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Rethinking the Work of Theologians in the Pandemic's Wake
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2023
Abstract
This article focuses on what the pandemic reveals about theological work in the academy and imagines a way forward. Too often, theologians are ground down, isolated workers, overworked, and strapped for time. They constantly must choose between progress in the guild and their familial and communal relationships. This false choice starves theologians of meaning and purpose, and, in such scarcity, inflames pursuit of status. However, a communal conception of theological academic work could mitigate some of these frictions. To imagine this possibility, we draw upon our collective experiences of working in Benedictine institutions that also argue for communal approaches to living, learning, and experiencing God. We draw ideas from the Rule of Benedict as a model for life-giving community that we think can be resituated in academic life.
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- Copyright © College Theology Society 2023
Footnotes
Competing interests: The authors declare none.
References
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17 Columba Stewart, OSB, says that the work of God for Benedict “is the daily series of communal liturgical gatherings,” which is also the “backbone of Benedictine prayer.” He also says, “The work of God is the time and place of mindfulness of God par excellence; to miss it is to miss a precious opportunity of encounter with the One who is sought through the monastic way of life.” See Stewart, Columba, OSB, Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition, (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998), 32–33Google Scholar. See the Rule of St. Benedict, 4:21, cf. 72.11, and 43:3. We recognize that we are not monastics and that we are adapting the Rule of Benedict (RB) for outside the monastery. However, the liturgical life for nonmonastics also includes times for communal prayer, which must be prioritized in the face of competing claims on time.
18 Benedictine Columba Stewart discusses why the communal dimension remains important for self-awareness, accountability, and growth in one's relationship with God, self, and others. He points out that RB does not cover all difficulties within communities. Yet, Stewart argues that Benedict provides insights into what is needed for healthy communities. See Stewart, Prayer and Community, 94–95.
19 We are not unique in considering how to resituate practices and values from RB outside of a monastic setting. By drawing upon RB, we are following Benedictine Columba Stewart's advice that “in thinking of Benedictine monasticism as a message for all Christians, we need to start with the Rule. It is the common ground of everyone and everything in the monastery, for all alike, from superior to novice, regard them as the norm for community life. This obvious point is often seen best by Benedictine oblates, who live without the complex customs, structures, and policies which govern monastic communities.” Stewart, Prayer and Community, 117–18.
20 The language of movements rather than sections signifies that although we offer diagnoses, narrative examples, and suggestive possibilities for community building practices, we acknowledge that there is a dynamism to the work undertaken. As RB indicates, there remains a need to begin again, to see connections that are intertwined and recursive rather than linear. The language of movements attempts to capture this lived reality.
21 In using the language of constraining work, we are not challenging the good of labor but noting that it has limits. We are using the word to note the issue in the academy and so are not restricting ourselves to the vocabulary of RB, which is concerned with monastic settings as such.
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24 The phrase “not enough time” is shorthand for the reality that the pandemic increased labor demands both at work and home, while the number of hours in the day does not change. Academics needed and continue to make trade-offs regarding sleep, relationships, and the demands and expectations of their work. Questions about our worth and value are personal in how we perceive ourselves and contributions to the communal endeavor of theology in the church. Questions are communal both ecclesially and in the academy since theology as a humanitarian discipline is scrutinized for its value and worth in broader institutional considerations.
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40 Marie, “Toward a Gendered Theology of Work,” 133.
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43 Chronicle of Higher Education, “‘On the Verge of Burnout,’” 5.
44 Chronicle of Higher Education, “‘On the Verge of Burnout,’” 4–6.
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46 Imperatori-Lee, “Dispatches from the Wasteland,” 36.
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52 Zhang, “Do Academics’ Emotions in Teaching Affect Their Organizational Commitment?,” 1320.
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56 Hamilton, “Cash or Kudos,” 200.
57 The academic world has structured this “difficult to achieve” status as promotion within the academy, the rankings of our theology programs and institutions, of journals and publishing houses. As theologians we signal status by creating in and out groups based upon these types of rankings. Furthermore, our personal status is telegraphed within the academy by the recounting of how many articles, book reviews, book chapters, and books we have published, as if quantity equals our value and worthwhile contribution to the theological endeavor.
58 Our argument is broader than the intentional community of RB. Although Benedictine colleges and universities are not intentional communities like a monastery or Catholic worker houses, they do have a communal dimension to them. As places of work, they have a work dimension to them. As Catholic and Benedictine, they have a religious component to them. Thus, there are insights from RB that can be analogically applied as RB speaks about ordering work, community, and spirituality. This ordering also has an advantage over Catholic Social Teaching (CST) as CST speaks less about the particular communities behind the teachings. We are attempting to bring awareness of how Benedictine insights and spirituality could help structure academic life in those institutions, in a similar manner to how Jesuit institutions think about Ignatian principles in their institutions.
59 Young, Kathryn, Anderson, Myron, and Stewart, Saran, “Hierarchical Microaggressions in Higher Education,” Journal of Diversity in Higher Education 8.1 (2015): 61–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 61.
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61 Young, Anderson, and Stewart, “Hierarchical Microaggressions in Higher Education,” 62.
62 Chronicle of Higher Education, “‘On the Verge of Burnout,’” 10–12.
63 RB 53:1,7, and 15 (guests), RB 36:1 (the sick). Although RB specifically references guests, those who are poor, and the sick, there are also indications throughout the rule that lend themselves to expand the notion of seeing Christ in all. We draw attention, in particular, to RB 53.15, which states “Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received: our awe of the rich guarantees them special respect.”
64 Joan Chittister, OSB, The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Chestnut Ridge, PA: Crossroad Publishing, 2014), xiv.
65 RB 4:72 says to pray for one's enemies because one loves Christ. This verse is part of a series of verses, RB 4:64–74, prefaced by RB 4:63: “Live by God's commandments every day.” Given Benedict's frequent allusions to scripture, it is possible that RB 4:72 is alluding to Matt. 5:44.
66 Malesic, “‘Nothing to Be Preferred to the Work of God,’” 51.
67 See RB 8–11, which detail prayer schedules and scope for spring, summer, and vigil Sundays. Chapter 41 looks at the time for meals and references both liturgical and physical seasons. There is variety to how the limits are shaped.
68 Böckmann, Aquinata, “RB 48: Of the Daily Manual Labor: Part 1,” American Benedictine Review 59, no. 2 (2008): 141–66Google Scholar, at 154. For example, 48.24–25 advise taking into consideration a person's health and adapting the assigned work accordingly. Likewise, RB 35:12–13 permit those serving in the kitchen to sometimes have something to eat and drink before beginning serving others. This is to mitigate grumbling and hardship, what we might call “hangry” serving today.
69 Abbot John Klassen, “Educating in the Benedictine Context: Why It Matters,” Association of Benedictine Colleges and Universities Address, 3, https://98fb3d8d-5a79-4033-bcba-cf52bd80445a.filesusr.com/ugd/5f524e_9666472c36ee497ab7a4f69b36b197eb.pdf.
70 We are advocating for a moderate limiting of email but draw the idea from Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload (New York: Penguin Books, 2021).
71 Posadas, Jeremy, “The Refusal of Work in Christian Ethics and Theology: Interpreting Work from an Anti-work Perspective,” Journal of Religious Ethics 45, no. 2 (2017): 330–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
72 Posadas, “The Refusal of Work in Christian Ethics and Theology,” 348.
73 RB prol. 4 advises “every time you begin a good work, you must pray to [Christ] most earnestly to bring it to perfection.” Prayer is how we should start all endeavors.
74 Lynn, Monty, “Ora et Labora: The Practice of Prayerful Teaching,” Christian Education Journal 1, no. 3 (2004): 43–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 48.
75 Ravizza, Bridget Burke and Peterson-Iyer, Karen, “Motherhood and Tenure: Can Catholic Universities Support Both?” Catholic Education: A Journal of Inquiry and Practice 8, no. 3 (2005): 303–25Google Scholar, at 316.
76 Ravizza and Peterson-Iyer, “Motherhood and Tenure,” 315–23. Also, Conor Kelly makes similar recommendations in his The Fullness of Free Time: A Theological Account of Lesiure and Recreation in the Moral Life (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2020), part 2.
77 Way, Samuel, Morgan, Allison, Clauset, Aaron, and Larremore, Daniel, “The Misleading Narrative of the Canonical Faculty Productivity Trajectory,” PNC 114, no. 44 (2017)Google ScholarPubMed: E9216–E9223, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1702121114. See E9920 for the discussion of the four trajectories.
78 King, Jason, “What Chairs Can Do for Contingent Faculty,” Journal of Catholic Higher Education 38, no. 2 (2019): 177–92Google Scholar.
79 Jessi Smith, L. Lynn Vidler, and Michele Moses, “The ‘Gift’ of Time: Documenting Faculty Decisions to Stop the Tenure Clock During a Pandemic,” Innovative Higher Education (2022): https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-022-09603-y.
80 Klassen, “Educating in the Benedictine Context,” 2.
81 Klassen, “Educating in the Benedictine Context,” 3.
82 Böckmann, “RB 48: Of the Daily Manual Labor: Part 1,” 146.
83 Böckmann, “RB 48: Of the Daily Manual Labor: Part 1,” 148.
84 Stewart, Prayer and Community, 45.
85 Thus, RB 57 on the artisans can be adapted to theologians. Like the artisans, we need to practice our craft with humility. Our attitude, the “how” we practice, matters more than the “what” we produce. In this, we could put structures in place where, if avarice arises, we take breaks. As academics, our greed will probably not be monetary but more likely status.
86 Kitchen work and reading at meals are rotated weekly. The beginning and end for the kitchen workers are psalm recitations, which places kitchen work within the context of liturgical prayer. See RB 35.15–18.
87 See also, RB 21 with criteria for appointing deans and RB 65 on selecting a prior. Both chapters discuss personality, character, and virtues needed for these positions. An emphasis on the traits required for positions of stability points to questions about hiring or promoting for leadership positions within our institutions. Where is the emphasis on these qualities and traits in hiring that rather showcases CVs with publications, educational pedigree, and professional positions?
88 King, Jason, “The Exercise of Obedience and Authority in the Rule of Saint Benedict,” American Benedictine Review 65, no. 3 (2014): 257–70Google Scholar.
89 Columba Stewart, OSB, “Benedictine Monasticism as a Way of Life: Its Origins and Future,” Collegeville Connections, March 10, 2021, https://collegevilleinstitute.org/events/event/benedictine-monasticism-stewart/. This was a summary of his idea.
90 See the Black Catholic Theological Symposium's website for their history, mission, and explanation of purpose, https://blackcatholictheologicalsymposium.org/.
91 See the Academy of Hispanic Catholic Theologians in the United States website for their history, mission, explanation of purpose, https://achtus.us/. Also see Victor Carmona's 2022 presidential address, which begins with acknowledging and naming the wounds and struggles of the various communities to which ACHTUS members belong but also the struggles of the theologians themselves. He models what a listening theologian does by referencing aspects of their colloquium's discussions and conversations in his address. See Carmona, Victor, “Questioning Hope at our Borders—2022 Presidential Address,” Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology 24, no. 2 (2022): 90–101Google Scholar.
92 KerryAnn O'Meara, Audrey Jaeger, Joya Misra, et al., “Undoing Disparities in Faculty Workloads: A Randomized Trial Experiment,” PLOSE One 13, no. 12 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0207316.
93 A similar activity was undertaken by Marina Abramović in the 2010 performance “The Artist is Present” at The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Discussion of this event and how looking into another's eyes can communicate depth of emotion and connections with another person can be found in Marissa King's Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection (New York: E. P. Dutton Publishing, 2021), chap. 7.
94 Stewart, “Benedictine Monasticism as a Way of Life.”
95 Manuela Scheiba, OSB, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” American Benedictine Review 70, no. 1 (2019): 25–44, at 27.
96 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 27. See our earlier reference in footnote 79 to Abbot John Klassen's approach to lectio. It is one remedy to this problem.
97 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 27. Scheiba references Friedrich Schleiermacher on what religion is in this quote. See Schleiermacher, Friedrich, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, ed. Crouter, Richard, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 39Google Scholar.
98 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 29.
99 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 30.
100 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 31.
101 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 32. See RB 68 where Benedict provides guidance to the monk who has been given a task he deems too burdensome and which he cannot complete.
102 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 33.
103 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 36.
104 Scheiba, “Economization and the Humanizing Potential of Benedict's Rule,” 40.
105 Hoffman, Mary, “Ora and Labora (Prayer and Work): Spirituality, Communication and Organizing in Religious Communities,” Journal of Communication and Religion 30 (2007): 187–212, at 187Google Scholar.
106 Hoffman, “Ora and Labora,” 192.
107 Hoffman, “Ora and Labora,” 196.
108 Hoffman, “Ora and Labora,” 197–98.
109 Hoffman, “Ora and Labora,” 199.
110 Hoffman, “Ora and Labora,” 204.
111 Hoffman, “Ora and Labora,” 200–02.
112 See Donnelly, Doris, “Listening and the Rule of St. Benedict,” American Benedictine Review 46 (1995) 178–81Google Scholar. In Joan Chittister, OSB, The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages (Chestnut Ridge, PA: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992), 49, Chittister indicates that to follow God's way Benedictine monks must listen to “the Gospel, the teachings of its abbots and prioresses, the experience of the community, and the Rule of Benedict itself.”
113 These suggestions for alleviated microaggressions come from Young, Anderson, and Stewart, “Hierarchical Microaggressions in Higher Education,” 69–70.
114 Chronicle of Higher Education, “‘On the Verge of Burnout,’” 19.