Edwin David Aponte, New York Theological Seminary and Temple University

Edwin David Aponte is research professor of Latina/o and Latin American Christianity in the Center of World Christianity at New York Theological Seminary and adjunct professor of religion at Temple University. He holds a PhD from Temple University. Aponte’s research focuses on the interplay between religion and culture, especially in Latino/a religions, African-American religions, and religion, race, and ethnicity. His publications include Introducing Latino/a Theologies (with Miguel A. De La Torre, Orbis Books, 2001); A Handbook of Latina/o Theologies (coedited with Miguel A. De La Torre, Chalice Press, 2006); “Friedrich Schleiermacher” in Beyond the Pale: Reading Theology from the Margins (Miguel A. De La Torre and Stacey M. Floyd-Thomas, Westminster John Knox Press, 2011); “Metaphysical Blending in Latino/a Botánicas in Dallas” in Rethinking Latino(a) Religion and Identity (Miguel A. De La Torre and Gaston Espinosa, eds., Pilgrim Press, 2006); and “Rethinking the Core: African and African American Religious Perspectives in the Seminary Curriculum” in Teaching African American Religions (Carolyn M. Jones and Theodore Louis Trost, eds., Oxford University Press, 2005). Aponte has received grant support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Lilly Endowment, the Louisville Institute, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion, the Fund for Theological Education, the Hispanic Theological Initiative, Southern Methodist University, and Temple University.  

An Intercultural Imperative

In the various contexts in which we teach, it is well known that religious studies and theology faculty are confronted with multiple challenges, no matter what our setting might be — whether at a small liberal arts college, a large state university, a midsize private university, a university divinity school, or a freestanding seminary.

One aspect of the challenges we face as we continue to move through the ongoing economic doldrums and related social agendas includes reduced budgets or perhaps even the threat of elimination of positions and programs. Moreover, some of our colleagues contend with not only the continuing demand to justify the value of a liberal arts education, but also the added burden of explaining the general purpose of religious studies and theological studies in the context of liberal arts and humanities. For those scholar-teachers at divinity schools and theological seminaries, the value of religious studies and theological studies is still safely assumed, so far, but the need for and viability of certain other disciplines and fields has been brought into question. Trustees and administrators are asking whether a school or department can really afford the “luxury” of a sociologist of religion or a scholar of religion and culture, of having both a theologian and an ethicist, or even a Hebrew Bible scholar and a Christian Testament scholar, in the same department.

In addition to the economic challenges, we are in the midst of a massive demographic shift in society that unfortunately has only had episodic impact on the nature, shape, and enrollment of higher education, including religious studies. As our societies become increasingly more diverse and multicultural through the transnational movement of peoples and ideas, there is the potential for greater diversity and cross-cultural exchange in our schools and departments. Indeed, some of our institutions are already experiencing this change, whereas others are wondering how to even begin to engage the new realities and intercultural possibilities.

In the face of such challenges, as well as others not articulated here, I think that there is benefit in embracing pedagogical strategies that include intercultural ways of learning and teaching. Daniel Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools of the United States and Canada, once observed that there is a need for “an understanding of theological education that serves an even broader range of ministry settings — full- and part‐time leaders, leaders who are as likely to be noncongregation‐based as they are based in congregations, persons preparing for ministry, and persons already in ministry.” (6) While he was specific to theological education, I think that Aleshire’s remarks point to a wider concern — namely, that as scholar-teachers of religious studies, the education we provide to our students must serve a changing population with increasingly diverse expectations of that education and that our students, as graduates, later move into contexts not anticipated even a few years ago. It is a challenge to discern how to educate for a broad population in a context where not everyone recognizes the dramatic shifts that already have occurred and where any attempt to take action in response is perceived as an assault on what has been “tried and true” and/or a departure from some concept of a core mission, whether of a department or school.

I am not arguing that we must jettison the current dominant structure of degree programs, in part because I do not think that they are going to disappear. More importantly, higher education in the broad fields of religious studies ought not to be held hostage to a limited understanding of education, whether that takes the form of teaching for an external exam, meeting shifting, arbitrarily imposed standards, or embracing a nostalgic social, cultural, and pedagogical past that hides its opposition to contextual innovation. The changing context calls for a diversity of educational strategies that recognizes the changing student body, the multiple reasons people pursue higher education, and their varied vocational goals beyond our own specific learning objectives of a course.

In developing strategies for an intercultural pedagogy that addresses the real-life social, economic, and demographic challenges, I have found Orlando O. Espín’s concept of humanitas extremely helpful. Part of Espín’s explanation of humanitas is that it includes “the intersection of specific, living, and diverse contextualizations that recognizes another as human precisely because it recognizes in the other the historical, living reality of unfolding specific and diverse contextualizations that humans have constructed, and continue to construct in history” (53). Classroom experience and my prior work as an academic dean have convinced me that we need to keep in mind these multiple and shifting contextualizations as we develop specific teaching strategies for a variety of disciplines in religious studies. The students we teach are not abstractions who come to us as blank slates, but are real contextual beings whose lives intersect with other contextual beings, as we all interact with each other in the temporary community of our time of study together.

Therefore, part of my developing pedagogy is reminding myself that, before students ever step into the classroom, I need to keep in mind the diverse intercultural contextualizations they bring with them, including the fact that some of the students may be knowledgeable in many alternative paths of education and that I need to honor that life experience. Being very intentional about intercultural teaching, I have, for example, drawn upon African and African-American religious traditions and perspectives as a concrete, measurable step in rethinking and restructuring the core curriculum courses at three different schools. Some of this approach I discuss more fully elsewhere (see Aponte, “Rethinking the Core” in Teaching African American Religions, ed. Carolyn M. Jones and Theodore Louis Trost, Oxford University Press, 2005), but the courses included a two-semester survey of the history of Christianity and courses in social and contextual analysis and congregational studies. It was a step in shaping core courses in a way that addresses present and future multicultural realities.

This brings me to another point of my developing intercultural pedagogy: that we are learners together. I understand that as instructor and as the one responsible for handing in a grade to the registrar, I hold a certain type of power that the students do not have. Nevertheless, I am convinced that communal learning can be fostered effectively in my classroom. In this conviction I draw on my own intercultural contextualizations as a second-generation Puerto Rican Latino scholar of religion who draws on a vital feature of Latina/o theology: its collaborative methodology, known as teología en conjunto. As a shared endeavor, Latino/a collaborative theologies arise from both the historical and daily contexts of Latinas and Latinos in the United States. Such an approach represents more than the parochial concerns of a marginalized community. Doing history or cultural analysis in a collaborative way, en conjunto is another way of doing engaged pedagogy, one in which both students and instructors are learners together, fostering an educational community within the classroom. After a few sessions, some students recognize this collaborative emphasis and ensure its place in our discussions as together we create spaces for collaborative learning. 

Most of my interaction with students is through oral discourse, via lectures and discussions. The lectures in core requirement courses — rather than an inflexible unidirectional delivery of information — take on more of the form of both an extemporaneous performance and a multivoice conversation as we become teachers, learners, storytellers, and interpreters together. Related to this performance style of lecturing has been the sharing of my own personal stories, as appropriate to the subject. I intentionally allow for more discussions during class as a way to affirm our being learners together and to cultivate a community of learning rather than of competition. My persistence in encouraging student interaction has led to community-building and a new contextualization in which we have opportunity for dialogue and “an opportunity to process new paradigms, new ways of thinking” (hooks, 194).

I also attempt, finally, to recognize and honor the importance of different learning styles. For example, some people do well with oral discourse, while others are more visual learners. I make greater use of the syllabus as a learning tool and document rather than as a simple list of readings, so that in the first class session I “exegete” the syllabus and my plan for the course and thereby share with the students aspects of my pedagogical plan for our work together. I embrace the fact that there are certain rituals in the classroom, including the first and last sessions of the course, so that there are opportunities for us to become acquainted with each other and to be introduced into this temporary community, as well as an opportunity for us to say goodbye at the end of each semester.

Some of our schools and departments are at a perilous place. At the very moment when analysis of past trends and projections of future development confirm the wisdom of steps made in cooperation with alternative paths and innovative education, with all the potential of wider reach of service and increased enrollment, these are two areas under risk of — if not outright elimination — at least severe curtailment because of financial challenges. It is as if, in the face of economic difficulties, there is a retreat to some of the old ways of thinking and doing, even though we have the evidence to show that this time should have passed. In such a context, various persons advocate adoption of an educational “gold standard” with modest adaptations. However, I am not certain that any “gold standard,” with its classist, hegemonic, and modernist assumptions, has served all student constituencies as well as many claim, especially those persons who represent the growth in enrollment in higher education: women and persons of color.

Some schools and departments have begun to experience this demographic shift in enrollment and are ahead of others, especially with an increased number of persons of color as a percentage of student population. But any school’s continued participation in this potential enrollment tsunami is by no means guaranteed. The pivotal moment is now for schools to live up to their rhetoric, to embrace diversity fully and consistently — or risk losing the diversity achieved so far. In this time of transition much is at risk. By embracing the idea of intercultural pedagogy and experimenting with multiple ways to implement that concept, the potential exists not only to attain more effective ways of teaching and learning in religious studies, but also to address directly the monumental demographic shifts in our society and our various institutions. If we are successful, then our classroom praxis will well demonstrate the tremendous contribution that religious studies can make to the missional and financial needs of higher education.