Scope of Our Art: The Vocation of the Theological Teacher

Parker J. Palmer
"Over the past decade a growing number of college and university professors have been reclaiming teaching as a vocation, but seminary faculty have been strangely silent on the subject. The Scope of Our Art breaks that silence with eloquence and power. I believe it will be regarded as a landmark book for years to come. This superb set of essays by some of our finest theological educators should spark a life-giving conversation about teaching and learning in the seminaries -- where vocation as embodied by the faculty of today helps give shape to the vocation of ministry in the church of tomorrow."

Richard A. Rosengarten
"Theological educators both present and future will profit greatly from this volume's cogent and remarkably lucid meditations that limn the personal, pedagogical, and institutional dimensions of a fraught but absolutely crucial endeavor. Jones and Paulsell have accomplished the unusual feat of coaxing real unity of focus out of genuine and lasting diversity of experience. The resulting volume is rich in perspective but carries real cumulative heft; it is not incidental that it thus testifies persuasively to the challenging, vital, and important work of freestanding theological seminaries and university-related divinity schools."

Donald Senior, C.P.
"For anyone who has been or aspires to be a teacher of theology, reading this book will be like the refreshment of a spring breeze. Discussions of pedagogy and theological method abound, but rarely does one find such thoughtful and inspiring essays on the vocation of the theological teacher. The authors gathered here -- all skilled and committed to their art -- do all of us a great favor."

Margaret R. Miles
"These challenging and moving essays address everyone who teaches religious studies. They make the point that we are all student-teachers, perennially learning the quality of attentiveness that characterizes good teaching."