Going to Seminary

In Cross-Shattered Christ, Stanley Hauerwas wrote in his introduction that, “Mystery does not name a puzzle that cannot be solved. Rather, ‘mystery names that which we know, but the more we know, the more we are forced to rethink everything we think we know.” (pp. 15). Prior to the statement, he has pointed out that within Christian theology, there is paradoxical tension. While what Christians believe “does defy reason and common sense,” what Christians also believe “is the most reasonable and commonsense.” (pp. 14).

Seminarians generally often sense that tension, especially when wrestling with theological issues that mystify us. Who doesn’t wrestle with how Christ should be manifested in both the church and the world? Who doesn’t rethink or reframe a theological issue, creating a new texture? Once we have an answer, it only opens more doors to unanswered questions. What was perplexing now makes sense, relieving us. When the opposition occurs, a sigh of frustration follows. And it’s exhausting. And sometimes, the whole wrestling business exasperates us, only to reveal the smallness of our minds.

We realize more and more how small our minds are when we are changing, or to put it properly, maturing. The work of theology, Hauerwas noted, is never finished, meaning more wrestling is to be done in this life (pp. 17). We are not immune to change, not only because we live in a continual changing reality, but also because Christ is not finished with redeeming creation, including us. The change embedded in us indicates that we reckon ourselves to think and become as Christ.

The answer to the mystery, that baffled both Jews and Gentiles, is revealed in the cross of Christ (Eph. 3:9). The terms such as “cross-centered,” “Christ-centered,” and “cruciformity” have been the buzzwords in the past years, reminding us of the preeminence of Christ. Our theology hinges upon the works of the God-man who appeared thousands of years ago. The redemption plan of God, once hidden, was now being proclaimed not through lofty wisdom or speech, but plain narration of Christ crucified (1 Cor. 2:1-2). Any theological issues, whether in church or seminary, are more clarified when our minds and hearts are set upon Christ’s redemptive role. When facing schism, injustice, favoritism, and disorderly worship in the Corinthian church, not only did Paul direct them to seek Christ, but also that they would to seek Him together. It is not a one-man show, but a one-church show. We are not meant to wrestle alone, but together. Paul wrote that we have the power by the Spirit to comprehend the “breath and length, and height, and depth” of Christ’s love only with all the saints (Eph. 3:17-19).

In Hauerwas’ recent memoir Hannah’s Child, he comments that he is not even sure what he believes about particular doctrinal issues, which renders him ecclesiologically homeless in a sense, but he is interested in what the church believes. His theological influences include those who are Methodists, Episcopalians, Mennonites, and Catholics. Many of these influences were also his companions, praying and spending time together. This was how Hauerwas learned about how Christ has taken care of him during his wrestling bouts—through brothers and sisters.

With Christmas approaching soon, we seminarians celebrate the incarnation with our brothers and sisters, whether they are parents, elders, teenagers, or immigrants. They too wrestle to learn and grow to love the story of incarnation; so let us wrestle together to grasp the beauty of Christ cooing in a manger.

Life is full of surprises. A tired, cliché phrase, I know. But the phrase speaks the truth. With friends and family, we share stories that surprised us. We remember them vividly because the stories are pivotal in shaping our lives.

Seminary life, on the other hand, can become mechanical because of its lack of spontaneity. Conjugating a verb is a norm. Formatting a paper properly is a pain. Approaching a new syllabus with the attitude of “I came, I saw, I conquered” crumbles weeks later as we whimper at its overwhelming demand. On the paper are dates of reading assignments and paper deadlines. For the next couple of months, these dates govern our lives, and sometimes, we feel that the syllabus rules with an iron fist. Mercy is not its priority.

Meanwhile, it has another effect—life appears less surprising. Ever since I started seminary, life is defined by how much I can cross off the dates on the syllabus. Done that reading and now I’m ready for the next, I thought. Like Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell, in the film “Stranger than Fiction,” my current life is based on the timing marked on the paper, except his was a wristwatch. What eventually colors his gray, mundane life is the moment he realizes how life has more to offer than just following the tick-tock.

Whenever I talk to seminary graduates or read about their experiences, they recount stories that take unexpected turns, whether getting financial aids in a time of need, creating friendships with people you wouldn’t expect, or reading a work you come to love when you wondered why a tree must die to become that book. They remember those surprising events that colored their seminary life.

One of the benefits a seminarian has is getting student discount to theology conferences. To enrich my seminary education, I attended the 2010 Wheaton Theology Conference, whereas the academic topic revolved around the works of its main speaker—N.T. Wright, a New Testament scholar and former Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. For two days, Wright gave several messages in a room of 1,100 people, a rather large crowd.

During a break, I chatted with a friend, who is deaf like me, and a Sign Language Interpreter, who was interpreting for the conference. While the audience was stretching their legs and meeting each other, a man approached us. He greeted and asked us if he was speaking too fast for an interpreter to catch his words. At first we were puzzled by his question when only a moment later we realized he was Wright himself. After we informed Wright that the interpreter was doing an excellent job, he smiled, expressed good wishes, and departed to the speaking platform to begin another message.

Dumbstruck we were.

I came to the conference to learn something about his works; however, I left the conference learning something about the man himself. Whenever I read his books now, I could not help but remember that simple event between the four people among 1, 100 people. That meeting became a story that has colored a fraction of my seminary life.

Another cliché phrase I hear is “stop and smell the roses.” Like the previous phrase, this is also true. Harold Crick stopped and smelled the roses. For him, the roses were having a girlfriend and learning to play a guitar. For seminarians, the roses come in various forms—playing with kids, visiting a nursing home, gardening, or even more odd, visiting graves of dead theologians. Seminary doesn’t have to be just crossing off dates on the syllabus; it offers more than that.

Use the syllabus to discipline yourself, but not to define your life.

As seminarians, we swing between two worlds—books and people. Reading theological books and articles is a taxing experience. Heavy commentaries make a dent on our cheap faux wood shelves. PDFs and e-books suck up our bytes. We read. We read. We read. Squeezed between reading assignments, we write. Thousands of books surround us, and thousands of people surround us. Books compete with family, friends, church fellows, and co-workers for time and attention. When we cannot do both well, frustration arises. And the thought of total seclusion away from people can be appealing.

That thought manifested itself in me at some points during the past year. Some people observed that I’d become increasingly withdrawn. For me, books were less messy than people and looked prettier on shelves than people did.

Fortunately by reading more books last summer, I was able to find an antidote to my frustration. It’s ironic, I know. But these were biographies (Geerhardus Vos and George Eldon Ladd) and a memoir (Lewis B. Smedes). These men were professional theologians, pastors, or both. Much profit is to be gained by observing how they interacted with people during their time of formal learning.

Lewis B. Smedes, a Professor of Theology and Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, recounts in his Calvin Seminary days when he was assigned a pastoral duty to a congregation, composed of mostly farmers, in a small rural town. From this experience, he realized that he “could preach sermons in a language that uneducated (though intelligent) farm folk found easy to grasp and, now and then, even interesting” (71). To preach authentically at their level enthralled him. By utilizing his experience with those outside of seminary context, he could speak to people of various backgrounds. Smedes, a man who presented his doctoral dissertation on Athanasius’ argument for Christ’s incarnation to a small University committee, later spoke about the human need for forgiveness on Oprah, before millions of viewers. The contrast between these two kinds of audience was vast.

Geerhardus Vos, a Professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, was described as “retiring and modest” in his teaching days (20). During summer break, Vos and his family lived in a rural Pennsylvania town for 26 years, yet his neighbors could not remember if they ever spoke with the family. The characteristic rings true for young Vos at Calvin and Princeton Seminaries, who was not keen on public attention. His presence, both as student and professor, rarely ventured outside of his classroom. For this reason, his social relationships were limited to professors and students. Regarding family, he maintained warm relationships with them very ably.

George Eldon Ladd, a Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary, as a student, even later as a professor, neglected his wife and two children in order to pursue an academic career. The biography reveals how much Ladd contributed to evangelical scholarship in the 1950s-70s, and at the same time, how little Ladd contributed fatherly love to his children, who later grew bitter against him. Retreating from fractured family relationships, Ladd preferred the world of books to the world of people who he should have cherished.

The antidote I received from reading these books was the blessing of knowing people around me. Each man had various people issues. Smedes interacted with midwestern farmers and worldwide Oprahviewers. Vos chose to limit himself to his professional circle and family, and rarely got involved with any church affair. Ladd left a legacy of scholarship that sought to dismantle Bultmannism and Dispensationalism, but at the cost of losing his family. All of them made a choice regarding books and people.  At times, some moved between the worlds with ease; at times, some didn’t. But they were all blessed with opportunities to read and build relationships.

Seminary is a time of blessing; however, through my withdrawal from people, the learning ceased to be a blessing to my family, friends, church fellows, and co-workers. From time to time I have to close my book to open up a box of spaghetti noodles to cook dinner for the family.

Books listed above are My God and I: A Spiritual Memoir by Lewis B. Smedes, Letters of Geerhardus Vos by Geerhardus Vos and edited by James T. Dennison, Jr., and A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America by John A. D’Elia

On my first day of class, my professor began class with a prayer. While students closed their eyes, listening to the professor’s plea for wisdom in our studies, my eyes remained wide open. Was it because that pile of new textbooks near me screamed, “Look how beautiful we are. Read us.” No, although it was tempting. I looked elsewhere for a more important reason—the moving hands of the person sitting across from me. I listened to the prayer not with my ears, but through my eyes.

I am deaf. Opposite from me was an American Sign Language (ASL) interpreter.

Being deaf at a seminary brings unique challenges to overcome. The first challenge was to select a seminary. I based my decision to enroll by what the seminary had to offer; such as the school’s orbit of influence, prestigious faculty, and tuition fees. Yet I had a question that separated me from hearing prospective students. Could the seminary provide an interpreter? The added concern all deaf seminarians must consider.

There were several seminaries I could choose from. The first three were well known, the fourth was the seminary of my undergraduate alma mater, and the fifth was small.

Since the first three were endowed with large grants, the issue of hiring professional, certified interpreters was not a question. The fourth, with its tight budget, could only provide student interpreters, the same policy in place as my undergraduate years. Those interpreters learned ASL informally, such as in a high school foreign language requirement or through a deaf friend/parent. At one time, I met a student who learned American Sign Language through Sesame Street and books. Imagine how would he interpret a simple subject like, “Can you find a pink polka-dot van?” to a complex subject such as, “Discuss Van Til’s usage of the Trinity as a philosophical answer to his metaphysical question.” A seminary lecture would be filtered through the mind of an interpreter with preschool-level sign language skills. I marked off this seminary.

In a twist, I enrolled at the last choice, the one who could not afford to provide an interpreter. However, the reasons for my interest in this school were its small size and faculty’s emphasis of interdisciplinary learning. Typically, a student craves a personal relationship with his professor, and at this school, I was sure to get just that.

Ask any college student about his relationship with professors, and you will likely get an answer like this, “The teacher was stimulating, fun, and nice.” But it is usually nothing more than that. Often a student gets a teacher for no more than one or two courses, which breeds surface relationship between the two.

The first three choices have a huge student population and are research-orientated, so professors have very little time to understand the unique situation of bringing the gospel to the deaf population and its culture. The seminary in which I enrolled has several professors in residence, enabling me to have a professor for more than one or two courses. Sitting under him for hundreds of hours, I could learn about his strengths and weaknesses, listening to stories of life, family, and ministry. In turn, the professor learns how to interact with a deaf person, deaf culture, and the deaf ministry. A relationship is built.

So how did I function without an interpreter? I didn’t. Unlike many deaf seminarians, I am blessed with a hearing wife who could interpret well. For unusual words or theological concepts, we flesh it out and make up for non-existent signs. For ancient language courses, to pronounce Greek and Hebrew terms correctly was unfeasible. But I am not alone, hearing students struggle as well to pronounce the Greek, Hebrew, and the names of Dutch and German theologians. The positive side of being deaf is that I don’t have a professor laughing and poking fun at my wrong pronunciation. For this I am not too sorry for my hearing friends who are cursed with a capacity to hear clearly, yet speak unclearly. May God help them more than me.