Issue
27(2)
Educating
Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination.
(2005). Charles R. Foster,
Lisa E. Dahill, Lawrence A. Golemon, and Barbara Wang Tolentino.
San Fransisco: Jossey-Bass. 464 pp., $40.00. ISBN # 0-7879-7744-6.
Review
by: Daniel Quinlin
Associate
Professor and Director of Advising
Bethel
College,
North Newton ,
KS
Assisting
undergraduates through the process of choosing a major and exploring
career options is a common, perhaps even daily challenge for many
advisors. But what help can an advisor give to the student for
whom a career is not only a choice, but also a calling ?
Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination
is an excellent, in-depth look into the pedagogies and strategies
of seminaries in the United States, and it offers practical understandings
of the world of postgraduate religious education-an area with
which many faculty and advisors may be unfamiliar.
Educating
Clergy is the result
of a study begun in 2001 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching as part of the "Program for the Preparation of the
Professions." This study is timely in an era in which aspects
of religion are a daily topic in the media as well as in coffee-break
conversations; yet, as Stephen Prothero suggests in his book Religious
Literacy , Americans' knowledge of religion and religious
institutions is often stereotyped, misinformed, or simply not
understood by the public. The authors of this study give a scholarly,
yet accessible (for those not familiar with religious higher education)
glimpse into the pedagogical practices and philosophies of Protestant,
Catholic, and Jewish seminaries in the United
States . As one might suspect,
the authors discovered significant diversity among seminaries
based on denominational affiliation and history-a note-worthy
caveat for advisors whose students are searching for a seminary
that "fits." In spite of the diversity of religious traditions
represented in the study, however, Educating Clergy
highlights the common emphasis of the formation of a pastoral/priestly/rabbinic
imagination in seminarians through the integration of cognitive,
practical, normative pedagogies that reflect a changing profession
and public perception. While much of the book reports case studies
of the creative pedagogies discovered during the course of the
study, it also emphasizes the interrelationship of seminary professors
with their teaching and the communal pedagogy of the institution.
While
Educating Clergy is not necessarily written with the
academic advisor at the forefront of its purpose, it offers practical
understandings of postgraduate religious education that are vital
to anyone who works with students who are considering seminary.
As is evident from this study, not only do seminaries reflect
diversity of doctrine, but also diversity of student interests,
goals, and needs. Certainly, the modern seminary population reflects
students who are preparing to be pastors, priests, and rabbis,
but it also includes future teachers, academics, philosophers,
and others who will enter a variety of other secular fields. Advisors
who work with future seminarians would do well to explore the
pages of this study and incorporate its findings into their assessments
and discussions with advisees.
Clearly,
this book will be of great interest to seminary faculty and advisors,
and it is an important contribution for faculty and advisors at
undergraduate institutions that are denominationally affiliated
or that offer majors that might lead to postgraduate study in
religion or philosophy. Because of the transcendent nature of
religious studies, however, Educating Clergy offers
any faculty or advisor practical insights into the expectations,
realities, and pedagogies of seminary education and its implications
for potential seminarians.
Reference
Prothero,
Stephen. (2007). Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs
to Know-And Doesn't (pp. 304). San
Francisco : Harper.
