Learning to Sing in a Strange Land: Practicing a Pedagogy of Conscious Relinquishment

Authors

  • Sean Gilbert

Keywords:

educational power dynamics

Abstract

Willie James Jennings’s After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (2020) and Cindy S. Lee’s Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation (2022) have been landmark literary encounters for me of late. Each in their own way have challenged two working assumptions around teaching within a theological institution. The first is an epistemological assumption about a so-called ‘body’ of specialised knowledge students need to learn. The second is the assumption of the inherent superiority of Western ways of processing and acting in relation to all things biblical, theological, or spiritual.

Adopting a professional stance of conscious relinquishment may sound like a contradiction in terms. However, to frame the Christian gospel with a lively sense of congruity, admissions of unknowing or limitation, are essential to the way our teaching is conveyed — embodied. The Gospel of Mark with its latent theme of transformative movements forward is an ideal conversation partner for this overarching theme.

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Published

2025-04-12

Issue

Vol. 45 No. 45 (2025): Educational Cornerstones and Adaptation in Changing Landscapes of Practice

Section

ARTICLES

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