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Cultivating Moral Imagination in Theological Field Education

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Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion

Part of the book series: Asian Christianity in the Diaspora ((ACID))

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Abstract

Embodying moral imagination is an urgent task for leaders of our time. This chapter contends that theological field education is an essential, if not primary, locus for cultivating and embodying moral imagination in seminary students. Emerging from the author’s experience as an immigrant, Queer, Asian American woman theological educator, the metaphor of interpretation guides the pedagogical exploration of theological field education. This exploration further engages the concepts critically intersubjective (Courtney Goto) and interstitial integrity (Rita Nakashima Brock) in the pedagogical work of cultivating moral imagination. In particular, this chapter examines Union Theological Seminary’s Integrative and Field-Based Education program as a case study for the interpretive, critical intersubjective, and interstitial work in cultivating moral imagination.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Throughout this chapter, I use translation and interpretation interchangeably recognizing that they are closely related with some differences. Translators use the medium of written text and translate documents into the language they are more proficient in. It’s uni-directional. An interpreter’s medium is oral and bi-directional. They translate on the spot, without the use of dictionary or resource materials. “The Difference between Translating and Interpreting,” accessed January 19, 2019, http://www.languagescientific.com/the-difference-between-translation-and-interpreting/.

  2. 2.

    Suki Kim, The Interpreter (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 16.

  3. 3.

    Kim, The Interpreter, 91, emphasis mine.

  4. 4.

    Jhumpa Lahiri, In Other Words, trans. Ann Goldstein (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2016), EPUB e-book, 112–13. Jhumpa Lahiri writes that Bengali is her mother tongue and English, her stepmother tongue. As she became more proficient in English, the mother tongue took a backstage yet “remained a demanding phantom, still present.”

  5. 5.

    One such story is documented in Carola Suarez-Orozco and Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, Children of Immigration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 75–76.

  6. 6.

    Kim, The Interpreter, 91.

  7. 7.

    See Su Yon Pak, “Coming Home/Coming Out: Reflections of a Queer Family and the Challenge of Eldercare in the Korean Diaspora,” in Theology and Sexuality 17, no. 3 (2011): 337–52 for this daily negotiating and interpreting. Also see Kathleen T. Talvacchia, Disruptive Coherence: Coming Out as Erotic Ethical Practice (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019), 1–2.

  8. 8.

    For fuller discussion of this, see Jin Young Choi, “Phronēsis, the Other Wisdom Sister,” in Leading Wisdom: Asian and Asian North American Women Leaders, ed. Su Yon Pak and Jung Ha Kim (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2017), 107–09.

  9. 9.

    Courtney Goto introduces a critical intersubjective approach to research in Practical Theology. She then employs the approach as a paradigm for pedagogy, in Taking on Practical Theology: The Idolization of Context and the Hope of Community (Leiden: Brill, 2018).

  10. 10.

    Goto, Taking on Practical Theology, 192.

  11. 11.

    Goto, Taking on Practical Theology, 97.

  12. 12.

    Goto, Taking on Practical Theology, 97.

  13. 13.

    Kathleen T. Talvacchia, Critical Minds and Discerning Hearts: A Spirituality of Multicultural Teaching (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2003), 10. While Talvacchia is writing about teaching in diverse contexts, this concept also applies to interpreting.

  14. 14.

    Goto, Taking on Practical Theology, 106. Goto discusses the presences/absences and matchings/mismatchings in faith community formations in general and Asian American faith communities in particular.

  15. 15.

    Elliot W. Eisner, The Educational Imagination: On the Design and Evaluation of School Programs (New York, NY: Macmillan College Publishing Company, 1994).

  16. 16.

    Rita Nakashima Brock, “Cooking without Recipes,” in Off the Menu: Asian and Asian North American Women’s Religion and Theology, ed. Rita Nakashima Brock et al. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 140. An earlier version of this essay appears in “Interstitial Integrity: Reflections toward an Asian American Women’s Theology,” in Introduction to Christian Theology: Contemporary North American Perspectives, ed. Roger A. Badham (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 183–96.

  17. 17.

    Brock, “Cooking without Recipes,” 125–26.

  18. 18.

    Brock, “Cooking without Recipes,” 126.

  19. 19.

    Craig Dykstra uses the word “pastoral” to refer to diverse traditions in Christianity and the various offices, both ordained and laypersons exercising leadership. See Craig Dykstra, “Pastoral and Ecclesial Imagination,” in For Life Abundant: Practical Theology, Theological Education and Christian Ministry, ed. Dorothy C. Bass and Craig Dykstra (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdsman, 2008), 41.

  20. 20.

    Dykstra, “Pastoral and Ecclesial Imagination,” 50.

  21. 21.

    Dykstra, “Pastoral and Ecclesial Imagination,” 41–61.

  22. 22.

    In 2017, the Presbyterian/Reformed Theological Field Educator’s Caucus (PRTFE) of Association of Theological Field Education published a paper introducing the dynamics of pastoral imagination with field education supervisors and mentors. See Matthew Floding et al., “Engaging the Dynamics of Pastoral Imagination for Field Education,” Reflective Practice: Formation and Supervision in Ministry 37 (2017): 137–54.

  23. 23.

    Charles Foster et al., Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 5. Foster draws on the work of William Sullivan who urged ministry education to bring back integrative practices of apprentices: apprentice of knowledge, apprentice of skill, and apprentice of character formation.

  24. 24.

    For Dykstra, this imaginative capacity involves four practices. First is the practice of sustained engagement with sacred texts and practices of one’s tradition(s) and the capacity to (re)interpret them for this contemporary life and context. Second is a practice that develops an understanding of human nature and “a reliable sense of what makes human beings tick, of who people are and how they operate.” The third practice hones a complex understanding of organizations and institutions and how they operate, both on a day-to-day level and on a longer-term strategic level. And the fourth practice sharpens historical, contextual, and analytical understanding of the world that the church exists to serve. These four practices are woven together with the clarity of mind and spirit about what it means to worship God. See Dykstra, “Pastoral and Ecclesial Imagination,” 52.

  25. 25.

    Rev. Dr. William Barber II, “Reviving the Heart of Democracy” presented at the Democratic National Convention 2016, YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFERX2FExNY.

  26. 26.

    Kelly Brown Douglas, “Toward a Just Earth: Courageous Faith in Challenging Times,” Dean’s Address at Inaugural Convocation of Episcopal Divinity School Union Theological Seminary, October 30, 2018, https://utsnyc.edu/eds-at-union-convocation/.

  27. 27.

    See Mai-Anh Le Tran, Reset the Heart: Unlearning Violence, Relearning Hope (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2017), 16–17 for discussion on “testifying bodies” and “teaching bodies.”

  28. 28.

    Kathleen Cahalan et al., Integrating Work in Theological Education (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2017), 206.

  29. 29.

    Fumitaka Matsuoka, Learning to Speak a New Tongue: Imagining a Way that Holds People Together—An Asian American Conversation (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011).

  30. 30.

    Matsuoka, Learning to Speak a New Tongue, 4.

  31. 31.

    Matsuoka, Learning to Speak a New Tongue, 4.

  32. 32.

    Joe Holland and Peter Henriot, Social Analysis: Linking Faith and Justice (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983). Social analysis is a tool to analyze the historical and structural relationships in order to explore the issues below the surface. It focuses on systems by understanding the practices as well as values and ideology embedded in the systems. It offers a “pastoral cycle” reflection of see/judge/act. For updated work, see Maria Cimperman, Social Analysis for the 21st Century (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015).

  33. 33.

    Coming from the discipline of psychology, System-Centered Theory (SCT) proposes that “living human systems” are systems that are similar in structure, function, and dynamics. Systems grow and transform by differentiating and integrating differences. SCT offers a method for managing conflict, leading change, and improving communications in an organization. See Yvonne M. Agazarian and Susan P. Gantt, Autobiography of a Theory: Developing a Theory of Living Human Systems and Its Systems-centered Practice (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2000).

  34. 34.

    The reframing method of the four-frames approach to organization and leadership by Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal advocates for identifying and understanding four frames (structural, human resource, political, and symbolic) that operate in organizations and leaders. This method helps us to draw a more complex and comprehensive picture of an organization. See Lee Bolman and Terrance Deal, Reframing Organization: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, 6th ed. (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2017).

  35. 35.

    James A. Banks et al., Learning In and Out of School in Diverse Environments: Life-Long, Life-Wide, Life-Deep (Seattle, WA: LIFE Center, 2007), 13. Banks and colleagues conceptualized this framework that highlights developmental (life-long), spatial/contextual (life-wide), and value-oriented dimensions (life-deep). See also, Philip Bell, “Life-Long, Life-Wide, and Life-Deep Learning,” in Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, ed. James A. Banks (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2012), 1395–96.

  36. 36.

    I adapted Critical Learning Assessment from Stephen Brookfield’s Critical Incident Questionnaire to address specific questions of integration and identification of the student’s learning needs. See Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1995), 115 for the original set of questions.

  37. 37.

    Christian A. B. Scharen and Sharon L. Miller, “Making Theology Matter: Field Education as the Practical-Prophetic Heart of Effective Ministry Preparation,” Auburn Studies no. 24 (2018): 2.

  38. 38.

    Scharen and Miller, “Making Theology Matter,” 21.

  39. 39.

    Edward Foley, Theological Reflection across Religious Traditions: The Turn to Reflective Believing (New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2015).

  40. 40.

    Robert Kinast, Making Faith-Sense: Theological Reflection in Everyday Life (Collegeville, PA: The Liturgical Press, 1999).

  41. 41.

    Elizabeth Bounds, “Theological Reflection in Contextual Education: An Elusive Practice,” in Contextualizing Theological Education, eds. Theodore Brelsford and P. Alice Rogers (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2008).

  42. 42.

    Joe Holland and Peter Henriot, Social Analysis.

  43. 43.

    See Patricia O’Connell Killen and John De Beer, The Art of Theological Reflection (New York, NY: Crossroads, 1994).

  44. 44.

    Helen Cameron et al., Theological Reflection for Human Flourishing: Pastoral Practice and Public Theology (London: SCM Press, 2012).

  45. 45.

    Christian A. B. Scharen and Eileen R. Campbell-Reed, “Learning Pastoral Imagination: A Five-Year Report on How New Ministers Learn in Practice,” Auburn Studies no. 21 (2016): 17.

  46. 46.

    emilie townes, “Everydayness” Delivered at the Voices of Sophia Breakfast, July 9, 2006, https://voicesofsophia.wordpress.com/2006/07/09/everydayness-by-emilie-townes/.

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  1. Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY, USA

    Su Yon Pak

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  1. Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Pui-lan Kwok

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Pak, S.Y. (2020). Cultivating Moral Imagination in Theological Field Education. In: Kwok, Pl. (eds) Asian and Asian American Women in Theology and Religion. Asian Christianity in the Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36818-0_14

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