Graduate Student, Practical Theology
Ph.D. Candidate (1/20/10)
Thesis Title: The Robes of Protestantism: Interreligious Education in American Theological Schools
About
Theological education in the United States is at a crossroads. The plurality of religious traditions, practices, and identities is becoming more apparent in the U.S., which magnifies the fractures in Christian-American hegemony. Enlightenment categories that once defined religious sameness and difference are also dissolving, and new categories ("world religions") often employed by intellectual elites continue neo-colonial tendencies of classification and otherness.
Theological schools (seminaries, divinity schools, and other such institutions) have traditionally trained religious professionals and scholars for work in clearly defined denominations. How, then, do theological schools react to a radically diverse society, wherein young people and new immigrants bring different expectations and identities to what we understand as "religious"? Some schools will slowly go away. But others will adapt to the changing multi-religious landscape. (My own institution -- Claremont School of Theology -- is attempting such an adaptation.) So what must a predominantly Christian and historically White institution do to adapt successfully to this changing religious ecology?
This is the question behind my research. At least for today.
Contact Information
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| Address: | Claremont, California (USA) |
