Resources by Abson Joseph
Growing up in Haïti, the bulk of my knowledge of literature centered on French writers like Descartes, Rousseau, Pascal, Molière, and Voltaire, among others. I did not read Shakespeare until I was in my mid-twenties, and I only recently became aware of George Bernard Shaw’s famous, or rather infamous, statement, “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” While I have yet to read the full play, I believe that the statement contains a false dichotomy and misses the point about what teaching is, and what teaching should be. However, I found myself using this phrase when addressing our incoming students this past summer. I was making a case that the Wesley Seminary faculty are actually “doers.” Our faculty are practitioners who are teaching out of the abundance of the ministerial experience they have gathered over the years. As I bragged on the faculty this past summer, I could not help but think about two experiences that shaped me as student. The first occurred when I was an undergraduate student at Caribbean Wesleyan College in Jamaica. One of my professors pastored a church with a ministry in the inner city of Savanna-la-Mar. She invited me to teach outdoor Sunday school to at-risk children whom their parents could not send to church. I fell in love with these children, and we shed many tears when it was time for me to leave upon graduation. My four years doing life with them gave meaning to my time of study far beyond what reading or talking about social justice could do. The second experience took place during my time at Asbury Seminary when I enrolled in the course Wealth and Poverty in the New Testament. The course required us to read Robert Wuthnow’s Poor Richard’s Principle, and to engage in a service-learning opportunity during the semester. The weeks I volunteered at the food pantry in Wilmore, KY were very formative and helped put in context the concepts we discussed during class. Teaching on social justice and civic engagement calls for pedagogy that creates a lasting impression on the heart and mind of students. We need to influence students’ lives by doing what we teach. By this, I mean two things: first, lead by example; second, create experiential learning opportunities so students can be immersed in a context or contexts that allow them to put what they are learning into practice. Engagement implies active interaction. As a New Testament professor, I have the opportunity to lead travel courses to Greece, Turkey, and Israel. I create learning experiences that allow students to not only visit historical sites and admire the beauty of the locations, but also interact with the people in these places. The recent refugee crisis in Europe has provided opportunities for students to worship with and minister to displaced persons and survivors of sex trafficking. In Palestine, students have the opportunity to interact with Palestinian Christians and gain an understanding of the complexity of their situation. Such encounters cause students to reevaluate their theology, eschatology, and overall outlook on life. They experience brokenness and grief firsthand, and this experience moves them to action. For example, several students who travelled with me later returned to Greece for short-term service at a refugee camp, and at least one is serving long term. Meaningful engagement requires sustained interaction. I create a Facebook group for each trip. This allows us to stay connected and to reflect on the experience as the years go by, even beyond graduation. At least once a year, students are able to relive memories of the trip, share the impact it has had on their lives, and talk about where they are now. Teaching is doing. While I disagree with Shaw’s statement, I believe it conveys a warning which all teachers should heed. It is a warning against settling for merely discussing the concepts and ideas surrounding issues of social justice. It is a warning against merely giving assent to the need for engagement without living as one who belongs to the struggle. Teaching for social justice and civic engagement should embody “doing.” As an administrator, I encourage faculty to live out this truth. It is all the more important because we expect our students to be engaged in ministry while pursuing their studies at Wesley Seminary. In the Gospel of Mark, the author uses the verb poieō, “to do,” to describe the miracles Jesus performs. When crowd saw the things he did, they expressed in amazement, “What is this? A new teaching, with authority!” (Mark 1:27, NRSV). I do what I teach, I teach because I can! One of the best gifts I have received is a sign on my desk that reads, “I teach. What’s your superpower?”
Character formation plays a crucial role in enabling students to engage effectively in endeavors related to social justice and civic engagement. I have wrestled for a long time with how best to help students respond to societal challenges such as inequity, prejudice, and discrimination that they face or observe. As an ordained clergy of the Wesleyan Church, I fully embrace my denomination’s rich tradition of social justice. In addition, I seek to live out the belief that humanity can experience deep spiritual transformation that leads one to embody Christlikeness. I integrated these concepts in my teaching very early on in my career. However, I became even more acutely aware of the centrality of character formation to my teaching when I joined the faculty at Indiana Wesleyan University. The University’s mission statement reads, “Indiana Wesleyan University is a Christ-centered academic community committed to changing the world by developing students in character, scholarship, and leadership.” Every semester, I would teach one or two sections of the BIL102—New Testament Survey course as part of the General Education core. One of the purposes of the GenEd core is to help students begin to embrace Indiana Wesleyan’s World Changing mission. In the course in question, I design the learning in alignment with the purpose “to develop and articulate a Christian way of life and learning that enables virtue, servant leadership, and citizenship in God’s Kingdom.” Since every student has to take BIL102, I relish the opportunity to have students from different backgrounds engage the biblical text. During the class, I am intentional about challenging students not only to engage the text but also to encounter the person about whom the text speaks: namely Jesus. In our reading of the Gospel of Mark, I focus particularly on Jesus’s encounters with the marginalized. I use narrative techniques to help students place themselves in the shoes of different characters, and challenge them to wrestle with the implications of reading the text from different vantage points. More particularly, I ask them to name an aspect of Jesus’s identity and character that they can emulate. I remember the day a student described Jesus as “sassy.” I was shocked! I am not a native English speaker. The definition of “sassy” that I learned—rude, impertinent—did not match what I knew of Jesus, nor what I hoped my students would want to emulate. Thankfully, I managed to not voice my initial reaction, “How did you get that from the text?!”, but instead replied, “Tell me more!” The student went on to describe Jesus’s direct and, in her words, “no-nonsense” posture toward people. The student used Jesus’ interaction with the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 as a case in point. I conceded to the student that Jesus’s words seemed harsh, and I allowed the class to enter and dwell in the awkwardness and difficulties of the narrative. In the end, I was successful in encouraging the student to think of a different way of describing Jesus. My success was short lived. As we journeyed through the Gospel of John, the student became even more convinced of Jesus’s sassiness. I realized that it was necessary for me to pause and grasp the way the student understood the word, and what they were seeing in Jesus’s interactions with people. It dawned on me that Sassy Jesus was appealing because of the balance of truth telling and deep compassion that he displayed. While I struggled initially with the concept, Sassy Jesus eventually became part of the New Testament Survey experience. As I helped students prepare for a lifelong commitment to service and engagement as world changers, the idea of being bold and courageous in telling the truth while showing deep love and compassion began to take root. They found Sassy Jesus to be a relatable person. They found it less difficult to emulate and embody the requisite balance to speak the truth in love. To participate effectively in endeavors surrounding social justice and civic engagement, students need to be resilient and compassionate. It has become more and more difficulty to maintain this balance in public and private life. On the one hand, people hesitate to challenge or call out another person for fear of being viewed as intolerant. On the other hand, there is a tendency to confuse love and compassion with conformity and/or compromise. Jesus mastered the art of welcoming and going to people with whom he disagreed, people who were outcasts, and even people who thought they had everything figured out. He knew how to show them unconditional love and how to challenge them to embrace a better way of life, the way of the Kingdom. One of the greatest challenges we face as educators is to help re-create environments where students not only learn the skills but also develop the character necessary to engage in irenic conversation about difficult issues. We need to design learning opportunities that produce growth and maturity that lead to boldness. We need to construct experiential learning opportunities that build empathy in our students. This will enable them to stand against injustice, prejudice, and discrimination. It will empower them challenge others with the boldness and compassion that come from emulating and embodying the character of Sassy Jesus.
When teaching on issues of social justice, a faculty’s posture can foster or impede the students’ ability to learn and engage fully in the process. I teach Biblical Interpretation. One of the favorite courses that I have designed and taught is “Hermeneutics for Ministry”. This is a graduate course offered to students who are preparing for full time ministry. I challenge the students in the class not only to learn about the art of interpretation, but also to wrestle with why they interpret a certain way. For example, we talk about reading locations, biases and presuppositions. We discuss how a person’s cultural background affects/colors their reading lenses. We watch the movie Arrival and discuss the dynamics of language and prejudice, and the interplay between space/boundary maintenance and reconciliation. In other words, how we use our space and maintain boundaries, who we let in, and the willingness to enter another’s space affect our ability to engage the other in constructive ways. We examine what makes Dr. Louise Banks a character that is worth emulating. We read Emmanuel Levinas’ Otherwise than Being and discuss what it means for come face to face with the other, and to take on their plight. The final project for the course asks students to write a sermon series or develop curriculum that addresses issues on immigration or racial reconciliation; or design a pastoral care plan that addresses Teenage Suicide or Aging and Dying Well. I go to great length to challenge their assumptions and encourage them to think holistically about social justice; namely, to attend to the theological, spiritual, cultural, social, emotional, and financial aspect of the issue. The goal is not only their formation, but also the formation of their congregation’s hermeneutics (the way they view) and attitude (the way they behave) toward immigrants, members of a different race, the elderly, and the memory of those who commit suicide and toward their families. In the Fall 2016, I found myself struggling to communicate with the students. Many of the issues that were central to the course had taken center stage in the political rhetoric of the election. As a Haitian, and an immigrant, I wanted to be cautious. This posture created a lack of authenticity that hindered my ability to challenge the students. Our class met at 8:55am on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The morning after the election, I went to class and started with prayers as was customary. No sooner had I said Amen, that one student asked, “What are your thoughts on last night’s election?” I replied immediately, “I am not from around here; I am not sure what to say.” I proceeded to start my presentation, when the silence that fell on the class caught my attention. I looked up from my computer and saw the students’ eyes fixed on me. It was a look that I had not seen before. They wanted to hear from me on this particular issue, and they were not willing to let me off the hook. I quickly realized that if I was going to be successful in my endeavor to challenge their own presuppositions on other social justice and civic engagement issues, I needed to be vulnerable on this one. To be vulnerable is to open oneself to the possibility of being wounded, of being harmed. It comes at a great risk. It is a risk worth taking if the telos of theological education is the transformation of the individual. We have to be willing to open up ourselves to the students, so that they can see our hearts and in order to be convinced of the lessons we want them to learn. That November morning, I took the risk and told the students what was on my heart. Among other things, I pointed out that the popular vote suggested that we were dealing with a divided country. I urged them to be ready to shoulder the responsibility and burden of bringing healing to a nation, a society, and a church that have lost the art of dialoging with others who hold diverging opinions. Little did I know that the divide would become so entrenched. Little did I know that their burden would become so heavy. Today more than ever we need to let our guard down and teach with vulnerability. We need to empower our students by acknowledging our own shortcomings. What would it take to invite them to our space and let them see our pain, our doubts, our struggles?