This editorial sadly is to be my last for JATE. I have taken up a role as editor of our ‘sister’ journal Practical Theology in 2016 and for a variety of reasons (not least that I should not be editing both journals!) have decided to leave the editorship of JATE to another, yet to be finally identified. The next issue in 2016 is to be a guest-edited and themed issue on threshold concepts in the teaching and learning of theology which looks like it will be both ground-breaking and fascinating. Thus our new editor, whoever he or she is will take up the reins for the first issue of 2017. Suffice to say I have thoroughly enjoyed the task of being editor and learnt a great deal over the past 5 and more years. I am grateful to all the authors I have worked with and the various publishers we have had. Speaking of which we now have yet another publisher with larger reach as we move to Taylor and Francis who are part of the Routledge publishing group and owned by Informa.
In this issue, we cover the full range of loci for adult learning in the church. We begin where all learning should, in my opinion, in the local congregation. John Falcone offers us a rhetorical approach to using the Bible in congregational life based on what happens to the Scriptures in Matthew's Gospel. The other four articles all address, from different angles approaches to formation and learning through theological courses both in context and residence. Mark Nichols continues his series of articles comparing the formational outcomes of full-time residential and on-line learning versions of the same course. Andy Jolley and Ian Jones share research on an innovative and experimental contextually based ‘apprenticeship’ course for ‘pioneer’ ministers in urban settings in Birmingham, UK. Related is Neville Emslie's piece on transformative learning for his curacy training programme in Canterbury Diocese, UK. And finally Howard Worsley investigates the inherent competition between English Anglican residential theological colleges. Thus while we might be accused of being a bit white, male and Anglican in this issue I believe we have a set of articles that set out some of the cutting-edge challenges for theological education in the church in our current time.
John Falcone offers us a rare gem of an article on using the Bible in adult learning and, in fact, training in the skills of making the scriptural text come alive in the context of the local church. Falcone wishes to recover a holistic sense of what it is to be trained, perhaps as those who learn a craft are trained. For this he turns to the idea of rhetoric—that is Christians require training in rhetoric—the ways that words ‘function in Scripture, in life, in church, and in the world’. Falcone justifies his position with an in-depth study of the Gospel of Matthew and its author's use of the scriptures. The key argument Falcone makes is that Matthew believes an ability to handle scripture in a midrashic (rewriting of the Bible) type of way is part of the Christian–scribal task. It is therefore integral to the discipling process. An argument which is fascinating, challenging and convincing. The article concludes with illustrative ways in which the rhetorical approach to re-imagining bible texts can function today. It would be great to have more such work on how the Bible is utilised in adult learning—there is a certain recovery of reflection on the use of the Bible in Practical Theology in recent years and it would be good to see this reflected in future editions of JATE too.
Mark Nichols is writing us a trilogy of articles based on his doctoral research in an evangelical seminary setting in New Zealand. In the second of the three articles in this issue, Nichols sets out his findings comparing the formational experiences of residential and on-line distance learners studying the same course material. His research findings counter received wisdom, almost the ‘tradition’ which has elevated the residential experience above all others in terms of formation. In fact there is little difference in the outcomes for each type of student—simply a difference of setting. This is important work and needs to be heard and disseminated widely as well as built on and checked in other settings—which indeed Nichols calls for. I wonder too whether if the research was conducted elsewhere whether the effect of having students learning in the local congregation (or ekklesia setting as Nichols calls it) could be measured at the same time. It is my conviction, as noted earlier, that the local church is the proper locus for the generation of theology and congregations miss out hugely when their learners are removed to the residential academy.
Andy Jolley and Ian Jones collaborated on an innovative scheme of learning and formation for ‘pioneer’ ministers in urban Birmingham, UK. Such pioneers are attempting to create new ways of being church in post-Christendom settings where the old ways no longer have traction. They devised an apprentice scheme and inductively evaluated it as they went along using elements of action research. Their article for our journal therefore develops an earlier evaluation report in a much more rigorous and critical manner making important conclusions which I hope will be of use to them and others who may attempt this mode of learning. They critique the scheme as formation, apprenticeship and as a community of practice finding all of these elements within what was happening while at the same realising that it did not meet all of the goals they had set out to achieve. Most interesting for me, given my comment above is that they were unable to create inter-congregational learning through the scheme. We still focus for all sorts of deeply embedded reasons on educating the individual and even the idea of a community of practice can be co-opted over time to serve this end. There is much more work to be done on the ground in churches (rather than in theory) on how we can be ecclesial learning communities that cross the boundaries that separate us.
It is great from time to time to meet a fellow traveller and I definitely resonate with Neville Emslie's work of applying Mezirow's transformative learning theory to curacy (probationary minister) training in the Church of England. Not least because this was my own experience of being exposed to multiple transformative learning environments (on the street, in worship, the parish ‘classroom’ and the academy) in the curacy period of my own ministerial formation—the potential of this short period, however often untapped, is enormous. In addition Emslie underlines one of my own conclusions of researching in our field; that hermeneutics are fundamental to what we do. He utilises Ricoeur's deeply suggestive stance of suspicion and retrieval in his training task with these ministers. Emslie's article therefore brings together several discrete areas of theory and integrates them in an unforced manner while all the time earthing his theorising in a practical setting.
Howard Worsley who has contributed in this journal before on the future of theological education. He now turns his attention, as a teacher within the system, to reflection on the current state of Anglican ministerial formation in England and specifically the inherent competition going on between theological seminaries. For more than 10 years the Church of England has encouraged competition in the ‘marketplace’ of both ordinands and independent students and interestingly this is the first theological reflection I have seen on the subject. As such it is a ‘first word’ rather than the last and I hope we may see others venturing their views—perhaps from other denominational or geographical perspectives, as I suspect this is a fairly universal phenomenon, given the way the world works these days. Worsley uses sporting analogy, leadership and management theory in conversation with theology to differentiate between the actuality of competition and an ideology that may or may not come with it. There are alternatives, he proposes which look to co-operation and even co-evolution, though, in my view, it will take courage and a willingness to shake up centuries old assumptions if we are not to continue to watch a ‘death by a thousand cuts’ process continue in UK residential theological education.