Apocalypse, eschatology and disrupting theological educationThe End of Theological Education, Smith, Ted A, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans,2023 (ISBN 9780802878878), xi + 227 pp., Pb $19.99/£15.99Habits of Hope. Educational Practices for a Weary World, Ream,

‘The first [premise] is that some form of theological education is part of the very essence of the church … .The second premise is that theological education as we have understood it in the last few centuries is in crisis … .The third premise serves to qualify the second, for it is that, while theological education in the sense of that traditional establishment is in crisis, theological education in a wider sense is not … Finally, the fourth premise is that the study of the history of theological education – particularly of theological education in the wider sense – is one of the best tools we can use for guidance in the future.’ (Justo L. González) 1 ‘The ways in which institutions have reified the tropes of White, hetero-normative patriarchy are embedded so deeply that it should come as no surprise that most of those engaged in the enterprise of Christian theology do not see it … .Until we can deconstruct the hegemonic power of Whiteness at the heart of theological education … we will continue to reify the normative power of White epistemological frameworks …’ (Anthony G. Reddie) 2 ‘Theological education in the Western world has been complicit in validating … hierarchies, being dominated by educational models shaped by white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy and heteronormativity … [D]oes theological education have the capacity to help the Church bring an end to racism, sexism and classism, abolish socio-economic inequality, gender violence and environmental degradation? It can of course be argued that this is not the purpose of theological education, but then what is its purpose if not to enable students with the skills to bring about God's kin-dom on earth?’ (Eve Parker) 3 As the opening quotation from Justo González indicates, while theological education remains integral to Christian life, the end is nigh for its established forms in seminaries, theological colleges and universities. The three works under review emerge within and address a secular apocalypse of sorts for these established forms of theological education, induced by interlocking social, cultural and political changes and crises. Yet, these works explicitly or tacitly recast the sombre apocalyptic tonality within a hopeful eschatological register. Collectively, the explicit and tacit eschatological registers of these three works shift the apocalyptic tonality around theological education away from secularised notions of decline, despair and impending death towards a more theological understanding of ‘apocalypse’ that engages with crises but retains hope. After all, the Greek root of the English word ‘apocalypse’ means not so much an immanent and imminent catastrophe but rather God's eschatological, disruptive and hopeful ‘uncovering’, ‘disclosure’ or ‘revelation’ of a new way together of being under God. Together, rather than despair, these three works counsel the theological virtue of hope that theological education in renewed forms is far from over; they advance an implicitly apocalyptic theological vision of new ways of learning and teaching. For these three books, what is apocalyptically uncovered, disclosed or revealed is what constitutes the divine end or purpose of theological education. In different ways, the three works under review squarely address the secularised apocalyptic pressures on the established forms of theological education. In its crisis or decisive moment of reckoning, they variously reorient established forms of theological education to its espoused ultimate end or eschaton, as well as how this espoused end critically compares with the operative ends that currently shape theological education and the crises in which it finds itself mired. Ted Smith's The End of Theological Education directly addresses how the ultimate end of theological education can resource, reimagine and reform it. The ultimate end of theological education for Smith is ‘the fulsome knowledge of God, knowledge so deep, so intimate, that it requires and accomplishes our transformation’ (p. 126). Such knowledge unfolds and unfurls in flesh and blood communities in the ‘now but not yet’ dynamic of God's eschatological rupturing of history. The editors of Habits of Hope curate a selection of essays that likewise consider the ‘overarching teloi or goals and purposes of education’ (p. x). The collected essays suggest how particular educational practices around conversing, reading and writing, including difference and teaching, can cultivate the theological virtue of hope in educators and students alike, orienting them to their transcendental end during disorienting and dispiriting polycrisis. Finally, the editors of Neurodiversity, Fath Formation, and Theological Education gather essays from various contexts that focus on neurodivergent experiences in theological education as found in theological colleges, universities and congregations. 4 While the eschatological register is tacit and muted, the collected essays nevertheless explore the ‘epistemic injustice’ faced by neurodivergent people in theological education, how ‘the concept of neurodivergence gives us the tools to challenge … marginalization’, and ‘how learning environments … can be adapted to provide increased access for neurodiverse learners’ (p. 2). As such, the authors in the volume share a common set of aims concerned with the transformation of inclusive communities coram Deo that presage God's kingdom. These three works highlight the practical and moral urgency for change, underpinned by an eschatological vision (espoused or tacit) from which established forms of theological education need to be suspended. Fleshing out first more of the secularised apocalypse faced by these established forms of theological education will establish the background and urgency of these three works. We can then explore how the eschatological registers of these three works intersect with the wider retrieval of eschatology in modern theology. Out of these contexts, we can then examine how all three works correspond with what Elizabeth Phillips describes as the deconstructive and reconstructive features of an apocalyptic mood in eschatology. Phillips argues that definitive forms of the apocalyptic involve deconstruction (unveiling that which causes crisis and disclosing a different reality), proclamation (of God's sovereign opposition of oppressive power) and empowerment (enabling people to speak truth to power). 5 These three hallmarks offer a useful heuristic foil to assess critically the three works under consideration. These three books certainly emerge in a gloomy time for established forms of theological education. What most people (and indeed, the majority of authors in these three books) have in view when they think of ‘theological education’ are theological colleges, seminaries and universities variously involved in the professional training, accreditation and formation of Christian ministers and academics. The apocalyptic ending of these established forms of theological education seems pressing everywhere. In my own British context, a recent open letter was published by the theological think tank Theos calling for the urgent protection of theological education within higher education. 6 It starkly highlighted that only 21 higher education providers in England and Wales now offer undergraduate studies in Theology and Religious Studies. In a related article entitled ‘Is this the end of Theology in Higher Education?’, Chine McDonald (the Director of Theos) warned of how the decline of theological studies signals ‘the loss of a discipline that can help us work towards a world of human flourishing for all’. 7 The Theos open letter is not new news. In 2019, the British Academy published the apocalyptic report Theology and Religious Studies provision in UK Higher Education that revealed a precipitous decline in the discipline, with about 6500 fewer students on related degree courses in 2017–2018 than in 2011–2012. 8 Professor Roger Kain, Vice-President of Research and Higher Education Policy at the British Academy, wrote that, in addition to the need for recruiting more students, ‘the problem is confounded by the profile of their teaching staff; if more ethnically and gender diverse groups do not rise through the ranks, there is a danger that these highly relevant disciplines disappear from our universities.’ 9 At the same time, across denominations in the British Isles, many theological colleges face extinction in the next few years. Others have already downsized, radically reoriented or closed. Established forms of theological education are unravelling. The end of theological education as we know it is coming—and it allegedly leaves behind an impoverished world where, despite 84% of the world's population identifying with a religious group, the demise of Theology as an academic discipline atrophies the ability of the public square to navigate how religions might resource, inform and shape its critical debates. Similar stories over the past few decades can be found in other parts of the world. 10 You do not have to look far to sense that established forms of theological education globally face a secularized apocalypse. Abundant and indefatigable signs and warnings unveil that these established forms are locked in an existential crisis, even while (as the opening quotation from Justo González indicates) broader, collective forms of theological education in church communities perhaps still quietly constitute the heartbeat of Christian life together. Established institutions of theological education face far-reaching pragmatic, cultural, intellectual, pedagogical and political crises that signal the passing of an age and even the end of some (or many) of these institutions all together. In these interlocking crises, theological education in its established forms faces both its own frailty and mortality as well as how it sits under judgement in a moral universe. Falling recruitment linked, inter alia, to the precarity of professional ministerial and academic posts as well as the decline of social capital for churches, religious literacy and perceived relevance; resulting dire financial straits for theological institutions; the desperate proliferation of programmes to bolster student numbers and income streams; a culture of antagonistic and agonistic institutional competition as supply exceeds demand; uninterest, neglect or even hostility from anti-intellectual ecclesial hierarchies caught up in internecine conflicts over issues that place them as moribund, retrograde and out-of-step with wider society; and a perceived and real complicity with oppressive legacies of classism, racism, sexism and ableism—these are just some of the apocalyptic warning signs of the end of established theological education as we know it. The crisis is not merely pragmatic. As the opening quotations from Anthony Reddie and Eve Parker suggest, established forms of theological education need the winnowing fire of judgement as a pre-condition for the salvation of theological education as well as its power to take part in God's saving work. The explicit and implicit turn towards eschatology in recent publications about theological education—including the three works under review—is salutary, even if belated compared to wider theological disciplines. The register of these three works can profitably be read within this broader context. While they vastly overstated the degree to which the nineteenth century was a time of eschatological slumber, twentieth-century ecumenical retrievals of eschatology reasserted its methodological centrality for the Christian life tout court. 11 Among others, Karl Barth, Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jürgen Moltmann, Johannes Metz, Gustavo Gutiérrez and Rosemary Radford Reuther the of eschatology for and hope for this world. the retrieval of eschatology was by a of the apocalyptic as or as and even while some retrievals at of their retrievals of an apocalyptic in studies and political theology out a normative theological of apocalyptic from (and notions of the no to theological or As Elizabeth Phillips apocalyptic as a as well as a theological of … is to an to what is ultimate in the world and the social through calling power As such, Phillips that a and normative within an eschatological while at the same time our to an than our own that which is uncovered, disclosed or revealed in a new Smith's The End of Theological Education and the Habits of Hope explicitly a of eschatological apocalyptic and apocalyptic they an implicit in and Neurodiversity, Formation, and Theological In a Smith on the register of the word from the of the of an age of established forms of theological and the or purpose of theological education. register Smith to to see changes in the forms of theological education as a of decline or Smith the of established forms of theological education within an eschatological eschatological stories of judgement and stories in which the of has (p. related are now and … forms of theological education … that with an social and how these forms might the on Christian of the of white and (p. 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