Blogs

Change is the constant in theological education, though it may not seem so from some vantage points. Most people in an organization desire a sense of permanence. Given the nature of the day-to-day routine, most people experience on the job, it's not difficult to appreciate they are lulled into a sense of stability and immutability in their organization. From their perspective, the constancy of the job gives a sense of continuity. Even for Faculty, the annual rhythm and cycles and the academic year can give an unwarranted sense that things change slowly from year to year. From the perspective of the dean, however, change is the constant---intended or not. Deans will confront, manage, resist, hold at bay, or instigate change every year. Most deans would welcome a single year with a minimum amount of change that can provide a "breather" from the steady stream of issues, challenges, and problems that bring about some level of change at multiple levels. Unfortunately, the nature of the job means deans will work amidst a constant swirl of change. C. William Pollard, author of The Soul of the Firm, provides a perspective on change that is critical to theological education in this era. Pollard said, "Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable." Leaders in theological education should also take his caution to heart: "Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow." Theological school deans, then, should embrace that change is part of their job, and accept that not everyone will like it. Deans, however, are also stewards of change in their organizations. As such, wise deans will also question change---that is, they will avail themselves of critical questions that can help them discern the purpose, necessity, and nature of the change they will lead. Questioning Change Here are sample perspectives that can help deans "question change": Do you have a legitimate rationale for the change? Can you rely on good data to inform the change? How much change do you need? What can help leverage the change? (trust, data, internal authority, external pressures?) What is the institution's capacity to absorb change? Has the institution navigated a similar change in the past? Did it succeed or fail? Why? How much risk can you absorb? What will you have to give up to realize the change? Who will you leave behind? What do you want to preserve? What will people grieve? What may be unintended consequences? What level of change is required? (Drastic or incremental?) What type of change is needed? (cultural, organizational, administrative, policy, technological, structural, programmatic, developmental, evolutionary, social?) What is your timeline for change? Is there a window of opportunity that creates urgency? Will your mission change as a result of the change? Does it need to? Will the change actually solve the problem being addressed? Who will commit to the change? Who is most invested in the change? In staying the same? Do you have the resources to make the change? How will you know the change is successful? What metrics will you use? Who will most benefit from the change? Who will be the most disadvantaged by the change? How will the change impact curriculum? Faculty? Students? Finances? The seminary culture? Administration? Can you see the changes through? (Will you leave office or the institution before the change is completed?) Abigail Brenner cautioned that "Change without transition may only serve to recreate old scenarios and reinforce old patterns of behavior. For change to have a salutary effect on us, we need to learn to effectively work with it and not to run the other way when it presents itself." ("The Nature of Change," Psychology Today. May 6, 2011).

Is my teaching good enough? Is your teaching good enough? I believe that good enough teaching and learning are practices of radical hospitality that are needed more than ever today in a political climate of American exceptionalism, increasingly divisive civil discourse, and passionate if conflicting longings to be “great.” While I hope to promote excellence in my work, I don’t ask students for greatness over and above their peers in my classroom; rather, I aim for a learning environment in which every student believes they are good enough to be there. I believe that learning in a group is more possible and probable when the learner experiences themselves not as necessarily better or less than other learners, but rather as good enough, believing that they belong and therefore can participate in learning. However, many students and teachers do not believe they are good enough – a fear that has been communicated through previous learning experiences from pre-school to Ph.D. processes. Believing oneself to be good enough – a requirement for teaching and learning in my opinion – functions like other privileges, available to some more than others and laced with relative power and opportunity. Good Enough? What exactly is good enough? With multiple connotations, this phrase “good enough” is easily misunderstood. In my field of pastoral theology, good enough is a practice of radical hospitality that opens participants to relationships of appropriate support and challenge. D.W. Winnicott, a leading thinker in object-relations psychological theory, imagined good enough practice as responsible and responsive, neither rigidly perfectionistic not negligently unmotivated. Here’s how I explain the concept in my pastoral theology syllabus: “Pastoral theology continues to view the modern psychologies as offering tools for understanding care. One of the most helpful metaphors that pastoral theology has adopted is that of the good enough participant in caregiving. This is not to say that care involves minimal effort. Rather, pastoral theologians have recognized that it is more helpful to aspire to be a good enough pastoral caregiver than a perfect one. This stance requires more effort, attention, and courageous habits of self and communal reflection.” Good enough is also a helpful concept for pedagogical reflection beyond my academic discipline. By good enough, I mean to indicate a deep sense of value, a seat at the table, a voice considered a worthy conversation partner, a belief in oneself as belonging. Is this possible in classrooms today? For students who do not experience believing themselves to be good enough, both perfectionism and apathy are rational responses. However, neither of these responses is healthy for the learning environment not to mention for the learner. Bracketing admissions, financial aid, curricula, hiring policies, tension between institutional traditions and commitments, and more for the moment, when I focus on the students eligible to enroll in my class, if I am committed to good enough teaching, I need to ask how hospitable my teaching is to different learners—especially in this politically divisive moment. Have I designed a class in which students are able to believe they belong? Can each willing participant be good enough? What are some challenges to this kind of radical hospitality in theological education? Which boundaries are required for this kind of radical hospitality and which boundaries must be released? Three Challenges of Radical Hospitality in Theological Education: Room, Representation, and Respect In my teaching, I am confronting challenges to radical hospitality whether newly awakened in this political era, as is the case for many of my white colleagues and students in theological education, or held as longstanding concerns, as is the case for colleagues and students who represent and/or are committed to be in relationship with communities with histories of exclusion from theological education. Specific practices of radical hospitality, such as room, representation, and respect, can dismantle good enough as a privilege in order to invite all students to believe in themselves as good enough participants in learning. I think of these practices as disciplines of inquiry and courageous self and communal reflection. Room: Where is the breathing room in my course design? Is there room in my syllabus for multiple avenues of earning a course grade? Do students have an opportunity to learn how to succeed in the class through assignments that build over the semester? Have I woven enough practice into course time? Is there room in assignments for students to make connections between the course content and what matters deeply to them? Representation: What voices and epistemologies are represented in the course texts and in what order? How might different students feel invited into a conversation (imagined or real) with the authors of these texts? Will all students have to stretch in relation to some readings and feel more at home with other readings? How do I represent, include, and compensate epistemologies, voices, and communities deeply relevant to the course of study but that don’t have access to academic publishing? Respect: Does my syllabus avoid unintentional dehumanization? Do I account for the word “we” and define my authoritative access to speak for groups of people from seminary students to human beings to women? Do I coach students in accounting for their use of pronouns? What structures of accountability have I included in the planning, unfolding, and debriefing of my teaching? Now What? I need to wrestle with the limits of belonging in my pedagogy to consider how to move more deeply into good enough teaching and learning. I do not think that good enough teaching and learning ought to be a privilege restricted to a small group of learners, professors, and learning environments. Good enough teaching and learning are practices of radical hospitality that swing open wide the opportunities of learning. If I want to embrace a good enough pedagogy, I will need to become more aware of and willing to address the challenges of radical hospitality in theological education, especially in my classrooms. I believe theological educators can begin to cultivate pedagogies where all learners have access to being good enough by first recognizing challenges to radical hospitality in theological education. In my next blog, I wonder about dreams, commitments, and strategic practices that invite all learners to believe in themselves as good enough. How have you tried to embody and inspire good enough teaching and learning?

Exposing and disrupting the values which perpetuate white normativity puts a strain on the adult classroom. Individualism is a cornerstone value of whiteness and patriarchy.  As persons committed to the flimsy lie of pulling oneself up by the bootstraps, too many students believe that education is best attempted alone. Conforming to the principles and practices of individualism, adult students believe that by leaving the people who formed and shaped them they can better demonstrate excellence. By denouncing accountability to and responsibility for their people, their kin, and their community, they are becoming good U.S. citizens. “To thine own self be true” is exaggerated to narcissism, isolation, and dangerous detachment. The racist values of this U.S. society teach that in order to be real you must be alone. Equally, the U.S. educational system functions to uphold the societal tenants of individualism. Higher education rewards individualism. My teaching colleagues were told that the only way to make a legitimate contribution to their scholarly field of study was to do it alone. Collaboration is cheating! We are discouraged from playing well with one another. Consequently, teachers typically insist upon and praise individualism in adult classrooms.     Even for students who understand themselves to be part of a community and enabled by the sacrifices of others, adult classrooms are places of disorientation. The new perspectives, new expectations, new experiences, and new ideas challenge even the most prepared, supported and grounded student. For the student who presumes that individualism is the best way to approach study, the disorientation can become severe and can make learning terrifying. The hardcore pledge to individualism which is a hallmark of U.S. society and the academy only serves to exacerbate the student’s anxieties. Further confusing to the adult student steeped in the delusion of individualism is the classroom that values partnership, cooperation, and collaboration. Group assignments and shared projects that are designed as counterpoints or correctives to society’s hegemonic imagination dumbfound the student who believes the better way is the autonomous way. I have actually heard loud and painful groans when students, upon reading my syllabus, understand that group work is part of the course experience.  Students who believe their work is best showcased in isolation resist and refuse to work on group projects. On more than one occasion, I have had to disband fighting groups.  On a few occasions, groups were crippled by the logistics of when and how to meet. Repeatedly, groups will do tandem reports with each person giving individual speeches rather than working for a synergized, harmonized product. In several instances, I am certain that groups relinquished power to one student who then did most, if not all, of the work. In all of these situations, my hunch is that those students who saw no pedagogical value in collaboration sabotaged the groups. When self-reliance eclipses a sense of community, belonging, and mutuality or when self-reliance is at the expense of communal care and responsibility, then classroom spaces that affirm values of mutuality and teamwork become experiences of deep pain and confounding for the students – and the teacher.    I want my students to become aware that knowing is communal and that learning is relational. Individual knowledge is a fallacy. How we make meaning depends upon the context(s) in which we find ourselves. Who we are and whose we are has direct bearing upon how we learn as well as the measure and merit of learning. Knowing and knowing better requires awareness of relationships. Individualism limits, constrains, and distorts efforts to know beyond yourself.  I have over the years developed strategies to signal to students that their connection to their people while learning is paramount and that my classroom is a place to develop skills for collaboration, partnership and cooperation. The exercises are not meant to instantly dissuade students of individualism as a core value. They are meant as moments to consider that there are other, maybe more generative, values to hold dear while learning and living.  One of my learning activities is a ritual of invocation. Early in the semester I ask students to consider persons, living or dead, who would be glad they are enrolled in my class. I tell them to think about persons who would support them in school when things get difficult or persons who have their best interest at heart as they move through coursework. When students are ready, I ask that each student in-turn speak aloud the full name of one of the persons. I instruct students, saying one name per turn, to exhaust their list of persons. Once all the names have been spoken, I acknowledge the ancestral and communal love in the room. This conjuring often sustains us. Another exercise is a reflection activity. I give students time to think through their answers, then instruct them to write their answers as succinct lists on the blackboard: Who are your people (describe in race, class, gender and other social location indicators)? To whom are you accountable while in this degree program? Who is praying for you while you are here? Who do you struggle not to disappoint as you study? What highest job of leadership will be afforded you once you have demonstrated reasonable mastery? What is the suffering of your people? What are their vulnerabilities? What is their trouble? Which aspects of their suffering and anguish will you bring to bear upon the conversations in this course? How will you work so that with the taking of this degree you are more informed about the needs of your people? During your studies for which systemic oppression will you become expert for the healing of your people? These kinds of learning exercises help reconnect and remind us we are not alone. At least they help me. Each time I do an exercise of this kind, I name my own ancestors and our troubles. I, too, am reminded that I do not teach alone and that I do not teach in vain. 

In all of the world’s religions, one finds the notion of a “holy fool”: an individual who transcends societal conventions with his/her ridiculous behavior and unpredictable manner of revealing moral truths. For my “Religious Heritage of Islam” and “Religions and Cultures of the Middle East” courses, one of my favorite class exercises involves having students read and discuss a variety of stories and sayings about one of Islam’s most famous “holy fools,” Mullah Nasruddin. Nasruddin is a legendary 13th-century satirical figure who is claimed by many – including Afghans, Turks, Kurds, Uzbeks, and Iranians – to be their own. In Arabic contexts, this figure is often known as Joha. Thriving well along the boundaries of traditionally Muslim societies, he remains the inspiration for folklore in places as varied as Georgia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, and Sicily. Nasruddin is characterized as devout yet irreverent, unpredictable yet consistently foolish, comically inept yet clever. In this exercise, I help my students to understand how stories about Nasruddin use humor to represent and critique Islamic religious and cultural norms, customs, beliefs, and institutions, and to destabilize widespread assumptions. By presenting lessons in a humorous way, Nasruddin holds up a lens to how people flatter political and religious leaders and tell them what they wish to hear. He takes on the role of the fool, which allows him to be subversive without posing a real threat to venerated systems of authority or to pious conventions that have been dampened by empty formalism. While tales about Nasruddin defy easy classification, I work with students to explore a variety of themes that can be found in them. One theme concerns what I call the “bazaar haggling mentality,” which can be described as “outrageous reasoning” that is nonsensical yet amusing and which challenges the status quo. It also can reflect an ego-centric attitude in that the individual seems driven by his wants and idiotic yet transparent about his foolishness. Here are some examples:  The Reason The Mullah went to see a rich man. ‘Give me some money.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I want to buy … an elephant.’ ‘If you have no money, you can’t afford to keep an elephant.’ ‘I came here’, said Nasruddin, ‘to get money, not advice.’(13)  Tit for tat Nasruddin went into a shop to buy a pair of trousers. Then he changed his mind and chose a cloak instead, at the same price. Picking up the cloak he left the shop. ‘You have not paid,’ shouted the merchant. ‘I left you the trousers, which were of the same value as the cloak.’ ‘But you did not pay for the trousers either.’ ‘Of course not,’ said the Mulla – ‘why should I pay for something that I did not want to buy?’ (24) Another theme explored is Nasruddin’s critique of the Insha’Allah mentality found in traditional Muslim societies, which have tended to prioritize theological preoccupation with divine will over philosophical reflection on observable causes. This tendency coincides with a cultural inclination to assign a large role to chance or fate, and can involve minimizing the significance of human responsibility in relation to divine causality.  Here are some examples: Assumptions ‘What is the meaning of fate, Mulla?’ ‘Assumptions.’ ‘In what way?’ ‘You assume things are going to go well, and they don’t – that you call bad luck. You assume things are going to go badly and they don’t – that you call good luck. You assume that certain things are going to happen or not happen – and you so lack intuition that you don’t know what is going to happen. You assume that the future is unknown. ‘When you are caught out – you call that Fate’. (20) If Allah wills it Nasruddin had saved up to buy a new shirt. He went to a tailor’s shop, full of excitement. The tailor measured him and said: ‘Come back in a week, and – if Allah wills – your shirt will be ready.’ The Mullah contained himself for a week and then went back to the shop. ‘There has been a delay. But – if Allah wills – your shirt will be ready tomorrow.’ The following day Nasruddin returned. ‘I am sorry,’ said the tailor, ‘but it is not quite finished. Try tomorrow, and – if Allah wills – it will be ready.’ ‘How long will it take,’ asked the exasperated Nasruddin, ‘if you leave Allah out of it?’ (29) In contrast to the previous theme, another theme is Nasruddin’s challenges to rationalism. Here we find Nasruddin keeping philosophers and worldly, rational thinkers on their toes by using inconsistent logic: Inscrutable Fate Nasrudin was walking along an alleyway when a man fell from a roof and landed on his neck. The man was unhurt; the Mullah was taken to hospital.  Some disciples went to visit him. ‘What wisdom do you see in this happening, Mullah?’ ‘Avoid any belief in the inevitability of cause and effect! He falls off the roof – but my neck is broken! Shun reliance upon theoretical questions such as: “If a man falls off a roof, will his neck be broken?”’(26) Prayer Is Better Than Sleep As soon as he had intoned the Call to Prayer from his minaret, the Mulla was seen rushing away from the mosque. Someone shouted, "Where are you going, Nasruddin?" The Mulla yelled back, "That was the most penetrating call I have ever given. I’m going as far away as I can to see at what distance it can be heard." (98) The Value of Truth ‘If you want truth,’ Nasruddin told a group of Seekers who had come to hear his teachings, ‘you will have to pay for it.’ ‘But why should you have to pay for something like truth?’ asked one of the company. ‘Have you not noticed,’ said Nasruddin, ‘that it is the scarcity of a thing which determines its value?’ (90) By providing my students with handouts listing these quotes, I then ask them to work in groups to identify themes that relate in some way to larger questions of Islamic theology and philosophy (for example, traditionalist and rationalist understandings within Islam) that we have discussed in previous class sessions. We then hold a larger group discussion to discuss these themes as well as ways in which a character such as the “holy fool” can hold up a mirror to society or remind people never to be too sure about their assumptions. Lastly, I also like to project different visual representations of the Mullah, and ask the students what do they see in images such as the following miniature.  As the students immediately notice, the Mulla is riding backward on a donkey I ask them why, and then I explain how this miniature depicts a well-known story of Nasruddin riding his donkey backward while leaving a village that he had visited. When asked the reason, he simply responded: “I did not want to disrespect the people by having my back to them.”     In my experience, the “holy fool” offers students a fresh way of experiencing Islamic religion and culture, breaking through stereotypes to reveal humanity and humor as well as subtle wisdom and capacity for satire. Many students have testified that exercises involving stories of Mullah Nasruddin are rewarding and valuable, and allow them to think critically about larger issues even while experiencing a deeper respect for the richness of the culture from which the stories emerged. Mullah Nasruddin’s tendency to raise questions but not necessarily answer them helps to open up space for deep questioning and laughter alike. I would like to conclude with one last story, giving the Mullah the last word. The Mulla lost his key and was looking for it under a street lamp.  A man noticed that the Mulla was looking for something and stopped to help him find it.  After an hour of looking, the man asked the Mulla if he could remember the last time he saw the key and the Mulla replied, ‘In my bedroom.’ The man angrily responded by stating ‘Then why are you looking for it here?’ ‘Because,’ Nasruddin told the man, ‘There is much more light here.’  **All quotes in this blog post come from I. Shah (1971). The Pleasantries of the Incredible Mulla Nasrudin. New York: E. P. Dutton.

Like Teresa Delgado  I’ve composed and deleted several versions of this post. My first draft, started several weeks ago, reflected on how we talk about race, violence, and nationalism post-Charlottesville. I wanted to add my voice to the many inspiring people who have found ways to incorporate discussions of xenophobia, violence, and white privilege into their courses. In that post, I attempted to address the types of questions and frameworks that our students naturally employ in the aftermath of tragedies. Specifically, I was interested in the ways our students personalize these experiences by asking each other “What would you do?” We all hope to be the people who do something in the face of hate. If I hadn’t fallen behind in the wake of a hectic fall semester that would be the blog post you would be reading. This week, however, I’ve been tasked with a different question. Not what would you do, but rather, what will we do? I write not from the perspective of post- but the perspective of pre-. The League of the South (along with several other white supremacist organizations) are planning a rally next weekend in both Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee. According to a spokesperson for the organization, the group is not rallying around the preservation of statues this time because the state’s Heritage Act already makes it quite difficult to remove confederate monuments. Instead, their stated topic of contention is refugee resettlement (an issue which happens to be close to home for me; I volunteer as a translator for a local refugee family). Right now there are several groups mobilizing in opposition to these rallies. Both local organizations and ones from out of town are coordinating resistance activities and counter-protests. Across social media and at various public forums, citizens of Murfreesboro are divided as to what the appropriate response should be. Some people are firmly resolved, others are uncertain, and many are afraid. Coincidentally, in my introductory Religion and Society class, my students are in the middle of a unit examining religious codes and systems of ethics. Last week, we looked at Craig Martin’s A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion that explores how ethical decisions are filtered through Bourdieu’s notion of habitus. That seemed like as a good a place as any to think about the different possible actions that one might take against a white supremacist rally. So here’s what I did, pre- an event like Murfreesboro/Shelbyville 2017. I began by reflecting on the fact that we’ve had more conversations than usual about current and political events this semester. From Puerto Rico to Las Vegas; from nuclear threats from North Korea to a church shooting in the town next door; and from the epidemic of sexual violence against women epitomized by Harvey Weinstein to the movement inspired by Colin Kaepernick to expose systemic racism. Over the past two months there has been no shortage of current events for our students to assess or debate from the position of “What would you do?” I went on to say that I wanted to have a different type of conversation. Rather than describing or offering their own opinions, I would be asking them to do a higher level of analysis. Description, I told them, is an important part of what we do in religious studies, but that’s not all we do. I called on the students who are also enrolled in my Jesus class to explain how in that class we’ve undertaken a discursive analysis wherein we’re not interested in what the texts say (and certainly not in whether they are right or wrong), but instead are interested in what they do (and what the doing does). I printed off conversation threads from four different public Facebook events/pages that are making plans in opposition to the white supremacists’ rally. The different options presented by these pages are: Do nothing (ignore them, don’t invite conflict) Hold a family-friendly rally in a different location (a protest of sorts without direct confrontation) Have a counter-protest and call on citizens to stand against white nationalism, Nazis, and the KKK (a protest with direct confrontation but the avoidance of physical violence) Take part in an Antifa-style protest (direct confrontation with anticipated violence)[1] As we worked our way through the four sites, I asked the class to read the language closely for evidence of how each group describes themselves, the white supremacist group, and other planned protests. We discussed how they legitimated their perspectives and where they placed their authority (in the case of the first three, each claimed to have the best interests of Murfreesboro at heart and worked to establish their local identity via connections to different community groups and networks). From there we sketched out a basic conception of how all four read the moral position “white supremacy is wrong” through different lenses provided by their habitus and with very different consequences. The activity seemed to work well. I wanted to have a conversation that did something different than simply reiterating the students’ own viewpoints. While those types of conversations can be helpful because they provide an opportunity for students to practice speaking about contentious issues, this particular discussion is more urgent. Often I find classroom discussions devolve into each student waiting their turn to state their case and figure out who is “on their side.” My hope was that by working together to analyze the discourses and social locations of the different groups rather than evaluating each other, the boundaries that sometimes emerge in these conversations would dissolve. I also hoped that they might come to better understand their own perspectives and how they are shaped by social factors. Finally, and most prominently, I hoped they would be able to more fully understand these events as embedded in cultural systems, rather than independent, chaotic occurrences. By way of a conclusion, I offered myself as a case study and asked them (based on their assessment of my own identity, values, and habitus) to offer evidence for and against my participation in each of the four counter activities. I told them that I was uncertain about which of the options I wanted to participate in and that I would take their advice to heart when deciding what to do. They made passionate cases for and against each position with a level of perceptiveness and concern that exceeded my expectations. Previously, when I’ve thought about how I teach current events in the classroom it has focused on reflection as reaction. I’ve invited students to consider the facts of what “actually happened” and to delve into the nuance of context. In those cases, I have taken on the role of a guide, helping them articulate and expand their understanding. Here we don’t completely understand because we don’t yet know what will happen. There’s an ambiguity in addressing something that is uncertain and has yet to occur, especially amid the elevated risks that accompany a situation like this. In this case, I made them play the role of the guide, instructing me on how to understand and articulate my own perspective. As I write in a moment that feels like a calm before the storm, this ambiguity and liminality feels important – which is why I wanted to write this post before the event itself occurred. As faculty we’re good at having answers. Assessment and evaluation are second nature. But both with my students and on the Wabash Teaching Religion and Politics blog, I see value in capturing the uncertainty, inviting my students and you into the process of considering the question what will, as opposed to what would, you do. [1]For obvious reasons, I was unable to find anything on public social media forums making specific plans related to Antifa or similar groups so we read an article describing their perspective and activities.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to receive announcements of new postings.  Subscribe using an RSS reader such as Feedly or Inoreader October 23, 2017 New Books Added to Our Collection Meet Paul Myhre a Member of Our Team Sign up for Events at AAR & SBL meeting Sign up for Doctoral Seminars Books Available for Review Free download: Disruption, Dialogue, and Swerve: Reflective Structured Dialogue in Religious Studies Classrooms Journal Call for Papers: "What Metaphor Describes You As  A Teacher?" New Blog Post in Teaching, Religion, Politics Dean J. Johnson, "Teaching Students About Finding Their Religious Justice Roots" "Teaching Theology and Religion" (July 2017) Latest Book Reviews Journal Articles without Subscription Wabash Center Video Collection

Every semester I stand in front of my classes at my predominantly white state university and argue, “whiteness came into being through more than five hundred years of dominant cultural narratives undergirded by [white] Christianity, laws, and sciences which have proclaimed the innate inferiority of those outside dominant white culture.” Historically my students have had three different responses to the argument: revelation, no surprise, and disdain. For the first group of students, the idea that white Christianity has anything to do with race and racism in the United States is new and revelatory. It helps them better understand how systemic violence came in to being and continues to function. For the second group of students, the idea that white Christianity is in part responsible for the state of race relations comes as no surprise and connects to their understanding of reality. Many of these students have a long view of history and many face the direct consequences of the systemic violence created by white supremacy, hetero-normativity, patriarchy, and ableism all of which have been justified by white Christianity. The third group of students respond with disbelief, anger, and disdain. This third group of students is more visible now than in previous years. As I look around the room there are clearly more eye rolls and head shakes, whispers, and general displays of dis-ease. The arguments about the politics of white Christianity are a direct affront to this group’s worldview and in some cases, the ideas are exactly what their families, community leaders, and political pundits warned them about. What has become more evident in the last year is an increased level of anxiety in classroom spaces when talking about systemic violence and oppression. Part of the anxiety is about trauma and trust, while another part of the anxiety is about anger. The trauma was created by the presence of a presidential candidate on campus. It was an event that left students and faculty feeling wounded and vulnerable. Students stood on the opposite sides of the street with a police line between them. The experience has left people questioning who they can trust. It also exposed a lot of anger, much of which is fueled by hate. We are living in a time when overt verbal and physical attacks against black and brown bodies, against women’s bodies, against queer and trans bodies, and against non-Christian bodies are more overtly public, calculated, and politically normalized. The pushback against anything that has been labeled progressive is palpable and real. I now find myself thinking about how I will deal with disrupters who take over class conversations. I find a ready group of colleagues who want to discuss and strategize about classroom engagements and the campus climate. It is easy to get distracted by fear of what could happen and in all likelihood will happen. For some colleagues and students classrooms no longer feel safe. The classroom has become a very heavy space. And yet, I go back to the words of bell hooks, “[E]ngaged pedagogy recognize[s] each classroom as different, that strategies must constantly be changed, invented, reconceptualized to address each new teaching experience.” What does an engaged pedagogy look like in the face of our current social-political climate? How does an engaged pedagogy help foster radical democracy, social responsibility, resistance, and critical citizenship? I have started to reconceptualize how I teach about the politics of white Christianity, or any other contentious topic, in an anxious classroom. First, I work very hard at creating the classroom as a community. While this is not new to my teaching, I am very careful to build relationships among the students and myself with a series of exercises at the beginning of the semester before launching into divisive issues. Next, I have reconceptualized how I create a context for students to understand their place in history by using Elise Boulding’s “200-year present.” According to Boulding, “[The 200-year present] is a continuously moving moment, always reaching out 100 years in either direction from the day we are in.” This idea allows students to engage the ebbs and flows of history and place themselves in it. The 200-year present also allows students to see how systemic violence and oppression have developed over time. Finally, I continue to call out and name domination systems. However, I spend more time considering how conversations serve to nurture radical democracy and critical citizenship rather than further entrench students in dogmatic positions. It is an anxious time and the fears of the worst are made real almost daily. There is much at stake. There is much to gain. Teaching is a constant process of reimagining how we reach students and bring in to being engaged citizens. [1] Dean J. Johnson, “Weaving Narratives: The Construction of Whiteness” in We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st Century America, eds. Elizabeth “Betita” Martínez, Mandy Carter & Matt Meyer (PM Press 2012), 131. [1] bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Educationas the Practice of Freedom (Routledge, 1994), 10-11. [1] Elise Boulding, Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World (Syracuse University Press 1990), 4.

Disclosure: I am neither Black nor White. I speak as a bit of an outsider to this particular issue because I am of mixed Keetoowah Cherokee and White ancestry, appearance, and identity. Some of the arguments below may apply to Latinx and Native Americans, but in my experience, I have seen the greatest amount of institutional racism directed towards African Americans, thus my focus is primarily on African American hires in predominately White institutions. When moderns think about the status and progress of African Americans in the greater society, there’s an old saying that goes like this: In the American South, they (meaning White folks) love the person, but hate the race. In the North, they love the race, but hate the person. During my many years in and out of private educational institutions of higher learning, I have observed that the academy has taken on the latter disposition; they (the mostly White Academy) love the idea of ending racism, but are quite indifferent to the individual Black person, especially as a colleague. While educating the classroom to the horrors of the Michael Johnsons (Ferguson, MO) and Trayvon Martins (Sandord, FL) the position is clear: “We must end racism.” But look around the seats of power. How many African American people are actually even in the room to contribute to this vital discussion? The Academy has a long way to go, regardless of what it may think about itself, in order to develop a core value of diversity. The statistics bear this out: only 5.3% of the full professors in the United States are African American, Hispanic, or Native American (Jayakumar, Howard, Allen and Han).[1] With those statistics in mind, who do you think is making the decisions to hire African Americans as colleagues and administrators? As a result of the lack of representation, the systemic nature of the academy and individual institutions often do not change in perspective or complexion. Speaking of complexion, I have noticed the thrill of White colleagues and White administrators when a person of color is hired who thinks more like themselves than a person of color who thinks differently than they. Isn’t one of the benefits of diversity to garner various perspectives, different than the other? The arguments concerning racial equity in the academe is much more complex than color. We all wear blinders. We all see from our own experiences and social values first, so we need each other for a fuller, more educated view. The rationale given for not hiring Black people as colleagues is never focused on race, even though, from many persons of color perspective, it is all about race and systemic racism. How can we claim to be enlightening our student co-learners when we hide from the truth of our own systemic racism? As a participant/observer in the academe, I wish to focus on a few simple points so we may avoid common mistakes in our current thinking concerning the racist system in which we all participate. Begin with Integrity. Much of the academy was formulated and constructed on social values during periods when Black people were enslaved, disparaged, marginalized, and outlawed from common humanity by White people. The racist institutional character of American institutions has taken on an anti-Black flavor meant to advance White folks and hold back Black folks. The best starting point is to admit this reality, discuss it openly with humility, and realize that every hire, though it may have other concerns, is innately about race. Set Goals for Final Hires. While it is nice to think about having a final round of diverse candidates to choose from, in reality many Black candidates find themselves “out-diversified” by people from other sorts of diversities. If you lack a Black colleagues in your institution, then make and state the choice at the beginning of the process; “we are seeking to hire African Americans to fill a particular weakness in our perspective and also as a purposeful balancing towards racial equity, since we know White preference was built into the current system and it resulted in keeping Black candidates out.” (Check with your AAO and HR department on making such a statement and maintaining your statement’s legalities). Encourage, but Don’t Presume, Diverse Opinions from New Hires. While this may sound counterintuitive to everything I have just written, new hires need to know they are respected both for their academic expertise and for their particular views on the subject. I have seen colleagues discount a colleague of color’s achievements because they believe they can only do for example, “the African American viewpoint.” Hiring an accomplished person of color most often means they had to excel in the “generalized subject matter” (read White normalized subject matter) and go beyond it in order to develop additional perspective. Think of it as not hiring a “left-handed” person but rather as hiring someone who is ambidextrous. Create an atmosphere of Appreciation and Retention. Newly hired faculty and administrators of color need mentors or small groups of likeminded people with whom they can share freely. For a number of reasons, faculty and administrators of color must take on roles and burdens not necessarily assumed by the White population. These include: difficulty find and adjusting to housing, becoming the unofficial advisor/counselor to students of color, taking on additional committee work because they need POC representation, the isolated feeling of simply not relating to the cultural milieu and not being related to. In the age in which we currently live, there is now very open discussion concerning White Supremacy in many areas of life that has been absent in the past. Predominately White institutions will be the richer for having open, balanced approaches from various viewpoints to deal with the ever-present concerns of traditionally racist institutions. We cannot have these discussions when African Americans and other people of color are not empowered with an equal seat at the same table. [1] The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 80, No. 5 “Racial Privilege in the Professoriate: An Exploration of Campus Climate, Retention, and Satisfaction” (September/October 2009) Ohio State University.

My teaching goals reflect my expectations that my students will change the world. I want my students to have profound consciousness of love, of themselves as capable beings, of the beauty of creation.  I want to instill in them with the necessity to fight for the oppressed, uplift the downtrodden, and conspire with the voiceless for a place in the societal decision-making. I want them to be cunning enough to avoid the shallow passions of those who would exploit their talents, squander doing good, and misuse their power. I want them to be wise. With these ideals in mind, I design into every syllabus the notion of the body.    There are few things more sacred and more political than the human body. Intentionally engaging the body to learn, while simultaneously making the politics of the body part of the course conversation, is a critical way to get to my lofty teaming aims and kindle my student’s passions. Wisdom depends on the body. A metric I use to assess in-class learning activities is the degree to which I have engaged all the senses of the body in a semester. If, by the end of the semester, I have not engaged all the senses multiple times and in multiple ways, I deem my cache of learning activities for that course as weak. When I engage all the senses multiple times throughout the semester, I notice students’ depth of understanding is higher. I carefully design activities for seeing, smelling, touching, hearing, and feeling, not because of student’s varied learning styles, but because a multisensory encounter is more interesting and is more satisfying to the curiosity. Giving adults permission and opportunity to learn with their bodies is an act of resistance against the current body politics which would deem the body only as a commodity.  And it’s more fun than just sitting still. I am well versed in shaping courses that point to and analyze the ugliness of the hegemonic politics.  A notion which oftentimes intrigues my students while studying the politics of the body in the USA is the ways our bodies are used as indicators of inferiority and superiority. It is thought that to gaze upon a body, one can determine who is male, white, straight, and wealthy. Continuing, it is also thought that to gaze upon a body one can determine who is female, not white, not straight, disabled, and poor. This delusion is perpetuated by the bad science portrayed on some TV shows. There is an episode of CSI where the coroner, while investigating a crime scene, uses a caliper to measure the width of the nose of a charred body and informs the detectives that the deceased victim was African American. Disputing this kind of ignorance about the body and race/gender/class/sexual identity politics is the stuff of marvelous classroom discussions. This semester I wanted to shape a course and a conversation that was a teaching of love, self-worth, dignity, acceptance, and belonging for the personal body, for bodies of knowledge, and communities as bodies of persons. The course is entitled “Reading Deeply.” I selected one book for us to read for an entire semester. The book we are ruminating over is Remnants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism, and Mothering by Rosemarie Freeney Harding with Rachel Elizabeth Harding. It is a multi-genre memoir that vividly demonstrates an integrated life of deep spirituality and activism. I want my students to be exposed to the wisdom of this text in hopes that they will emulate this wisdom.  A thematic thread in the memoir is of healing, wellness, and care for the body.  Pressing students to deeper engage body/identity politics, the first assignment is to create a wellness plan and fulfill that plan throughout the semester. Students reported-in about their plan last week. While each woman was making her report (all the students are women), the other students listened with remarkable tenderness. There was an air of respect and regard as each woman told us of the focus of her plan, the rationale for the focus, and the activities she would pursue over the semester for healing, fitness, balance, and rest. The projects were about living into their best selves by disrupting the patterns of ignoring, abusing, or neglecting their bodies. The plans included stopping some habits and starting new habits. In all cases the women were excited about being given course space to consider her own body and contemplate the question, “do you want to be well?”  Asking students to live-into the principals of our reading rather than just “think about” the reading is their preference for learning. Their reporting felt reverent.  At the end of the semester, they will report-in again telling the story of attempts at self-care and healing. The political is always personal. In studying the harm, violence, and inhumanity of identity politics it feels right, needed, even provocative, to teach students to value their own bodies, to respect the enfleshed. The power of love to create a more humane world undoubtedly includes care of self, nurture of body – a tending to the soul. In the memoir (pp 39-40), Rosemarie recounts the words of her mother after recovering from a near-death experience: “…. Listen, Rose.  When you die, there is nothing, nothing there but love.  Everything else is gone.” “Hmm.” I listened. “Nothing but love,” she said again.  “So while we’re in this world, we have to do whatever we can to love people, to love this world, to take care of all that’s in this world.  Because that’s all that matters, the love.” I closed my eyes briefly.  The impact of my mother’s words made me sway ever so slightly where I sat.  “Hmm.” She was ready to get into bed.  She was pulling the covers over her shoulders when she said it to me again, “Now don’t forget, Rose.  There’s nothing left but love.  That’s the most important thing. That’s what you need to know.”

It was my first semester teaching about 10 years ago in a seminary. Our class of about 35 students was into the second week of the semester and I was speaking about the complicity of the United States in the attack of 9/11. In the midst of my talk a student raised his hand and I asked him to speak. He proceeded to offend me in many ways: telling me I was not from this country and that I shouldn’t be in the US, much less teaching. After he was done, I was possessed by an anger that took away my ability to think. In the midst of it all I remembered that I was wearing a microphone so a student with impaired hearing could listen to my talk. I then went to the back of the class and asked the student to speak again into the microphone so the other student could hear. It was during this movement from the front to the back of the classroom that I gained some clarity. I got very close to him so he could use the microphone that was on my chest and I said, “Can you please say it all again so Mary can hear what you said?” I was so close to him I could feel his breathing. He was so surprised that he started stuttering and said only 20% of what he said the first time. And then we had to continue the class. We became opponents of each other and it was a very strange, fearful, and awkward semester. The current political atmosphere in this country is one made of confrontation. We address each other with the goal to win the battle, and in some or many ways, to annihilate the opponent. There is a certain pleasure not only in winning an argument but in depriving somebody from their own joys. Many polarities in our society are based on the assumption that these important issues can preserve or eliminate the very possibility of life. Whites see minorities as a threat to their social position, and even their lives; minorities see whites as owning a privilege and control of things-supremacy- that impedes them from living fully and even existing; heterosexuals see queer people as a threat to the nuclear family, ‘normal’ social composition and God’s design; queer folks see these heterosexuals not only limiting their social rights, but also endangering their very lives. Be it race and ethnicity, economics and class, sexuality and gender, we seem to locate ourselves in opposition and from those places we fight for our very lives. Classrooms are not exempt. Teachers and students come from the corners of those sides and may reproduce in class the same divisions experienced in society. Readings become ideological brainwashing, free speech is endangered on both sides, and taking a position offends someone. The results can be disastrous. It is not difficult to foresee uneven power discussions becoming a screaming contest with the aim being to wound the opponent. But also, there are discussions that produce silent harm in their aftermath. A friend of mine told me that her president asked faculty for ways to help her school to improve in terms of diversity. When my friend, somewhat naively, pointed out some aspects of the institution and its life that were alienating for minority persons, the discussion in the meeting skirted the issues she had raised and failed to recognize the problems. The next year, my friend didn’t get tenure because the president had felt personally offended in that meeting and said he couldn’t trust her anymore. In a culture that often does not know how to deal with conflict, where offense and injury are  seemingly inevitable when we discuss difference and litigation is the only vocabulary we know to solve disputes, how do we model a culture of mutual appreciation and begin to create spaces where people can speak what they need to and, at the same time, be challenged regarding what they say? Marcia Y. Riggs in her article “Loves the Spirit”: Transformative Mediation as Pedagogical Practice,[1] gives us wonderful tools to create a space where dialogue is fostered instead of debate. She says: “The concept of dialogue is critical to intercultural communication because it is more than simply conversation; it is communication that nurtures relationship. This is the case because dialogue is based upon mutual respect and listening and learning from one another over time; “earning such respect comes through a willingness to accept the ‘other-ness’ of others.”[2] Dialogue creates a possibility for many voices to contribute, but debate opposes one person over another. Surely, we can’t go into dialogue with the naïve feeling that we need to be nice to one another. Surely we can’t be unaware of the power dynamics and tensions always present in organizations and schools. Fearful sentimentalities when pronounced through pedagogies formed out of the fear of conflicts easily succumbs to other fears lurking in the space and end up avoiding the very issues that we are supposed to discuss. The same thing happens with “safe” pedagogies that tend to create safe/artificial spaces where people only speak what is “non-threatening” and the very issues at stake continue in a latent mode. We need pedagogies of courage that help us confront each other fully by creating forms of trust and recognition, offering tools and programs that do not work from fear and don’t aim at simply checking the proper list of mutual respects. Just recently I was in a classroom in my seminary where my colleague who teaches a difficult class allowed students to ask, talk, and make mistakes, fundamentally practicing honesty. Fiery conversations with fiercely made arguments can be just as fine to engage if what is at stake is an idea and not the dignity of a person, or a people. Surely ideas can put people’s dignity under attack, and it can be tricky sometimes to distinguish between “mere ideas” and the dignity of a person. Especially in some subject areas. However, it is the practicing of pedagogies of courage that gives us the awareness to feel, listen and speak, or see, judge, and act. We must learn to live in rough planes of uneven ideas, disjointed and opposed worldviews and stay there, breathing within our differences with the intent of, perhaps, mutual relations. A very difficult task. As I write this article I wonder what I would do if someone like that student of mine, who must surely be against the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, would come to my class again. The extinguishing of this program has deeply affected me. Now that I have tenure in a very liberal institution and have a better sense of myself, would I have patience with this student? Would I be able to create a space where this student could thrive as much as he would be challenged and respected? I don’t know . . . . My ethicist friend asks me: What is teaching for? What can happen in the classroom that is important, that expands the world for students, and for us as teachers? How can we create classroom communities that practice justice in the same ways that we want our larger community (neighborhood, city, country) to be more just?  Perhaps we can try to think about our opponents not as people to be thrown away or put down (how different would I be from my very opponent who wants the same?) but rather, as part of my own wellbeing. I cannot allow myself to be reduced to my opponent in regard to their ideas and propositions. But I must know that we are made of the same human material, the same vices, horrors, joys and honors, the same desires to destroy and to build. To acknowledge the humanity in those whom I can easily despise and would enjoy seeing their demise, is the first step into this space of some commonality. For those with some power, it is getting closer that empowers us rather than running away. My people made me strong to face our enemies and I am with them for them. Without fear! I simply don’t have the possibility to run away! I must face them while I don’t need to eliminate them! While I can’t stand the president of the United States and all that his administration is doing, I cannot just say, “Well, his term will end soon.” While he is a threat to the very condition of life for my people, all the minorities, and the earth, I can’t demonize him! I can’t demonize him even after I read Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay "The First White President"[3] and his sharp while contestable, yet fundamental analysis of what the president represents. I can’t dehumanize him even though I have enough content and rhetoric to do it easily. I cannot allow his white resentment and grievance to make me work from my own resentment and grievance. I am not spending time dealing with an anger he wants me to feel, thus preempting my criticism and action and defusing my strength. I will engage in other forms of feeling that he does not expect. I will move closer to him and I will breathe next to him a different breath! Until he moves or is moved away! In fact, he is teaching me so many things and challenging me to think in ways I had not done before. In this way, he is actually making me feel stronger to contest him and his administration in more thorough and unforeseen ways. The weirdest thing: he is empowering me with opposite signs! I don’t want to destroy him! I once heard Professor Orlando Espin say this: “You cannot free somebody by dismissing and destroying someone else.”[4] So I won’t do it! But if you ask me, “Can you fight this man and his administration?” I will say it out loud. “Oh yes! Oh yes, I can!” In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, recently remembered by Rev. Dr. Serene Jones and Rev. Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas:[5]“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” In order to drive a spoke into the wheel we need to get closer, even very close, to our enemies and listen to them. That is what that microphone in my neck taught me. I got closer to my student and he changed. As I also changed. It is from this closer place that we gain our strength and we are able to see somebody else’s humanity. From that place we listen, agitate, contest; we confront and radically change things and people.  Perhaps the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who coined the term “socially engaged Buddhism” can help us see us in a multitude of places, names, and situations. He helps us name all of our names: Please Call Me by My True Names Don't say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving. Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin a bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion. [1]Riggs, Marcia Y., ““Loves the Spirit”: Transformative Mediation as Pedagogical Practice,” 2016 111 E. Ott Marshall (ed.), Conflict Transformation and Religion, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56840-3_8 [2] Ibid, 113. [3] Ta-Nehisi Coates, The First White President. The foundation of Donald Trump’s presidency is the negation of Barack Obama’s legacy. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-white-president-ta-nehisi-coates/537909/?utm_source=fbb [4] Dr. Espin also emphasizes that “among unequal people, if to make victims free from bondage requires to hurt the dominant abusive dictatorial oppressor, I don’t have ethical problems with that.” [5]We Condemn President Trump’s DACA Betrayal, https://utsnyc.edu/condemn-president-trumps-daca-betrayal/