Toward a Theological Anthropology for Theological Education
How do I construct a theological anthropology for theological education? This question not only summarizes my intellectual journey so far, but also sets the direction for my doctoral studies. Above all, theological anthropology lays down the foundational vision of the human person, in whom the goal of theological education consists. As I apply to XXXX’s Ph.D. program in theology and education, I am convinced that my interests in theological anthropology as fundamental for religious education would be best served by the program’s emphasis on epistemic ontology, as understood in Thomas Groome’s Sharing Faith. Besides this, I believe that the School of Theology and Ministry, by uniting the academic and the liturgical communities as an undivided whole, embodies what it means to educate our ‘being’ in Groome’s sense, permeating every aspect of my project.
As a seminarian-pastor all throughout my seminary career, I have been constantly grappling with the question of how to best educate theology for practice. With the beginning of my theological studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, I also decided to take up a youth pastor position in a small Korean American church in New Hampshire. Not knowing how or what to teach my youth group students, I was bewildered by the fact that my teaching and preaching did not help them with practicing Christianity. This in turn has put pressure on me to study theology at school all the more vigorously; however, studying theology through critical analysis and argumentation of influential texts, although helpful, did not have much bearing on how I ought to teach my students for helping them to practice their belief in God. Therefore, I slowly began to question whether there might be some areas of improvement in the contemporary theological education for ministers and priests.
Nonetheless, such interests in theological education were not turned into the scholarly interests until I saw its inherent connection to theological anthropology. Initially in my seminary career, I was less interested in religious education for Christian practice than in Christian practice itself, drawing me to the field of Christian ethics. In the spring semester of 2005, I had a chance to participate in Wesley Seminary’s semester-long student-exchange program called the National Capital Semester for Seminarians, designed to give the participating seminarians a myriad of opportunities to reflect on Christian practice in the realms of culture, politics, and society. In the program, not only did I read such influential books on Christian practice as A Community of Character by Stanley Hauerwas and Moral Man and Immoral Society by Reinhold Niebuhr, I also engaged in a dialogue with people in Sojourners, a Christian magazine for justice and peace founded by Jim Wallis. While through the program I learned innumerable insights into how to do Christian practice, I also noticed in some of my colleagues a kind of mentality that does not mind making use of un-Christian means for Christian ends. In other words, my colleagues and I needed to learn how to shape our ‘being’ worthy of our calling to Christian practice, and such task cannot be achieved through focusing solely on Christian ethics; rather, I had to ask more fundamental questions on human beings: what is the Christian vision of the human person with practice in mind? How is the desirable change in behavior brought about by the formation of such ‘being’—affection, intellect and volition—in light of that vision? As far as I understand, these are simultaneously the questions of theological anthropology and religious education. Thus, theological anthropology and religious education, specifically for training ministers and priests, have become the central interests for my academic pursuit from then on.
In your program, I would like to construct a theological anthropology for theological education. This stems from my observation that educational institutions envision a particular kind of human being(s) whom they wish to produce through their education, which is their own anthropology of education. This is also true of theological schools. Therefore, in my project I will examine the anthropological foundations of contemporary theological schools in order to propose a theological anthropology for theological education. After studying this project at XXXX, not only do I hope to become an academic who teaches students and publishes books and articles on religious education, but I also wish to help found a theological school built on my lifetime’s research.
By far, my Th.M. studies at Boston College has helped me much to define my project more clearly; at the same time, it has also taught me a need to pursue further studies to answer the question set forth in the beginning of this essay. My study of Hans Urs von Balthasar has been enormously conducive to grasping some clues for answering my question. For one thing, I have discovered in von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics and hermeneutics some viable resources for constructing my theological anthropology. This is because his theological aesthetics aims at forming human affection for God’s glorious revelation; his theological hermeneutics, at self-illumination by the same revelation. In other words, von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics and hermeneutics have clear implications on a theological anthropology for education, because they are particularly about how the human person is shaped and formed. This is also to say that I wish to develop certain specialty in both theological aesthetics and hermeneutics, besides those of von Balthasar, as the theological undergirding for religious education. XXXX’s academic resources in the School of Theology and Ministry as well as in the theology department are known for its richness, breadth, and depth; I see no problem in pursuing theological aesthetics and hermeneutics for constructing a theological anthropology for theological education here.
In addition to my theological interests, I consider my project to be interdisciplinary by nature. This is because my question, exploring forming the human person through education, is ultimately in need of not only a theological perspective, but also all the empirical perspectives of the social sciences. Even though I did not study education as an emphasis in my previous work, I have been interested in what the social sciences’ views are on the moral and spiritual development of the human person, and how such perspectives would be applied to the educational vision of religious higher education for ministers and priests. Juxtaposing the Christian views of the human person and her moral and spiritual development with those of the social sciences would be not only an intriguing task, but also a necessary one in view of my project. In that regard, I believe that taking a seminar course on Practical Theology with Dr. Nancy Pineda-Madrid and a course on Religion and Higher Education with Dr. Michael James as part of my Th.M. coursework at BC has prepared me for interdisciplinary research. In your program, through the Lynch School of Education and the Boston Theological Institute, I wish to take courses along the line of my interests in the anthropologies of the social sciences and their application to education, such as the pedagogy of modern higher education vis-à-vis the moral and spiritual development of the human person, and the historical and philosophical foundations of modern higher education.
On a final note, having spoken to Professor XXX, I have been confirmed that your doctoral program is equipped with the best resources available for me to thrive in, given my scholarly interests. Above all, I would like to pursue my education in an environment where the academic and the liturgical have mutual bearings on each other. This is significantly because the question that I plan to explore presumes that a healthy theological education should take place in the worshipping community of scholars. While other divinity schools may have strong academic reputation with virtually non-existent liturgical communities, I know that XXXX’s Ph.D. program in theology and education would provide me with an excellent academic environment that takes seriously the presence of the worshipping communities. Having already spent my life here as a Th.M. student, I am convinced that your doctoral program would be one of the best programs not only for my research, but also for my overall personal development as a future scholar of religious education.