The WHY of Theological Education
A Presentation to the
Student Personnel Administrators Network (SPAN)
Daniel Aleshire
The Association of Theological Schools
April 2013
All of us who work with theological education live with these issues. 1 They are the basis for planning and
thinking about future work. They influence how schools recruit; they influence issues about student aid;
they influence the kind and range of student services that schools provide. And just about the time that
you have the student services system well-tuned to these recruitment strategies and these kinds of
students, the situation will likely change again, and you will start the cycle of planning all over again.
WHY? We work so hard—all of us—to keep these institutions going, to make it through one more cycle
of changes and challenges. Why do it at all? There are lots of voices asking questions about the value of
theological education. In some contexts, there are fewer full-time jobs, and people are asking about the
wisdom of people investing three years of graduate study for a job that can barely pay a full-time wage.
In other contexts, megachurches have suggested that they can train pastors for the work of twenty-firstcentury congregational life better than seminaries can. Then, there are always the people who contend
that theological faculty members are too often theologically wrong-headed and threaten the faith of
students more than they nurture it. There are people saying that ministers would be better off going to
business school rather than seminary and learning how to be entrepreneurs or effective organizational
leaders rather than learning church history and the theological constructs that undergird the witness of
the church. Why are you working so hard at what you are doing?
I have an idea why. It is drawn from a painful moment that continues in the news.
I
It was a Friday when evil took root in some form of human frailty and left twenty first graders and six
adults lifeless in a Connecticut elementary school. I first heard about the shootings in a staff meeting at
the office, and we paused for prayer. I listened to All Things Considered on the drive home, and the
shootings were about the only news covered in that broadcast. When I arrived home, I turned on the
television. I watched as reporters talked to psychologists and school safety experts, to the police and first
responders. They interviewed the director of the state association of school districts and an older man
who lived nearby the school. The broadcast aired the heartfelt expressions of concern from the governor
and President Obama. It had a brief interview with a parent whose child had survived the day—a father
struggling with the terrible dissonance between his relief and the bottomless grief of others.
As the evening wore on, different TV cameras were stationed outside at least two churches, as best I
could tell, where the reporters noted that people had flocked for services of prayer. They commented on
the large attendance but continued with interviews from national consultants and local officials. What
This text followed a data-oriented presentation on several factors influencing theological education, and that is the
reference in this opening sentence.
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happened? How can it be prevented? Why did it happen? Meanwhile, in the backdrop for the news
broadcast, the people of Newtown, shaken beyond words and grieving beyond comprehension, gathered
in sacred places for comfort.
As you no doubt have done, I have thought a lot about Newtown since that Friday night. We are locked
in a political battle over gun control, and some of the parents who were slowly coming to grips with the
unthinkable last December were in Washington this week trying to convince members of congress that
gun laws must be changed. The politics of this national tragedy are slowly numbing the human tragedy
with a cultural travesty.
Way apart from the news and politics, I wondered what happened with the congregations that had
provided sanctuary for prayer that Friday night. How did those houses of worship serve the community
in the ensuing weeks? In February, I decided to interview three Newtown pastors. Mel Kawakami is
pastor of the United Methodist Church, which is located very near the Sandy Hook Elementary School;
Matt Crebbin serves the Newtown Congregational Church, the oldest congregation in Newtown; and
Jack Tanner is pastor of the Newtown Christian Church. These pastors told a story about tender ministry
at a terrible time.
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Parents were asked to meet their children at the fire station next to the school. This place had no doubt
been the scene for many tearful hugs and reunions, but it became a waiting room for other parents whose
children had not been brought from the school. The police had summoned local pastors and religious
leaders to the firehouse to be with parents during an eternal afternoon that was terrifying beyond any
parent’s most remote fear. I cannot imagine being one of those pastors and what it must have been like
for them to be present with parents as the afternoon lengthened. I asked Matt about it, and his response
was as deeply pastoral as it was Christian. He said that afternoon became holy ground, sacred space, and
as such, it was not something to talk about. That is exactly right. The pastoral response began with tender
presence as people encountered horror.
Newtown United Methodist Church, the congregation nearest the school, began responding immediately.
It opened its sanctuary to the community. The preschool teachers were outside the building to welcome
people in; the trustees were there not only to welcome but to keep media personnel out. There were lay
persons inside the church to talk with people or pray with them. Because of its nearby location, the
church building remained open and staffed with church members on a twenty-four-hour basis that
weekend. This was a congregation with several children who attended Sandy Hook School; with
members and attenders who taught, worked in the cafeteria, and drove school buses; and with one family
who lost a child.
Matt Crebbin, at Newtown Congregational, said that church leaders “gathered the community as best we
were able . . . we knew that words were not sufficient to provide any comprehension of what had taken
place.” Sometimes, the most authentic religious act is the gift of presence itself. “The Word became flesh,”
the Gospel of John declares. The presence of people who care, who travel alongside those most wounded
and broken, can be comforting. The first shockwaves of incomprehensible grief don’t need words; they
need the presence of another person and the presence of the Spirit of God.
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The Red Cross had set up an operations center in the Methodist church basement, and Saturday the
clergy group met to plan a community memorial service. The work of organizing community and
individual care was in full motion.
Then came Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent, with three candles to light on the Advent Wreath, the
third one symbolizing joy. Each of these pastors gathered with his congregation for worship. Matt
Crebbin at Newtown Congregational said that, this year, the Advent celebration focused on light and
darkness with the Advent candles, and that proved fortuitous for the congregation on this Sunday. They
did not light a candle for joy. When I asked about getting through worship that day, Matt said, “When
everything is different, people are sustained by doing what is familiar.” In this and ensuing weeks, a baby
was baptized and new members were received into the fellowship. In the middle of such overwhelming
events, he said “these normal religious practices were endowed with more meaning.”
The local religious leaders meet for lunch once a month. The group includes the Protestant ministers I
interviewed, the priest at the Roman Catholic parish, the rabbi of the nearby synagogue, and others.
During those routine monthly lunches, none of them could have imagined the kind of community
devastation in which they were trying to minister. On Saturday, they planned a community-wide
memorial service. Jack Tanner said that they decided it was important for them to speak with one voice
and, in their unity, be an example of a potential path through such a devastating time. They agreed that it
would be a service of Scripture and prayer—no preaching. The White House asked if the president could
be part of the service, and they concurred. Some of you may have seen parts of the service on the
television news.
The funerals began the early part of the next week. The community is predominantly Roman Catholic,
and the Catholic parish had nine funerals. The Protestant congregations supported their Catholic
neighbor by making space for family receptions after the funerals as the parish prepared for the next
service and by providing other expressions of care. The media showed the sadness of coffins too small
and services too many.
The work continued after the funerals. Jack Tanner got a call from someone in the city office building. The
staff was feeling overwhelmed—not by the end-of-the-year workload—but because everyone who came
in to pay a tax bill or do business was burdened and unable to talk about much else than the tragedy. The
staff wondered if someone would come and read some Scripture and pray with them, which Jack did.
When I asked how this event had affected him, Jack said that he had a deepened awareness that real
ministry is not in the pulpit but with the people—meeting them where they are. “People need
reassurance that God is present and cares, and that it is often best expressed in simple ways.”
Newtown United Methodist is an activist, mission-oriented congregation. Just weeks before the
shootings, it had a work team in Massapequa, New York, to help victims of Hurricane Sandy. As the
weeks after the Sandy Hook shooting wore on, the pastor said his congregants have been responding to
the tragedy in three ways. Some have become activists. One mother went to Washington to participate in
an anti-violence protest. She told Mel, “I’m way out of my comfort zone,” but she was not content to
leave the protesting to others. Others are caring for people who continue to suffer the trauma: school bus
drivers who drive by the houses of children they no longer pick up and worry as children have a bus ride
that, for some, is scary; cafeteria workers and teachers who have daily reminders of the shootings. One
child is frightened to go to the bathroom at school because she had been ushered into one with other
children when the shooting was going on. Still others, he said, are beginning to ask the hard questions
about this horrible event. At some point, anyone who has ever harbored a belief that God is both loving
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and powerful asks questions: Why this kind of violence? Where is God? Why didn’t God intervene?
These are Job’s questions; they are the questions of Rachel weeping for her children; they are the
questions of people in any age who dare to believe.
Mel Kawakami said this event has helped him articulate a theology of grace. He said he was beginning to
address the theodicy issue—the unanswerable “where was God” question—but that the first theological
response was new insight to grace. Matt Crebbin at Newtown Congregational said that seminary had
helped him begin to deal with doubt as a part of faith. He had understood it intellectually—believing
when it barely makes sense to believe—but this event put the profound “why” question to him viscerally.
A tragedy like this is so hard to get our hearts and minds and spirits around, he said, and he and his
congregation have learned anew to live with the lament of the Psalmist and the protest of the prophets.
Over the weeks since this tragedy, the media have largely left, but religion in Newtown remains to
address needs. Jack Tanner continues to stop by town hall. The Newtown clergy group planned another
community memorial service; James Forbes, a prince among American preachers, preached a special
service at Newtown Congregational. Phillip Yancey led a service at a larger membership evangelical
congregation. So far, the town has received 48,000 teddy bears, not to mention countless in-kind
contributions, and Newtown congregations provided significant support to those working in the town, to
those most directly affected by what happened, and to those more on the periphery but no less affected.
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I have invited you into this painful story because it offers insight as to why we do the work that we do in
theological schools.
When the unthinkable happened in Newtown, the congregations were there to respond in crucial ways.
Church people cooked meals, cared for friends, provided space for silence and prayer, and comforted an
inconsolable community. In due time, they will provide the place where people can bring their
unanswerable questions and doubts to a God who will take no offence at their lament. I don’t know what
the growing number of “spiritual but not religious” people did at Newtown, but it appears that much of
the needed community organizing, much of the logistical support, much of the person-to-person care was
extended by the members of congregations. I am not sure what liberal and conservative political leaders
said or did for the community, but I know that the religious leaders, with all their differences, understood
that this was a time to address the community with one voice. The congregations that had been teaching
and preaching about a Christian way in the world Sunday after Sunday, in this terrible moment defined
the kind of religion that is “pure and undefiled” and demonstrated why good religion enriches human
lives. There are few community organizations that can do what a group of congregations can do when
human need requires organizing for the care and support of others. I cannot imagine the trauma of this
tragedy, and I cannot imagine how the community could ever get through it without its congregations,
parishes, synagogues, mosques, and other communities of faith.
Congregations need leadership. Just as I can’t imagine the community getting through a crisis like this
one without congregations, I can’t imagine congregations facing a time like this without leaders. Mel
Kawakami is a graduate of Harvard University Divinity School, Matt Crebbin of Andover Newton
Theological School, and Jack Tanner of Lincoln Christian University. They learned both how to think
theologically and how to work pastorally. Their theological education introduced them to the hard
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questions of life, gave them counsel in the care of souls, and sharpened their sensitivities about the work
of church in society. Newtown residents do not know how much these pastors have read or studied; all
they know is that these pastors knew when silence was ministry, when presence was ministry, when
action was ministry, when liturgy was ministry, and when public witness was ministry. There is a
correlation between effective and theologically articulate ministry and theological education. As religion
changes in this society, it becomes increasingly important that religious leaders know how to think
faithfully and minister theologically. Maybe they could have learned these things in a short pastor’s
institute or at a business school, but when faith is scraped raw and the sky really has fallen, I will still put
my money on a theological school. If life had no trauma and never posed hard questions of meaning, if
everything always went well, if evil never had its sway, theological schools might not be so important.
But in a world of hard questions, human longing, and senseless tragedy, the gifts of the well-learned
Christian tradition are non-negotiable.
Theological schools take the deposit of faithful thinking of scores of prior generations and combine it
with the hopes and faithful imagination of the future that God is calling into existence—the shadows of
the past and the future—and educate the present generation for future work. They require money and
governance, trained professors and technology. They are not cheap for students or donors, but they teach
the church about its debt to the past and shape its leaders for mission in its future.
A Concluding Word
The Newtown pastors preached through winter into spring. They have visited parishioners, gone to the
community pastors’ luncheon, and absorbed still more of the pain that will not go away. They led their
congregations through Lent to Easter, and this year Lenten somberness no doubt came easily and
Resurrection hope came more needily. Newtown teaches us, once again, how crucial religion is for
human flourishing, for community and individual care, and how central it is to our being human.
Newtown reminds us that communities of faith need leaders and that these leaders need to know the
Christian tradition and engage their pastoral ministry with skill and sensitivity.
When you SPAN participants leave tomorrow, you will take some of what you learned in workshops and
revise your programs and services. You will use some of the information you gathered at this meeting in
discussions and program planning. You will get tired of all this work. And, in some moment when your
colleagues frustrate you and students disappoint you, you will ask “Why?” At that moment, remember
Newtown. There will be other tragedies that need wise and informed and skillful ministry. There will be
more community tragedies, but those will not be as common as the personal ones: the teenager killed in
an auto accident, a parent’s trauma of a terminally ill child, the secret trauma of a marriage falling apart
or ruined already, the unthinkable loss of a spouse, the failed careers, the economic traumas, all the forms
of despair that come in personal-sized doses and that threaten everything. Late at night, when you are
wondering why, remember that you do ordinary work for extraordinary reasons. Theological schools
take on hard questions and meet them head-on; they take the devastation of evil seriously; they argue
convincingly that goodness is no fantasy. Remember that this is good work, worth doing.
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