“The Faith That Shapes Us” with David Watson

Show Notes:

We all know that things change. People change. Understanding changes. Ideas change. Even theological institutions change. In this episode, Chris and Eddie are joined by Dr. David F. Watson, Academic Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. David has helped change and shape the future of United, and has some ideas about how other theological institutions can move with the times. He looks to the rich history of the Christian tradition to form new ideas and train new pastors, all while being accountable to the Church universal.

David earned his Masters of Divinity at Perkins University in 1997 and his PhD at Southern Methodist University in 2005. He is the author of several books, including Scripture and the Life of God: Why the Bible Matters Today More than Ever.

Resources:

Follow David on Twitter.

Sign up for his Substack.

Listen to Firebrand Podcast, or read the Firebrand Magazine.

Transcript:

Eddie Rester 00:00 I'm Eddie Rester.

Chris McAlilly 00:01

I'm Chris McAlilly. Welcome to The Weight. Today we're talking to David Watson who's the Academic Dean and Vice President of Academic Affairs, and also the professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. We are talking today with Dr. Watson about the past, the present, and future of the church, and how theological education fits into it.

Eddie Rester 00:25

And this may be a topic that you're thinking, "Oh, well, this is when I'm going to put it on two times and listen to it fast." But we talk a lot about the development of faith and the idea of how people are shaped in the tradition of faith and how they serve faithfully. And one thing is, David Watson is brilliant. He's smart. He's been formed by some of the greatest minds, I think, in the Wesleyan Methodist tradition. But he also sits in a seat at United Seminary, where they're trying to do the good work of shaping people who will serve the church. Chris, what did you hear as you talked to him today that was important?

Chris McAlilly 01:08

I heard that there's a very clear focus for David on shaping the education of future pastors for the life of the church, that that's ultimately the purpose of theological education. But what's needed in this particular cultural moment to pass the faith onto the next generation may look different than in the previous generation. There's a heavy emphasis on retrieving what he calls the canonical or the conceptual heritage or tradition of the church, the treasures of the early church that he thinks has wisdom that's needed for a secular age that is anxious and aimless. He thinks that Christians ought to be more courageous, but also humble in their engagement with the culture. And we talked about how to get in that direction. And also just there's just a deep, you know, hope in him that all the things around us that feel unstable and unsteady and turbulent could lead to, ultimately, a revival, that would be led by God. He talks about divine agency, that God's the subject of active verbs. And so all that's in the background. But yeah, he's very smart and thoughtful about kind of the place of the church in the world today. And I just loved the conversation. It was really, really fun.

Eddie Rester 02:40

Really great. I hope you enjoy it today. Share it with somebody. Leave us a review. Send us an email, if you want to send us an email. I haven't gotten an email in a while. But you should email me, Chris.

Chris McAlilly 02:52
Okay, I'll email you. And yeah, I'll leave you my thoughts on your outro here, or your intro. Not an outro. It's an intro. And now we just need to stop talking and let you listen.

Eddie Rester 03:04 Let people enjoy.

Chris McAlilly 03:05
[INTRO] The truth is, the world is growing more angry, more bitter, and more cynical. People don't trust one another, and we feel disconnected.

Eddie Rester 03:17

The way forward is not more tribalism. It's more curiosity that challenges what we believe, how we live, and how we treat one another. It's more conversation that inspires wisdom, healing, and hope.

Chris McAlilly 03:29

So we launched The Weight podcast as a space to cultivate sacred conversations with a wide range of voices at the intersection of culture and theology, art and technology, science and mental health. And we want you to be a part of it.

Eddie Rester 03:44
Join us each week for the next conversation on The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 03:52
We're here today with David Watson. David, thanks for coming on the podcast.

David Watson 03:56
Thanks for inviting me. Really glad to be here.

Chris McAlilly 03:58 You...

Eddie Rester 03:59 Well...

Chris McAlilly 04:00
Eddie jumps in and just screws it up.

Eddie Rester 04:01
I know. I'm sorry. I always mess that up.

Chris McAlilly 04:04
Yeah, you're eager to jump in.

Eddie Rester 04:06
I've got a question for him.

Chris McAlilly 04:08

Then ask your question for David. I know that you're excited that he's on the podcast. So go for it.

Eddie Rester 04:13

We were talking before you were here, that one of his mentors was Billy Abraham, who was well renowned, well loved, and well thought of, I think by people across the theological divide in the United Methodist Church, for his earnestness and his faithfulness. And he really served as your mentor. I know y'all wrote a book together.

David Watson 04:33 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 04:34
What, just before we dive into the topic today, what was it like getting to work with him? You said you miss him. He died a couple years ago. What is it that you miss about him?

David Watson 04:47

Billy kind of... Billy was the person I could bounce theological ideas off of, and I knew that he would set me straight, show me where I was wrong, and be honest with me, you know. And I do have other people in my life, but someone with his years of experience, his outstanding training and philosophy, and just his intellectual horsepower, those folks don't come along every day. And so yeah. He was a good man, you know. He was kind to people. Like you said, he was respected by people across the theological spectrum. So you didn't have to agree with Billy to be friends with Billy.

Eddie Rester 05:31 Right.

David Watson 05:32

He was very intentional to keep relationships with people that he disagreed with on even fundamental matters. But that's something that I think we can learn from in today's climate, which seems to be evermore polarized. How do you maintain friendships with people you disagree with? You have to be intentional about it. And he was.,

Chris McAlilly 05:54

I've heard him describe himself. And I've heard I think maybe Jason Vickers describe him as an old school liberal, you know.

David Watson 06:00 Yeah. That's right.

Chris McAlilly 06:02

What does that... I mean, I guess, what's your interpretation of what that means? I think of a new school liberal as being more kind of ideologically driven, maybe more coming from a... I don't know, maybe a slightly more antagonistic place. And I guess I think of an old school liberal as someone who has genuine interest in a collision, maybe even an argument or debate around ideas, but with a generosity of spirit in the conversation. But you may have a different kind of take on that.

David Watson 06:36

No, no, I don't think so. I think that's basically right. When we talk about old school liberals, we're talking about a posture towards engagement with ideas and people. So you can disagree with someone and get the ideas out on the table, have the argument, and then, you know, go have a cup of coffee afterwards.

Eddie Rester 07:03 Yeah.

David Watson 07:03

And that seems to be getting lost right now, in western culture, the capacity to make friendships across political and ideological divides. That kind of liberalism, which I take to be a very good thing, is in short supply these days, and it would do us well to recover that. I think that there is a lot more ideological extremism, coming from a lot of different directions right now. And it's not just in the US or in the West. I mean, it's all over the world right now. It just seems to be the historical moment in which we live. But I think as people of faith, we do well to keep doors open that other people might shut.

Chris McAlilly 07:48

You know, one anecdote along those lines from the political context. I have a friend of mine who is in his 70s, and he's a part of a coffee group. And for a while, this particular coffee group- -we're in Mississippi, okay, and so this is a coffee group of guys that consider themselves slightly more progressive or liberal in their political views. So for a while, they called themselves the Woke Boys. And so they invited to the gathering a former political leader in the state of Mississippi, who has a very wide reputation of being a very conservative guy. So the guy came in, he said, "I can come, but I can't come to a gathering called the Woke Boys." So he started calling them the Weird Boys. No, he started calling them the Wise Boys, he said, but they weren't wise. They weren't wise, so they're just the Weird Boys. But this particular leader, he was in the Senate. And one of the things he was noting about the polarization in the country was just the way in which Democratic and Republican senators in a previous generation would have lived on the same street and would have had kids that grew up together, and they would have had barbecues together. And now, you know, the modes of transportation are such that folks fly in on a Monday and they leave out on a Thursday evening or Friday. And so there's not this shared texture of friendship and life within which to have an exchange of ideas because you recognize not only the dignity of the person, but you respect that they've considered these things and that their convictions kind of come from a place not of indoctrination, or even... I don't know... I don't know, whatever place.They haven't just had unconsidered, unreflective ideas, but rather they have strong convictions that have emerged out of a lifetime of not only experiences but maybe engagement with the thing, with the living tradition of which they're a part. And I think that's one of the things that I've admired about your public posture in the conversation about the heart of Methodism, or about Methodism as a theological tradition, is that you're engaging it as a theological tradition that's worthy of not only deep intellectual engagement, but maybe even some spirited debate. I do think that that's something that comes out of... That is part of Billy's legacy, you know.

David Watson 10:33

Yeah, I really learned that from him. He would talk about developing intellectual virtue and avoiding intellectual vice. And so intellectual virtue would involve things like good judgment, listening coherence, empathy. You fair play. You don't create strawman. You render your opponent's argument in the strongest possible terms, and terms that your opponent would recognize. And intellectual vise is really the opposite of these. And I think intellectual vice kind of rules the day right now. To some extent, I think social media is responsible for that. Because as you say, when you get to know people, it's much harder to dismiss them than when they're simply an avatar on a screen, right. And so you look at their ideas, you think that's the worst idea I've ever seen. But there's no real personal relationship with these folks. And we think that we have relationships with people over social media, but most of these relationships are extremely superficial, so it breeds a kind of intolerance.

Eddie Rester 11:34

And even the people who maybe aren't the people you live on the street with but maybe people that you knew in high school, there's still this distance from them that allows people to say things, do things, reflect in ways that aren't who we would be if we were living like we were. We can't go back in time. I don't... Now I sound like my dad.

Chris McAlilly 11:57

That's right. But I do think that friendship is a really old category for thinking about what it would mean for a society, a body politic, or even kind of the church, in terms of the way that we would think about how we both articulate a vision of the good life, you know, what it means to flourish as a human being. I mean, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics kind of lays out the program there, and then it gets picked up, you know, in the Christian tradition, especially through Aquinas and the kind of Catholic tradition. But I do think that that's something worth naming again, that there could be... The cultivation of friendship... I just think it's a very important dimension of what it would look like for the church to engage theologically well. And I do think that Billy was just one of the people that did this. He was an exemplar of that particular vein of theological engagement.

David Watson 13:03
He definitely was, and he wasn't the only one who did that. I mean, there were other people, but he's did certainly champion that cause.

Chris McAlilly 13:09

I will say, speaking about theological education, you know, I have often thought--and I want to kind of move us in that direction, if that's okay. Because I know that's something that you're doing and something that you're thinking about kind of the future of. When I was in seminary, just... I'm being... You guys are...

Eddie Rester 13:29
Much older, go ahead and say it.

Chris McAlilly 13:30
No, no, not old, I wasn't gonna go older, Eddie. I was gonna say...

Eddie Rester 13:34 Wiser?

Chris McAlilly 13:35

Wiser, or, you know, maybe we're engaging class in a different way. I feel like I learned more about theology at the pub after class, talking to friends, or at the coffee shop before class, than I did sometimes in the classroom. You know, there's a sense that friendship was a really important part of gaining both the grammar and the felicity to kind of learn this language.

David Watson 14:06 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 14:07
And, you know, I wonder kind of how you think about that, David, about what are some of the pillars? If friendship is one of them, what are some of the other pillars of theological education that you think are super important?

David Watson 14:22

Well, I do think that theological friendships are important for sharpening your ideas. You know, I have people I... You know, I'm on a podcast. I am on the Firebrand podcast, and Scott Kisker and Maggie Ulmer and I, we often really disagree with each other on things and tell each other we're wrong. And you know, sometimes I come away from conversations thinking, goodness, I really need to rethink that. You know, it's just that's part of having these friends, these theological friendships with people where you can talk about ideas but not be mad at each other about it. I've been thinking a lot about theological education for the church today. I got a great theological education when I went to Perkins, and I had really fine professors, a lot of my professors were as you described. They were old school liberals. They were also theological liberals, many of them. So they were committed to kind of figures like Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, the Niebuhrs, and also process theology. But you didn't have to agree with them on everything, right? All you had to do is make a good argument, write a good paper, state why you think what you think. And I really learned a lot from that approach to theological education. And that's kind of how I approach theological education, too. I don't need all my students to agree with me. In fact, I tell them 30% of what I teach is wrong, I just don't know which 30% it is. So then they ask if they can have a 30% refund on the course. Right? That's the joke they like to make, so. But, so I think, cultivating a kind of what we might call an epistemological humility about your work is important in theological education. We don't want just smarter Christians, right. We do want Christians who understand theology, who have a good grasp of Scripture, who can reason through ethical problems, and who have good pastoral skills. I mean, we do want to kind of cultivate these more technical skills in people. But we don't want just smarter Christians, right? We want deeper Christians. We want people who can handle difficult situations in the life of the church, not just out of their knowledge, but out of their depth of character and their relationship with Jesus Christ. What are you going to do? You know, the first time I ever did a hospital visit, it was with a guy, an old guy that had yelled at me in the hallway of the church. I just thought of this. This guy's just a mean old dude. And I got sent to visit him in the hospital. And he was quite sick. And so I held hands with him and prayed with him. And as we started praying, he started crying. And I realized, this guy is really scared. And people always say, "Well, you know, seminary didn't train me for this," or "seminary didn't train you for that." Well, seminary can't give you technical training on every situation you're going to run into. But it can help you develop the depth of faith and character that you need to engage in interpersonal situations of that kind. Now, I'm not... I don't know... You know, I prayed with him while he cried, and I don't know if I did a good job or not in that. I did the best I could in that moment. But those are just the kinds of scenarios that I'm talking about that, as you know much better than I, you run into in pastoral ministry all the time. These situations are unpredictable. And they call not just for, you know... You need to understand something about the Trinity, for example. You need to understand something about biblical interpretation, but you also just need to have a depth of Christian character that will help you in your leadership and in your ministry.

Eddie Rester 18:33

David, when you went to seminary at Parkins, and I went to Duke, Chris went Candler. So we've got this trinity of seminaries here.

David Watson 18:44 Yeah, that's right.

Eddie Rester 18:45
All of us went, and it was you were there. You lived in Durham, or in Dallas, or in Atlanta.

David Watson 18:53 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 18:53

And you got up every day and you saw your classmates. You went... Sometimes you scheduled with certain people or without certain people in your classes, but you knew everybody, and you were shaped by that time together. Theological education has changed over these past few years.

David Watson 19:11 Oh, yeah.

Eddie Rester 19:12

Distance learning, you know, there's hybrid. Duke now offers a hybrid setup where you go for a couple of weeks during the year and you're at home learning part of the year. Kind of give people, some of our listeners, just this kind of where it is, where was it, where is it? Where's the trajectory? I want to talk a little bit about what's gained and lost and maybe what you see around the corner.

David Watson 19:38
It has changed remarkably, as you note, since I started seminary. I started seminary in 1993.

And there was no thought at that time of doing online theological education.

Eddie Rester 19:53
They barely had online in 1993.

David Watson 19:54

Yeah, that's right. That's right. What is this interweb thing people are using? And now... But it's not just theological education that's changed. Education has changed, and the church has changed. And so theological education is facing challenges on two fronts. And we have to be able to engage people using the methods of engagement now that they are used to using. Now there will be some schools. Like I don't ever see--I don't know, for sure. I don't have any insight track on this. I would be surprised if, like, someplace like Duke ever had a really robust online program. But it's just a different kind of community, right. You've got on campus housing. You've got Duke Chapel. You're situated on this beautiful university campus. You know, it's a different kind of setting. And the capacity to preserve that kind of theological education that's more similar to what we went through, you know, that's wonderful. I praise God for that. And there are people who will thrive in that environment. There are also people who need a different kind of theological education. And one of the challenges I think, for a lot of schools right now, is how do you engage people in distance learning without becoming more like a correspondence course? That's really always been the challenge for theological education. And so for example, one of the things we do at United is we do online synchronous learning, where we have a virtual classroom. We have people in a physical classroom, but we have other people who participate on screen. And then, you know, for asynchronous classes, how do you really facilitate engagement? How do you get what the equivalent of the conversation at the pub after class, like Chris was talking about? How do you do that? That's hard to do. Message boards aren't it. You know, I've run into that frustration a lot with online teaching. And there are software programs that are more like the kinds of social media engagement that people have, where they can communicate more organically with one another. And I think that these are helpful, but that's an ongoing challenge. But nevertheless, that's the world we live in now. Right?

Chris McAlilly 22:22

Yeah, I also think that part of the older model... I mean, there's been many critiques of the professionalization of the culture in the 20th century, the way in which, you know, the church desired to gain a kind of established place within American society. And then you want... The professionalization of the culture means you need a professional school and a master's degree and all of this. And all that's very expensive. And part of what's shifting is just the sheer business model. It's just very, very expensive, as you say, to preserve that form of kind of gold standard M.Div at a Research 1 university, etc. But there are also some convictions that I think that I've heard you articulate and other settings around... And not just you. But I think folks who desire to see the church retrieve the resources of the canonical heritage of the church, kind of following through with some of Billy's vision for where the church might find its renewal. And there are convictions that some have, and I haven't heard you articulate this, but I think you could help folks understand it, that in order to do that, leaving a Research 1 American university might be the move. That you may need to actually move to a monastery or move to, you know, start a new seminary or in the case of United take one that was dying and kind of renew it. But now, and without some of the certain incentive structures and some of the constraints that you have when you're within a larger institution that has its own kind of priorities, perhaps articulate I guess, some of your convictions about how theological education might lead to the renewal of the church and the way in which theological education may need to happen in some new contexts in order for that to happen.

David Watson 24:24

Yeah, that's a big question. That's a great question. One of the great things about these big schools that you're talking about, like, you know, Duke or Candler or Perkins, is just the resources that they have, and especially the library resources. They're incredible, you know. I spent so much time in Bridwell Library at Perkins. I basically just pitched a tent in there and lived in that place. And it's a great library. But you are also right, that being in a university environment does put certain constraints on you, I think. One of the reasons I like working in a freestanding seminary is that we have the capacity to shape the vision in curriculum in ways that I don't think we would if we were embedded within a larger university, especially one with R1 status or something like that.

Chris McAlilly 25:21
Can you give a specific example of how that affects the curriculum and kind of its shaping?

David Watson 25:28

Well, for one thing, I don't have to answer to a provost. You know, the faculty really does. My boss is the president. But he basically leaves the curriculum to the faculty. And the faculty by itself really shapes the curriculum. Now, obviously, we have some accreditation constraints and things like that. But the faculty doesn't have to answer to a provost. I don't have to submit my syllabi to a syllabus committee to tell me that I have the right people on my syllabus. So in that sense, I know that schools of that ilk like to talk about academic freedom, and I don't doubt that they have that. But I think being in a seminary where the faculty does have that kind of control over the curriculum does give you a level of academic freedom that you wouldn't have.

Eddie Rester 26:25 Right.

Chris McAlilly 26:26
Yeah. And so I guess... Oh, go for it, Eddie.

Eddie Rester 26:28
I was just gonna say, I'm on the Board of Trustees of a small college, and to change curriculum is a multi-layered,

David Watson 26:37 Yes.

Eddie Rester 26:37 multi-year process.

David Watson 26:40 Right.

Eddie Rester 26:40

And that's at a small college. And I would imagine at Duke or Candler or Perkins, it's kind of the same thing, probably even more so because you have to meet the academic rigor of the full university. I think...

David Watson 26:53 Yes.

Eddie Rester 26:54
But for y'all, I think if you see an emerging need, then you can respond or if something that you feel like this needs to be added, you can more quickly step into that.

Chris McAlilly 27:04

I can't say enough positive things about my seminary experience. I landed there, maybe either providence or sheer just resources and money, there was a lot of Coke money. You know, Coca- Cola.

Eddie Rester 27:17 Coca-Cola.

Chris McAlilly 27:18

Not cocaine money, Coca Cola money that made a full ride possible. My seminary training, though, changed when I became a student pastor. I started thinking about the ideas in light of the church. And I do think that that is one of the things, over the course of time, some of the larger... I don't know, at the end... What is the end towards which theological education is being engaged? I began to develop convictions about that. So sitting at a little rural church in southwest Fulton County that it needed to be for the church. Not that the the folks at Candler were not engaging theological education to train pastors. That was happening. But I don't know. I think over the course of time what I noticed is that in an environment where, you know, I mean, it was a broadly liberal Protestant environment, each individual professor was doing their own individual academic project so that they could gain tenure, etc. And within that there were some incredible professors, but there wasn't an overall theological vision that I could figure out or articulate.

David Watson 27:30 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 28:29

And I do think that's one of the things that I see at a place like United and my understanding is you guys got to a place of, I guess, like institutional survival, where there was a moment where there was a need to re envision kind of what the school was and it might be. And there was a group of leaders that came together at a particular moment that really re-envisioned kind of a trajectory and that gave you an opportunity to kind of reengage the the syllabus. I could be wrong about that,

David Watson 28:57

No, you're right, Chris, that's essentially what happened. I mean, there's nothing like an existential crisis to get you to reevaluate. And we did hit that point, you know. We didn't have very many... We had moved campuses. We didn't have very many students at all. We hit some real financial problems, and we just had to make some decisions. Okay, what is our identity going to be? And how are we going to serve the church moving forward? And I have a very strong conviction that theological education, seminary education, should serve the church, that the seminary is simply an educational wing of the church for the work of ministry. And so in that sense, maybe more so than some others, I would say that seminaries also should have accountability to the church.

Chris McAlilly 29:47

Yeah, so but I do think one of the things I think you gain a lot. As I think about the move outside of Research 1 university, you gain the capacity to focus on theological education for the life of the church, to have alignment in terms of faculty and its theological vision and kind of building, shaping kind of the whole in terms of a clear kind of focus. And I take the focus to be, really I mean, engaging the canonical heritage of the church, the resources of scripture, Old and New Testament, convictions around revelation, and kind of the received word of God, the way in which that gets interpreted through both Christian history and the theological heritage of the church. And that that's kind of an essential starting place. And then there's certain practical dimensions of preaching and teaching and catechesis and evangelism and kind of pastoral care, and kind of all the rest. I do think one of the things that you potentially could lose is the engagement with the other disciplines, you know. You think about a really high... I can't remember the name of the professor, but it's a really high level of engagement with sociology, kind of the sociology of religion, things that I do think... I mean, I'm not saying that you can't engage those things if you're not a Research 1 university. That's ridiculous. But I do think that the focus could be less. I mean, I don't know, it seems like as the shift happens, how do you maintain an engagement among the students with the range of ideas that you would need to live in the world as it is, you know?

David Watson 31:36

That is a challenge. And you're right. I mean, there were pros and cons to both scenarios. You know, I was just at Baylor, Truett Seminary, for Jason Vickers was being, I guess, installed into the William Jay Abraham Chair at Truett Seminary. And that was a very joyful event. And I got to be part of that. And I just, I was there, and I just thought, wow, you know, this place is... There's just such a wealth of resources here. And you would have the capacity to engage people in so many different fields. It would be a wonderful place to work and learn, in the same way that you know, Perkins would or Candler would, or Duke would. I mean, these places just have great resources and, I would think, a great interchange of ideas. And so in a place like United, we really do have to be more intentional about that. It's not going to happen naturally, because everyone here is a seminary professor, right? Those are the only professors we employ are seminary professors for theological education. And that sense, it is more narrow, though you can bring in, as you note, you can bring in engagement with other fields if you try to.

Chris McAlilly 33:01
And I do think deep... I guess it comes out of this desire that you articulated not just to have smarter pastors, but to have deeper pastors that are well formed in the tradition first.

Eddie Rester 33:15

Let me jump off of that with a question, David. When I was in seminary, we were sent out field placements to work at typically small rural churches, where they paid us, where we worked for the pastor. The church had a set of kind of a rubric to help us with over the course, whether it was the school year or the summer. As the world has changed, I'm wondering if, does it make more sense for us to send theological students into a place where they are not just forced to engage kind of an interior life of the church? Does it make more sense to send them to someplace to say, you're going to work for X company, you're going to work for something outside the church to be able to reflect inside the seminary, what the world is like outside the bubble, this shrinking bubble of the church? Any thoughts on that?

David Watson 33:15 That's right.

Chris McAlilly 33:15
You're gonna gain catechesis in other places, or you're gonna have to engage the world just by living in the world, just by participating in the culture. But it does seem like that's that emphasis, I think, is and will be important, in the next moment of the life of the church.

David Watson 34:27

Well, I think there are pros and cons to both approaches. And one of the just truths about theological education now is that a lot of our students are second career students. At United most of our students are second career students. And so they've already had business experience, or they've already worked in another field and they kind of know what things are like. I didn't. I mean, I went to seminary when I was 22. And just went straight from there through my PhD, and so I didn't get all of those experiences. And you know, it's what I needed to do for my career, but there is value. And there's a lot of value in the second career students who come through who have just been through life and had careers and can relate to people from a variety of perspectives because of that. So I think that what you're talking about, Eddie, already happens a lot.

Chris McAlilly 35:29 Yeah.

David Watson 35:30
They come with that experience.

Chris McAlilly 35:32

Yeah, that's right. I remember reading, Brent Strawn wrote a book called "The Old Testament Is Dying." And the book is really about just kind of... I mean, it's a take on biblical illiteracy and the culture, and in particularly the Old Testament, just...

David Watson 35:47 Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 35:47

Folks just don't know it, don't preach it, aren't singing it, you know. There's this kind of desire to immerse the church and particularly those who are being formed to be pastors of churches in the language, the rich, scriptural language of the depth of the biblical materials, the point where you would be engaging it as a primary language. And then also, if you're going to engage in evangelism, if you're going to engage in, you know, apologetics, if you're going to engage people in the culture, to try to offer a compelling and attractive case for finding your way into a relationship with Christ and the church, then there needs to be this kind of bilingual dimension, where you gain fluency in a second language. It just seems like, you know, it does feel like a moment where prioritizing, learning the Bible and the Christian tradition as a first language is the work of theological education in this particular cultural moment in America. I take that point. One of the people that I've seen you point towards, or maybe gesture towards, it may just be like a tweet here, and there is the work of Word on F.

David Watson 37:06 Yeah, Robert Barron.

Chris McAlilly 37:06

Robert Barron. I wonder if you could just take him up as an example. And Eddie and I haven't talked about him. Maybe tell folks who Robert Barron is, and then maybe kind of what it is that appeals to you about his approach to a kind of engagement with both the history of the theology, the biblical materials, but also the culture.

David Watson 37:42

Well, you're right, I have great admiration for Robert Barron and what he's accomplished. He is a Roman Catholic bishop. He was the auxilary bishop in the Los Angeles area. And now I believe he is bishop in Minnesota. And he began a ministry about 20 years ago, I think, called Word on Fire. And it is an evangelistic and apologetic ministry. Apologetics meaning, you make the case for Christianity in the public square. And it's been extremely successful from what I can tell, and he is just such a great spokesperson for his tradition. He articulates the faith so clearly, and he breaks down complex ideas so well. But he's also caught on to the fact that apologetics really has had to change. For a long time, apologetics was sort of making the faith reasonable. If you offered an apologetic, you offered a reasonable account of the faith. And you know, a great example of that is Tim Keller's book, "The Reason for God." And I also have a lot of admiration for Tim Keller. But Barron seems to have caught on to the fact that there's more to it than that now. That we're not just arguing... Like, it's not just that belief in God, people think belief in God is unreasonable. They may not think it's unreasonable. They simply may think it's implausible or it's immoral. Right? So what we're arguing for now is not so much the reasonableness of God, as we were kind of in the modernist period, but the goodness of Christian faith and its contributions to the common good. A lot of people see Christianity as immoral.

Chris McAlilly 39:35 Right.

Eddie Rester 39:36 That's right.

David Watson 39:36 In it's particularity.

Chris McAlilly 39:38 Yeah.

David Watson 39:39 One of the things...

Eddie Rester 39:40 I think that's important.

David Watson 39:41 Go ahead, Eddie.

Eddie Rester 39:42

No, I just think that's very important for people to hear that, that in our world today people may not see the church is the place that is growing people in virtue and morality, that it may be the place that is actually lessening person's ability to live a moral and vibrant life. Sorry I interrupted you.

Chris McAlilly 40:05

You hear Russell Moore talking a good bit about those kinds of themes, you know, in terms of evangelizing the next generation. You were finishing a thought, though, David. I want to make sure that you had an opportunity to do that.

David Watson 40:17

Well, just that Bishop Baron points us to the transcendentals of beauty, truth, and goodness. And so Christianity is true, and we do have to make that case. But it's also beautiful. And it's also good. And we have to attend to beauty and goodness, as well as to true. And as Protestants were behind. We're pretty good at apologetics with regard to truth, especially in the reformed tradition. They've done some very good work on that, the people that we call like the reformed epistemologists, like Alvin Plantinga. But what about beauty? And what about goodness?

Chris McAlilly 41:03

Yeah, and I feel like the thing that I note about Bishop Baron is just he does lead with beauty, you know, everything that they produce is really beautiful. And I do think it's in a world that balks at objective truth, or even, you know, inherent goodness, you know, beauty... I think about aesthetics. I think about going into the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis, and seeing kind of a mosaic-like explosion of color, you know, for the first time or...

David Watson 41:33 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 41:33

You know, walking through the cathedrals of Europe, when I was in my 20s, and being like, man, there's this rich cultural heritage I wasn't even aware of, in the... Like, what kind of an imagination gives rise to this beauty, you know, was an important question. And ultimately, the beautiful, the theological aesthetics, it does feel like a place that's non judgmental, where you can begin a conversation. If you can convince somebody that it's beautiful, then maybe they, you know, stick around long enough...

Eddie Rester 42:07 That you can talk truth.

Chris McAlilly 42:07

That you can talk some truth and maybe invite them into a conversation about what's good about Christ and the church. I wonder, I guess so just kind of pushing that a little bit further. What is it that that either you learn from Tim Keller or Bishop Barron, or others in the way that they are either evangelizing or trying to do apologetics with the culture as it is today that informs maybe the way we need to think about theological education?

David Watson 42:36

I think both of those guys have... You know, Tim Keller, when he was alive, Robert Barron, currently, you know, they take a lot of flack. I'm sure they get incredible hate mail and just abuse online. You know, the reform people who beat up on Tim Keller, I cannot understand that. It just is completely beyond me, how you could have this spokesman for your tradition, who is so articulate, and so well spoken and so accomplished...

Eddie Rester 43:14

Thoughtful.

David Watson 43:15

And hopeful and just beat up on him all the time. But both of those people handle their criticism was such grace. They embody loving your enemies. I struggle with that, I'm just confessing right now. Right? That is hard for me. I tried to do it. I'm definitely not as good at it as those two guys are. And they take a lot more abuse than I do. And I think that that says something about their character, the fact that they can do that and the genuineness of their faith. So they're reasonable. They're articulate. They're not afraid to use various forms of media that are available to proclaim the gospel message and to draw people to Christ. They have real conviction, you can tell that when you talk, but they do it without being jerks about it.

Eddie Rester 44:08

Exactly. I just, you know, I was late to the Tim Keller train. I think maybe, Duke... I'm not sure what... Well, we didn't read Tim Keller at Duke. But some of his later books laid out... The book on the resurrection. I can't think of the name of it. It was a red book. But it laid out a beauty to the resurrection.

David Watson 44:30

Yeah. There are theological schools where people--and I work at one of them--where people are desperate to see a new awakening and revival in this country. I mean, it's happening around the world, but it hasn't caught on in America yet.

Eddie Rester 44:31

That every year when I begin to prepare for Easter now, I pull that one off the shelf to read again, because it just fires up the imagination, the depth of love of God for us. But let me ask you this, you know, occasionally I'll hear somebody dogging seminaries or we should get rid of all seminaries or they're not doing their job. And probably some truth to every bit of that, but what do you wish the church at large knew about theological education? From your vantage point, what do we need to know? Right.

David Watson 45:31

There are people who are desperate to see the lost come to Christ, and are doing everything in their power to facilitate that--writing books about scripture or theology or evangelism, and teaching in ways that will turn their students into effective, passionate preachers of the gospel. Theological education has had its ups and downs over the years, I'm not gonna lie. You know, it's had its good moments, and it's had its bad moments. And I think some schools have been at better than other schools, and some schools have changed over time, et cetera, et cetera. But I know people at my school and at other schools, who love God with all their heart, and who love to see people come to Christ, and want to do everything in their power to make that happen. I just, I wish people saw that more. And I don't think they do. We tend to harp on the negative and there is negative, I admit that. But there's a lot of good.

Chris McAlilly 46:47

So let me let me just sum up the list here. So you would be for epistemological humility, deeper pastors that would lead to deeper churches, deeper Christians, people with a depth of character that have the capacity to be courageous, particularly in their engagement with the culture. But doing that in a way that you're not jerks. You want to produce effective, passionate preachers of the gospel, folks that have a desperation to see renewal and revival, not only in America, but in the world where you see the lost come to Christ. But there's a dimension that you talked about earlier of joy, as well. There's a kind of winsomeness and a joyfulness knowing that if revival is to come, ultimately it is the work of God. It's not...

David Watson 47:35 Yes.

Chris McAlilly 47:35
It's not our work. And that's a pretty good list for a 40, 45 minute conversation. I could talk much longer and you know, I got a ton of other questions, but David.

David Watson 47:46
Can I add two to the list, Chris?

Chris McAlilly 47:48 Go for it.

David Watson 47:49

I think it's important that we help people understand the notion of divine agency. So God actually does things. God is not just an idea. When we pray, we need to expect things to happen. God is not an absentee landlord. And then the other piece is we need to immerse people in the consensual, what, you know, Billy called it the canonical tradition. Thomas Odin called it the consensual tradition. These days, I use that language more, just seems more accessible to people, the consensual tradition of the church. These are treasures that are available to us. And they are part of our inheritance as part of the body of Christ. And so it helps us when we mine the riches of the tradition and understand all that is available to us as Christians. We don't have to reinvent the faith in every generation, we inherit the faith.

Chris McAlilly 48:49

Wisdom is wisdom is wisdom is wisdom. Eddie's preaching a series right now on the Apostles Creed. And, you know, I preached one this summer, or this late, I guess, early August, just on praying the Psalms. And people love this stuff, you know. I mean, in an age of transience, and turbulence, and, you know, all kinds of instability in kind of the institutional structures that gave a lot of people comfort and safety. At a time when all that's breaking down, I do think there's great...

Eddie Rester 49:22 Amen.

Chris McAlilly 49:23

There's just great hope and opportunity to really, you know, find these... I don't know, it's like Josiah realizing that like the Old Testament, you know, or the book of Moses is right there in the temple. And it could be read, you know. It's like, it's still there. And I just want to thank you for all the ways in which you point people in that direction. And thanks for the good work that you guys are doing at United, and thank you for taking the time to be with us today.

David Watson 49:55 It's been a joy.

Chris McAlilly 49:56

If people want to follow your work or our kind of continue thinking about some of the themes that you're lifting up, you mentioned the Firebrand Podcast. That would be a place that you point people. Anywhere else that you would point folks?

David Watson 50:09

Firebrand magazine at www.firebrandmag.com. And I also have a Substack now, and I, I just started it, so I don't know the address of it. I think it's dfwatson3@substack.com or something like that. .substack.com. But yeah, I have a Substack. I did blog on WordPress for a long time, and I've moved over to Substack. And I like that. And so those are really the the places where you can find me. I'm on Twitter, @utsdoc, and I would love to be in conversation with your listeners. I want to thank you guys for having me on. It's really been a joy and an honor to be on your podcast and thanks for the good work that you're doing.

Eddie Rester 50:53

Well, thank you. We appreciate you, and enjoy the rest of your day, my friend.

David Watson 50:58 You, too. God bless you.

Eddie Rester 50:59
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Chris McAlilly 51:08

If you would like to support this work financially or if you have an idea for a future guests, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]