Struggling to respond…

I have just been given the opportunity to respond to a review of my book which is about to appear in my guild’s main journal. It’s a highly critical review, hence the opportunity to respond. But what is so hard for me is that the two things the reviewer is most concerned about — my commitment to collaborative learning, and my belief that theology needs to speak in the midst of media culture — are so central to my work that part of me wants to simply say, ok, you’re right, that’s what this book is about and if you disagree with these fundamental assumptions, this book is not for you.

But I think that’s taking the easy way out. I’d like to find a way to help this reviewer — or, at least those people who read the review from the reviewer’s perspective — to consider how collaborative learning might actually open up possibilities they hadn’t previously imagined. The main sticking point seems to be a commitment to transfer of content, and the perception that transferring specific content can be done without respect for the learner’s previous knowledge or commitments. There’s almost a consensus amongst education scholars that that’s not possible — perhaps only the most instrumental of scholars believes in what Freire called “banking education” — but if you’re a theologian who won’t take education research seriously, what might help to change your mind?

I suppose the primary route would be a sustained theological argument. Which, of course, was not what my book set out to do. But if I WERE to try and make such an argument, it would again start at the foundational assumption that God is actively moving in the world, even now, and that serious discernment is appropriate in response.

I wish I had the eloquence of Paul Ricoeur. NextReformation quotes him today:

“…in the language of Paul Ricoeur the theological task today is to begin with a hermeneutics of appreciation which seeks to discern - like a poet offering language that gives meaning to people’s experience by inviting them into a space of new possibilities or a mid-wife detecting the rhythms of a birth that has begun but not pressed out - the narratives under the narratives among the faithful living in a strange liminal place.”

My hunch — actually more than a hunch, the foundation upon which I write — is precisely this one, that we need to walk alongside of people today and help them dig deeply into the meaning they’re creating. And that in order to do so, particularly in theological education, we need to take seriously the contexts and perspectives with which they begin. That doesn’t assume agreement, it just assumes a willingness to start with respect. But how to invite such respect from scholars who want to begin by ruling it out of order? I think that’s the main dilemma I’m facing at the moment.

What I’d MOST like to do is get a copy of the review out on the web, and invite a wide range of people to engage it, that way facilitating a real discussion. But of course, that would violate copyright, and in any case, many of the people most likely to disagree with my book do not interact on the web, anyway. Sigh.

I’m still struggling with this, and I wonder what I’ll end up writing. Perhaps when I’ve got something started, I’ll post it here…