Ethics, and Church History, with a smattering of skill acquisition in low status subjects such as pastoral care, homiletics and Christian Education, would equip one sufficiently for any kind of ministry. I do not recall the word spirituality being much used in those days. To be sure, this was not an Anglican seminary and I was not at that time an Episcopalian. In retrospect, it seems that theology and spirituality were assumed to be largely the same thing. Although we had regular services in the Chapel and some of the faculty, like H. Richard Niebuhr, would begin their classes with prayer, I do not remember much attention being given to spiritual formation. Prayer and devotional practices were treated as add-ons to the real work of intellectual formation. Theological education consisted mainly of the academic study of religion. The gap between seminary and parish was wide. There was a not-so-hidden disdain for the practical work of ministry. There was also the implicit but distinct message that ministry was for those who did not have the intellectual gifts to go on for doctoral study.