Something to Teach, Something to Learn Theological Education for World-Mending David Hadley Jensen “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” – John 10:10
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ohn’s Gospel teems with contrasts: light and darkness; followers of Jesus and those who refuse to follow; life and death; belief and doubt. In this memorable saying, which occurs in the middle of the gospel, Jesus contrasts those who would destroy life with his own ministry, which is for the life of the world. Jesus comes not for a select few, not to promote a thin slice of life, but to bless all creation. Jesus is Good News because he shows us the way of abundant life. What might theological education look like if it kept the aim of abundant life in sight? This essay offers one attempt at articulating a Protestant interpretation of theological education for the public good, an attempt that views the flourishing of Christian community as bound up with the flourishing of the world. I approach this interpretation in three movements: 1) by surveying some trends in the United States that obscure flourishing; 2) by offering some examples of theological education in Roman Catholic and Jewish contexts that Protestants might learn from; and, 3) by suggesting a more intentional reflection on place, or geographical loca-
David Hadley Jensen is academic dean and professor in the Clarence N.
and Betty B. Frierson Distinguished Chair in Reformed Theology at Austin Seminary. His most recent of ten books, Christian Understandings of Christ: The Historical Trajectory (Fortress, 2019), offers an analysis of how Jesus’s question, “Who do you say I am?” has been answered. He earned the MAR from Yale Divinity School and the PhD from Vanderbilt University.
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