Sentences with phrase «persons in a theological school»

It means, first, that the understanding of God that persons in a theological school come to have is always concrete.

Not exact matches

So we modify our answer: a school is truly theological to the extent that it is a community of persons seeking to understand God, and all else in relation to God, by studying other matters that are believed to lead to that understanding.

In this chapter, the author refines the thesis that a theological school is a community of persons trying to understand God more truly by focusing its study within the horizon of questions about Christian congregations.

If they are defined in a theological way, how in actual practice is this school's goal to educate persons for «ministerial functions» related to its overarching goal in some way «to have to do with God»?

The readers he has in mind include: perhaps a student starting her second year of study, or an academic who has just joined a theological school faculty and has never herself been previously involved in theological education, or a person newly appointed to the board of trustees of a theological school.

We can elaborate our thesis now: A theological school is a group of people who engage in a set of social practices whose overarching end is to understand God more truly.

We have been elaborating what is involved in saying that a theological school is a community of persons trying to understand God truly.

The point to be made, then, is that as a community of persons that seeks to understand God truly, a theological school is a community seeking to learn concepts, that is, to grow in abilities and capacities relative to God.

By engaging people in the effort to understand God by focusing study of various subject matters within the horizon of questions about Christian congregations, a theological school may help them cultivate capacities both for what Charles Wood [2] calls «vision,» that is, formulating comprehensive, synoptic accounts of the Christian thing as a whole, and what he calls «discernment,» that is, insight into the meaning, faithfulness, and truth of particular acts in the practice of worship (in the broad sense of worship that we have adopted for this discussion).

It does not follow, however, that the persons involved in the practices constituting a theological school must also be existentially engaged in the practices constituting a worshiping congregation.

At the same time, and without modifications of the «againstness,» a theological school's study may be «for» Christian congregations because it is the place where people can be helped to acquire the capacities for theological judgment that, as we saw, congregations inherently need in their common life.

However, it does not rule out that the group of persons cooperatively engaged in the practices constituting a theological school might also at other times cooperatively engage in the practices constituting a Christian congregation, and vice versa.

The schooling will be unified when the overarching goal of all of its activities is the cultivation of persons» capacities for theological judgment in their conduct of theological inquiry.

Furthermore, theological schools have backed off from developing programs of continuing education that would provide sustained intellectual, spiritual and social engagement with the questions and issues being raised by people in diverse vocations.

We began the study because so many people — seminary deans and presidents in particular — told us that they were worried about whether theological schools would be able to recruit enough qualified faculty to replace the many who soon will be retiring.

Marty says nothing about what this challenge might mean for theological schools, whose attention to these topics will play an important role in educating the people — pastors, denominational employees, lay leaders and the like — whom he frequently singles out as important interpreters and «brokers» of the public involvement of religious groups.

What makes a school «theological,» as I argued in Part One, is that it is a community of persons engaged together in the enterprise of trying to understand God more truly.

The background assumption of this book means, finally, that so far as its content is concerned the best hope of saying things of general relevance to persons involved in all types of theological schooling today lies in making some particular and fairly concrete proposals that may turn out to be directly pertinent only to a few types of theological schools but may provoke and help other persons in other types of schools to think through these issues for themselves.

For example, the motives of a theological student in a required course in school are very different from those of a person not being rewarded with professional status and a way of earning a living for participating in the group — that is a lay person.

In addition, it proved grants to support projects engaging people in Christian practices in congregations, theological school., and other institutionIn addition, it proved grants to support projects engaging people in Christian practices in congregations, theological school., and other institutionin Christian practices in congregations, theological school., and other institutionin congregations, theological school., and other institutions.

I understand my role as a professor in a theological school to consist of helping the church, critically and constructively, to reflect on its life and work so that it may be faithful in its mission, and of helping to form and educate people for various ministries in the church.

Two broad schools of thought emerge in theological discourse concerning the question, «Can a person lose their salvation?»

To take a single example, last year I had the privilege of participating in one of these schools in a small university town, where in a parish of about one thousand members over two hundred persons (including a goodly number of interested «enquirers» who had heard of the program through a carefully planned advertising campaign) attended eight night sessions, held from eight until ten o'clock, with a choice among eight different courses, dealing with theological, ethical, historical, devotional, and scriptural subjects.

But nothing is more concrete than the differences among the racial, gender, and socioeconomic locations of persons involved in theological schooling, nor more concrete than the differences among the practices through which persons have sought to understand God, nor more concrete than the differences between the ways in which models of excellent schooling have been institutionalized.

Unlike theological schools in the United States, however, these university faculties are closely tied to the Protestant and Catholic churches: The ipso facto establishment of the two major Christian traditions via West Germany's church tax means that few people here question the close relationship of the faculties to the churches.

His naive use of class differences to identify excellence («Ministers of the better class are not satisfied to accept the rural churches») and his explicit call for theological schools to train persons to minister specifically to the rich suggest that this interest in theology, which is otherwise so thoroughly underemployed in Harper's proposed reform of theological schooling, is vulnerable to ideological misuse as a «cover» that at once obscures and legitimates an underlying concern to secure the churches» social status.

The proposal that has been partially elaborated in this chapter is that a theological school is a community of persons trying to understand God more truly by focusing its study of various subject matters within the horizon of questions about Christian congregations.

It is precisely measures of efficiency, success, and local esteem — that is, measures of competence in fulfilling certain functions in persons» lives — that prove the importance of academically demanding theological schooling:

But even those who wanted to teach in a theological school stumbled when we asked them: «What do you think ministers really need to know about your subject in order to lead people in lives of faith and action?

Accordingly, what will make schooling «theological» is that it shapes human persons so that they are formed by the habitus of theology (paideia) and capacitated to engage in truly critical reflection.

After all, we have said in addition to «forming» persons» conceptual capacities to apprehend God Christianly, a theological school may capacitate people specifically for leadership roles in Christian congregations.

In addition, the challengers say using tax dollars to pay tuition at religious schools is barred by the Constitution's prohibition against compelling a person to «support any place of worship... against his consent,» and its ban on using state funds «for the benefit of any religious or theological institution.»