The Seminary to Early Ministry (SEM) Study is a mixed-method, prospective study designed to provide high-quality empirical data on student formation in theological education. The study will use a series of surveys and in-depth interviews to track three cohorts of divinity school students from matriculation into the early years of their careers. As…

Despite the growing awareness of child abuse, little academic research examines religious abuse and trauma during childhood. This paper constructs an interdisciplinary and intersectional heuristic of childhood religious trauma and abuse (RTA) by weaving together psychological and theo-philosophical literature with Rebecca Nye's theory of childhood…

I have the rewarding experience of being an administrator operating out of a denominational leadership role in Christian education. I have served in this role concurrently for over a decade as a full-time professor of Christian education at a seminary. In this autobiographical reflection, I discuss how I define my roles in the church and academy…

Do religious educators as administrators make for better agents of change? As more religious educators come into administrative positions in theological higher education, this article probes the religious educator and change. The article begins by examining religious education and its aims. It then offers different change theories and subsequently…

This contribution offers a reflection on the theme of religious educational leadership (REL) at a time when the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is gripping society. The main question that guides the contribution is: How does one practice REL in theological education during COVID-19 and its accompanying measures? In answering this question, the…

This article follows the movements of educational imagination articulated by the late scholar of religious education Maria Harris to offer musings on academic leadership that attempts a decolonial turn for enduring change in theological education. With stylistic and thought experimentations, the essay identifies challenges besieging administrative…

This article reflects on the role of the academic dean in theological education in relation to faculty of color. Drawing on research related to faculty of color in higher education and theological education, the article explores issues and responses to the challenges faced by faculty of color in predominately White institutions, and maps potential…

How do race and lived experiences of this construct impact student theological understandings? We embarked on a joint pedagogical venture spanning two continents about race and theology with groups of students whose encounters with race and its impacts on theology were markedly different--including students whose lives and education have been…

This forum essay offers reflections on the theme of the 2021 annual meeting of the Religious Education Association--"Gender, Sexuality, and Wholeness: Religious Education for Confrontation and Healing." Pondering the melancholy of violence inflicted upon racialized, sexualized, and queer bodies in the United States, the author invites…

Holistic sexuality education is needed in churches and seminaries to promote sexual inclusion and flourishing as well as combat sexual violence and trauma. The scholarly and pedagogical resources exist to do this work; we need an ethical commitment to integrate them across the curriculum.

Most approaches to vocational exploration present challenges to people who have more than one central cultural identity. In this article, we begin with a framework for understanding hybrid cultural identity focused on the real-life experiences of hybrid people. We then identify three predominant approaches to vocation as well as the challenges…

Through a quantitative research model, this study aims to understand the general attitudes of theology students in Turkey regarding online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. In examining the determinant factors on their attitudes, research findings include: previous online education experience, the frequency of participating in synchronous…

This panel presentation focuses on the complex relationship between Asian/Asian Canadians and Canada's Indigenous peoples (First Nation, Meti, Innuit). In spite of many commonalities the two sets of communities share while being racialized as "visible minorities" with histories of oppression and exclusion, the former are still settlers…

This article argues for the deep integration of encounters with religious diversity into theological education. Some seminaries and theological schools, like Emmanuel College in the Toronto School of Theology, have made it a matter of institutional mission to prepare students to provide leadership and spiritual care in contexts of religious…

Nyambura Jane Njoroge is one of the most courageous, impeccable and emancipatory African theological voices who have engaged in the unceasing search for transforming theological education in Africa. This article takes an appreciative inquiry in engaging Njoroge as a lens to conceptualize what is seen as her main concern in ecumenical theological…