Director’s Address
Orientation Day
23 September2010
I am delighted to welcome all of you here today to begin, or to continue, the Foundation Degree in Pastoral Ministry. One of the strengths of the Foundation Degree as it is taught here is the diversity of our students. Whatever your background, whatever your level of knowledge, whether you are quiet or voluble, However humble or however exalted your ministry or role in the parish or community, you have a valuable contribution to make to our community here at Education for Parish Service. If you are new, and looking round thinking ‘I don’t belong here’, I just want to assure that you do.
Before I say a few words about Education for Parish Service (EPS) and its ethos, I would just like to draw your attention to some of our events for the forthcoming year.
Dates
3 March Open Day
7 April Conference Day:
Title: The Church: A Sign and Instrument of Unity in the World
Guest Speaker: Prof Ian Linden,
Director of Policy, TonyBlairFaithFoundation
Chair: Bishop Patrick Lynch, ss.cc.
21 July Study Day John’s Gospel
Fr. John Deehan
I have to admit that ‘Education for Parish Service’ is not the most catchy of titles. As I go round trying to promote what we do here, I don’t find the name necessarily does justice to the reality. In a sense that is appropriate, because what we are privileged to receive here at EPS – and by ‘we’ I mean students and staff alike – is not so much factual knowledge as a specific experience of shared faith. Description cannot do justice to the experience. Nonetheless I will attempt to say something about the experience, by reflecting upon our name.
The word ‘education’ comes from the Latin – in fact from 2 Latin words: ‘ex’ which has been shortened to ‘e’ and means ‘out’ so the ‘exit’ is where we go out, and ‘ducere’ which means ‘to lead’. From ‘ducere’ we get words like ‘duke’ or leader, and duct – something which leads from one place to another. So education is a leading out. It is not so much the addition of something we don’t already have, as the drawing forth of something we have to begin with.
What is it then that is there, that we have already and hope to have drawn out of us? The most fundamental thing that we in this room share in common, the basic qualification for our being here, is our faith in Jesus. Each of us has the conviction that in following Jesus, we relate to God, and so have a particular role in the world. Each of us has the conviction that the relationship we have with each together is based on our common relationship to God through Jesus Christ. The purpose of the year ahead of us is to draw out the implications of what it means to have a common faith in Jesus Christ.
This drawing out of what is already there – our faith in Jesus – is what Anselm described in his famous definition of theology: Fides quaerens intellectum, or Faith seeking understanding. We are here to do theology: to understand better what we believe, and not purely in an intellectual sense. You will be taught certain facts about church teaching, and certain historical facts. These facts are not an end in themselves. Rather they are a means to an end. They are the tools we will use to discover more fully what it means to relate to God in Jesus Christ and to each other as God’s creation.
In opening ourselves up to a fuller understanding of what we believe, we will necessarily gain a better understanding of how the way in which we in practice relate to God and to one another does not fully accord with the faith we hold. In other words we will become increasingly aware of the discrepancy between how we live and how we should live. We will be confronted with the need to change. Authentic theology necessarily entails the call to conversion. There should be no disconnect between what we learn in terms of new information and new facts, and how we live our lives.
When I was doing my doctorate at Heythrop College there was a department of systematic theology and a department of pastoral theology. As a systematic theologian I just reckoned that pastoral theology was systematics made easy, and a bit boring. However, there was a serious discussion taking place at the time, as to whether it is possible to do theology which is not in some sense ‘pastoral’. How valuable is the work of an academic theologian discussing philosophical/theological questions in abstraction from what is happening in world outside? And if it is totally disconnected from the world outside, can it be called theology?
Does it make a difference to the way in which we live our lives, that the fourth-century Church determined that Jesus is homoousios with the Father, rather than homoiousios with the Father? - that Jesus is ‘of the same substance’ as the Father rather than ‘of like substance’? The answer is that it does. Even when what we understand by ‘substance’ and what 4th century thinkers understood by substance is quite different. It still makes a difference to us now, because we still affirm in the Creed that we believe in ‘one Lord, Jesus Christ... of one being with the Father’. And the way in which we conceive God in the imagination does affect the way in which we live out our life.
Can there be theology which is purely intellectual, but has no actual impact on Christian living? The answer is that there can’t. Expanding our understanding, adjusting our view of how we relate to God and God to us, always involves a corresponding adjustment, or at least a call to adjustment, in the way in which we live out our life.
One consequence of the fact that authentic theology can never be purely intellectual is that the study of theology is never something which one does simply for oneself. It is never purely for one’s own benefit or private. To put this another way, there can be no disconnect between systematic theology and pastoral theology. In other words whatever we may learn of Scripture and Church teaching, we are not doing theology if this learning does not impinge in some way on the way in which we live our lives.
Someone once said to me that they were not in favour of people pursuing academic qualifications in theology, because it took them away from their service to the parish. To say such a thing is not only to misunderstand what is meant by theology as something private that one does for oneself, but it is also to misunderstand what is meant by ‘service’ and what is meant by ‘parish’.
To serve the parish is to act as catechist, it is to act as reader, it is to visit the sick, it is to work with young people, and it is to pray with others, and so on. In my time as director of EPS I have met considerable resistance in some quarters to the idea that university education has any role to play in forming adult Christians for parish service. There is a concern that once some lay ministers have a university qualification, those without such a qualification will be excluded. That fear, I believe, is unfounded. On the other hand we will offer a highly impoverished service if we assume that only a limited education is required for certain forms of service. As baptised Christians we are on a journey of faith, which will not be completed in this life. It is not compatible with the notion that education in faith is ever complete.
Whether it is as catechist or spiritual advisor or visitor or prayer leader, the fundamental service that we offer to each other is to share our experience of faith. It is to explore with the other person what it means to relate to God in Jesus Christ and to each other as God’s creation. It is to share a spiritual journey, which presupposes a journey of our own. Seeking to understand what we already believe is an essential part of that journey, and it is a service to the parish.
And so to that word ‘parish’. The Vatican II document Lumen Gentium tells us in paragraph 26 that the Church of Christ in its fullness is truly present in all local congregations of the faithful united with their bishop. I would ask you to think of the parish gathered together for confirmation – that is to say think of the parish gathered around its bishop. Here in the parish you have the Church in the fullness of its mission. Parish service, therefore, cannot be restricted to this role or that role. It comprises the entirety of what the church does. It cannot exclude the church’s mission to those outside the church. It cannot exclude the service of authentic engagement in academic theology.
You will see, by now, I hope, that academic success – the marks you will achieve for the assessments that are set - are of secondary importance in the work that lies ahead of you. And that competitiveness among students or among staff is excluded. We have one aim – to do theology –and for that with your help we will create a supportive, non-competitive environment. Within that context, I am very pleased to be able to tell you that we do enjoy a very high rate of academic success. Although officially the results are not yet out, I am able to tell you provisionally that of the ten students who began the Foundation Degree this time last year, all ten completed and passed the year. Similarly all nine who began the second year this time last year have completed and passed. Of these nine, four have already begun a Masters’ Degree in Pastoral Ministry at St. Mary’s College, Twickenham.
In conclusion, I would like to say that what you are about to embark upon, whether it be your first or your second year, will be challenging, but also infinitely valuable. I would ask you not to belittle the significance or the value of what you are about to do, and I would like you to be clear that in following the Foundation Degree you will be performing a valuable service to the Church. Finally if you have any concerns, please voice them, and I look forward to seeing you all again next Thursday.
(Dr.) Anne Inman
Director, Education for Parish Services
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