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One of my previous blog posts mentioned the significance of storytelling and how I love sharing stories of my own travel to help students imagine the world of the classroom subject and, hopefully, to inspire students to travel and experience this world for themselves. As most teachers can testify, some of the greatest moments of being a teacher involve learning how knowledge that was conveyed within the classroom leads students to new learning experiences beyond the classroom. For example, it is quite wonderful when one receives word from a former student who decided to travel to places that were shared in the classroom setting – places like Fez, Cairo, or Lahore. Just this summer a former student, originally from Serbia, sent a message that he had visited Shiraz, Iran, and mentioned how he remembered my lecture on this beloved city.    As teachers, we all have favorite lectures and one of mine is on Shiraz. In it, I help the student to explore how a city can become not only an intellectual center and intercultural capital for convening scholars from many disciplines and identities, but also a home to “immortal” poets and saints who became known as “friends of God.” In this blog post and my next, I want to describe why it is so important to teach about such cities, which were renowned for their “Houses of Knowledge,” eternal gardens, and magnificent shrines.     I begin my lectures on these cities by mentioning how when a student leaves home he or she starts to reflect more about his or her parents and home. It is often only when we leave our home that we become more curious about who we are, where we came from, and how our own family fits into the larger world. I then share my own story of how at their age (entering into university) I started to learn more about my father’s heritage and eventually I took a trip to Iran with my father that would change my life.  Why? Shortly after the trip, my uncle, himself a professor of entomology, mailed me a package containing a most intriguing book, written entirely in Persian by a great-great-great grandfather during the 1800s. Folded into the center of the book was a remarkable Islamic cosmological map drafted by yet another grandfather from six generations back. As I share this map with my students, I then tell my students that for the last 20 years I have been trying to decipher the metaphysical and symbolic content of this spiritual map, and to gain a firmer grasp of how this content synthesized centuries of Sufi Muslim thought about two arcs of the soul’s journey through a multi-layered cosmos – an arc of emanation, and an arc of return.  In sharing the physical map I am able to explain a variety of aspects of living in a traditional Islamic city like Shiraz. For instance, the map represents a pre-modern understanding of the world and the cosmos where everything is a symbol and there are multi-layered meanings to reality itself. This helps me explain how many Muslim theologians and philosophers understood metaphysics in terms of different levels of reality which might be deciphered through such diverse means as letter mysticism, numerology, astrology, and contemplation of passages from sacred texts as well as inspired poetry. I mention how the map itself was intended to provide a symbolic representation of the soul’s journey through unseen as well as visible dimensions of the cosmos. Having been produced by a respected religious leader in Shiraz generations ago, the map speaks not just to the ideas of the author but also to the larger spiritual and cultural milieu in which he lived. It conveys how Shiraz was a center for learning not only metaphysics but also physics and astronomical observation. I share with my students how the map’s shape is in the form of an astrolabe, a scientific as well as navigational instrument for measuring the altitudes of celestial bodies. I then show them an astrolabe that I found in Shiraz which is very similar in design to the map. With the astrolabe, I am able to explain a variety of amazing scientific contributions, inventions, and innovations that were made by Muslim astronomers, such as Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (d. 986) and Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (d. 1311). I also point out that the map has poetic verses inscribed on it in writing that reflects the artistic forms of calligraphy. Once again, I have the opportunity to offer my students a window into a traditional world of Islamic culture, within which the great poets of a city or region would play a major role in defining unique aspects of that place’s heritage and identity. I note that for Shiraz the preeminent poets were Hafez and Sadi, whereas other cities had their own patron saints and poets. I mention how the shrines of these two poets remain among the most celebrated spaces in the city to this very day, establishing a link between past and present.  

Most theological school deans enter the office from an academic field of study---religious, theological, or ministry--distant from the field in which they now hold responsibilities: academic administration. Scholarly research soon takes a back seat to less esoteric and more pragmatic research. Spreadsheets, reports, budgets, and schedules become the daily tools to consult. It's time to trade in your Logos Bible software for a robust project management software, a tolerable student management system, and a handful of administrative apps to bring order out of the chaos that is your new normal. Theological school deans will need to broaden their horizons beyond the scope and focus of their academic guild. They need to become knowledgeable and stay current, on a wide religious landscape in order to ensure the school's academic programs remain relevant and address the real current challenges of their constituents---congregations, denominations, and students. The training of future religious leaders requires not merely understanding current realities but anticipating future trends and challenges. [caption id="attachment_211996" align="alignleft" width="300"] Computer Key orange - Research[/caption] Here are links to research sites that can help the dean keep her or his finger on the pulse of the religious landscape. How well do your curricular courses of study reflect or address what you find at this sites? The Association of Religion Data Archives A data nerd's and religion researcher's dream. Contains international and national data and statistics on religion, religious groups, and denominations, including data on U.S. congregational membership. Includes informative educational American religion timelines, and an interactive Community GSI maps and profile reports section. You can build your own congregational or student profile interactive pin map as well as viewing selected maps and areas of interest. America's Changing Religious Identity from the Public Religion Research Institute PRRI’s research explores America’s changing cultural, religious, and political landscape. PRRI’s mission is to help journalists, scholars, thought leaders, clergy, and the general public better understand debates on public policy issues, and the important cultural and religious dynamics shaping American society and politics. Cool Congregations From Interfaith Power & Light, the Cool Congregations program is designed to support faith communities as they “walk the talk” by reducing their own carbon footprint, thus helping to cool the planet. A side benefit of the program is the ‘multiplier effect,’ as congregants are encouraged to model the same energy saving behavior at home that they see at their congregation. Collegeville institute on Vocation and Collegeville Institute: Exploring Vocation in Community The Seminar on Vocation across the Lifespan brings together theologians, social scientists, and ministers to develop a more comprehensive theology of vocation from infancy through old age. The goal of the Seminar is to create resources for congregations and seminaries on the evolving nature of Christian faith and identity throughout the stages of the lifespan. Exploring Vocation in Community was developed in 2011 to serve the broader life of the church and ground the theological work of the Seminars in the lived experiences of Christians in congregations. 50 Ways to Get a Job What are your graduates going to do with that theological degree they just received? Truth is, in five years 50% of them will probably not be in ministry--and a goodly number will experience forced termination along their professional ministerial lifespan. 50 Ways to Get a Job is an interactive site addressing the span of vocational arc. Studying Congregations If you haven't come from the field of practical theology you may not be familiar with the long-standing work of the Studying Congregations projects. The site contains great tools and resources for seminarians to study congregations. Many of the frameworks and guides for studying congregations can be applicable for studying your own theological school---its context and mission. Religious Worlds of New YorkReligious Worlds of New York News from my home town. No city or region of the country is as religiously diverse as New York. The site offers many educational resources on religions and interfaith dialog. Given the new data from the America's Changing Religious Identity (see link above), this may be a portend of things to come. How well is your theological school preparing ministers for a more diverse world? Sunday Assembly The Sunday Assembly claims to be the world’s fastest growing secular community. The Sunday Assembly was started by Sanderson Jones and Pippa Evans, two comedians who were on the way to a gig in Bath when they discovered they both wanted to do something that was like church but totally secular and inclusive of all—no matter what they believed. The first ever Sunday Assembly meeting took place on January 6th, 2013 at The Nave in Islington. Almost 200 people turned up at the first meeting, 300 at the second and soon people all over the world asked to start one. How's that for "church growth"? Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada Keeping up with the latest developments in theological education is critical to the dean. The Association of Theological Schools (ATS) is the accrediting agency for 270 graduate schools that offer post-baccalaureate professional and academic degree programs to educate persons for the practice of ministry and for teaching and research in the theological disciplines. The Commission on Accrediting of ATS accredits the schools and approves the degree programs they offer. If you're new to the deanship, ATS offers much more than you may imagine. Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion Bookmark this site! The Wabash Center supports teachers of religion and theology in higher education through meetings and workshops, grants, consultants, a journal and other resources to make accessible the scholarship of teaching and learning. All Wabash Center programs are funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. If you're new to the deanship, be sure to sign up for their Colloquy for Theological School Deans! What other helpful research sites for deans have you discovered? Share your stuff.

Years ago, preparation for the beginning of school was a family affair. The cigar box for storage of pencils, pens, glue, and scissors was gotten by my father from the Pennsylvania State Store. Notebooks, book bags, and new sneakers were on my mother’s to do list. New clothes were my favorite preparation. A plaid skirt and dresses for me. My brother got pants and shirts, enough for the week. For our family, fulfilling this routine meant “we were ready!” for school to start. Now, years later, I am on the other side of the classroom podium. Yes, new shoes have been purchased, but my attention is on a different kind of preparation. I am uneasy and apprehensive. The hatred and moral outrage in the nation is weighing heavily upon my preparation. While racism is woven into the tapestry of USA democracy, we find ourselves in an unrehearsed moment. We are in an era where facts have empirical alternatives, immigrants are disinvited with police action, patriotism is routinely questioned, time-honored value systems are publicly maligned, and core social institutions such as family, religion, parenthood, marriage, and racial identity are under siege. When the classroom doors are flung open the students will likely be thinking about, and undoubtedly affected by, our moral crisis spurred on by recent domestic terrorism and the uninhibited displays of white supremacy. The national conversation about our morally bankrupt and inarticulate president will be on their minds. Or worse yet, if learners have ignored or closed themselves off from the surge of the Klu Klux Klan, the protests in all the major cities, and the many looming international disasters, then when they enter the classroom they will be hoping to continue the delusion of safety and security. Whether immersed in the national conversation or oblivious to it there is a new kind of vulnerability, uncertainty, mistrust and strain in our everydayness – I am unsettled and do not know how to prepare. What does it mean to “get ready” to teach when the national leadership is equivocating and mealy-mouthed about the inferiority and disposability of Blacks, Jews, Latino/s, recent immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ, and the poor? When students cross the thresholds of our classrooms, their questions, concerns, beliefs, fears, confusions, fatigues, and misgivings will also flood through the door. It would be foolish to hide behind our own scripted syllabi, and then feign surprise when these issues bubble-up. Even if these volatile topics are not discussed forthrightly in our curriculum, students and colleagues alike are likely to act-out their fears and emotional distress. Our classrooms will be altered by the national conversation on hate in America – and rightfully so.  My hunch is that the seminal inquiries will come when students (and colleagues) ask about our personal beliefs and values. The instances with the most magnitude are not likely to happen in the drama of a lecture or during a spirited debate in the classroom. I suspect the inquiry will come in subdued moments at the coffee urn or while riding together in an elevator. Students will ask, overtly or in a roundabout fashion, what you personally believe concerning patriotism, moral courage, and race.  If you are a teacher with any standing in the faculty, or with any regard in the life of your students, you will be asked about your personal stance on white nationalism and white America. To be asked by your students to guide them with your own moral compass is a powerful request. It is a request that, for some teachers, is beyond our comfort zones and perceived professional boundaries. Tough luck!  Students will be listening for the integrity of your conviction, your ability to be genuine about current injustices and the location of your moral passion. Be honest and believable. If we are to seize the power of our authority and step into our responsibility as moral agents who set examples of moral clarity, then we must know what we think before we are asked what we think. The moral volatility of this moment behooves all of us to know what we believe before we are asked - because we will be asked.  During your preparation, reflection, and soul searching consider the risk and the cost of your values and weigh them carefully. Meeting the obligation of speaking for justice and against hatred has a price - sometimes a terribly high price. Silence also has its premium.  The pundits and politicians cannot be our exemplars. Their disingenuous speak makes their ignorance vivid during the 24/7 news cycle. Most have done little personal or critical reflection – and it shows. When they incorrectly use vocabulary from the politics-of-racism lexicon, speak a-historically as if race politics is new, or reply in shallow, hackneyed clichés we know we are being led by persons who are ill-prepared and outmoded. The failure of moral leadership is, in part, the unwillingness to prepare before speaking.  Soundbites cannot rule the day. The wild ride that is Trump’s presidency is only going to become more frenetic and incoherent. The collective experience of dangerous uncertainty and looming demise will not wane but continue to wax into the foreseeable future. The psychological torque produced by this fatigue will weigh heavily upon the stability of our classrooms and upon the teaching know-how we have come to rely upon. Our students, more than ever, will need us to create spaces that help them to make sense of all that is shifting, eroding, and slipping away.  As teachers who accept the prophetic nature of our role and responsibility, we must tend to our own body health and keep consistent with our spiritual practices. If you must despair, do it in the privacy of your prayer closet. Allow your students to hear what you believe as a way of integrity and meaning-making. Show them how to create the voice of justice by being a voice for justice. Assure them that democracy can withstand this attack.  Then hope like hell that it can. 

I wrote a very thoughtful essay about a week ago on teaching social justice as a theological value.  It centered on a chance meeting my spouse and I had with the CEO and Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Westchester, Jim Killoran. In that piece, I wanted to make a connection between social justice and faith-in-action as I witnessed in Jim’s life and work, in what Habitat’s founder Millard Fuller called the “theology of the hammer.” It drew parallels with the origins of Habitat, to the life of Jesus as carpenter/builder, to the need for all of us as human beings to create shelter and sanctuary for one another, and our responsibility as educators to engage “pedagogies of the hammer” as a theological value. It was a thought provoking essay, if I do say so myself. And then Charlottesville happened. Every lovely, poetic turn of phrase that I articulated in that piece seemed meaningless in the wake of the violence unleashed in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend. As others have noted so poignantly, those who say “this is not who we are” are woefully misguided.[1] The hatred and violence of white supremacy, white nationalism, the alt-right, the KKK and Neo-Nazis have been with us for a very long time. They are part of the fabric of our country’s history and their legacy continues to drive our policies and practices. The fact that those who espouse this hateful ideology are now emboldened to show their faces – no more hiding behind a hood or an internet persona - at this moment in history is a reflection of where we’ve come as a country. In spite of the tremendous effort of many to build a beloved community where all are afforded their God-given right of human dignity, we have fallen far short.  How do we, as theological educators, teach social justice as a theological value at this particular moment in our country and our world? I’m stumped by that question, to tell you the God-honest truth. In the midst of the images of torches and swastikas, of confederate statues and flags, my mind keeps going back, strangely, to a song by Bob Marley and the Wailers, “Corner Stone,” in which he paraphrases the biblical passage, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”[2] While Marley applies multiple meanings to the “builder” and the “stone”, including the lover pleading for acceptance, the central message is consistent with the biblical interpretation: that which society refuses to accept as valuable can be, in fact, the foundation upon which our most essential values are constructed. If we accept this interpretation, can social justice be understood as the theological value which becomes the cornerstone for the future we wish to build together, where the dignity and integrity of all creation – including our planet – is valued and given the opportunity to flourish? I would like to believe in that possibility. Charlottesville – as well as the mosque bombing in Minnesota, the killings of so many Black women and men at the hands of the state, and the rounding up of undocumented persons, among so many other atrocities of late – challenge my belief at its core. It is just so overwhelming; I feel it deep in my bones and I hear the same from many of my students. I shudder to think about how I will need to teach from that place as a new semester begins in just a few days from now. And yet, there’s something about the process of building - of laying a foundation, with stones and cornerstones, and seeing something emerge from the ground up - that is instructive for us in this moment. Every new structure requires time, a plan for construction and a purpose for use. In rudimentary terms, it begins with clearing and preparing a space:  from ensuring the ground is suitable, to assessing the impact on the surrounding landscape, to removing old foundations. Once the new foundation is laid, then the structure is assembled: wood, steel, nail and mortar. Load bearing walls need to be accounted for; windows and doors need to be thoughtfully placed. The design needs to resonate with the intention for functionality, for how the space will be used. Those creating this new structure may not have a clear picture of exactly what it will look like, or how it will interact with the structures around it, until it is near completion. To some extent, a certain degree of faith is required that those who developed the plan have taken every possible consideration into account. Before we glorify this lovely metaphor of building upon a strong foundation, we should be reminded that it was used as a powerful call to arms over 156 years ago by Alexander H. Stevens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, and well-noted in his “Cornerstone Speech” given in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861. In this address, Stephens claimed that the foundation upon which the United States was established, including the constitution that articulates that founding, “rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the ‘storm came and the wind blew.’”[3] In contrast, the Confederacy was based on a wholly different premise: “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery - subordination to the superior race - is his natural and normal condition…This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”[4] This is our history as a nation. These are the cornerstones that have been unearthed, these are the structures emerging from the shadows, as violent backlash against those of us who believe unequivocally that all persons are made in the image of God are laying new foundations upon which structures of human flourishing can be shaped. Among the backlash are some who want to enshrine those cornerstones and structures – including statues of this Confederacy – as idols of worship for the next generation. If we, as theological educators, envision structures of human flourishing that are established upon foundations of justice, then I think we need to get our hands dirty to clear a space for them to be built. Maybe, if we want to teach social justice as a theological value, we will first need to make time to gather in community to plan for construction and a purpose for use. Maybe we need to get out of the classroom and into the community, pick up some tools and start unearthing those cornerstones that have upheld structures – our judicial system, our corporate boardrooms and, yes, our educational institutions – that have undermined the dignity and integrity of too many for too long. Otherwise, we run the deadly risk of building new structures upon the same foundations so resoundingly applauded in Stephens’ speech a century and a half ago. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. That which is deemed as possessing less value in our society, that which matters less to the world, becomes the foundation for new ways of being in relation. This is the precisely the gift of the Gospel message, of Jesus’ incarnation from a place where nothing good comes. We are called to discern, for ourselves and with our students in the aftermath of Charlottesville, what stones we will reject and which will become the theological basis for our shared future. [1] David Potter, “White Supremacy vs. the Gospel in Charlottesville,” Sojourners, August 15, 2017. [2] Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42; Acts 4:11; 1 Peter 2:7 [3] (Link No Longer Available) [4] Ibid.

My most recent post for “Teaching Islam” deals with some of the stakes in teaching and studying religion at a Catholic college. My colleagues Shabana Mir and Sherali Tareen have also provocatively and sharply addressed related topics of “confessional” and “secular” curricular methodologies, so I’d like to continue the thread by focusing on student experience in the great debate on distinctions between religious studies and theology. I touch on the fluid boundaries of allegedly dispassionate approaches to the study of religion in my article “Normative Readings of the Qur’an,” in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion as part of a roundtable, “Normativity in Islamic Studies.” This roundtable focuses on scholarship; I would like to focus on teaching in this essay. Distinctions Aren’t Always Clear Notably, my own Department of Religious Studies at my Jesuit Catholic institution, Le Moyne College, offers courses in religious studies as well as theology. According to institutional parameters, theology courses differ from religious studies courses insofar as the former must give significant attention to Catholicism, either on its own or in relation to other traditions. Among the professors who teach theology courses at Le Moyne, some are Catholic and some aren’t. So what does it mean to engage (in) Catholic theology when it’s not limited to Catholics? I think this is at once a relevant field-wide query and also departmentally specific. However one answers the question, though, if a Catholic school is paying non-Catholics to teach Catholic theology—and my Catholic institution isn’t the only one doing this—in a religious studies department, then at the very least the distinctions between religious studies and theology aren’t black and white. As for student engagement with such matters, I find that students aren’t so interested in abstract theoretical distinctions between religious studies and theology, but are quite interested in making sense of such contours on the ground. In my first couple of years of full-time teaching, I attempted to formally introduce students to distinctions between religious studies and theology in the first days of class, but as the years go by, I find a better approach is to largely leave the debate in the background and to teach through examples instead, e.g., encouraging reflection on field trips to mosques or on challenges of teaching religion at a public high school full of disgruntled parents who think Islam is a devil religion. Teaching Students New Vocabulary As an undergraduate religious studies major myself, I was excited to learn about epoché (suspension, bracketing), both as a concept and as a disciplinary key term. Thanks to my colleague Darryl Caterine’s suggestion, I have begun making sure that students know the word epoché in the first week of classes, and without doubt, students find this helpful. What’s more, introducing students to the term gives them implicit permission to decide which approaches to studying religion ignite their interests most. To this extent, in a student-centered classroom—which in my case involves a lot of in-class discussion, often led by students themselves—it’s counterproductive to police the boundaries of conversation too much. If students want to talk about what a “true Christian” is, for example—based on their subjective, even myopic view of Christianity—that’s fine. Although the students shouldn’t expect me to chime in with my own partisan position, or corroborate theirs for that matter. Experimenting with Theological Inquiry One of my favorite writing assignments in recent years was in my course “Islamic Mysticism.” I posed in a prompt: Are Islam and mysticism inherently connected or could one reasonably separate the two? This prompt takes place in a context where we read, for example, William James’ categories of mysticism, while also giving attention to Muhammad’s role as a medium for divine Revelation, in addition to a variety of films, texts, and art that point toward the significance of first-hand numinous experiences. The prompt invites synthesis and reflection on course material, but is it an academic question or a theological question? I think it’s both. It’s academic because it requires students to synthesize evidence based on a careful examination of course material. But it’s theological, too, I think, because there is no single correct answer to the question and the stakes are significant in terms of how one’s answer might provide commentary on course material. How might student responses to the question incite them to go beyond epoché and perform their own creative process, or poeisis, with course material? In many ways students answer the question depending on personal sensibilities toward categories they understand as “Islam” and “mysticism.” The essay prompt, moreover, produced some really thoughtful essays, many of which included disclosures on how the students struggled with the question and changed their minds as they wrote; some students even referenced the question weeks later in the course. My sense is that giving students formal opportunities to personalize course material, while engaging in relatively free reflection, helps them perform better on a variety of levels. Conclusions: How Much Should Students Care? When speaking with colleagues across the country—with a particular Facebook thread in mind, I will admit—I sometimes get the impression that some of us don’t always want students to indulge their deepest interests in religion, at least not in our religious studies courses. This is understandable to the extent that many of us, including me, don’t want to put ourselves in positions of evaluating the veracity of a theological claim or spiritual experience. But I think one can largely assuage this concern by relying on low stakes assignments (e.g., short writing assignments, journal entries, in-class activities) that allow students to mine their own theological, spiritual, or metaphysical curiosities. Without this freedom, I think we risk signaling to students that they can’t learn as holistic beings. Ironically, many institutions require religious studies courses precisely so that students learn about the world beyond their classes in engineering, biology, business, or what have you. Perhaps as instructors we would do well to more carefully bracket our own disciplinary dogmas when they might impede the creativity, imagination, and even effort from our students. How do you navigate the boundaries between religious studies and theology in your pedagogical practices?

Remember the composition of religion departments back during the 1960s? They predominately and unapologetically consisted of white males – especially the so-called Ivies. Now imagine if one of these schools, realizing the need for different perspectives, decided that they wanted to have a feminist viewpoint taught in their department. A search committee would be formed, advertisements placed, interviews conducted, and after an academic year of deliberation, the most qualified candidate would be hired – probably a white man whose Ph.D. dissertation somewhat dealt with a few aspects concerning women’s issues. Even though several women steeped in feminist thought applied for the position, it would not be too surprising if a man would have been hired. So, allow me to rephrase my question: Can a man teach Women’s Studies?             If identity does not matter as to who teaches racial/ethnic-based courses, then does gender matter? Maybe the question is not can but should. If we ask can, then the answer is obviously yes. Just like men can become proficient in feminist studies, so can whites become proficient in Latinx studies. And frankly, I cannot imagine any professor, regardless of ethnicity, race, or gender who can be considered scholastically rigorous if they fail to include these voices on a regular basis in every course they teach. For the record, in every one of my classes - except one (Formative White Male Ethicists) - I can and I do teach perspectives which focus on feminism, womanism, Black, Asian-American, Indigenous, and LGBTIQ religious thought. So if the question is can, then the answer is not only yes – but failure to do so indicates a lowering of academic standards.             And yet, we face a situation where white people shamelessly apply to teach Latinx Studies simply because they can – or think they can. And like in the 60s, they are the ones who make ideal candidates in schools lacking the presence of Latinx. Latinx remains the largest ethnic/racial group in this country most underrepresented on Religion faculties. Ethnic discrimination against Latinxs is so prevalent that when a search is announced, the department hopes to find the brownest face with the whitest voice – or better yet, another white face who can appropriate our contributions to the discourse. While there are institutions who see the value of hiring a Latinx who will challenge their worldviews, and those of their predominately white students, to the core, most hope to find a Latinx who is not so damned angry. Of course, what they fail to realize is that if the teaching and views of Latinx scholars do not anger, do not challenge, do not disrupt, then they have indeed found the most assimilated brown face, which is of no use to nuestra comunidad. Such a hire is like pouring hot sauce onto a sloppy joe and calling it chili con carne.              Should whites teach Latinx studies? The can question is answered in the affirmative because all scholars are responsible to include marginalized voices in their courses. But the should question is quite different. While the can question is about inclusion, the should question is about exclusion – excluding Latinx voices and bodies from white classrooms and institutions. During the 1960s, male-only teaching faculty needed the voices of women (and still do); but just as importantly, they also needed their presence as professors. Such institutions were as academically deficient then as those today lacking professors who are Latinxs (and by Latinx I mean those teaching teaching and focusing their works on the scholars from nuestra América – not the assimilated ones who teach white theology with a “spicy pepper” thrown on top).             So, should whites teach Latinx Studies? No. Better yet – Hell no. There is a major difference between including the voices of Latinx scholars within everything you teach, and applying and being hired to teach exclusively in their place (regardless of whether you can or cannot). And shame on those institutions who continue to play games by making sure our radical and revolutionary voices do not, and potentially never will, sully their lily white halls by instead choosing whites, or Latinx in name only, to continue white theological hegemony in our classrooms.

Brazilian writer Eliane Brum tells this story: Vanderley was a man who used to go to an agriculture fair in the south of Brazil with a broomstick saying that this broomstick was a pure breed horse. He was known around as the “little cuckoo guy.” One day I asked him, "Are you really Cuckoo Vanderley?" And he said, "Don’t you think I know this isn’t a pureblood horse? That this is just a stick? But this is my way of thinking about that which I will never have.” Perhaps we teachers could be more like Vanderley, a little cuckoo, imagining that which we cannot think, have, or teach, and make it our own. Perhaps we can engage a double pedagogical movement: to listen to those students who actually have a broomstick and see what meanings they give to it, and help those students who don’t have one to invent a broomstick as a pure breed horse, or whatever else, and make it their own. Our classrooms need an inventory of broomsticks! Broomsticks that can give us a sense of our reality. In order to do that we need more art! Art helps us access the madness of our realities. Art helps us think and feel differently. Art gives us access to different forms of reasoning of our bodies and our relations in our world. Art wires our brain differently. Art gives us a space beyond objectivity so we can venture into the unknown in order to reshape our realities. Unfortunately, our pedagogies are often centered in objective knowledge, positivistic thinking based on progress, and detached forms of thinking that celebrate a necessary distance between the seeing and the thing seen. Sadly enough, this form of knowledge can’t catch our realities from the point of view of Vanderley. We need something else. We need other venues and forms of thinking that can help us invent and imagine something that can actually affect our reality. We feel that our objective words can grasp our reality in some forms and yet, it feels also that what we say is like unopened letters that end up returning to us.[1] We can’t be transformed only by precise objective readings of our reality. We need the enchantment of the unknown, gray areas of thoughts and beliefs, the uncontrolled parts of our lives, the broomsticks of Vanderley. The Brazilian theologian, poet, philosopher, and sociologist Rubem Alves lived in the academy for many years and produced many books. One day he realized that his kind of work wouldn’t change people. He then started to write short essays and children stories. With the theoretical knowledge he gained, he delved into the abyss of the quotidian life of people by way of children stories. He would mix Escher, Camus, Bachelard, Bach, Celan and many others with daily events in life. I was introduced to art by his theo-poetics writings. In my classrooms, I am growing more skeptical of only objective readings of realities. We are lost trying to grasp the ever-expansive disasters of our lives. We need rituals! We need art to tap into that aspect where objective knowledge can’t go. Words alone can’t do it. We need other mediums to express the absurd of our present, to retell stories of pain and trauma of our past and imagine our future. Without addressing the present, reshaping the past, and gaining a good sense of future we will be lead to a future that will continue not to be ours. However, life will be given to those who can invent life in its multiple, timely possibilities. And for that, we need new partners! When we bring Doris Salcedo to our classrooms we have a much-expanded way of addressing violence, trauma, and loss. When we invite Tania Bruguera and Weiwei to present their works to us, we can have a better sense of repressive governments and societal systems. It is when we wrestle with Favianna Rodriguez, Justin Favela, Guillermo Gómez-Pena, Jacob Lawrence, Kerry James Marshall, and Alvin Ailey Dance that we can wrestle with a flow of white supremacy, race and identity politics. When we deal with the artist Banksy, we can learn about social contestation. When we engage Giuseppe Campuzano and Miguel A. López, we see new figurings of sexualities and gender nuances and immensities. When we open up to know Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, and Kade L. Twist, we can see the complex collective interdisciplinary environmental colonial/postcolonial gaze of native people. It is when we listen and watch Mona Haydar, Beyoncé, and Kendrick Lamar, we can deal with the cultural racial pop culture. We indeed need more art in our classroom! But we have many challenges to do that. First, we don’t feel we have enough expertise to do it. We would need to learn how to teach it. Second, we don’t know what to do to assess it. Once in a faculty meeting, I heard from friends that they wish they could use more art but they don’t have criteria to evaluate any work of art. Third, art doesn’t seem to have the same academic weight. We all know the fight Cornel West had to undergo at Harvard when he was accused by the president Lawrence Summers for not doing proper scholarship when he ventured into recording a rap CD. Yes, to use art we need to cross these boundaries. We have to venture into that weary space in order to know a little more. But we can start by looking and imagining. And helping our students to look and invent as well. The best “final projects” in my classes are the ones students can imagine and invent. Perhaps we can give up a little of our sense that we have to control every corner of what is to be taught, both for proper reasoning and meaning, but also for coherence. Not to dismiss intellectualism and proper theoretical work, but to actually expand it for better ways to grasp life. Perhaps we can start by trying some new things out. GO visit a museum, a street artist, a mural. Perhaps we can start by listening to a song, watching a performance in a video, looking at a picture. And let the artists help us expand ourselves and our imagery/imagining. They might help us dream, invent, figure out something else! They might help us see that Vanderley’s broomstick is indeed a pure breed horse! And that we desperately need one too! [1]Eliane Brum, O Brasil desassombrado pelas palavras-fantasmas. Como o sonho e a arte podem nos ajudar a acessar a realidade e a romper a paralisia, https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2017/07/10/opinion/1499694080_981744.html Resources:  http://www.stedelijkstudies.com/journal/transvestite-museum-of-peru/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idMJIEFH_ns http://postcommodity.com/About.html http://favianna.tumblr.com

In a previous blog post, I sounded an optimistic note about the believing educational community that engages profoundly with various streams of the religious tradition – in my case, the Muslim tradition. As I contemplate a valuable piece by SherAli Tareen on the potential issues with which we regard as critical secular pedagogy, I anticipate some of the pedagogical decisions I will make this semester. I teach at the American Islamic College, one of only two Islamic liberal arts colleges in the United States. This generates a unique and continuing set of pedagogical and disciplinary questions for me - questions that I do not usually find reflected in my colleagues’ pedagogical concerns regarding the teaching of Islam in the academy.   My feelings of - shall we say, comfort – in teaching Islam to mostly Muslim students are tempered by practical pedagogical concerns as I am a Muslim, female professor who teaches gender at a Muslim college in the United States. Apart from the study of religion, classroom spaces in general can be battlegrounds for identities. A dash of critical distance can be a useful addition to the red-hot dynamics in classroom discussions. I nervously anticipate certain pedagogical situations in Muslim-majority learning settings as my own, as well as in mainstream academia, where critical distance is my go-to approach. Most of my Muslim students are eager to understand diverse perspectives on religious issues, and have been astoundingly eager to broaden their horizons, even to the point of intellectual discomfort. Still, I have learned to expect the Guerilla Student. He (usually) does not form a majority in my classes. But when he makes an appearance, he steps into the academic fray, brandishing a Qur'anic verse, intent upon shutting down any "wayward" discourse. As the class community contemplates various religious perspectives on Muslim politics, this student brings in And be not disunited (Qur’an 3:103). The discussion quickly falls flat, everyone hangs their heads piously, as if to contemplate the frivolity of human words before the Word, and that is that. Or the Guerilla Student lobs a Prophet tradition into the controversy, and the hadith instantly establishes a literalistic, atomistic framework over the intellectual community - a framework that allows for a singular one-dimensional view of religion, and therefore, shuts down discussion as unnecessary or even reprehensible. A young fervent woman might react negatively to the complexification of a religious problem, demanding a simple response to her “Well, should I do it or not?” The impact of such guerrilla warfare is to silence, at least temporarily, the majority of students who are interested in investigating the sociological implications of religious norms, who wish to explore the contextual deployment of religious sources, and who are interested in a religious world where people disagree. In other words, says the Guerilla Student, let's just shut our books and our mouths, and retire to our corners and recite Qur'an. Not that I haven't frequently been tempted to do the same, because ambiguity isn't exactly soothing. In anticipation of the Guerrilla Student, I set up a classroom community where, most importantly, students must engage with the required readings in all discussions. No one can simply show up without doing any of the work and, swaggering, simply toss the grenades of Scriptural texts amidst the group. Anyone who hasn’t done the reading will be reminded that entrance to discussion is guarded by the test of academic work. I explicitly state in my syllabus: "You must develop the analytic habit of considering various perspectives, including opposing ones." This is troubling to the student who regards feminist interrogations of the Qur’an as disrespectful and impious. To some, these readings are not worshipful. For students who study Islam to seek piety rather than profound understanding, this is a distraction. For some Muslim students, a Gender course would be better served by Maudoodi’s Purdah and the Status of Women in Islam rather than Kecia Ali’s Sexual Ethics in Islam. I add, in my syllabus, "In this academic setting, all claims and opinions must be supported by scholarly evidence and reasoning." In these words, I establish that the setting was an academic one, and not a religious one. To some students, this is disappointing. To me, as a religious Muslim academic, it’s not entirely truthful. I do regard academic Islam as worship. Moreover, the evidence expected is human scholarship. This establishes the importance of interpretation. To the believer who sees his or her interpretations as self-evidently true, this is blasphemous.   When I classify my classroom as an academic one, I clarify that no one may come in with their credentials as local imam and become the lecturer here. In terms of my role as facilitator and my authority as course instructor, a religious educational setting is dangerously democratic. A religious classroom demands clerical or seminary/madrasa credentials; with my Ph.D., I am not appropriately appareled. Any public preachers, study-circle leaders or madrasa-trained males could always turn up their noses at my Western academic credentials.  And then there is patriarchy. As a woman - of color (and of short stature) - my pedagogic authority is always at risk in all classrooms. Most of my Muslim students bring a deeply Islamic affectionate respect to my teaching. In fact, my Muslim students at AIC humanize and respect me in a way that, in my previous teaching experience, many of my White students never did. I cannot express how deeply refreshing this teacher-student relationship is, in contrast to the experiences I had before. But there has been the occasional male student - especially when I taught Islam & Gender - who finds the dynamic in my class intolerable. At times, such a student drops the class, but not before lobbing the Scriptural grenades and disrupting the analytic discussion. If he simply evades the readings, he succeeds in getting by in a disturbingly water-off-a-duck’s-back manner. A student committed to patriarchy could not stomach the idea of a female professor who taught Amina Wadud and Leila Ahmed - or a female professor who gave out C's.  When Islam is used as a patriarchal stick to establish the authority of literalism, or Islamism, or Traditionalism, or sexism, critical distance in pedagogy can be a handy shield. When the literalistic, patriarchal, hegemonic interpretations are brandished in my classroom, I do sometimes brandish certain critical secular tools. "We cannot throw out ayaat or ahadith as responses to a question. You can bring your readings of those sources to the discussion, but they are readings. You cannot use the Qur'an to shut everyone up.” "But," sputters a certain kind of student, “It should shut everyone up.” This critical distance and interpretive freedom is widely regarded as critical secular pedagogy. But it is not just that. To me, as a Muslim professor, it is also an internal Muslim tool to safeguard the right to ikhtilaf (difference of opinion). But when I embrace this tool of critical distance as an Islamic one, there is always the danger that we commence the battle of my-source-trumps-yours. Appeals to religious authority in religious settings can close debate. I respect and value the sources, but there is a danger in how they are deployed by my interlocutors. The problem isn’t the Qur’anic verse being lobbed by the student. In such pedagogical encounters, I’m at the mercy of the Guerilla Students. I’m hostage to the personality of the discussant at risk, to his conception of adab (etiquette) in Islamic education. Any pedagogical approach must necessarily be multi-faceted and respectful of its context. As a Muslim professor of Islamic Studies, I combine a believer's loving commitment with an explorer's dedication to the journey. I ask my students to bring the same intrepid commitment to this path. No woman or man will be allowed to blow up the trail. I'll deploy any tools necessary to protect the trail. Critical distance is one of those tools. Critical distance is frequently used in secular settings to shut down Muslim critiques of dogmatic secularity. But my critical distance is different. It is a protective distance of love.

I owe a great deal of my pedagogical approach to Vincent and Rosemarie Harding. The way I teach has been profoundly impacted by watching and learning from these activist teaching elders in the Black-led freedom struggle. Have you ever had a teacher who was a good story teller? A teacher who was so good that he or she pulled you into the teaching moment and it made you feel as though you were living history? Have you had a teacher who was so authentic, so responsive, so tuned in that you felt like you could make change? The Hardings, and teachers like them, keep this at the center of their teaching relationships and community. Some other characteristics these kinds of master teachers have in common are: 1) Personal lives that are consistent with what they teach about social change and justice, 2) A belief that every person has someone in their ancestry that has been a social change agent, 3) The conviction that the stories of ordinary people can be used to inspire others, and 4) A belief that religion is a force for justice. Let me give an example of such a model.   A small crowd gathered at Pendill Hill retreat center to listen to Black-led freedom struggle elder Vincent Harding. Harding made his way to the front of the room. He sat down and looked over the crowd. He began to speak. In that moment the room grew quiet and even my restless three-year-old crawled off my lap, stood, and waited in anticipation. After a few warm smiles and opening remarks, in his own Harding way, he led us in a conversation. It was a truly dialogical experience. Harding invited the body of people gathered to share their own stories as he shared his own. During the remainder of the program, one could sense the ancestors among us. As the evening drew to a close, Harding shared a deeply moving piece on the last time he saw Martin Luther King Jr. He told us how he and three other men had been asked by Corretta King to stand nonviolent watch over King’s body as it lay in state in Atlanta. Harding drew the midnight to morning shift. He reminded us that the only people coming to pay their respects at that time of the night were either coming from work or going to work. “Martin’s people.” These were not celebrities or dignitaries, but the people of the movement. He tearfully talked about a nurse and man who had been to the bar before coming. As the evening closed, Harding asked sister Sonia Sanchez to do a piece of spoken word. Sanchez moved the community with a 15-minute piece she created from hearing the stories of the people present. Sadly, this would be the last time I would hear Vincent Harding talk in public. However, the evening reflected the pedagogy created by Rosemarie and Vincent Harding, that is, circles of people listening and learning from one another. Both Vincent and Rosemarie Harding were awe-inspiring master teachers who made their students/participants understand they too were a part of movement-making and the Beloved Community. They were the kind of teachers that many of us seek to be to our students. It is these models that guide me in helping students to learn about their own justice roots. Creating the space for students to listen and to reflect is important if we want to connect them to social justice movements. In religious studies, as well as in peace studies, one of the goals is to make students feel connected to what is taking place socially and politically. Students often come into religious studies classes looking for a place to explore the big questions about life and to learn what others think. Combining the idea of connecting students socially and politically with an opportunity to explore the big questions opens a space for students to find their religious justice roots. Here are some exercises I use in my religious studies and peace studies classes to foster student’s investment in social change while providing an opportunity to think about their religious justice roots: Students read Vincent Harding’s “Do Not Grow Weary or Lose Heart” and Grace Lee Boggs’ “In Person.”[i] Afterwards I give this prompt: Each of us finds inspiration for how we want to live our lives. Many of us have an understanding of what it means to stand up for what is right or just. Places of inspiration can be family (or family-like) legacies. Students may choose to write a paper about someone in their family that inspires them to be a just person. The student should clearly identify the person in their family (or someone they would consider like family) that inspires his or her life. What did they do? How did you learn about this person? How does the person relate to your sense of social justice and what is right? How does this relate to what the authors had to say in their articles? Students read Rosemarie Freeney Harding and Rachel E. Harding’s book Remnants A Memoir of Spirit, Activism, and Mothering over the course of the semester.[ii] About every two weeks there are small group discussions about the readings in class. Students are prompted to discuss their understanding of the readings, but they are also asked how the readings relate to religion, politics, community, family, and justice. The book is written in such a way that students quickly find things to which they can relate. The end of the semester assignment is a reflection on the connection between religion, family, community, and justice. At the end of the semester, it is always my hope that students find their roots in social justice. For many, their roots are in religious communities and family. Once students have established their roots, they begin to grow into the movement for justice. [i] Vincent Harding, “Do Not Grow Weary or Lose Heart,” Veterans of Hope Project.  http://www.veteransofhope.org/do-not-grow-weary-or-lose-heart/. Accessed 25 July 2017. Grace Lee Boggs, “In Person.” In These Times. http://inthesetimes.com/inperson/4060/grace_lee_boggs. Accessed 25 July 2017. [ii] Rosemarie Freeney Harding and Rachel E. Harding, Remnants A Memoir of Spirit, Activism, and Mothering (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015).

In a low and pensive voice, the young woman student posed her question to the all-women course. Her question sent a gentle shockwave through the room. After some far ranging discussion, my response to her question was this – “Black women all over the world make passionate love all night long, and then in the morning, go to their jobs looking fabulous!” I admit that I had never previously had this kind discussion in a classroom, but I was intrigued. I was, with this conversation, in uncharted territory in my own classroom discussion – and loving every moment of it! There are reasons, good reasons, why discussion is not a preferable learning activity in higher education. Teachers know from experience that discussion leans toward the will and want of the student. Discussions can and do “get out of hand.” Discussions can move into territory not on the syllabus or beyond the scope of expertise of the teacher. Methods to control and orchestrate classroom conversation are in all of our teaching repertoires. We must resist thinking of the moments of questions after a lecture as “discussion.” A posed question and a response is not a conversation. Q & A is not discussion. As a professor in a seminary, it has been apparent to me for many years that students come to class with “churchy” agendas and “churchified” discussions. Students are well aware of the standards of “acceptable” discussions. Students also have the habit of making a study of the teacher as much or more than they study the topic at-hand. In the study of the teacher, the student makes a concerted effort to ask questions and provide answers which are a match to the sensitivities of the teacher. In these instances, the lesson of the leaner has more to do with mimicking the masks and personas of the teacher than exposing and plumbing her own curiosity. Some teachers enjoy this gaslighting.  Given the pitfalls and dangerous possibilities, I still work hard to engineer conversations in my classrooms which will be life changing, thought provoking, and courage summoning. Wielding the transformative power of deep conversation is my cautious aim. I want to engineer conversations which evoke astonishment and amazement. I want my students to experience, as I have experienced, conversations which heal, convict, and rescue. I yearn to choreograph conversations which allow students to ask the questions which they are genuinely wondering about, rather than the question they know is acceptable, palatable, and often benign. When we get it right, discussion can bring a magical kind of encounter resulting in insight, revelation, new perspective. The moments when students listen to and for each other as mutually shared engagement on tough issues is the moment of shared truth and ah-hah! The shared experience, as if something important is being cracked-opened as if new light is entering in, as if the world expanded a tiny bit, is the result of deep, risky discussion.  For two courses, over the last eighteen years, I have had the good fortune of registration exclusively by women. I had not made a Mary Daly rule for registration, so in both instances, I was surprised and delighted. Each time I have taught an all-women course, I have wanted the exclusive presence of women to be more than a novel classroom experience. I wanted the conversation to be substantively different. I wanted to create space for a conversation by women for women about women. In both courses, once I realized registration was exclusively women, I made changes in the syllabus. I rethought the learning activities and created exercises which considered and honored the all-women group. I changed the readings of the course to exclusively readings of women authors. I shifted the cornerstone questions of the course to take into account issues of female identity, femininity, misogyny, and womanist approaches to self, community, and power.    The discussion which evoked my comment about the love making habits of Black woman around the world happened in one of the all women courses.   Our discussion about gender and womanhood was provoked by a new learning activity. I had instructed each woman to create a timeline of her own hair. It was a straightforward and simple exercise that uncorked a mammoth discussion. For those women whose hair had been a living symbol of maturity, personal growth, and participation in beauty culture – this assignment was a guide for recollection, reminiscing, and reflection. For those women whose hair had been a place of ongoing authentication of imposed inferiority, a constant tethering to a beauty standard which is unyielding in abuse, a site of verification for worthlessness and ugliness, this assignment was fraught with danger, ire, and tales of unhealed wounds.   The political is personal and the personal is political if we can find ways to hold this viscous phenomenon for discussion. Discussing the body is a discussion of creating ourselves, including our politics, and has the potential to teach us how to summon moral courage. A discussion about our hair, for women, is potentially a discussion which moves into the arena of authentic reflection on sexism, racism, classism – the politic of superiority and inferiority which permeates the society. Since the body is the site of gender politics, racial politics, class politics, and the politics of sexual orientation - it is precisely the body which should be discussed.  I am not saying other professors need to ask students to create a hair timeline. I am suggesting that the tool of discussion in our classrooms warrants our deepest attention if we are to move toward the conversations which are politically necessary for social change and healing. In so doing, I want to suggest that conversations among certain particularities are valuable and necessary, yet underutilized in classroom strategies. There is great merit in discussions on race and racism among only-white students.  There is tremendous benefit for all-male groups to discuss issues of sexism and misogyny. I am a witness that the all-women conversation in two courses was life-giving.