A Secular Age and Internet Education

I've started reading philosopher Charles Taylor's A Secular Age. A professor forwarded me a Call for Papers the deals with Taylor's work. I'm hoping to write and present a paper focused on online pastoral education that interacts with Taylor's concept of human flourishing. 

Contrary to the narrative of Modern society, Taylor does not see human flourishing as an end in itself. Rather, he argues for a higher good, a transcendent God, that exists beyond human flourishing. It is the human response to God that results in human flourishing. Taylor posits that secularity has displaced the very idea of God as the centre of human social life. Secularity is not part of human nature but has it origins in "... the fruit of new inventions, newly constructed self-understandings and related practices..." (p. 22). I am interested in seeing how online learning affects learners so the part about new inventions intrigues me. I'm going to examine how the interaction with technology affects a person's sense of God's transcendence and power. Before I start writing I'll need to spend a bit more time with Taylor's book. With a page count over 800, it's probably going to take longer than expected.

Stay tuned!   

Post-Presentation Recommendations from the Wesley Symposium

After presenting my paper at the Wesley Symposium a number of people asked for practical recommendations. Here is a recap of my guiding question, a summary of the findings, and some recommendations for theological educators:

Guiding Question:

“How might technology itself affect student formation?”

Findings:

The interaction of a person with technology, as is the case in online education, has the potential to diminish social well-being, train the brain to be distracted, and impede pastoral skill and virtue formation. Therefore, while online learning programs and courses offer many positive elements, they are not particularly helpful for developing character virtues and skills that are unique to pastoral ministry. Embodied mentorships, such as theological field education/internship opportunities with seasoned practitioners, are essential.    

 

Recommendations for schools offering online pastoral formation programs:

1. Schools would be wise to consider defining and prioritizing character formation for students and faculty. The current standard is for students and faculty to undergo academic assessments: Faculty are assessed in the form of course evaluations while students undergo assessment through completing tests, exams, and assignments. While academic assessments are firming in place, most schools have no formal means by which to assess character. Why not find ways to assess the growth of student and faculty character? The method of assessment would likely differ from academic assessment. Prioritizing character formation will require some changes to the way education is delivered. For example, some schools are choosing to explore Competency-Based Theological Education (CBTE) as a way to shift learning priorities (see this article by Karen Stiller for an overview). Regardless of the model chosen, assessing character is a steep hill to climb for standard, on-campus programs; for schools committed to teaching and learning predominantly online, trying to assess character formation may end up feeling like scaling an insurmountable mountain.
   
   
2. Schools committed to online education must ensure they have robust theological field education (TFE) programs in place. Since online education is not an ideal way to nurture virtues, theological field education programs must work even harder to ensure students are getting embodied opportunities with mentors. Schools committed to staffing and providing resources to their field education departments will be much further along than those with weak, understaffed programs. Research indicates that many theological field education programs function on the periphery of theological schools because field education is often seen as less important than academic coursework. Additionally, due to vast discrepancies in denominational requirements for ordination, TFE programs can vary significantly from school to school. Problems vary from choosing appropriate supervisory settings and supervisors, providing adequate field supervisor training, and determining how to mentor students, who are serving as solo pastors with full pastoral responsibilities. The more schools can do to support online students through strong field education programs, the better off those students (and field education supervisors!) will be.
   
   
3. Schools should consider making space for faculty, administrators, and students to theologically reflect on the effects of technology on teaching and learning for ministry. This could be a simple as setting aside class time at the beginning of a new semester as part of a review of the syllabus. It could also look like an annual faculty retreat where professors are invited to consider the impact of technology on their lives, their teaching, and their students. Reflecting theologically on the question, "how is technology affecting our formation into the image of Christ?" may surface interesting unspoken insights and perspectives that could shape and reshape how learning looks. This should not be a one time event. Administrators, faculty, and students should revisit this question regularly and prayerfully.
   
   

Wesley Studies Symposium 2021

This event is happening today on Zoom. At 2:30pm I will be presenting a paper entitled "Virtual Virtue: Exploring the Fruitfulness of Online Pastoral Education".

I'm looking forward to the event for a couple of reasons:

First, it provides an opportunity for me to garner feedback from pastors and academics on a portion of my PhD research. I'm curious to know what resonates with the audience and what seems like a miss.

Second, one of the other presenters is a good friend of mine from high school, Chris Payk. We both attended Welland Centennial Secondary School in the 1990's. He and his family are missionaries in Taiwan where Chris is working on his PhD at National Chengchi University focused
on indigenous Chinese theology. He will be presenting at 11:20am EST (11:20pm his time!). It should be an interesting presentation.

The event is free and there still might be time to sign up here.  

Mumford's Clock

Lewis Mumford had a keen eye for observing. In his book Technics and Civilization he describes how the invention of the clock created "an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences". The world that was created by the ticking timepiece has become our home, unless you happen to be back county camping. Away from schedules and organized meetups you can enter back into the world where the natural rhythms of creation are rediscovered. It seems crazy to think human reliance on those natural rhythms has been interrupted by something as simple as the clock.

Mumford writes:

The clock, moreover, is a piece of power-machinery whose "product" is seconds and minutes: by its essential nature it dissociation time from human events and helped create the belief in an independent world of mathematically measurable sequences: the special world of science. There is relatively little foundation for this belief in common human experience: throughout the year the days are of uneven duration, and not merely does the relation between day and night steadily change, but a slight journey from East to West alters astronomical time by a certain number of minutes. In terms of the human organism itself, mechanical time is even more foreign: while human life has regularities of its own, the beat of the pulse, the breathing of the lungs, these change from hour to hour with mood and action, and in the longer span of days, time is measured not by the calendar but by the events that occupy it. (Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 15).

Understanding time through the lens of the clock is different than time in the absence of seconds and minutes. Without the clock time becomes less bound, less structured, and more alive. What about God? I wonder how much of our concept of God been shaped by the clock? I think that question could take some time...

Embodiment and Learning

Part of my research has to do with online education and embodiment. While many Christian scholars focus on the pedagogical considerations of online education, few deal with the theological implications. For example, what happens to our understanding of the incarnation when theological learning happens via the Web? Regent College Professor, Craig Gay has given some thought to the intersection of technology and theology. While he doesn't specifically address online learning, he highlights some concerns about an unexamined embrace of technology and its affect on human embodiment. In his book, Modern Technology and the Human Future, Gay writes:

The incarnation of Jesus Christ is nothing if not a colossal endorsement of embodied human being, of the very walking, talking, eating, sleeping, working, loving way of being-in-the-world that we presently and ordinarily enjoy. And although we are to be clothed in immorality at the resurrection of the dead, we will even then be recognizably embodied. ... the Christian tradition has from time to time lost sight of the significance of human embodiment, but int he face of the dis-embodying bent of modern technology, there is clearly an urgent need now to remember it. (Gay, 153).

On the heels of our Easter resurrection celebrations Gay provides an important reminder of just how valuable the body is for Christian theology. Given the challenge of not being together bodily during the pandemic, and the increasing role of digital media in theological education and church ministry, I wonder if our understanding of embodiment is shifting in ways that should be leading us to pause and question how tech is changing us?   

Knowledge, Faith, and Love - Reflecting on a George Grant Quote

My PhD supervisor and I email back and forth this week about my conclusion. I am on the final stretch of my dissertation and now my question to address is this: how do I want to conclude my conclusion?

I read an article by George Grant this week that seems like a fitting addition to my conclusion. Writing about the scientific method of research and its propensity for objectifying everything, Grant suggests that love is no longer welcomed into the halls of the university (what he calls the "multiversity"):

Indeed it is clear that the modern project of reason as projected towards objects summoned before us to answer our questions is not an activity which depends on the love of the objects studied. Objects can be summoned before us without love for the things summoned. This is true, whether the object summoned is a tree, a beast, a human being, a society or the past; that is, whether our researches fall under the natural sciences, the social sciences or the humanities. Therefore as this paradigm of knowledge becomes increasingly all pervasive, faith as the experience that the intelligence is illuminated by love, must have less and less significance in the central work of the multiversity. Indeed, what has happened in modern society as a whole is that knowledge qua knowledge is detached from love qua love. (Grant, "Faith and the Multiversity", 392-393). 

If Grant's assessment is true about the university, and I believe it is, I wonder how true it is of seminaries and theological schools? Could the modern search for knowledge according to scientific methods downplay love in those institutions? If so, there are implications for Christian theology. After all, God is love (1 Jn. 4:8 & 16). Therefore, to know God is to know love. If a quest for knowledge in theological schools focuses on "objects summoned before us" rather than an intimate embrace of God and His creation, love may not be as welcome as we might have hoped.

How is virtue acquired?

Have you ever wondered how someone becomes really kind or patient or generous? Becoming virtuous is just like learning a skill. It takes people modelling and guiding and it also requires practise.

Here's what Aristotle says, 

Virtues ... we acquire just as we acquire crafts, by having previously activated them. For we learn a craft by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it, becoming builders, for instance, by building and temperate by doing temperate actions, brace by doing brave actions. (Nicomachean Ethics Book II)

David N. James, in his article "The Acquisition of Virtue" describes the importance of "experiences of personal relationship and shared activities" in learning character virtues. There's something about being with others that helps us learn how to be better people. Of course, that is not always the case. Sometimes, people bring out the worst in others. When that happens, consider it another opportunity to practise becoming a person of depth and character.