On 2 November 2016, Prof Marilyn Naidoo delivered her inaugural lecture titled Formative practices for religious leadership: Promises and contradictions within theological education. In her paper she asserts that theological training is well-positioned to play a key role in shaping patterns of belief and inquiry while also undertaking its special responsibility to educate and form ministers to serve the church and society.

Naidoo stated that practical theology as a field of scholarship was very committed to reflecting on the important area of ministerial training. “In a country where the church has a substantive role, the focus of training ministers is strategically important as religion plays a critical role in supporting human rights, democracy, and development.” She described work in practical theology as work that examines and reflects on religious practices. In order to understand the theology that is enacted in those practices, and in order to consider how theological theory and theological practices can be more fully aligned, changed, or improved motivated her lecture.

Intention towards formative practices

Naidoo raised a critical issue that she believes to be working against the training of ministers, which is the structure of the theological education curriculum. She said the increased level of change in higher education created instability which had profoundly affected the practice of teaching and learning. Naidoo observed that within universities, the goal of theological education was about the creation of theological knowledge through engaging in research and thus the idea of ministerial education was contested, since to propagate a particular faith position was seen as unprofessional and against the spirit of critique that should characterise academic institutions. And from that observation, she depicted that within the context of liberal human and social sciences, it was questionable whether theologically loaded studies in public institutions could adequately pursue serious critical scholarship, which often comes in conflict with the doctrinal position of the churches.

She said the proposed reconstruction was toward finding some way to reintegrate theological knowledge with practical wisdom and for these to be shaped by personal and communal formation. It was important to make the primary task of theological education to have formation as its signature pedagogy. She added that the focus remained on the academy of theological education with disciplinary silos, where integration was really required. She explained integration as referring to attempts to synthesise and coordinate the major learning experiences in a programme which included the integration of theological disciplines with each other; the integration between theory and praxis; and the dynamic interplay of knowledge, practice, and context—knowing, doing and being.

Naidoo said future church leaders needed this integration, as people are shaped by the complex interrelations between what they do, what they think and how their context is shaped. And that the intention towards formation practices provided a way of framing what was hoped for as persons engaged in religious leadership. She said what was hoped for or the goal of formation was to integrate the cognitive, affective and behavioural components of the practice of ministry and, unless the primary aim is recognised as valid, theological institutions will continue to perpetuate the theory-practice dichotomy.

The promise of formative practices

According to Naidoo, theological education, like everything else in South Africa, was racially divided and some denominations had made progress in unifying different streams of training, but she believed that more work needed to be done in terms of reconciliation. And she said our context required a new vision of the social whole in the light of our painful history and ongoing suffering of past and current experiences.

She said she discovered a tremendous humanising potential of formative practices, which fostered self-reflection on aspects of social identity and students were given many opportunities to think about how their gender, race, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation informed the transition from seminary to ministry. She continued to say that formation is about ongoing development of identity, reclaiming one’s culture, gender and other aspects of identity as part of moving towards greater authenticity.

“When we consider our wounded past, our prior socialisation and the psychological scaring of apartheid, formative practices provide an opportunity to deconstruct the past with all its attendant behaviours.” She concluded her inaugural address by encouraging practices to become more intentional within the curriculum and influence the content, method and outcomes of theological education.

*Compiled by Bryan Pilane