{"id":4596,"date":"2022-09-14T20:39:45","date_gmt":"2022-09-14T20:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thenals.org\/?p=4596"},"modified":"2022-09-16T19:56:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T19:56:41","slug":"overcoming-the-challenge-of-technology-in-pastoral-formation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thenals.org\/overcoming-the-challenge-of-technology-in-pastoral-formation\/","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming the Challenge of Technology in Pastoral Formation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In May 2022, North American Lutheran Seminary (NALS) President Eric Riesen traveled to Westfield House, a Lutheran College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and House of Theological Studies, in Cambridge, England. Dr. Riesen shared the history of the NALC with the students, and the denomination\u2019s need to educate and form pastors who share the Lutheran ethos: being Christ-Centered, Congregationally Focused, Mission-Driven and Traditionally Grounded. He also shared his personal experience with how, six weeks after accepting the call to be president of the North American Lutheran Seminary, the pandemic hit, shutting down Trinity\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n

Dr. Riesen then explored problems and possibilities raised by technology for theological education and pastoral formation, which has been excerpted from his address below:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cAs events unfolded, we soon realized that problems caused by the pandemic were not limited to technological know-how,\u201d said Dr. Riesen. \u201cPastors were ill prepared and poorly formed theologically to cope with the pressures on ministry caused by a pandemic. For better or worse, the knee-jerk reaction of many pastors was to seek technological solutions to these problems. However, many of these solutions raised theological concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three problems raised by technology for theological education and pastoral formation: <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Community (koinonia) can, and will, suffer from an overdependence on technology. <\/b>It is easy to hide behind a computer screen. To use one rather extreme example, in the U.S. and probably other locations as well, completely virtual congregations are springing up. These congregations are made up of congregants that attend virtually via an avatar of themselves. Obviously, the pastor has his\/her own avatar as well. What does this mean spiritual and pastoral formation? <\/span><\/p>\n

An overreliance on virtual, distance, online theological education and pastoral formation may help foster the idolatry of the ideal; leading to an idealized, or idolized, concept of Christian community.<\/b><\/p>\n

We only need to think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together:<\/p>\n

\u201cInnumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God\u2019s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God\u2019s desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

In short, virtual church is nice because no one smells funny. Virtual church is easy. You don\u2019t have to <\/span>suffer community.<\/p>\n

An overdependence upon online\/virtual education\/formation lends itself to excarnation. <\/b>Excarnation, according to James K.A. Smith, is a process, \u201cof disembodying the Christian faith, turning it into a \u2018heady\u2019 affair that could be boiled down to a message and grasped with the mind … this was Christianity reduced to something for <\/span>brains-on-sticks.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to see that when theological education and pastoral formation are reduced only to conveying ideas which can be grasped by the mind, technology\/online\/virtual education can seem as good as in person education.<\/p>\n

But, as Smith also notes, \u201cinformation does not produce transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rather, we are formed by the story in which we are living. Theological education and pastoral formation are about learning to live in the true story of the world \u2014 the Gospel story.<\/p>\n\t

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