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Abstract
Christian theological training institutions broadly agree that they provide holistic education which fosters students’ spiritual formation. The integration of spiritual formation and academic study is augmented through experiential learning facilitated in community-based settings. Bringing together biblical, ethical and pedagogical insights, this paper examines the complexities of formally assessing students’ spiritual formation in confessional theological education within UK Higher Education contexts. It asks questions as to what extent, and how, meaningful character assessment is possible, especially when students might engage with community-based practice settings that may not occupy a Christian worldview. Finally, it makes recommendations to move the conversation forward.
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 “Evangelical” is a contested term. We include this term aware that there are many layers of meaning attached to it, including its adoption in the US by supporters of right-wing political populism. We use “evangelical”, in line with the term’s roots in the Greek word euangelion (“good news”), to express a commitment to the centrality of the gospel of Jesus Christ for Christian life and ministry and trust in the authoritative testimony of Scripture to Christ’s salvific work. (See Morris and Cameron (Citation2022).
2 For example, the identification of HE Institutions as ‘civic Universities’ highlighting their power and involvement in driving public and social change, becoming communal hubs, and therefore fulfilling United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (McLean & Cohen, Citation2019). Civic University agreements have also been identified as a positive mechanisms in Access and Participation plans (tied to government Office for Students funding), helping disadvantaged students, and allowing individuals and organisations to make important contributions to local economic, social, cultural and environmental growth (Millward, Citation2019).
3 Post-18 or tertiary education includes both Universities and study after the age of 18 in Further Education Colleges.
4 E.g., Bohlin (Citation2005); Colby (Citation2002); Kiss and Peter Euben (Citation2010).
5 E.g., Fowers et al. (Citation2021).
6 E.g., Pattaro (Citation2016).
7 E.g., Allen and Bull (Citation2018).
8 E.g., Arthur (Citation2021); Biggar (Citation2022); Macdonald (Citation2017).
9 E.g., Annas et al. (Citation2016).
10 For other broad-reaching frameworks and strategies in HE see, e.g. Lamb et al. (Citation2021); Nagashima and Gibbs (Citation2022).
11 E.g. de Ruyter and Wolbert (Citation2020); Kristjánsson (Citation2020); Brighouse (Citation2006).
12 For example, the Teachers’ Standards requires “maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour within and outside school” (Department for Education, Citation2021).
13 Pennington (Citation2017, p. 32). Oxenham makes a similar observation when demonstrating the complexity of ascertaining what ‘biblical’, and so Christian, virtues consist of. While identifying Scripture as the central source for Christian theology, he acknowledges the role of people’s experience, reason and tradition in their interpretation of the Bible. In addition, while New Testament vice and virtue lists are obvious places to turn to identify biblical virtues (e.g., Colossians 3:1–17), consideration should also be given to the Old Testament, including stories of virtuous people, the wisdom literature and Mosaic law, alongside the New Testament’s presentation of Jesus’ character and teaching and the example of other major or minor heroes and anti-heroes who demonstrate virtue or vice, respectively. As an example of minor heroes he gives the Samaritan woman, who exemplifies curiosity and zeal. Amongst his examples of anti-heroes is the cowardice of Pilate. ‘Biblical’ virtues are therefore wide ranging and, to a certain extent, context specific. This makes providing a definitive list problematic and potentially counter-productive (in that the wisdom to know which virtue to employ in which situations will not be gained from studying a list but examining examples of virtuous [and non-virtuous] people). (See Oxenham (Citation2019), chapters 19–24).
14 Such as those contained within graduate attributes statements and University or College’s mission and vision statements.
15 Subject Benchmark Statements are subject specific and outline expected levels of academic standard to be achieved by those studying Undergraduate degrees. They are used as points of reference and measures of quality assurance in curriculum design.
16 Banks argues that moral crisis and breakdown in ministry are “plaguing the church” (Ibid, 26).
17 Reflecting on this example Oxenham writes, ‘I do not know where he is today, but unless God’s grace has intervened dramatically, he is probably doing some damage somewhere.’ The fictional nature of the letters that make up Oxenham’s academic epistolary novel make it uncertain whether Oxenham has a particular individual in mind. Nevertheless theological educators in confessional settings can no doubt relate to the concerns expressed through his example. (Oxenham, Citation2019, p. 52).
18 As Charles Taylor notes, “a word like ‘transcendent’ is very slippery” (Taylor, Citation2007, p. 16.) Here we are referring to Christian conceptions of God’s transcendence that are founded on his identity as creator, which sets him apart from the rest of his creation such that, as Kathryn Tanner notes, “God is not one instance among others of a general sort of thing, distinguished from (and ranked hierarchically with respect to) those others” but is the “inassimilable Other” (Tanner, Citation2013, pp. 138–39.) God’s otherness does not prevent his intimate involvement with his creation, however; rather, “as the creator, God’s transcendence enables his immanent involvement in his creation” as exemplified in Christ’s incarnation. (Morris, Citation2019, p. 81.)
19 Macaskill draws this phrase from Taylor’s description of the contemporary concept of self as “buffered” (“not open and porous and vulnerable to a world of spirits and powers” [Taylor, Secular Age, 27.]) Regarding the shift from porous to buffered conceptions of self, Taylor contends, “it took more than disenchantment to produce the buffered self; it was also necessary to have confidence in our own powers of moral ordering.” (Ibid).
20 Macaskill contends that “Christ himself is present in the life of the disciple as the principal moral agent” and his presence comes through the Spirit who does not bring an impersonal power to help people better themselves, but the living presence of Jesus “because he himself is the Spirit of the Son” (2019, p. 2).
21 (Dwyer and Hogan, Citation2013) Porter et al. (Citation2018, p. 3) also cite Dwyer and Hogan’s contention and note, “Religious leaders occupy complex vocational roles and will be unlikely to be effective in ministry without adequate spiritual, characterological, and moral maturity.”
22 Our argument is not that indications of humility and intentionality in a student’s life are, in and of themselves, firm evidence that growth has taken place since, for example, a student may lack the ability to discern where and how God is present and active in their lives or in the lives of those they serve. However, we contend that these are such important requisites for growth that, where these attributes are present, growth is expected.
23 Although, for simplicity, we have referred to both humility and intentionality as ‘characteristics’, it is important to caveat that, while humility can be straightforwardly classified as a virtue, intentionality is more akin to settled commitment as part of the virtue of love than a virtue in and of itself.
24 “Our Core Values,” Moorlands College, 2023, https://www.moorlands.ac.uk/about/our-background/our-core-values/.
25 Whereby (usually smaller) institutions who do not have their own degree awarding powers offer programmes for which students obtain a degree from another provider.
26 Virtues do not have to be exclusively Christian to be Christian. Indeed, many of the virtues elevated in Scripture would accord with those attributes perceived as virtues in the authors’ wider context. Oxenham, for example, highlights points of resonance (but also difference) between virtue in the New Testament and contemporaneous moral philosophies (Oxenham, Citation2019, chapter 23).
27 See, for example, Porter (Citation2019); Willard (Citation2002, p. 83).
28 In this way the marker is, as much as is foreseeably possible, a reliable assessor of spiritual formation and well-formed in both humility and intentionality.