Fully an academic institution AND fully a faith community

After 4 years of lurking in the halls of Langford and Westbrook, I'm finally a student at Duke Divinity School. I've been around so long that there are faculty who think I'm a third year, and plenty of people who I'm sure must wonder what in the world is taking me so long to get an M.Div.

Anyway, in the process of going through ordination and of explaining some of the philosophy of DDS (Duke Divinity School) to others, I came across an interesting question: How in the world can a place function both as a competitive academic institution and as a community of faith? Are we primarily students or primarily ministers?

I'm a big fan of holding things in tension, so the distinction doesn't bother me personally, but orientation was rife with instances of faculty and administrators actually sounding confused as to how to define what the heck we're doing here. I heard one person tell me DDS is first and foremost a graduate school; another said that ministry is a priority over against academics. One faculty member tried to explain that DDS is most importantly academic, AND most importantly faith-based.

Like I said, nonsensical "both/and" statements like that don't bother me. The main reason for this is that we have a Savior who is fully human AND fully divine. Christians should be used to this kind of nonsense. But that doesn't mean that living out our identity as divinity SCHOOL students and DIVINITY school students is easy.

I've had some people react with surprise when I tell them that most of my professors begin class with a prayer. I love that we do that, even though I know full well that the love of Christ isn't going to keep Dr. Smith from giving me an "F" in Church History if I don't study.

Then there's the funny question of spiritual formation. DDS tries to be intentional about forming not only the minds but also the hearts of its students. Part of this effort is the required spiritual formation group to which each first year is assigned. You don't get a grade or really any credit for it, but you can't move on to your second year of seminary without it. That class is itself in many ways the embodiment of the fine line we're walking between academics and faith.

I guess we'll just see how this plays out. I already know Duke thoroughly for the competitive academic institution that it is, and I know the Div School is no exception, so I'm not going to pretend the competitiveness isn't there. But I also know that for the most part my classmates are going to be far more willing to help me out than perhaps some were in undergrad.

"If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it" (1 Cor. 12:26). As weird and awkward as it might sometimes feel, we are all one body, and it does me no good to get an A in Hebrew if the seminarian sitting next to me can't remember the alphabet.