The Pastor Theologians Podcast
A theology podcast for the church. The pastor theologians podcast consists of conversations and teaching resources at the intersection of theological scholarship and life and ministry in the local church. The vision for this show is to help equip pastors to be theologians for today’s complex world.
The Pastor Theologians Podcast
Becoming a Pastor Theologian | Shaun Brown
Shaun Brown, senior minister at Rocky Mount Christian Church and a fellow in the St. Hildegard Fellowship, joins the podcast to explore his journey through the Stone-Campbell movement, academic theology, and vocational ministry. Shaun shares how his faith was shaped by early experiences in church and Christian education, ultimately leading him from Bible college to a PhD program at Wycliffe College in Toronto, where he focused on the theology of George Lindbeck. The conversation highlights Shaun's transition from aspiring professor to pastor theologian, the theological distinctives of the Stone-Campbell tradition—particularly regarding baptism—and how his academic training now informs his preaching, pastoral leadership, and ongoing scholarship.
When I was working in that residential home, I had to clean the house at night, and I would listen to podcasts so that I had enough gaps in sound that if one of the guys called out for something, I could hear them. So the CPT podcast wound up being one that I listened to, and I started to think, you know, maybe this is what I need to do is go back in the ministry.
SPEAKER_00:Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the CPT Podcast. I'm Zach Wagner. I am joined by CPT President Joel Lawrence. Hello, Joel. Hello, Zach. We just finished a conversation with Sean, the Reverend Dr. Sean Brown. He told us we're going to put that in there because he said he hates titles.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. who is a member of our St. Hildegard Fellowship, and we've gotten to know Sean over the last three years or so. He serves as the senior minister at Rocky Mount Christian Church, not to be confused with Rocky Mountain.
SPEAKER_01:Different place.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. And that distinction is important because it is not in Colorado or Wyoming or Utah. It is, in fact, in Virginia. So got to know Sean kind of in front of you. We've had the privilege to get to know him over the past few years, but for the sake of this conversation, you, dear listener, will be getting to know Sean, I think, for the first time on the podcast. What's one or two things that stood out to you from the conversation with Sean, Joel?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think Sean, as we'll talk about in the dialogue, he's connected to the Stone-Campbell And we have, as we talk about, we've got one other fellow who's been involved with that, but not a lot within the CPT who are kind of from that part of Christendom. And so hearing the history of that and kind of how he understands his position within that and his journey. Yeah. through that, I think, is just an interesting denominational context for one of our fellows and brings a slightly different flavor to some of the things that we do, which I think is really helpful for us. And one of our values is ecumenical or interdenominational. And so to have different people coming from different traditions is a real value that we have at the CPT, and his is an underrepresented one. So it was good to have him tell us a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_00:How about you?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I appreciate we had a conversation about that tradition, specifically with regards to baptism early on, that I thought was an interesting conversation for sure. And also, my heart was strangely warmed. Sean is, I think, more than I realized, he's a bit of a CPT homegrown
SPEAKER_01:astrotheologian. Yeah, I didn't realize
SPEAKER_00:that either. In the sense that, like you'll hear him describe, he's He kind of bumped into what we do in the podcast and Todd and Gerald's book. And that seemed like it played a meaningful role in his conversion journey. towards ministry and his sense of vocation after doing a PhD. And I really also liked the way he described how his doing of a PhD relates to his sense of calling to ministry. So that was something I was encouraged by. And it's always cool to see the way the Lord has used the ministry of the CPT and what we're up to in directing folks to vocations in the local church. So that's certainly the case with Sean. Well, unless you have anything to add, Joel, we'll jump right in. People don't need to hear us going back and forth here. We'll jump right into our conversation with CPT fellow, Sean Brown.
SPEAKER_01:Sean, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you on. Yeah, good to be here. I've been a longtime listener, but this is my first time Long time, first time, as they say. First time caller. Good to be here. Well, great to have you on and looking forward to the conversation. This is a Becoming a Pastor Theologian conversation where we hear the story of a CPT fellow. So, Sean, looking forward to hearing more about your story. Let's begin at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about CPT. how life began for you. Where were you born? Where'd you grow up? Denominational affiliation, faith journey in the early days, all that good stuff. Okay, sure. I was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania and grew up around there. Greensburg is one county over from Pittsburgh. So I'm a lifelong fan of the Steelers and Pirates and Penguins. And my mother was raised Catholic. My dad was raised Methodists, and before I was born, they wound up beginning to attend a church that's part of the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ that's affiliated with what's called now the Stone-Campbell Movement. And so when I was born, they were already members there, and that's where I grew up in church, attending churches affiliated with that movement. So let's dive in there, because as we mentioned before, we hit record. It probably would be helpful to get something of a topography of the Stone-Campbell movement, the Christian churches, the churches of Christ. Yeah, give us a few minutes on the entire history of your denominational movement and your commitments. All right. Actually, a merger of two movements, one that's largely led in Kentucky, that area, by a guy named Barton Stone, and then another one with Thomas and Alexander Campbell, a father and son team. The Campbells initially settled in Pittsburgh and then moved over into Bethany, what was then Virginia is now West Virginia. And then the movements wound up merging in the 1830s in a very grassroots way. There was a unity meeting held that the Campbells did not attend. But it led to some writers going out and encouraging churches and local communities to merge. And that wound up happening in a very widespread way. Over time, this movement that started as kind of a restorationist and unity movement wound up splitting. into three predominant streams, but then we can also talk about some various substreams kind of within that. In 1906, there was an official split between the Churches of Christ, that are most notably known for not using instruments, and what we would then call the Disciples. And then subsequently, the Disciples had a subsequent split when they formed a denomination in the 1960s. But it was a slow... thing that kind of began in the modernist fundamentalist controversy, some debates over the missionary society, and then was solidified when the disciples officially formed as a denomination in the 1960s. So I grew up in a segment of churches that are known in scholarship as the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ that use instruments, but they split off from the Within the last few years, I've actually moved into now where I serve in a disciples congregation.
SPEAKER_00:Can I interject? I think we had, as you flagged before, on the podcast before, we had a similar conversation about the background of this movement with Jared Longbonds, who's another one of our fellows serving in Atlanta. But I imagine some people are curious, why no instruments? What would be the theological... I know that's not your immediate tradition, but that might be a point of curiosity. Right.
SPEAKER_01:If you look at the history of discussions of that, it's changed. I think historically, churches of Christ have argued that because the New Testament does not explicitly mention instruments, that they should not be used. So you kind of need an explicit warrant from the New Testament in order to carry out something. And because the New Testament does not have instruments, then therefore they do
SPEAKER_00:not have instruments. Yeah, so this is like a reverse regulative principle where... If it's not mentioned explicitly, then it's anathema.
SPEAKER_01:You actually see within the Church of the Christ as well other things. There are Churches of the Christ where sometimes they will have a fellowship hall, but it will be a separate building than the church. They have service in the church, and then they move over into the separate building because you can't have a fellowship hall in the church. There are debates about... We can't have missionary societies because the Bible doesn't... The New Testament doesn't talk about missionary societies. You can't There's all these different things that go on. So, like I said, there are various kind of sub-streams as well that go on. There are some Churches of Christ that are called one-cuppers. They only use one cup. There are all kinds of things. There are non-institutional Churches of Christ that don't believe you should have any institution apart from the local church. So, that's not my—I mean, I know enough because I've had to take these classes, but I'm not a member of the Churches of Christ community. Jared Longbonds can actually say he served congregations in all three streams of the Stone Campbell movement, and I can only say two. You haven't gotten the trifecta, huh? Yeah, I haven't gotten the trifecta. But if you get Jared on the podcast, he can tell you more. But I've gotten, over the years, I've been involved in the Stone Campbell Journal conferences and some other conferences held by scholars in the Stone Campbell Movement. The Churches of Christ have a really good one called the Christian Scholars Conference that Lipscomb University helped start, and it's moved around to different places. And I've participated in those as well. And so over the years, I've gotten to know a lot of people in all three streams. And so I've been pretty heavily involved in stuff there. And I kind of came of age educationally in a time where theology was always looked at suspiciously by the Stone-Campbell movement. Like, Alexander Campbell did not ever want a professor of theology at Bethany College, which is the college he founded. And that's still true to today. They've never had a professor of theology. But there's been a movement of, I think, younger people, and even some that are older than me, that are more involved in explicitly theological study. And so I... I came of age at a good time for that. Yeah, I was going to say, I want to track that as we go through your story of how your move into theology and doing a PhD. But before we do that, so you grew up in the Stone-Campbell movement. Were you, in terms of a faith commitment, was that something that was kind of constantly present with you growing up? Was there a moment in time where you... Like you had a conversion experience. What did that look like for you in your life? I don't remember never having church as a part of my life. My parents divorced when I was almost four, four-ish, five-ish. But even after they divorced, I was always at church with one of them. It's kind of strange. I've talked to people before that have more of a dramatic conversion where they didn't have anything to do with church at all and then came in. But I always was a part in church. But in the summer when I was nine, I went to a week of church camp and came back and then I had VBS right after that and started getting interested in baptism. I remember my youth minister at the time coming over our house to talk with me. And then I was baptized on the last day of VBS during like the closing ceremony of it on August 6th, 1993. So this is something you need to know about Stone Campbell Movement people. At least a lot of the ones that I know, they can all tell you the day they were baptized. And that's... Not to jump too far ahead, but I think one of the reasons why, as much as I've been drawn to something like the Canterbury Trail that I've never taken it, is I really value that I have that, I can remember my baptism. And I want my children to have that experience where they can look back and remember, not just be told, you know, you were baptized, you know, but to actually remember it. So what is it in the movement that makes that, like, we remember our baptism? Why is that so significant? Because I was baptized. I know where I was. I know largely vaguely when it was. I certainly don't know the date. What is it in your tradition that makes that so prominent? I think Alexander Campbell was very concerned about kind of reformed emphases on having... conversion experiences that validate your faith, and people having anxiety about the fact that they haven't, maybe they haven't had one of these, like, super emotional, I feel like God is with me experiences. And for him, partly out of his epistemology as an empiricist and other things, that we, the way you have reassurance of your faith, similar to Luther, you know, remember your baptism is a big, significant thing. So, and And our churches have always held, like Acts 2.38 is kind of a bumper sticker passage that is very emphasized. Our church is, brothers, what shall we do? Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So unlike maybe some Baptistic traditions that think that like, the baptism comes along later as a validation of what has already occurred. For us, it's like they're very much identified that it's in baptism that you are forgiven and and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That's really interesting because when I tell my story, like I talk about moments of conversion, I don't talk about the day of my baptism. So that, yeah, that really is interesting to kind of...
SPEAKER_00:And every pedo-baptist just died inside a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. Yeah. That's the Baptistic tradition, right? It is more the conversion experience and being able to point to that is the thing that we ground this... truth in that we are followers of Jesus. Um, yeah, that's, that's, it's really interesting how those have those map out differently. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I was going to say it's, um, it almost sounds like whether this is self-conscious or not, but a bringing together, you said it kind of is reformed adjacent. It's a bringing together of certain aspects of what I understand as pre-baptist tradition, kind of broadly construed in a pedo-baptist position, broadly construed. Um, in the kind of... There is a correlation between being baptized and being saved that I think a lot of Credo Baptists want to push against and not bring those two close together because of what they see as excesses on the other side. But it is something that you have embodied memory of which is, I think, one of the greatest strengths of the Credo Baptist position is the fact that you can remember it. You can point to a time without going like full-blown conversionist. You can point to a time when you made a decision. I think there's something really valuable discipleship-wise in that. So, yeah, this is where we're, you know, having a chat about baptism on the front end. Love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:All
SPEAKER_01:right. So, um, so take us back now. You were, you, you're kind of coming into your educational journey. Where did you go to university? Talk to us about that. And then at what point did call to ministry slash, uh, further education, doctoral work at what point, how does all that, uh, how's all that lingering around in your life at that time? Sure. I think, um, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. and then they went into ministry, if that. Some of them might have done a couple years or the whole way to a bachelor's or something. I had one minister growing up that had a master's degree, but I wasn't even aware of Christian higher education. All I knew was there were Bible colleges where you could go and study. And I started having people in my church encourage me to consider ministry. And initially I was a little resistant, but my youth minister and some others kind of took me under their wing. started mentoring me and encouraged me. And there was a woman at our church that took us on a little trip to go visit what was then called Johnson Bible College in Knoxville, Tennessee. It's now, after I graduated, they changed the name to Johnson University. And I fell in love with the campus. And I had a close friend that I grew up with in church that we both started there as freshmen together as roommates. So I went to college already feeling called Initially, I thought I was going to be a youth minister, and I did that for several years, but I didn't initially go thinking, oh, I'm going to go the whole way to a PhD. The funny thing is, there was a little bit of time where I thought about being a lawyer in high school, and then I realized I'd have to go to school for three more years, and I didn't want to do that. And then, lo and behold, here we are, where I normally went to school for three and a half more years to get an MDiv, but then went on to get a PhD after that.
SPEAKER_00:Sean, what do you think those leaders in your church saw in you that they were encouraging you to think about going into ministry? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:I thought about that, and I don't know. Maybe they were encouraging everybody, and I just was the one then listening. I don't know. I don't know. I'm not exactly sure. I think I was always very interested. Big questions, studying the Bible, all that stuff. I was very passionate about it. It wasn't just something I did on... on Sundays, like I was involved in like the Christian youth group thing at high school. And I, you know, I probably came in and asked the annoying questions. They didn't know how to answer. Um, sure. And those kinds of things. Um, I don't know why, but I studied the Bible and figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I, yeah, but there was something where they, they saw something in me and encouraged me to, to go in that direction. And, and it was like a week of church camp and some other things I went through that made me go, okay, this is what I need to do. Um, and, uh, I, I, yeah, so I, I, you know, in college I volunteered in a church for a while and then I also had, so I was very involved in a church the whole way through college involved in children's and youth ministry. And I had some very good professors that, um, I came to respect that, started saying you know what you're you might want to consider studying more after you're done here and i started looking at where they had gone to seminary and several of them had gone to uh again institutional name changes a seminary in johnson city tennessee that was then called emmanuel school of religion my my diploma says emmanuel school of religion on it um and after i graduated they changed the name to emmanuel christian seminary People didn't know what School of Religion was anymore. That was a name that a lot of seminaries used to use that's kind of gone away. I was told by somebody that they would get calls sometimes from somebody that was like, I'm a Hindu, can I come to your school and study Hinduism? Like, no, that's not what, so they felt like they needed to clarify who they were. Right, right. mainly at Butler School of Religion, which is at Butler University. It's now Christian Theological Seminary. And initially, it was funny. The president at Milligan College, which is where my wife went, and the president and Emanuel were the same president, but they were separate institutions. Even though Emanuel used Milligan's classroom space at the beginning, they were separate institutionally. And I was told later that at one point, there was an option on the table for Emanuel to be a part of Milligan. And the faculty... voted it down because they didn't want to have to teach undergrads. When the housing bubble burst in 2009, Emanuel got into really bad financial constraints. And Milligan wound up taking over Emanuel. So Emanuel is now a part of Milligan. Which is good. I mean, I was glad. The number of institutions that have closed, even in the churches I grew up in, the last 15 years... Several of the colleges and seminaries affiliated with our churches have been forced to close due to financial issues and various other factors. So I'm glad that it's still there. And I still have good connections with the people there. So what did you study there? And then at what point does further study start to come into your mind as an option? As a Bible college, everybody was required to major in Bible. And then you had a second major. And they had a major at the time that I think most of the men on campus had that major that everyone referred to as the slasher program because it was youth ministry slash preaching. So it was like a hybrid youth ministry and preaching program. So that's what I did in undergrad. And then it was like about my sophomore year, I had an empty space in my schedule. Our schedules were pretty set because we had an entire Bible major plus an entire... you know, second major, you didn't really have a lot of fluidity to take electives. But I opted out of it. I was able to opt out of a course and had an empty space my sophomore year. And I decided to take the senior level. We had a freshman level theology class and a senior level one. And I decided to take the senior level one as a sophomore. And like sitting in that classroom, I just... Debates we had and discussion. I just like fell in love with it. And I'm like, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Like, I really wanted to be a professor from then point on. And, and, um, you know, so I talked to professors I admired and, and then like looked into a manual because several of them had gone there. And so that's what led me to go that, you know, hour and 45 minutes up 40 and 81 to a manual. So, yeah. So then you studied at Emanuel. Take me from Emanuel to Toronto. Sure. What was your path? I don't imagine that's a well-worn path. Well, it's interesting. So I got to Emanuel and I started working at a church partway through. Actually, I served as a youth minister at a little church for about nine months where it didn't work out. And I was really debating whether or not I wanted to be in ministry again after that. And then I had to do a summer, it's like a CPE-like program, but it's not in a local hospital. And the senior chaplain there really helped me work through some things that summer. And I decided, okay, I'm going to give this another shot and applied to a church where I wound up serving for six years. I started out part-time and then transitioned to full-time after graduation. And initially I thought I was going to, apply to doctoral programs sooner, but, um, life upheaval led me to stay there the whole six, that six years. So, but I had a professor at that church for six years. Yeah. Full time, part time for two and then like full time for about four. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And then, uh, I had a professor in seminary in Tipololia who's from Kenya. He went to school in Toronto and he was really encouraging me to apply there. My, I applied two cycles. I didn't get in anywhere the first cycle. And so then I was, in his office one day. You come to his office to visit him and he always says, let's get some tea. And he has a kettle in his office with a box full of tea bags and you borrow a cup and you sit and you drink tea. And he said, you should really look at going to school in Toronto. So I looked at the different schools and he had gone to Trinity College, but I looked at the faculty that was available currently and I thought Wycliffe was the best fit for me. So Anyway, I guess for your listeners, the Toronto School of Theology is a consortium of seven theological schools that are affiliated with the University of Toronto. Six of them participate in the doctoral program. St. Augustine's is the local diocesan seminary, so they don't. So Wycliffe and Trinity are the two Anglican schools. You can look at their buildings and tell the difference in their ethoid. Wycliffe is historically the low church evangelical Anglican institution. Trinity is the Anglo-Catholic place. Emanuel College is United Church of Canada. Knox is Presbyterian Church of Canada. And then there's two other Catholic schools. Regis is Jesuit, and St. Michael's is Basilian, the Order of Basel. And so it's great there because you... you can take classes at any of them. You're not like restricted to your home campus. So, and I like that because like, if you want to take a Schleiermacher class with a real liberal Protestant, then you can go to a manual and do that. If you want to go take a class with a real, you know, Thomas Dominican, you know, you can go over to one of the Catholic schools and do that. Like it really gives you like the best of multiple worlds in the library system. There's incredible.
SPEAKER_00:yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So he, um, Dr. Woodley was really encouraging me to apply there and I applied and got in. And so that's, you know, where I went.
SPEAKER_00:Toronto's a very unique and well-regarded place to study theology. Yeah. So for folks thinking about, thinking about, higher education or PhD or something like that, definitely think about Toronto. It's unique. You've described it well, Sean, is my understanding. It's a unique kind of hybrid of a few different traditions. In a university context, you have access to a lot of research resources that you would at a research university that smaller seminaries perhaps might not. And everyone I meet who's coming out of Toronto is really sharp, really thoughtful, and has a To your point, Sean, a nice understanding of various traditions and a kind of ecumenism of spirit. And yeah, I'm trying to think Cole Harton is the other fellow who studied at Toronto. I'm trying to think there might be one or two others.
SPEAKER_01:Well, when I started in the doctoral program together, he had done a master's at Wycliffe and he was like 24 years old. And I was on the older side. And I was 29, I think, when I started the program. But yeah, Cole and I, like Joel Chopp isn't a fellow, but I think CPT people are familiar with him. He's at Asbury now. The three of us and some others started there together. Well, one more kind of... CPT sort of connection, the new head of Wycliffe is Kristen Deedy Johnson, who has been at Western Seminary in Holland, Michigan. And her husband is Trig Johnson, who's one of our fellows. Okay, I didn't put that together. Okay. Yeah, yeah. They're headed up there this summer. I've been following the news about, about it. And I was surprised because I, I guess I just read an interview that she gave where she, I guess she grew up Anglican, but then has been in the reform space. And now she's like, she feels like she's coming home to Anglicanism by going to Wycliffe. So that's, that's interesting. Um, yeah. So, so what did you study at Wycliffe? What, what was your, your, uh, your area? Well, I went in thinking I was going to do something on BART. Uh, and I, Joe Mangino was a draw for me to go there for that, that reason. Uh, And then I had an idea for a dissertation topic. And then I found out a book was coming out on the topic. And I read it and I said, okay, well, this is what I would have done, basically. Maybe with a little bit of difference, but I didn't think there was enough left over for me to do a second dissertation on it. So I was talking to Joe and trying to figure out what to do. And I think when I was in college and seminary, one of the ways I got more invested in theology was following footnotes. You know, you read a book and it references books that you then go read. And one that kept on popping up in all my stuff in late college and going into seminary was Nature of Doctrine by George Lindbeck. So I was like, well, all these books I'm reading are talking about it, so I guess I need to go read it now. And I don't think I completely understood it, but I was fascinated by it. And so Lindbeck was a figure I kept on coming back to. And at Wycliffe, you know, Joe was there And Ephraim Radner is there, who was supervised by Lindbeck when he wrote his dissertation on the Jansenists. And George Sumner was the principal when I first came, who was also one of Lindbeck's students. And then John Berkman at Regis was also on my committee, who studied with Howard Wass at Duke. He was friends with a guy I knew in East Tennessee that, Phil Kennison, that teaches at Milligan. And so it helped me kind of connect with him. And they were kind of like, well, if you're interested in doing something on Lindbeck, there's a lot that could be done. And And Ephraim was initially saying, you should really do something on Lindbeck and Israel. Nobody's doing something on this. And at first I was like, okay, whatever. I think I want to do something else instead. But then I got, in the 25th anniversary edition of the Nation of Doctrine, Bruce Marshall includes this exhaustive bibliography of all Lindbeck's writings. So I started tracking as much down as I could because everyone thinks, oh, he just had that one book, which isn't completely true. A lot of his, he wrote a lot of, essays in multi-author volumes and journal articles, as well as a couple other books. So I started digging up everything I could find, and I was like, man, Ephraim's right. I really need to do something on Israel. So I wound up doing this project on his work on what he refers to as Israelology and his understanding of the... He initially starts talking in the mid-'80s about the church as Israel-like, And then within like three, four years, it shifts to being the church as Israel. And so I kind of traced the developments of that. But I found out that he also was talking about some of these issues related to Israel already in the 1960s when he was an observer at the Second Vatican Council. So it was something he dabbled with some in the 60s and then kind of came back to later. So you're able to trace it all the way back to the 60s then and kind of follow that through his theological trajectory? Yeah. It's been a long time since I've read The Nature of Doctrine. Does he talk about Israel quite a lot in there? No. So what happens is he initially, he was working on, he talks about this in some of his own writings, and I found interviews where he talks about it. He was working on writing what he was called the comparative dogmatics. And he got to a roadblock, and he decided what he needed to do was go back and do some prolegomenon to set it up. And that's initially how he wrote Nature of Doctrine. It came out of some lectures he gave on Lonergan and stuff in the 70s. And instead of making a volume specifically on Lonergan, he wound up deciding under Hans Frey's recommendations to write a separate volume that incorporated some of those insights that went beyond them to kind of trace out what is it when we're having ecumenical dialogues that we're doing, what are doctrines and how is it that we're talking about them And initially that was supposed to be this prolegomena to this comparative dogmatics. And then on the other side, he wound up changing his mind about what a comparative dogmatics should look like. And he decided that it needed to start with the church and that specifically needed to start with the church and its relation with Israel. And so he winds up doing some essays and stuff that explore that. And he was apparently working on a volume for decades that, would bring all of this together and do this kind of second step. I found pieces of the manuscript in the archive at Yale, and apparently there's a manuscript floating around somewhere that's never been revised or published, but I wasn't able to get my hands on it. So I had to kind of piece together what I thought that volume was supposed to look like based on what I could find in his published writings as well as some things I found in the archive. And Bruce Marshall, who I've gotten to know a little bit over the years, that's been one of his students that's really tried to uphold his legacy, told me that he thinks I did a really good job of kind of reconstructing what that volume would have looked like if it had come into fruition. So just a little plug for people who may not know a lot about Lindbeck. You have a couple books. One, your dissertation was published published. I actually just popped onto Amazon. It's almost$100 right now. If people don't want to get that one, you also have George Limbeck, A Biographical and Theological Introduction with Cascade. That is a much cheaper$35. Or$8.99 on Kindle. Yeah, I think the last time I looked at paperback, paperback was about$19 something. People can track down the cheapest version. Worth every penny, whether
SPEAKER_00:it's$35 or$100. Even$100 is worth every penny.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, so if people aren't super familiar with Lindbeck, I think he is really an important figure to understand and kind of where he sits in the later 20th century theology and some of the streams coming through him and out of him. Yeah. I think I mentioned to all of you in the first time we met, I met with the St. Hildegard Fellowship. While he was not ordained, I found him a helpful figure to engage with as somebody in ministry because he was a very devoted church person. His theology very much comes out of his faith commitment and his devotion to the church and ecumenism and Christian unity. I came from a movement of churches that initially was supposed to be a unity movement. It didn't always succeed in that, but it's still a driving concern that made him a good figure for me to engage with. Yeah, that's a nice segue into the next part of your life after your doctoral work. And as you were thinking about a call to ministry, pastoring, tell us a little bit about that. The next part of your story, take us to where you are now. And as you do that, maybe also reflect a little bit about what you understand now. by the calling of pastor-theologian and how that plays out in your ministry? So I guess I should say, because I skipped over it, I got married the year before and went to Toronto. And so my wife and I have been married for 12 years now. We just had our 12th anniversary in May. And so we moved to Toronto and my wife is an occupational therapist and had difficulty getting work in Toronto. So she wound up getting a job in Buffalo that was supposed to be a temp job. and then it became permanent. So after I finished coursework, we moved down to Buffalo. And I was looking for a part-time gig to do on the side while I was finishing comp scrap and then writing my dissertation and wound up getting a job at a residential home for adults with disabilities. The church that we were attending hosted a day program for the same agency called Heritage Christian Services that's in Western New York. They started in Rochester and then also moved out to Buffalo. And I had read some now, and I mean, it's kind of hard to talk about it now, but I had been a big fan of Jean Vanier. And so I was like, oh, well, you know, I've been reading these people for a long time, but don't really have any experience in this. So maybe this is something that could help me think through some interesting areas in theology of disability and other stuff that was going on. So I wrote a lot of my dissertation. I worked overnights a lot. So I wrote a lot of my dissertation sitting at the dining room table at this residential home. Because I had some cleaning chores to do at night. I had to keep an eye on the guys. Sometimes I had to give out meds and stuff. But the rest of my job was I'm not allowed to sleep. So it wound up being a perfect gig for me because I could just be up at three o'clock in the morning at my computer, at the table, writing. And so that wound up being impactful for me and my kind of vocational discernment in that time. But I really thought I was going to be a professor. That's what I wanted to do. But I knew in the back of my mind, I was warned by people, you're capable of doing the PhD, but you need to know that it's not a guarantee you're going to get a job because the number of jobs are getting smaller. There's just fewer and fewer jobs, especially, like I mentioned earlier, my own tradition has seen several institutions close in the last 10, 15 years. So that means there's less people that have academic jobs. But I did some adjuncting online and also a couple of local schools in Buffalo during this stretch of And I got two interviews at schools, no campus invites, no job offers. And I had to discern what to do. I didn't think I, I was kind of wearing myself out working overnights at a residential home, trying to do teaching on the side. We had our oldest at that point. And then, you know, later my daughter had, our second daughter was born and I had to figure out what I was going to do. because I didn't think I could continue just doing what I was doing because I was wearing myself out. And I had a previous ministry experience and talked to some people I knew that came out of academic backgrounds that were in ministry. And I'd started to hear about the CPT, I think about this time. When I was working in that residential home, I had to clean the house at night and I would listen to podcasts. so that I had enough gaps in sound that if one of the guys called out for something, I could hear them. I didn't want to listen to music and then have one of them fall in the bathroom and not hear that I needed to be helping somebody. So the CPT podcast wound up being one that I listened to. I bought that pastor-theologian book that Gerald and Todd wrote and read it during this time, and I started to think, you know, maybe this is what I need to do is go back into ministry. So I tried applying to some ministry jobs initially and got a lot of well, your credentials are impressive, but you're not what we're looking for stuff. And then I had a couple of friends that had become disciples. Jared Longbonds was a mutual friend. He was a friend of a friend. And I'd never actually met him in person before. But a friend of mine said, you should talk to Jared. So I called him one day and we talked. I talked to some others and they helped me get connected with some people in disciple circles. And I got offered a job in Garland, Texas. I was actually funny. I interviewed with them in February of 2020, and I was supposed to come there Easter weekend for an in-person interview. And then COVID, the pandemic started. In my residential home, the agency I worked for said, you are not allowed to leave the area. We work with a very vulnerable population. And if you go off somewhere else and get COVID and come back and kill our people, we're going to be upset. So I called the church and said, My agency says I'm not allowed to leave to come down. And they said, well, we suspended our search because of the pandemic. And then I applied to some other things throughout the next year. And in 21, I still hadn't found anything and they still hadn't found anybody. And so then they invited me down in like spring of 21. And then we moved there in August and I started serving there. So I had a good three years there. But the senior minister I was working with partway through, I had very little notice on that. And I worked with an interim for about a year, and then I helped transition in the new person. And in the midst of that, I didn't think initially I wanted to be a senior minister. I thought maybe I could just be happy as an associate. But I had about two months on my solo before the interim started, and then a bunch of other preaching experiences in that time that made me think, you know what? I think I want to try... preaching more often. I started to find preaching much more a valuable thing, not only as, you know, I think as a theological task. I think some of my best theologizing has not been in academic publications, but in sermon work. And so I found out there was a church where I am now in Southwest Virginia looking for somebody I initially put my name in thinking nothing was probably going to happen, but then it kept on progressing. I was interested in this area because my wife's from East Tennessee and my family's from Pennsylvania. So it would bring us closer to our families. I think being in Texas far away from both our families was hard, especially with young kids. And, um, so we moved here in August of 24 and, um, I'm still getting used to the, I think I was telling all of you last week when we had a St. Hildegard fellowship call, um, I'm still struggling with my week to week schedule, getting my rhythm figured out. Um, but, but, uh, it's been a, I think it's been a good time so far. I think I'm a good fit here. And, um, so, yeah. So as we, uh, close up the conversation, yeah. Tell us a little bit then about kind of through this journey, how are you inhabiting the pastor theologian vocation? What does that, What does that look like to you in your day-to-day, even as you're trying to figure it out and get the rhythm? Multiple things. I think I'm finding little ways on the side to still engage academically when I can. I probably read some books in sermon prep that others don't as a week-to-week thing. And then also, I just had a journal article published a few months ago. I'm trying to finish up an edited volume right now. And I'm hoping to do some other things like that. So I'm trying to stay engaged in that space where I can. I still teach online a little bit, which is good. And I see it as an outgrowth of my ministry and not as something distinct from it completely. But I think that my PhD program helps refine the way I think theologically, the way I approach scripture. Wycliffe is a very good place for that, I think, because I've encountered, even where I went to seminary, There was often this theology-biblical studies divide where we had an Old Testament professor in particular that if you asked him more of a theological question about the text, he would say, go down the hall and ask somebody else. Whereas at Wycliffe, the theology and biblical studies people really work together well. The biblical studies people are very theologically inclined, and the theological studies people care about the Bible. There's a real emphasis upon the history of biblical interpretation. and they do these bible and theology conferences twice a year when i was a student they were like some of the highlights of my year sometimes they would like they did biblical books like they did hosea one time hebrews one time or they would do figures like erasmus or you know gregory of nyssa and they'd bring in people that were you know really like that's how i met amy peeler the first time uh and matthew matthew bates and others so I think that helped refine the way I approach the text, which in turn impacted my preaching, I think, in very positive ways. And in addition to preaching and stuff, I teach a Bible study for adults here, and I'm hoping to expand opportunities like that where I can kind of find ways to double up on things. I told all of you I have a passion for doing a project on Acts 2.42, which has been an important passage for me in thinking about what my ministry I want my ministry to be like as a reminder there it says they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship the breaking of bread and the prayers yeah and I really that's where I want to start yeah everything is thinking about how those four things are involved in what I'm doing and what the church is doing and that things are grow out from that even the church's witness I think comes out of living that that life together So I think that experience in my doctoral program just really helped me. Not everybody needs to have a PhD to be a minister, but I think I did. I think I heard Stanley Hauerwas say something like, not everybody needs a PhD to be a Christian, but I think I did. And I think it's kind of like that with me in terms of being a Christian and being a minister. I think whether I knew it or not as I was going through it, now on the other side of it, I think that was something I needed to help myself have some vocational clarity, and better go about what I'm doing week to week. That was your path of preparation. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Well, Sean, it's been really great getting to know you and hearing your story. We're grateful for you and your presence in the CPT. And thanks for coming on with us. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks, Sean. Yep. Take care.
SPEAKER_00:You can also find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. Today's episode was hosted by CPT President Our music was composed by Andrew Gerlicher. I'm Zach Wagner. Thanks for listening.