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Toward a Critical Theological Education
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
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One hundred and seventy years ago, on 17 July 1816, the Society for the Promotion of Theological Education in Harvard University was established, thus beginning a process that led to the founding of a “faculty of theology” or Theological Seminary at the University. Undergraduate education at Harvard College had by this time moved quite far from the founders' original concern to provide a literate ministry to the churches. By the beginning of the nineteenth century Harvard men were educated in a broad curriculum oriented more toward liberal education than professional training. So the theological faculty was created in order to provide specialized training for those preparing to enter the Christian ministry
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1987
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* This essay was originally presented as my Inaugural Convocation Address at the Memorial Church, Harvard University, on 1 October 1986. My thinking about theological education has been significantly influenced by Farley's, Edward seminal Theologia: The Fragmentation and Unity of Theological Education (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983)Google Scholar. Although my constructive proposal is quite different from that presented by Farley, I remain indebted to his insightful analysis of the plight of theological education. My reflection on theology as a critical inquiry has been aided by Wood's, CharlesVision and Discernment: An Orientation in Theological Study (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985)Google Scholar and by Fiorenza's, Francis Schüssler presidential address to the Catholic Theological Society of America, “Foundations of Theology: A Community's Tradition of Discourse and Practice,” CTSA Proceedings 41 (1986) 107–34.Google Scholar
1 “Trustees' Records” of the Society for the Promotion of Theological Education (Harvard University Archives) 6.
2 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, “Deducirter Plan einer zu Berlin zu errichtenden höheren Lehranstalt (1807)” in Sämmtliche Werke (Berlin, 1846) 8. 97–204.Google Scholar
3 See Farley, Theologia, 83–84.
4 Gelegentliche Gedanken über Universitäten in deutschem Sinn in Sämmtliche Werke (Berlin, 1846) 3.535–624.Google Scholar
5 Kurze Darstellung des theologischen Studiums zum Behuf einleitender Vorlesungen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1977);Google Scholar ET Brief Outline of the Study of Theology (trans. Tice, T. N.; Richmond: John Knox, 1966).Google Scholar
6 Farley, Theologia, passim.
7 Ibid., 86.
8 Wright, Conrad, “The Early Period (1811–40),” in Williams, George Huntston, ed., The Harvard Divinity School: Its Place in Harvard University and in American Culture (Boston: Beacon, 1954) 27.Google Scholar
9 Willard L. Sperry, “Preparation for the Ministry in a Nondenominational School,” in Ibid., 272–94.
10 Levering Reynolds, Jr., “The Later Years (1880–1953),” in Ibid., 171–72.
11 Ibid., 172.
12 Ibid.
13 Maclntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981) 207.Google Scholar
14 Ibid., 175.
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