Being There: Culture and Formation in Two Theological Schools

This book offers a close-up look at theological education in the United States today. The authors' goal is to understand the ways in which institutional culture affects the outcome of the educational process. To that end they undertake ethnographic studies of two seminaries - one evangelical and one mainline Protestant. These studies, written in a lively journalistic style, make up the first part of the book and offer fascinating portraits of two very different intellectual, religious, and social worlds. The authors then go on to examine these disparate environments and suggest how, in each case, school culture acts as an agent of educational change. This unique and practical study should be of great interest to both students and scholars of American religion, to theological educators, and to educators generally.