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"Shaping Future Leaders" with Javier Viera · The Weight

• 0:00
  Chris McAlilly: Hi. I'm Chris McAlilly.
• 0:01
  Eddie Rester: And I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.
• 0:04
  Eddie Rester: Today we have Dr. Javier Vieira.
• 0:04
  Eddie Rester: Javier is a longtime friend of mine, going back to our days in seminary. He is the President and Professor of Education and Leadership at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. Today we're talking about theological education.
• 0:20
  Eddie Rester: We're talking about how people learn best, how to engage people in deep learning. And it's a conversation, I think, for those of us in the church or in leadership, I think it's a pretty significant conversation to hear how things are shifting and beginning to move. Chris, what did you think about the conversation?
• 0:40
  Chris McAlilly: We've talked a lot on the podcast about the way in which the church has been in decline, the destabilization of the institutions that have supported the church as it has been. We need as many voices and examples to help us imagine the way forward. And I hear this conversation is one of those voices. One of the things we talk about is kind of styles of education that emerge from Latin America, and the ways in which those can be helpful in changing the dynamic between teacher and student, empowering the student to be a dialogical partner, so somebody who's in dialog with the teacher and with other classmates, so that we learn in this world that we live in which is more diverse and more, you know, people coming from more parts of the globe into the Christian family.
• 1:31
  Chris McAlilly: And, you know, Javier gives us a way to kind of think about how a multi-ethnic, international church might shape its pastors and its parishioners for kind of the next generation. And so for me, it was it was energizing. It was exciting. It was helpful.
• 1:50
  Chris McAlilly: And you know, if you're interested in education, if you're interested in the church or theological education, moving forward, all of those, those topics we address today.
• 2:00
  Eddie Rester: One of the things we've bumped into with a lot of our guests on here is the decline, not just of the church institution, but all institutions seem to be collapsing, whether it's social groups in small towns or adherence to different old institutions. That has crumbled.
• 2:19
  Eddie Rester: What I love about this conversation is that Javier is one of the voices that's starting to look around the corner about building the next institution.
• 2:27
  Chris McAlilly: Yep.
• 2:27
  Eddie Rester: And I think that's exciting, because I think whatever institution we love or are part of, to finally get to a place where we say, okay, this is what we have to do. And he talks a little bit about that at the end. If this is our core mission, what do we have to have? What tools do we need, and what does it look like going forward? And I think that's exciting for me, because I think all of our institutions are in a place now, as hopefully we're starting, in some ways, to grasp the need for those to say, okay, if we need them, what are they going to look like, and how do we build that?
• 3:05
  Chris McAlilly: I hope you enjoy the conversation today. Thanks for always being with us here on The Weight, and if you like the conversation, share it with a friend.
• 3:12
  Chris McAlilly: [INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise.
• 3:17
  Chris McAlilly: It requires deep wisdom to navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and unwarranted hope to inspire durable change.
• 3:29
  Eddie Rester: As Christ-centered leaders in churches non profits, the academy and the marketplace, we all carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.
• 3:39
  Chris McAlilly: But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.
• 3:50
  Eddie Rester: That's why The Weight exists: to create space for the conversations that challenge our assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.
• 3:59
  Chris McAlilly: Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness in tradition, and responsiveness to a changing world.
• 4:08
  Eddie Rester: So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a non profit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of Christ-centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight.
• 4:19
  Eddie Rester: [END INTRO] I'm excited today to have my friend Javier Vieira with us today on The Weight. Welcome, Javier.
• 4:30
  Javier Viera: Thank you. Thank you both for having me.
• 4:32
  Eddie Rester: We've known each other a bit.
• 4:34
  Javier Viera: It's been a while.
• 4:35
  Chris McAlilly: How do you guys know one another? You've told me that you know one another, but I don't know the story.
• 4:41
  Javier Viera: Yeah, we were classmates at Duke Divinity School. We actually probably got there on the same day and on the first day of classes we were in CM 10 was the name of the class, and we were in a group that actually turned out to be a pretty incredible group of people. And we just deeply bonded as a group and have stayed connected over the years in different ways.
• 5:06
  Eddie Rester: Some of it was simply pain. Dr. Efird's tests and studying for those or stopping and leaving notes...
• 5:14
  Eddie Rester: Anyway. Yeah, so our time at Duke Divinity School was really... Everybody thinks they go to a school during a golden era of a school. But for us, it really was a great era at that school. Our CM 10, which was kind of this introductory one-hour class, our leader of that was a guy who ended up my mentor and Javier, I'm sure some of your mentor as well at Duke Divinity School.
• 5:40
  Javier Viera: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:41
  Eddie Rester: And is even part of the, I'm sure will be part of the conversation that we'll have today.
• 5:46
  Javier Viera: Yeah.
• 5:47
  Eddie Rester: So how... You're the dean of Garrett Evangelical.
• 5:51
  Javier Viera: The president.
• 5:52
  Javier Viera: The president, excuse me.
• 5:53
  Javier Viera: We have a dean. Yeah, slightly different.
• 5:55
  Eddie Rester: Slightly different.
• 5:56
  Chris McAlilly: For those who don't know what's the difference between a president and a dean?
• 6:00
  Javier Viera: So, it's a very good question. In an embedded seminary, meaning a seminary that's part of a larger university, which is what I was in my position prior, when I was the dean of Drew Theological School at Drew University. The dean is kind of the executive leader of the school. In a standalone seminary, that position is called the president of the seminary, and the dean is the person who really oversees the academic life, whereas in the embedded context, that would be the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. So just nomenclature, but similar roles.
• 6:39
  Eddie Rester: Yeah. So for folks who don't know anything about Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, give us a thumbnail sketch of the school. And what I want us to talk about is what y'all do in terms of theological education, but why that's important. We'll get to all that and why that's still important today.
• 6:57
  Javier Viera: Yeah, I love telling Garrett's story because I think it's unique. I'm so it's, we are about 172-year-old institution. It was founded in 1853. And really today, Garrett is the expression of three, what was three previous schools, Garrett Biblical Institute, Evangelical Theological Seminary, and the Chicago Training School. Garrett Biblical Institute was the first Methodist, the second oldest seminary of the Methodist Church, the first one out in the Midwest. And it trained people you know, largely for the Methodist Church.
• 7:43
  Javier Viera: The Chicago training school was really a school that focused on the training of... How do I?
• 7:48
  Javier Viera: What's the best way of explaining this? But really was at the forefront of the missionary movement and of the deacon and deaconess movement, and really provided a platform and a space for women religious leaders as well. So it was at the forefront of training and preparing women religious leaders.
• 8:15
  Javier Viera: And then Evangelical Theological Seminary was originally a German speaking school that really kind of was the Methodist, or Wesleyan expression of German speakers who came to this country, and then over the course of you know, it's a long story, but over the course of history, those three schools came together into what is today, Garrett Evangelical.
• 8:37
  Chris McAlilly: That merger was in the 1930s. Is that...
• 8:42
  Javier Viera: The first merger?
• 8:42
  Javier Viera: Yeah, the merger between Garrett and Chicago Training School was then, and then in 1972 was the merger between Garrett and Evangelical.
• 8:54
  Eddie Rester: Tell us a little bit about your journey. You started out as United. You're still a United Methodist pastor.
• 9:00
  Javier Viera: Yeah.
• 9:00
  Eddie Rester: Let me correct that. You started out though serving a church and then got your PhD. What led you into the world of theological education?
• 9:10
  Eddie Rester: How did you end up there?
• 9:14
  Javier Viera: So you know, as you mentioned, I, for the first 20 years of my ministry, I was a congregational minister, mostly in New York City, but served other congregations. I also served in campus ministry. I served in youth ministry, and so multiple, multiple roles in a congregational setting. And I loved it and very much still think of myself primarily as a pastor.
• 9:44
  Javier Viera: But during my time in my last appointment, my local congregational appointment, some folks at Drew reached out to me, in part because of people that we knew in common, but also the research that I did as part of my dissertation work really had to do with the formation of religious leaders in dialog across differences. And the particular difference that I looked at was religious difference. And so it was really a study of multi-religious, multi-faith dialog and the learning that takes place in spaces of difference.
• 10:25
  Javier Viera: A lot of time when we talk about different religious traditions, we like to focus on what they have in common. How are we similar? I wasn't interested in that. I was really interested in how are we different and how do we work? I mean, how do we hold that difference? What happens when you have competing claims to truth? How do you reconcile those? How do you work through that? Can you even or should you even try to reconcile them?
• 10:49
  Javier Viera: And really, what I looked at was the impact that being in intentional relationships and dialogs across difference, the impact that had on people's identity as religious leaders, and the impact that that had on their spiritual faith, their faith as well. And that led me into a conversation with them when they were going through their dean search at Drew and I mean, I was fortunate to have been selected. Was there for almost seven years, and then came out here to Garrett, and have been here now five years.
• 11:22
  Chris McAlilly: I want to get into institutional leadership, but maybe to go a little bit deeper on your kind of, your academic work and your study. So you, my understanding is you were using some of the theoretical frameworks from kind of the liberationist movement, from, I'm not sure how to pronounce the Brazilian educator's name.
• 11:45
  Javier Viera: Yes, Paulo Freire.
• 11:47
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah, Freire.
• 11:47
  Chris McAlilly: And you know, my understanding is that the seminal text from his work is the "Pedagogy of the Oppressed." For folks who don't know that work, or maybe don't understand that kind of movement coming out of Latin America, both within education and ultimately in philosophical or theological context, would you mind just kind of giving us a bit of a thumbnail sketch?
• 12:09
  Javier Viera: Sure, but I would... I'll start by saying that it's a very complicated text. It is not an easy text to read, and so I'm not going to do it justice, but I'll try. But really what what Freire is doing in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" is he's really kind of detailing for the reader the work that he did in in rural and urban settings in Brazil at a time when poverty was rampant and literacy was was low. And often it was that kind of literacy that prevented, the lack of literacy, that prevented people from having access to the resources that they needed, but also the power that they inherently had within themselves to transform their realities into something that was different and within which they could flourish.
• 13:05
  Javier Viera: And so what Freire does in this text is he really describes the ways in which his method of teaching literacy is also a methodology of raising consciousness. And his term is"conscientization," which is it's not easily translated into English, but it's really about people as they learn language, and the way they learn certain words also opens up new worlds and new possibilities, but more importantly, their own agency as they come to understand those terms. As they come to they really set the agenda, their learning agenda themselves, by the questions that they ask around certain terms, and then that conversation then begins about, well, what's, what's my role in that? What's my agency?
• 13:56
  Javier Viera: How do we transform this reality? And so it's an explanation.
• 14:03
  Javier Viera: It's a very simplistic way of doing it, but it was his methodology of how he helped people to see that they weren't constrained once and forever to a particular kind of existence.
• 14:16
  Javier Viera: And so and liberationist theologians pick up on Freire's work and really see the gospel in light of this, that the gospel was also the way that the people, as they learn language, and they learn their own agency, and then they begin to read the gospel, they bring that same set of tools, that same mindset, into asking critical questions about the text that we read and what that then implies for their own reality.
• 14:43
  Chris McAlilly: So I don't know, and have not read deeply in this literature, and so I feel like I'm coming out very much as a beginner or novice. But my understanding is that Freire is challenging kind of traditional understandings of education, where you would think of a teacher coming in then depositing information, the student being relatively passive. And what he wants to do is change the dynamic, so that the student and the teacher are in dialog with one another, and that there's more agency on the part of the student.
• 15:14
  Javier Viera: Exactly right. So what he called the banking model of education, which is what many of us probably grew up with, that, you have a teacher who is the authority, who has a stance at a front of a room, and has a particular body of knowledge that they impart. And our role as learners is to basically bank knowledge, right, absorb it, and then move out into the world with that knowledge as it has been presented to us.
• 15:41
  Javier Viera: And Freire's model is much more dynamic, much more wanting critical engagement with the assumptions of that banking model and the assumptions of the content that we... So he's really asking questions about...
• 15:52
  Javier Viera: He's asking epistemological questions. How do we know what we know? And how do we know when we know it, right? And what is it that determines when one has, you know, mastery of a particular subject, right?
• 16:09
  Chris McAlilly: Right. Yeah. And so then, you know, I'm just, I'm kind of extrapolating or thinking forward to at where our conversation is going to go. But if one model of education would be to shape or to form, another model of education would be to empower and to equip, and it seems like fear would kind of lead you in that kind of direction to...
• 16:30
  Javier Viera: Very much. The role of the educator is to walk alongside, right? It's alongside with. And the educator is always a learner. The educator never stops being a learner, right?
• 16:42
  Javier Viera: But there's also, there's often a misunderstanding of Freire's work, that he very much thinks that the educator has a specific role and does have a certain knowledge to impart. It's not as if we don't, but it's the way in which that happens and the relationship with the student, right? Go ahead, Eddie.
• 17:02
  Eddie Rester: Well, yeah, I was just, I'm sitting here thinking about our seminary education. So we had teachers who definitely was the bank model.
• 17:09
  Javier Viera: Yeah.
• 17:09
  Eddie Rester: It was the, you know, Dr Steinmetz had a wealth of information that he gave to us about really obscure things in church history. But you mentioned our CM 10 class, which was where I, you know, Doctor...
• 17:29
  Javier Viera: Bill Lawrence.
• 17:29
  Eddie Rester: Bill Lawrence really walked alongside of us. I mean, there were texts, but really our conversations helped guide... Am I thinking kind of in the same? I know it's..
• 17:41
  Javier Viera: You are, you are.
• 17:41
  Javier Viera: As a matter of fact, I want to use the example, because I've actually told this story in a lot of different settings, privately, but using our our church history class as an example> I remember a day where I walked up to our professor. I don't want to besmirch him of blessed memory. But I remember that we had been, we had spent, you know, four months in Western Europe. And I remember asking him one day after class, I said,"You know, at the very same time that this is happening a whole continent away, land is being pillaged, people are being enslaved." You know, whole people are being... You know, I mean, at least the island that I come from, the population of the island was completely wiped out, right? I said, "we haven't touched that at all." And I remember him saying to me, he's like, "That's a good question, but that's a question you should ask in Hertzog's class." And I just, I was dumbfounded. I didn't know what to say. He's like, you know, "That's important, but it's not the content I'm going to get into that here."
• 18:49
  Eddie Rester: Right.
• 18:50
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah. And so it seems like the question... So perhaps, if you were adopting, if you were steeped in, or well versed in a pedagogy that comes forward from Freire, the goal there would be a different approach to the question. If the student came forward, maybe just describe what, what would have, what might be a different way to address that question. If a student were to come to you with that concern, it seems like... I guess what I would think you would do would be to say,"That's so interesting, tell me more." You know, kind of, yeah,
• 19:25
  Javier Viera: That's one way.
• 19:25
  Javier Viera: Or, or, yeah, I mean, absolutely
• 19:26
  Chris McAlilly: And it seems like the best parts of that right. Or what I think what I try to do as an educator, and I try very much to be in the tradition of Freire, but is to not only that, but to have the students say more, and to slowly, in dialog, help formulate a different set of questions that lead us to explore the topic in a much more critical way. And I say critical in a positive way, not in a negative way. So it's really about the kind of dialog that takes place in the learning setting, so that it's not question and answer, but it's more question and dialog, right?
• 20:13
  Chris McAlilly: would be an awareness of one's social, political, and economic conditions by virtue of the fact that we don't come into the take its own shape, so that we came to understand each voice in conversation from the same, you know, social locations, from the same vantage point. And the benefit of a dialogical approach between student and... It just, it makes that relationship, a student and teacher, it just makes it more complex, because it assumes, especially when you're dealing... So I went to Candler School of Theology, and we had folks from around, mostly folks from the southeast, coming from but we also had many students from South Korea. And so in a class, you would have folks from the American south that come from both white and Black context, various socioeconomic differences that would be represented. And then you would bring in a person from South Korea that would be coming from a very different context.
• 21:24
  Chris McAlilly: the classroom has an ability to kind of help us to develop a sense of respect, a sense of humility, epistemological humility, that we're coming from a different place. But it seems like that's a big part of the dialogical approach. That would be a kind of epistemological humility to say, "Yes, this is one place from which you can say, 'I know what I know, and what is true is coming from this tradition.'" But there's an awareness that not everybody's come from the same place, the same continent, the same socioeconomic perspective, and those perspectives are valuable in the classroom, developing a kind of critical consciousness together.
• 22:03
  Eddie Rester: And I would think, particularly as we think about the role of preparing people for ministry, whether that's the pastorate or community ministry, helping people learn to engage scripture and texts around scripture in history that informs who we are, I would think that that would be extremely valuable, not just in the classroom setting, but on the far end of education.
• 22:28
  Javier Viera: Yeah, and let me give an example, Eddie, because I think you're right on. I think you're both spot on. But for example, in the classroom, when somebody would ask a question like that, I think a mature educator would ask, or would help the students to begin asking, like, Why? Why are we following this particular storyline? And when we're not, and when we're following this particular historical, using that subject as an example, what stories aren't we listening to or aren't we learning about?
• 23:02
  Javier Viera: Whose voices aren't we listening to? Whose text aren't we reading? And then the question can become why and what are we missing?
• 23:11
  Javier Viera: And so you apply that then, I mean, you think about, like, I think about my work in a congregation. I think, who isn't here? Why aren't they here? What would it require of us to create space for them to be here, or do they even need to be here? Why aren't we somewhere else, right?
• 23:28
  Javier Viera: I mean, and what kinds of relationships and dialogs and learnings could take place if that shift were to take place?
• 23:37
  Javier Viera: Right? It's those kinds of questions that I think are really important that begin to be modeled in a classroom, that then have direct import in pastoral ministry.
• 23:50
  Chris McAlilly: So there's a couple things that I'm thinking, then I want to pitch it back over to Eddie. One thing, if you're coming from a place where you have less historical power influence. This model is empowering, and it's a way of it, you know, student participating in their own liberation, the sense of, you know, centering folks that are at the margins. That's kind of the kind of the trajectory of this model.
• 24:19
  Chris McAlilly: But if you're in a position of power, or you come from a place of of privilege, it's a way of saying... It's a way of saying your story is not the only story. There are other voices that need to be heard. Perhaps the way in which you're even telling the history may be need to be made more, a bit more complex, and I do think that when that is played out over the course of time, if you have a really... There's a wisdom to this style of teaching, because you're not dismissing one voice for the sake of other voices, but it's a way in which those voices can be in dialog and enriching one another over the
• 24:59
  Javier Viera: Yeah, Ted Smith wrote a really important book course of time.
• 25:01
  Javier Viera: that I think all theological educators need to read. It's called "The End of Theological Education," and in it, he talks about... The opening of the book is a story of Lyman Beecher and and his kind of professional trajectory. And one of the things that he experiences is the decline, or eventually, the total disruption of what Ted Smith calls the standing order.
• 25:29
  Javier Viera: Right? And this is what we're talking about.
• 25:31
  Javier Viera: I mean, I think most of us are, our theological formation has been mostly by what Smith called the standing order. And yet there are other voices, other traditions, other perspectives, that the standing order either doesn't allow room for or are always assumed not to be normative, because the standing order is what is normative and is the standard that everything else is compared to or measured by. And what I think this, what we're talking about, is really decentering that practice, or almost trying to disrupt it so much so, so that we are able to see and hear other voices and other stories as also normative, and not always in comparison to or as a reflection of that standing order.
• 26:25
  Eddie Rester: Giving them the voices to stand on their own, rather than only in response. So I want to back the conversation up just a second, because we've kind of drifted in the direction I want us to go today to talk about theological education. For folks who are listening that aren't preachers, didn't go to seminary. What's a brief understanding of this is what theological education is, or this has historically been the goal of theological education?
• 26:56
  Javier Viera: Yeah, I think historically, I think theological education has had two primary purposes. One is the preparation and the formation of those who will go on to lead either in congregational ministry or other forms of ministry. And then the second would be the preparation and formation of the scholars who will continue to research and eventually teach those in theological education. So it's a, I think those two have historically been the primary foci of what theological education is about and what it does. That's changing, but those two are still very much, at least at Garrett and other schools, those are still very much at the heart of what we do.
• 27:42
  Eddie Rester: I was reading recently that some statistics that, after several years of downturn, the number of people enrolling in theological education actually is increasing, and in some places, increasing dramatically.
• 27:57
  Eddie Rester: Mainline seminaries, I think it's down about enrollment is down about 4%. So I think we're in this moment of significant change in where it's happening, who's offering it, who's going to seminary, who's getting that theological education, and how it's offering it. So what are some of, from your seat, at Garrett, but also, you also sit on the University Senate, which is a United Methodist organization that really helps us... How do I say this correctly? Y'all really help...
• 28:32
  Eddie Rester: You review United Methodist colleges, universities, and seminaries. So kind of, what's in the water right now for theological education? What's that impact maybe going to be on the local church or on even the larger world around us?
• 28:48
  Javier Viera: Yeah, so let me take your first question first, and I want to start by saying...
• 28:53
  Eddie Rester: Usually, by the way, you need to know Chris is the one that asks seven questions over three minutes at once. So that was really odd for me to ask a bundle of questions all at once.
• 29:01
  Javier Viera: That's the case, and I may need to come back and have you remind me of what they were. But I would say, let me just start by saying I actually think it's a really thrilling time to be in theological education. I don't want to pretend that it's not hard. And you and I have had conversations offline, Eddie, about you know some of the difficulties that theological education is facing and confronting right now, but I think that you've named part of what makes it a really thrilling experience.
• 29:29
  Javier Viera: So at Garrett, for example, 70% of our graduates still go into some form of congregational ministry, whether that's pastoral ministry, whether it's religious educators or, you know, but about 70%. And then you know, the 30%, other 30%, are going into pastoral counseling. So we have a licensure program for counselors in the state of Illinois. But then you know, some of my favorite students in recent memory... We had a filmmaker who came, who is just a phenomenally gifted artist, and I'm not going to use names, but you would rec, you would know them. We had a Grammy Award winning musician who was a student here, and both of them, I use them both as examples, both of them wanted theological reflection to be able to understand their craft more deeply and so that it could have a more significant impact.
• 30:31
  Javier Viera: So the Grammy Award winning artist, for example, was he didn't need a theological education to be successful, but what he did realize was that some of the music that he was performing and producing didn't have the depth and wasn't touching on the subject matter that he wanted to reach, be able to reach through his musicianship, and he felt that theological education would give him that, and he's done an amazing job at that. The filmmaker was involved in a number of documentary projects, and he kept hitting up against what he called questions of morality and spirituality, and he didn't know how to develop those in any really meaningful or sophisticated way. And he came to seminary because he thought like, "this is where I'll be able to find that." And he did. We'll see what he ends up doing with that in his next projects.
• 31:29
  Javier Viera: But I think to be able to have these kinds of folks in dialog with one another and learning together in classrooms is what makes theological education really kind of thrilling right now. I also think, like you're naming, I think as a country, we're at a really critical moment and I think that people are starting to think about questions of faith and meaning in ways. I think in our most recent history, the assumption was the church doesn't really have a meaningful public role anymore, and that what we have to just get accustomed to is just becoming a small, marginal influence and try to do what we can. I'm not convinced that that's our future. I actually think that we have the potential to have a really powerful future.
• 32:27
  Javier Viera: Now, I mean, we know from our national scene that there are competing narratives and expressions of that. I stand very firmly in one and feel confident about being shaped by gospel values that inform that.
• 32:43
  Javier Viera: But we're going to have, this is going to be a really interesting next 20, 25, years to how that develops in terms of the university. Go ahead.
• 32:53
  Eddie Rester: No, no. I was just going to say, as you think about that, the role that I think the church has to play right now, I think about AI. I'm thinking about gene editing. I'm thinking about some of the questions in front of us that have huge moral and purpose, and these... I mean things that can, will shift how humans see themselves and relate to one another and relate to the future of humanity. And I tell people all the time, it's time for Christians to claim their voice, not as a domineering,"everybody has to think about the way we do," but we bring something to the table. That filmmaker is going to bring something to the table in his or her arena, just like the musician will. And I think we have to be willing to train Christians theologically, and leaders for those Christians, theologically, the way that they can step in to those places.
• 33:49
  Javier Viera: Yeah, Chris mentioned earlier, you know, epistemological humility. And I think this is kind of where you're going with this Eddie, which is that I think that we need to find our voice and we need to claim our place, but how we do that is different than maybe the way we've done it in the past. And it is around, I would say, a confident humility, that we have something to contribute, that our tradition has transformative potential for good, and how we realize that is with a spirit of humility and accompaniment and purpose. And I think that that is something that we uniquely have to offer in this moment and that we should be. And I hope that we're preparing leaders who will do that.
• 34:34
  Chris McAlilly: Yeah. So that gets me back to how you guys are doing that at Garrett Evangelical and to kind of the vision and mission of the school. What I see on your website is that the vision of the school is "the thriving of the church for the healing of the world." And I wonder, like, if you're painting a picture of what does it look like for the church to thrive, and what does it look like for the world to experience healing? How would you articulate that?
• 34:59
  Javier Viera: Yeah, so that's, you know, what you're expressing is what our vision statement is for the thriving of the church and the healing of the world, and what that looks like for us is expressed, I hope, in our mission, which is the formation of courageous leaders in the way of Jesus, who cultivate communities of justice, compassion, and hope. And I think that that is what we have to offer the world. We have, you know, we're part of a tradition in which justices of all sorts are at the heart of what we do, and that part of the spirit in which we do that is in a spirit of compassion. And I think that that's a word that that Christians shy away from and under utilize and, and I wish that we used it more confidently than we do.
• 35:53
  Javier Viera: But then more than anything, I think... And I don't know if you if this resonates with you, but I, I remember my time in seminary, I often felt that when when you start getting deeper into some of the theological history of the church and the ways in which it hasn't been at its best, it's really easy to kind of be kind of almost drawn into the negative impact that the church has had throughout its history. And I remember feeling that you can never say anything positive without first going through the litany of etting people know that you are well aware of all of the ways in which the church has not been consistent in its witness and even faithful in its witness.
• 36:51
  Javier Viera: And what we lose sight of, then, often because we kind of remain there, is that we lose the voice of the message of the gospel as a message of hope and a message of of renewal and of liberation and and we get mired in the negativity.
• 37:09
  Javier Viera: And I'm not... I am one who will never shy away from that, because I think we have to own it. But what we don't own is the power and the need that our communities and our people have for a message of hopefulness, and that the gospel is, in fact, the source and the root of that for many of us.
• 37:30
  Eddie Rester: We can't go back and undo all of... I'm looking across at some of my church history books on my bookshelf right now, we can't undo that.
• 37:37
  Eddie Rester: And somebody one day, will look at my ministry and they'll say,"Eddie got these things wrong, and the churches he led got these things wrong." And it's not a "but," it's an "and." Those people who did all those things wrong throughout history are also the people who allowed me to know faith today in some way, and for you and I to have experience of friendship and the faith over the course of decades.
• 38:05
  Eddie Rester: And so... I was at a ministry partner in Dallas today, 40 churches, 42 churches, 40 years ago, decided there was a better way to impact West Dallas. And despite all that has not been good with church unity and fightings and division in the last 40 years, this entity has found a way to continue to tie churches together in the work of the Kingdom.
• 38:33
  Javier Viera: Yeah, absolutely.
• 38:34
  Eddie Rester: So as you think about that, honoring all that has been, owning what has not been, how does all that begin to tie together in y'all's work helping a thriving church emerge in the world? How do you see the work of Garrett Evangelical shaping students for that, for that good work?
• 38:57
  Javier Viera: I think if we are doing our part of of the formation of future Christian leaders, and I say "our part," because I think multiple parts of the church are involved in this, we have a role, we have an important role. I think that what we're doing is we're at our best, we're helping people to be deeply theologically curious, and that they see their leadership and understand their leadership as deeply grounded within a particular theological tradition that calls them to the work of restoration, the work of healing and the work of liberation and hope. Right? I mean, we could use more words, but that is at the heart of it, right?
• 39:54
  Javier Viera: It's that they have, and they develop with us, the skills to sustain that theological curiosity, other places might say theological imagination, that sustains them and propels them to do that work. But I also think that we, if we're doing that well, we are helping them form a particular kind of character in which that theological imagination is part of it, but also a character of commitment to justice in the world, a commitment to healing that is transforming not only individual lives, but entire communities and entire peoples.
• 40:44
  Javier Viera: And that we're doing that, as I've said already before, but that we're doing that not with the assumption that we have the answer and that we know the way, but that you know as Machado's quote or line is, "El camino, se hacer al andar," which is, "we make the road by walking," right. That you know, when Jesus sends out his disciples at the end of Matthew's Gospel into the wilderness, they have no idea what they're going to. He doesn't even fully understand what he's sending them out to.
• 41:17
  Javier Viera: But what he does do is he promises to be with them always.
• 41:20
  Javier Viera: And if we can claim that, if we hold on to that, we're doing the same exact thing. We're making the road by walking. And that theological formation, that character formation, is what sustains us as we do this work.
• 41:31
  Javier Viera: And part of why I think theological education right now is such a really kind of energizing moment is because we don't know what the future is.
• 41:43
  Javier Viera: We don't know what's happening in our country right now, how it's unfolding.
• 41:46
  Javier Viera: We have a very international community at Garrett as well. I think 27, 28 different countries are represented in our student body, and each of them have their own variation of this, right. And we get the privilege and the honor of helping communities unfold that future, and we get to help them and walk alongside them in creating what their communities will look like, what they will reflect, who will be included, what they will be committed to, the kinds of works of mercy and of justice and of worship that will take place there that will have impact for generations to come.
• 42:26
  Javier Viera: I mean, I think if we're doing our our work well here, those are the kinds of leaders that we're forming and the kinds of skills that they're building.
• 42:37
  Chris McAlilly: So one of the things I'm hearing in your, I think of it as a witness, and it's a powerful witness, is at a time when the church in America has been in long decline over multiple decades, particularly in mainline denominations that are shrinking, that that is cutting off a particular flow of people and funding, there's broader cultural pluralism, and we're living in a more of a post- Christian environment.
• 43:07
  Javier Viera: Absolutely.
• 43:08
  Chris McAlilly: There's vocational shifts that are happening that are reducing the number of people that historically would be coming to seminaries, but there's some new patterns that are emerging there. There are economic pressures that seminaries are facing. There's distrust in institutions. That's the standing order falling apart, you know, perhaps. But in the midst of that, there's also signs of, you know... In the midst of destabilization there are some resources that you found incredibly helpful, and you see a new group of people there, perhaps emerging and coming together, re engaging all of the same and many new sources that historically have been a part of theological education to form a moral theological imagination that potentially would propel people with courage towards justice, towards compassion, towards hope, and that you can imagine a church that would be thriving and in communities in the world, that could be healed. That's powerful, and I'm grateful for the witness.
• 44:13
  Chris McAlilly: And you know, I think, I find myself wondering, as certain forms of institutional life that gave me a lot of that were very good for me personally, Chris, you know, as a southern white male in Mississippi, some of those things fall apart. I wonder, sometimes, you know, what will the church look like for my kids or for my grandkids.
• 44:39
  Chris McAlilly: And I certainly think... I've been reading the Acts of the Apostles and thinking about the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
• 44:44
  Chris McAlilly: And you know, what you see developing in Acts is a multi ethnic, international movement, not one, you know, Jewish messianic sect that would have impacted one small part of the world, but this explosive, powerful, multi ethnic, international thing that's happening. And you know, getting a picture of what that looks like for the 21st Century can be challenging, but I appreciate the ways in which you've been, you kind of are offering that up for us today. Really, really grateful for it.
• 45:19
  Eddie Rester: If you wanted someone out there who's like,"Yeah, that's nice, Javier, but I can do all of that in my local church. I can figure all that out in my local church." Or I can figure that out, you know, Tiktok theologians.
• 45:32
  Javier Viera: Yeah.
• 45:33
  Eddie Rester: I mean, what would you say? I mean, you've painted this powerful picture, but there's always, there seems to be this undercut right now of folks who are professionals or tied to institutions or have knowledge even so, how would you say, "No, this is why what we do is important in our world right now."
• 45:58
  Javier Viera: Yeah, you know, I had somebody ask me this question recently, because, you know, you can go on YouTube and you can get N.T. Wright's lectures on the New Testament, Amy-Jill Levine on the Old Testament, right, the most brilliant minds. Why do I need to pay for a theological education? It's not an invalid question. I think it's an important question.
• 46:21
  Javier Viera: I think that what I would say is, I think we're living in a world where deep is not valued and we also are living in a world that it's increasingly individualistic, right? We've always had that spirit, but even more so. And I think that part of what makes theological education powerful is when you read these texts in community.
• 46:46
  Javier Viera: Now, can that happen in a local congregation? Of course it can, but I don't think that you can get the expertise that's available at a theological education from a faculty who have given their lives and honed their skills at reading text, at thinking with and along side communities, at seeing the impact of you know how theological ideas and movements can impact real world and real communities, right? I think to be in a setting where you're being shaped by that kind of dialog regularly is is irreplaceable.
• 47:31
  Javier Viera: Now, the question then for us, and this is actually something that we are very, very actively dealing with is, how do you sustain that after the three years? And one of the things that I'm really challenging us as a community is to stop thinking about theological education. I want us to, I've said to our faculty, I want us to think of who our students are very differently. Our students cannot only be an individual who is at a graduate level of seeking a theological degree.
• 48:03
  Javier Viera: But we need to think of congregations as our students.
• 48:06
  Javier Viera: We need to think of annual conferences as our students. We need to think of community organizations who share our values as our students and that together, we're creating and then sustaining a lifelong trajectory of continued theological reflection and engagement with them and alongside them.
• 48:25
  Javier Viera: And so what our expression and other people are doing it too, not alone, but our expression of that is something that we call the Garrett cCllective, and it's in process. We're building it right now, but the collective is going to be our response to...
• 48:40
  Javier Viera: The challenge to my team that is building this was, we were to start a seminary today, what would it look like? Who would it serve? And what would we do?
• 48:48
  Javier Viera: That's what I asked them. And so the collective will be an expression of that. And it's largely not focused on simply training future congregational leaders, but it's focused on laity. It's focused on communities. It's focused on organizations. And it is also going to have resources to continue to provide resources for those in pastoral ministry as well. But we have to expand who our audience is and the way they're engaging with the theological project that we're a part of.
• 49:26
  Chris McAlilly: So you said, if we were starting a seminary today, what? And then you listed out a few things, who would be involved. What were the questions?
• 49:33
  Javier Viera: I said to them, if we were to start a seminary today, who would we serve? What would we do? And I forgot. Now I'm forgetting the first one.
• 49:43
  Javier Viera: What would we do? Who would we serve? And there's one more. Now I'm blanking on it.
• 49:50
  Chris McAlilly: No, I'm sorry.
• 49:54
  Chris McAlilly: You'll have to rewind the episode.
• 49:56
  Javier Viera: Rewind the episode.
• 49:56
  Chris McAlilly: We'll find it out, but I think that's a powerful question, right? If we're reimagining theological education for the 21st century, expanding theological reflection, not just for a moment in time, but over the course of a lifetime, and not just for the benefit of those who are going into pastoral ministry, of course, that's the core focus, but for the benefit of the thriving and the healing, the thriving of churches and the healing of the world. I think it's a powerful vision. I'm grateful to...
• 50:20
  Eddie Rester: I think one of the things I heard as well is that value of community, because we can build a community around us in our in our local communities, but often that will look like and sound like us. We build a community that will agree with us, or at least make us comfortable or not too overly challenging, and yet, what good theological education does, whether it's in the collective or in the classroom, however that lays out, is it pushes us into different engagements of community that can then really begin to help shape, okay, what do I need to leave behind? What do I need to take on? What do I need to meld together in order to have a fuller understanding of the work of the Kingdom? So.
• 51:09
  Javier Viera: Yeah, and it's caused us, it's provoked us... I mean, we had to answer some tough questions. And so, you know, Chris, in response to your question, like, one of the things that we realized when we started thinking about, how do we answer those questions? One of things we realized, if we were starting today, we wouldn't start by constructing these massive German Gothic buildings that are gorgeous that we live in, but they aren't essential to our mission. We need a place, but I don't know that this is what we need. We would shift our resources elsewhere, right?
• 51:40
  Javier Viera: These buildings the way they are now, they kind of project a kind of an image and a power and a place that I'm not sure is the same message we would send today. I'm grateful for them. I have a beautiful office, and we have beautiful spaces. They wouldn't be essential to what we do, right? So that's one thing.
• 52:00
  Javier Viera: We also probably wouldn't focus exclusively on graduate level theological education. We'd start, we'd start different things, right? We'd start theological academies, probably in local communities. We would have different hubs around the world, right? For us, it's very global. And so how, and how do those engagements and relationships enrich what we do here, and even change the nature of the conversations and the questions that we're asking? So it's a completely different project.
• 52:34
  Chris McAlilly: Thank you for giving your life to it, and thank you for giving us your time, and kind of helping us begin to imagine the spaces and the ways in which our work is you know, an extension or kind of an echo, or another dimension of the same work. So thank you.
• 52:50
  Chris McAlilly: Thank you. Thank you.
• 52:55
  Javier Viera: Thank you.
• 52:56
  Javier Viera: Thanks, Eddie.
• 52:56
  Javier Viera: Appreciate you both very much.
• 52:58
  Eddie Rester: [OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.
• 53:06
  Chris McAlilly: If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]