Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest : 2005 Seminar
Narrative
SUFFERING A SURFEIT OF SAUSAGE
TWO CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE DIVERSITY OF IDEAS AND THE IDEA OF DIVERSITY
EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE SOUTHWEST
A faculty never has just one good idea, any more than one ever has an only cockroach. Which is why we are infested with brilliant wheezes and laudable ambitions. Paul, our Hispanic Studies professor, had diagrammed his eager state of over-commitment. He laid the papers on the floor, one road to hell in flow-charts of our collective enthusiasms. We sat around him sympathetically. Paul didn’t deny our intentions, nor the sincerity of our commitment to his enterprise, and he wouldn’t dispute the progress we had made in spreading cross-cultural education in general and Hispanic culture, in particular, liberally across the curriculum. But he seemed tired. There was the “Hispanic concentration” to think of, and those students already disappointed at having too few courses in Hispanic ministry. An Austin-based immersion course was proposed for all first-year students. His job description demanded contacts and schemes with local Hispanic agencies and congregations. He had to teach a lot. He had to spear-head the faculty’s vision of all this cross-cultural education. The budget gods demanded sacrifices. And he had heard more notions and rumors of notions. Everybody was passionate about something — and, mostly, something else. Which explained that dreary slippage whereby all the work had seemingly rolled back to nestle at his own feet. Then, there was the Hispanic Theological Union. “This is why Hispanics don’t trust Anglo attempts to help,” he said. “Three Deans got together and decided to support local efforts in Latino theology. Then, just when we thought we had something, we didn’t have the money for it. The seminaries must cut budgets and the HTU was the casualty.”
Charlie, who teaches Pastoral Studies and may thus be supposed to have the edge in practical wisdom, stared at the floor. “Well,” he said, “that’s the thing. We could do anything if we had the money.” We had a moment’s wallow in the pleasing melancholy that combines suffering righteousness with justifiable grounds for inaction.
“There is something we can do and it wouldn’t cost anything.” The Dean started to conduct the invisible orchestra that always accompanies him in moments of fervid excitement. “One problem, it may be the problem of problems, is built into the curriculum itself. Our M. Div. is an overstuffed sausage into which we have crammed every possible educational aspiration and made them all essential. It is about to burst. Students complain about workload, not knowing their families, exhaustion, and seeing ghosts in the library. We do too much and we offer far too few choices within what we do. You can choose any elective as long as it’s required.”
“You’re not suggesting another curriculum revision, are you?” Cynthia was roused, our hermeneut of suspicion and Pauline expert. “Look,” Titus replied, “we have students wanting to concentrate, to specialize in Hispanic ministry, global theology, spirituality but there is no room for them to do so. Eighty-seven percent of our courses are required. We are about to get a Professor of Christian Formation and we have just appointed an expert in World Religions. Just how are we going to squeeze them in? All I’m suggesting is that we consider the overall size of the M. Div. and think about reducing both it and the number of required courses to allow more freedom, more electives.”
It’s hard to judge enthusiasm in a faculty, what with past history, settled habits, territorial suspicions, strident individualism, and the anxieties of folk whose hobbies combine with a vocation to serve the Almighty. The Dean had got something, though, a flurry of attention, a small electric charge of interest: perhaps, not just a good idea but the kind of good idea that puts all other good ideas in their place, a “meta-good” idea, so to speak.
We were together again, three weeks later, and now sinking in our chairs, suffering the end-of-semester slump. Paul had left his diagrams somewhere and wedged himself into the corner of a sofa. “We’ve made a good start,” he said, “in having Hispanic culture as an element right across the curriculum.” We had a way to go, though; the attention was patchy, some doing a lot, others little, one or two nothing. “Isn’t there a danger,” asked Susan, our ethicist, “that we’ll end up narrowing the focus too much; that we’ll be known as the ‘Hispanic’ seminary?”
“I don’t expect everything to revolve around Hispanic Studies,” Paul replied, “that would be the kingdom of God. We should get further than we are, though.” Maggie sat up, “Isn’t that a rather hegemonic stance?” Her expertise lay in decidedly un-Hispanic Asian cultures. “I don’t think we’ll ever be known as the “Hispanic” seminary. What I would like, though, in the way of liberation theology, is that we’re recognized as the seminary for peace and justice.”
“Look,” Susan was sounding upset, “do we have to have a liberationist context for justice? Isn’t it possible to have a concern for justice within an orthodox Christian theology? Do you want us to be another EDS?”
“And what’s wrong with the Episcopal Divinity School?” Cynthia asked.
Scenting blood, the Associate Dean uncoiled himself from his chair and glared like a snake at a very fat mouse. Having been brought up on a remote island off the coast of France, he felt out of place in these diversity discussions. He had the wrong sort of guilt and his prejudices, though deep, were rather beside the point. “Isn’t it odd that we celebrate diversity by all doing the same thing?” he asked. “I know we agreed that Hispanic culture was to be a primary lens for approaching cross-cultural understanding, but who said it should be the only lens? If we’re not careful we’ll end up looking at the lens not through it. No one said, ‘just one lens’ and Hispanic studies can’t bear the whole weight of education in cross-cultural awareness. Not only do other cultures have features that don’t show up through a single lens, diversity itself doesn’t show up in the same place or in the same way from one culture to another. The significance of ‘diversity’ is itself diverse. We need more lenses, not myopic attention to one. That’s why I support loosening up an M. Div. program that’s simply a straightjacket one regulation short of a padded cell. Not to mention that it has us all run around like decapitated chickens, which is hardly exemplary Christian formation. And that’s not all,” he went on, ignoring the rising anxiety round the room, “when did we ever have a theological discussion about diversity. Would that be such an odd thing to do? Without some theological clarity, diversity is just another good will alternative to the scariness of God. We grab the nearest trendy stand-in — justice, cross-culturalism, or whatever — and substitute it for what we’re really supposed to be about.”
Cynthia interrupted, “That’s offensive! Concern with justice may arise from a vision of God.”
“All right, then, well, let’s hear that vision. I’m sorry to be unpleasant, I put it hyperbolically, and anyway I am, well, unpleasant.”
“The faculty,” Charlie said this very deliberately, “is committed to making Hispanic Studies central.”
“Does that exclude other approaches,” Maggie asked, “shouldn’t we also be committed to curricular diversity? Shouldn’t we offer more possibilities, not less? That’s why the notion of increasing electives is worth pursuing.” Someone said, “I think we’re out of time.” The meeting slipped away, rather quietly.
The Associate Dean stayed in the room wondering what he’d said. “It wasn’t so stupid, was it?” he asked the sofa. “Dammit, don’t we have room any longer for a few more good ideas?
SUFFERING A SURFEIT OF SAUSAGE
TWO CONVERSATIONS ABOUT THE DIVERSITY OF IDEAS AND THE IDEA OF DIVERSITY
EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY OF THE SOUTHWEST
A faculty never has just one good idea, any more than one ever has an only cockroach. Which is why we are infested with brilliant wheezes and laudable ambitions. Paul, our Hispanic Studies professor, had diagrammed his eager state of over-commitment. He laid the papers on the floor, one road to hell in flow-charts of our collective enthusiasms. We sat around him sympathetically. Paul didn’t deny our intentions, nor the sincerity of our commitment to his enterprise, and he wouldn’t dispute the progress we had made in spreading cross-cultural education in general and Hispanic culture, in particular, liberally across the curriculum. But he seemed tired. There was the “Hispanic concentration” to think of, and those students already disappointed at having too few courses in Hispanic ministry. An Austin-based immersion course was proposed for all first-year students. His job description demanded contacts and schemes with local Hispanic agencies and congregations. He had to teach a lot. He had to spear-head the faculty’s vision of all this cross-cultural education. The budget gods demanded sacrifices. And he had heard more notions and rumors of notions. Everybody was passionate about something — and, mostly, something else. Which explained that dreary slippage whereby all the work had seemingly rolled back to nestle at his own feet. Then, there was the Hispanic Theological Union. “This is why Hispanics don’t trust Anglo attempts to help,” he said. “Three Deans got together and decided to support local efforts in Latino theology. Then, just when we thought we had something, we didn’t have the money for it. The seminaries must cut budgets and the HTU was the casualty.”
Charlie, who teaches Pastoral Studies and may thus be supposed to have the edge in practical wisdom, stared at the floor. “Well,” he said, “that’s the thing. We could do anything if we had the money.” We had a moment’s wallow in the pleasing melancholy that combines suffering righteousness with justifiable grounds for inaction.
“There is something we can do and it wouldn’t cost anything.” The Dean started to conduct the invisible orchestra that always accompanies him in moments of fervid excitement. “One problem, it may be the problem of problems, is built into the curriculum itself. Our M. Div. is an overstuffed sausage into which we have crammed every possible educational aspiration and made them all essential. It is about to burst. Students complain about workload, not knowing their families, exhaustion, and seeing ghosts in the library. We do too much and we offer far too few choices within what we do. You can choose any elective as long as it’s required.”
“You’re not suggesting another curriculum revision, are you?” Cynthia was roused, our hermeneut of suspicion and Pauline expert. “Look,” Titus replied, “we have students wanting to concentrate, to specialize in Hispanic ministry, global theology, spirituality but there is no room for them to do so. Eighty-seven percent of our courses are required. We are about to get a Professor of Christian Formation and we have just appointed an expert in World Religions. Just how are we going to squeeze them in? All I’m suggesting is that we consider the overall size of the M. Div. and think about reducing both it and the number of required courses to allow more freedom, more electives.”
It’s hard to judge enthusiasm in a faculty, what with past history, settled habits, territorial suspicions, strident individualism, and the anxieties of folk whose hobbies combine with a vocation to serve the Almighty. The Dean had got something, though, a flurry of attention, a small electric charge of interest: perhaps, not just a good idea but the kind of good idea that puts all other good ideas in their place, a “meta-good” idea, so to speak.
We were together again, three weeks later, and now sinking in our chairs, suffering the end-of-semester slump. Paul had left his diagrams somewhere and wedged himself into the corner of a sofa. “We’ve made a good start,” he said, “in having Hispanic culture as an element right across the curriculum.” We had a way to go, though; the attention was patchy, some doing a lot, others little, one or two nothing. “Isn’t there a danger,” asked Susan, our ethicist, “that we’ll end up narrowing the focus too much; that we’ll be known as the ‘Hispanic’ seminary?”
“I don’t expect everything to revolve around Hispanic Studies,” Paul replied, “that would be the kingdom of God. We should get further than we are, though.” Maggie sat up, “Isn’t that a rather hegemonic stance?” Her expertise lay in decidedly un-Hispanic Asian cultures. “I don’t think we’ll ever be known as the “Hispanic” seminary. What I would like, though, in the way of liberation theology, is that we’re recognized as the seminary for peace and justice.”
“Look,” Susan was sounding upset, “do we have to have a liberationist context for justice? Isn’t it possible to have a concern for justice within an orthodox Christian theology? Do you want us to be another EDS?”
“And what’s wrong with the Episcopal Divinity School?” Cynthia asked.
Scenting blood, the Associate Dean uncoiled himself from his chair and glared like a snake at a very fat mouse. Having been brought up on a remote island off the coast of France, he felt out of place in these diversity discussions. He had the wrong sort of guilt and his prejudices, though deep, were rather beside the point. “Isn’t it odd that we celebrate diversity by all doing the same thing?” he asked. “I know we agreed that Hispanic culture was to be a primary lens for approaching cross-cultural understanding, but who said it should be the only lens? If we’re not careful we’ll end up looking at the lens not through it. No one said, ‘just one lens’ and Hispanic studies can’t bear the whole weight of education in cross-cultural awareness. Not only do other cultures have features that don’t show up through a single lens, diversity itself doesn’t show up in the same place or in the same way from one culture to another. The significance of ‘diversity’ is itself diverse. We need more lenses, not myopic attention to one. That’s why I support loosening up an M. Div. program that’s simply a straightjacket one regulation short of a padded cell. Not to mention that it has us all run around like decapitated chickens, which is hardly exemplary Christian formation. And that’s not all,” he went on, ignoring the rising anxiety round the room, “when did we ever have a theological discussion about diversity. Would that be such an odd thing to do? Without some theological clarity, diversity is just another good will alternative to the scariness of God. We grab the nearest trendy stand-in — justice, cross-culturalism, or whatever — and substitute it for what we’re really supposed to be about.”
Cynthia interrupted, “That’s offensive! Concern with justice may arise from a vision of God.”
“All right, then, well, let’s hear that vision. I’m sorry to be unpleasant, I put it hyperbolically, and anyway I am, well, unpleasant.”
“The faculty,” Charlie said this very deliberately, “is committed to making Hispanic Studies central.”
“Does that exclude other approaches,” Maggie asked, “shouldn’t we also be committed to curricular diversity? Shouldn’t we offer more possibilities, not less? That’s why the notion of increasing electives is worth pursuing.” Someone said, “I think we’re out of time.” The meeting slipped away, rather quietly.
The Associate Dean stayed in the room wondering what he’d said. “It wasn’t so stupid, was it?” he asked the sofa. “Dammit, don’t we have room any longer for a few more good ideas?