Pioneer Ordination: not nearly so radical or institutional enough

I've had a short article posted on the Fresh Expressions "Share the Guide" blog where I share some thoughts on Pioneer ordination. It comes at a time when various folk are reviewing and assessing the direction of Pioneer and, for my money, falling into the trap of defaulting to "more of the same" or "institutions always suck". Let me know what you think, anyway.

Yesterday, I had a letter published in the Guardian after they'd done a bit of a hatchet job on the Church of England over the weekend in the midst of controversies to do with sexuality and women bishops. There's a lot to be embarrassed about in this church many of us are part of, but i do wish there were more insightful analyses of our predicament.

As a bit of a final flourish, let me add my voice congratulating the Church on opening the door, and not leaving it slightly ajar, to women bishops.

Comments

[gareth powell]

Hi Richard,
I must claim to have come away from your post on the share the guide blog with a high degree of scepticism. I was particularly worried by your assertion that "[s]urely, all ordinands need to learn in a cycle of action-reflection, without compromising the benefits for some of concentrated academic study." This action-reflection orientation betrays a certain affinity with the current ideological shift within contemporary higher education towards a rather instrumentalist understanding of learning. Funding is being pushed towards subjects that can be shown to be immediately and practically applicable, albeit within the framework of capitalism – so in a rather crude economic sense – rather than the Church of England, leaving the humanities in particular at great risk in the medium and long term. Learning for learnings sake is secondary to this, and learning as a virtue in and off itself is now largely forgotten (aside from the rather elite institutions that can ignore this preposterous move).

I think you miss the bigger question that needs to be asked, you hint at it when you say, “Pioneers cannot afford to 'go it alone' without defeating the essence of what church is.” But do Pioneers know what the Church is? Do regular Ordinands have a clear grasp of the historic One, Holy, Catholic Church? Unfortunately I do not think the majority do. What needs the most radical overall is the teaching of the Church tradition - incorporating missiology within that, but set within its proper historic context. Pioneers in particular seem to see no reason to study or understand the past and as such are more often than not starkly unaware of the various ways the Church of England has understood its task and gone about carrying that out. By concentrating on ‘contextual’ forms of learning the danger is that if something is not particularly practical in a rather immediate and reductionist sense then it could perhaps be seen to be of little or no use. A view mirrored elsewhere as I have indicated. Whilst I agree that missiology must become more of a core-component to Ordination training rather than a tag-on for the few, I also see the great need for a more thorough-going immersion in the tradition – which is of course itself part of the mission of God in a richer and wider sense of the word – in order that people may more fully understand their priestly vocation in the world today (as well as those in their care).

There is also of course the need for priests (including pioneers) to be prepared to be deployed anywhere, as University Army, Navy, RAF, Hospital Chaplains, as Canons and Deans in Cathedrals, urban through to country parson style parish priests, Bishops, educators etc… To focus on contextual learning is a useful skill to learn but one that must not be at the fore of learning lest you you simply become undeployable in any but a few contexts. This is my worry with ‘on-the-job’ training. I think it is a naive move that misses the riches of learning for learnings sake, without worrying too much about how this will go down in the Parish you end up at (which incidentally you may not know till the last few months of training).

The other disturbing aspect of this educational framework is the supposed binary between theory and practise that allegedly occurs in theology. This is really an invention for true learning is virtuous in all its forms. As such the word ‘practical’ in practical theology is really a misnomer (see Graham Ward more on this). All theology if it is true theology is practical, this of course do not negate the existence of bad theology, and there is of course plenty of that about. Sacramental theology could be said to be deeply unpractical, yet if explored for a few weeks it can become profoundly moving theology, reflect on it in your mind and soul for a few years as you eat bread and drink wine and the true wonders of the sacraments become obvious with regards to the life of the Church gathered and dispersed. Of course this point is also part of a wider issue that occurred during the enlightenment where theology proper developed into a University discipline and thus lost some of its true form, but this is being readdressed and many theology faculties are now writing theology that is concerned with the life of the Church in the world rather than the life of the University in the eyes of RAE. Radical Orthodoxy is certainly one of the most promising of these shifts and it certainly offers a very robust view of education that is enormously critical of instrumentalist views.

sorry have probably rambled enough. I have probably miss-read you and overemphasises things you did not emphasise and ignored points that are congruous with mine. Apologies if this is the case.

ps you going to this Fresh Expressions conference for research people in September at Durham?

[Richard Sudworth]

I hear what you're saying Gareth and I suspect I'm not quite where you posit me but I would want to question the assumptions of some of the Radical Orthodoxy view. In talking of an action-reflection cycle I'm not defaulting to a "practical theology" way of thinking nor taking the assumption of typical contextual theology. Rather, I'm wanting to highlight that all our theologies are inherently contextual and most ordination training avoids explicit ownership of it. My gripe with RO (and therre's loads of it that I love) is that Milbank, especially, seems to persist in calling the church back to a pristine identity that never actually existed. Some of Graham Ward's work declaims a political radicalism that makes no actual difference. There is a danger that RO is so wonderfully philosophical that it is of no earthly use....and much clergy training is of that ilk. The opposite end of the spectrum begins theology from the year 1965 and underscores thinking from a dubious (and inherently impossible) power relation.

I guess I'm wanting to say that ordination training needs to come from a place of mission (understood as the trinitarian heart of God in engaging the world rather than programmatic efforts to transform specific peoples and cultures). Can I meet you half way and say that learning is good for learning's sake only because as we learn we enter into the wisdom of God? And a truly missionary theology discovers and hungers for the inherited tradition and the global church....So, Gareth, yes, but.

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[amarige]

i like this post.

[Randolph]

Let me add my voice congratulating the Church on opening the door, and not leaving it slightly ajar, to women bishops.

[Jerome]

There's a lot to be embarrassed about in this church many of us are part of, but i do wish there were more insightful analyses of our predicament.