End of Semeter Reflection - Fall 14

Each semester of seminary, I post a reflection.  I’m grateful for those who have followed these posts and offered encouragement along the way.  I’m 7/8ths done, so this is my second to last post!

I had two classes this semester—Senior Capstone and Social Ethics (which I took at Bethel Seminary).



This pic of line dancing in the café is so
illustrative of my seminary experience.

Senior Capstone was a journey down seminary-lane with people who have become incredible traveling friends.  During this class I realized that seminary has been an incredible gift to me, a gift which many people have contributed to (some knowingly and some unknowingly): the WI Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Dayton family, the alumni of United, UMC Board of Higher Ed, Paul Christensen, Patt Christensen, Jane Souhrada, and Cheryl and Rick Lamon.  I certainly got an education/training, but the greater gift was the blessing of my seminary friendships.  Every time I was on campus, I just tried to soak in the presence of my peers, realizing that this won’t last forever. 


I took Social Ethics at Bethel Seminary (Southern Baptist) because I knew I needed to expand my dialogue partners on social issues and learn to engage the evangelical community.  As a Methodist, the roots of my tradition are evangelical.  When in college, I was deeply involved in and influenced by evangelical organizations (Campus Crusade and Intervarsity).  But over time, I have made some shifts in my spirituality, and because of that, I have become unaware of the conversations happening within evangelicalism about social issues. 

I have to admit I went into the class with assumptions; many turned out to be untrue.  For example, not all evangelicals are fundamentalists.  And their faith is far more dynamic than I expected—they are changing their minds on many issues (gender roles, creation care, etc.).  And they are humble about their evolving faith.  I am very grateful for the experience at Bethel and my fellow students there.

Here’s where I found the stumbling blocks in dialoguing…

First, they have an unspoken understanding about how to approach the Bible.  It took me awhile to catch on.  They call it “high view of Scripture,” which essentially means they must apply the same level of seriousness to all parts of Scripture, not prioritizing, like mainline Christians do.  This requires them finding a way to deal with icky Scripture—like head coverings for women.  I simply say something like head coverings is a cultural thing and isn’t an indicator of God’s eternal message, but I watched classmates do Scriptural acrobatics with passages like this, twisting and turning in order to find a way out. 

Second, they interpret all text through a larger theological lens: the metanarrative of the creation, fall, salvation/atonement, and re-consummation.  I have a different Biblical metanarrative at work—belonging, calling, God refusing separation/salvation, and indwelling.  When you are reading the Bible through a completely different metanarrative than your dialogue partner, it's hard to have the same conversation about how the Bible narrative speaks to social issues.  Speaking of having the same conversation....    

Third, on some social issues, the mainline church and evangelical church are indeed having the same conversation, like creation care, economic justice, racism, etc.  But on other issues, we are both talking about the issue but having different conversations about it.  For example, they are discussing egalitarianism and complementarianism when it comes to gender roles, whereas my type of Christians are discussing the gender binary.  Evangelicals are grappling with whether GLBTQI relationships are sinful, while mainliners are working to create reconciliation ministries and celebrating same-gendered relationships.  Same issue, different conversations.       

Taking this class at Bethel and two other classes at Luther Seminary were incredible opportunities.  I'm grateful the Minnesota seminaries work together in a consortium so students can take credits across schools for our degrees.  This feels like an example of Christian unity.