The School of Theology at Drew University Installs Javier Viera as its New Dean

 ~John Shelby Spong

From time to time, I have an experience inside organized Christianity that is filled with such excitement that it creates in me the hope that there might be a genuine future for the Christian faith. Most frequently this experience takes the form of hearing that someone with some authority within institutional Christianity actually sees, actually knows and actually understands. It suggests that the issues facing Christianity today might really be engaged creatively. Such an experience gives me a deep sense of personal affirmation, for it indicates that the path my life and career has followed is not only valid, but that it is also beginning to prevail.

Such was my privilege recently when I attended the installation of a new dean for the Theological School at Drew University. This is a Methodist Theological Seminary about five miles from my home, which has been a major part of my life for about 25 years. I have been invited to teach at this theological school on three occasions over the last several years. When my book entitled Eternal Life: A New Vision – Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell, came out in 2011, this was the only seminary in America that asked me to give a public lecture on this book. This university has given me faculty status in its library. I have used it regularly for research and it is the place where most of my books have been written. I have my own study carrel there when the “pressure times” in writing comes. I have good friends among the members of both the faculty and the administration of this university. I attend public lectures at Drew regularly and my wife and I frequent the Shakespeare Theatre that is on its campus. It is clear that my life is enormously enriched by Drew University and its theological school.

The Theological School at Drew University has consistently taken a progressive path. Each of the last three deans of this seminary has been a barrier-breaking appointment. Maxine Beach, a gifted woman, who served as dean from 2000 to 2010, was one of the first women in America to be chosen to head up a major theological seminary.

Her successor was Jeffrey Kuan, a Hebrew Scripture scholar, who was teaching on the faculty of the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley when he was elected to be Drew’s dean. Kuan, a native of Malaysia, was the first Asian scholar to head a Methodist seminary in America. He left Drew last year to become president of the Claremont School of Religion in California, which is one of the premier centers of theological learning in the United States.

It was Dr. Kuan’s successor, the Reverend Doctor Javier Viera, whose installation I was recently privileged to attend. Dr. Viera is a Latino scholar, who represents another breaking of a barrier in Methodism. It was clear at his installation that he is also a man of great vision. It was also clear that the new President of Drew University, Dr. Mary Ann Baenninger, not only shared in but also supported his vision. Far too many of our church related seminaries seem to be controlled by the most frightened, traditional, hierarchical figures in the supporting denomination. Those theological schools that are part of a university complex tend to be more tolerated than appreciated by the university officials. That is certainly not the case at Drew. At this installation President Baenninger spoke these words about the theological school’s faculty: “Our esteemed theological professors are experts in the history of the Hebrew Bible, feminist philosophy and everything in between.” Broadness appeared to be a virtue that she celebrated. “This faculty,” Drew’s new president went on to say, “includes published authors, musical composers and world travelers. They understand social and ecological concerns, ethical responsibility, how to preach and how to break down barriers to create a more inclusive world. These faculty members excite and ignite the minds of our students who are becoming the clergy of this pre-millennial age.”

Wow! I thought. This woman is describing what a theological faculty ought to be, but what very few denominational leaders ever encourage their faculty members to be. If that were not surprise enough, President Baenninger then went on to describe the student body at Drew Theological School: “Our theological school is like no other,” she began. “I challenge you to find a seminary that is as inclusive or as diverse. Twenty-one percent of our theological students come from other countries. Nearly ten percent of them have served in the military. Sixteen percent of them identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender or queer. Twenty-five percent of them are already serving congregations.”

President Baenninger was daring to claim as a virtue for theological learning the things that so many of our churches today are denying or trying to control. Just recently, the special conclave of Roman Catholic bishops, summoned by Pope Francis to look at the crisis facing that Church, could not even pass a statement that welcomed gay couples to the Roman Catholic worship. The previous Pope, Benedict XVI, had constantly defined homosexual persons as “deviant.” The television evangelists, like Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, made gay bashing a part of their regular presentations, while Joel Osteen avoids the subject as if it were an Ebola outbreak. Bishops and clergy both walked out of the Episcopal Church when homosexual people were openly affirmed and welcomed. What a contrast to hear the Methodist Seminary at Drew University being described by the University president at this installation service as something different, something valued and something transformational. Diversity of race, gender, nationality and sexual orientation is a virtue to be treasured, she was stating boldly.

Finally, at the conclusion of this service we heard from the new dean and he proved to be the dessert at the symbolic banquet that this installation ceremony was creating. Dr. Javier Viera began his inaugural address not with the pious platitudes of traditional religion, but with an analysis of the world to which Christianity must speak in the 21st century. The “dominance of secularity is growing at unprecedented rates,” he stated, “and it is growing in sophistication. Religion as it is practiced today,” he continued, “is an evolutionary phase in human life that is long past its shelf life. It is against that reality,” he went on to say, “that those of us engaged in theological education must ask: What are we doing here today?” He declared that the way religion currently functions in our world is simply no longer relevant. “There are daily witnesses,” he continued, “to how ways of being Christian are evolving so rapidly that it is increasingly difficult to understand our current religious landscape. We are living through a seismic shift in what it means to be Christian and, more important, what it means to be an institution that trains religious leaders and scholars.” In my experience many religious institutions seem almost to pride themselves on being immune to change. The result of this anti-reality stance is that many people walk away from the church today finding nothing in it that makes contact with their lives, while the ones who remain construct for themselves a religious ghetto in which they hide from a far too painful reality with which they simply cannot cope.

“The church,” Dean Viera went on to say, “without radical change will become a mere shell of spiritual platitudes and self-help philosophies, incapable of speaking in relevant ways to the modern person and ill-prepared to lead in the transformation and healing of our world.” To challenge this mentality he called for this seminary to begin to train clergy in dramatically new ways so that they can “navigate the complexities of religious life.”

To complete this inaugural address, Dean Viera stated his goal as Dean of the Theological School at Drew University. It was almost breath taking.

“My vision for our theological school is that it will be the most thriving, spiritually dynamic, intellectually inventive, risk-taking theological school in the world.”

I went home with my spirit soaring. Dean Viera spoke to the issues the leadership of the Christian Church so desperately needs to hear. Will those church leaders listen? In recent years, the United Methodist Church has fallen to near the back of the line in its ability to embrace changing attitudes. It has a large right wing fringe of biblical fundamentalists, who traffic in deep gender and sexual orientation prejudices. Nationally, this uniquely American denomination has expressed a general unwillingness to embrace its own prophets. It has removed from its ministry incredibly talented people like the Rev. Jimmy Creech, former pastor of the First Methodist Church in Omaha, Nebraska, because he presided over the wedding of two homosexual members of his congregation. It has dismissed from its ministry the Rev, Frank Schaefer, a Methodist pastor, who presided over the marriage of his own gay son. It has at several General Conferences in a row been controlled by its most retrogressive members.

With this kind of track record, will this denomination’s leaders be able to rejoice in the boldness of Javier Viera, the risk-taking new head of one of its major theological seminaries? Time will tell, but if they prove unable to do so, they will be sounding the death knell of American Methodism. Our culture will not tarry long to allow the Methodist Church the time it will need to catch up with the world to which they demonstrate themselves incapable of addressing. The Theological School of Drew has made a powerful statement in their choice of this dean. Drew University, through its new president is clearly supportive. I hope the Methodist Church is ready to hear him, to embrace him and to celebrate him!

If I were still an active bishop, I would take every opportunity available to me to steer those who seek ordination to do their training at Drew Theological School under Javier Viera’s leadership. I hope other judicatory heads, who understand the reality facing the Christian Church in today’s world, will in fact also do just that.

~John Shelby Spong