Deference to traditions

I concur fully with Clyde Ervine's encyclopedic prescription for theological education (May) affirming that it is "about thought, about engagement with the sources of the Christian faith, as well as engagement with everything past and present that challenges the Christian faith." At once, however, the problem of engagement emerges when the challenges of the past are not remembered and when contemporary secular society may dismiss the faith as a subject worthy of challenge.
Our contemporary witness faces the difficulty of moving Christian interpretation from pre-modern world-views and advancing it to address post-modern outlooks shaped by scientific technological culture. The task requires educators with some facility for understanding cosmic changes affecting us as human beings within our environment. In short, I maintain that purposeful engagement with our past and our mission requires more explicit deference to graduate school and confessional traditions of theological education than are focused in some current models.