以排名神學院引起爭議和聲名大噪的R.R. Reno又出招了。

前四名與去年相比毫無更動。但這次他作風更大膽，一口氣排到十名開外。

杜克大學神學院－強項：神學院總體、聖經神學、對後自由神學的凝聚力。弱項：杜克大學其他與神學相關的人文學科所展現的信仰氛圍並不像一所基督教大學。

聖母大學神學系（與第一名並列）－強項：大學神學系以外的人文學科和科學也有明顯的建構神學風氣。這是一所基督教大學真正該有的樣子。弱項：系統神學

普林斯頓神學院－強項：新教系統神學（特別是巴特和後自由神學）、和普大合作。

普林斯頓大學宗教系（與第三名並列）－強項：經費寬裕、對學生慷慨照顧、宗教與社會倫理學、和普神合作 弱項：聖經神學

多倫多大學神學院威克理夫學院－強項：對後自由神學的凝聚力

美國天主教大學－弱項：資源分散、經費欠缺

馬奎特大學神學系－強項：有一兩位名師弱項：整體學風散慢、競爭意識強度不足

波士頓學院神學系－強項：規模大而平整、經費充裕

耶魯大學神學院－強項：有一兩位名師弱項：學風墮為剩下「宗教多元」模糊定向的新自由派、聖經研究與教會脫節

南衛理公會大學柏金斯神學院－強項：有一兩位名師弱項：學風墮為剩下「宗教多元」模糊定向的新自由派

惠頓學院－強項：有一兩位名師、對福音派聖經神學的凝聚力、平均畢業時間短 弱項：年輕

聖母頌大學（Ave Maria University）（與惠頓並列）－強項：對天主教神學的凝聚力

戴頓大學（與惠頓並列）－強項：有一兩位名師

Reno評定標準包含學術氛圍、屬靈空氣、對於化育英才的認真態度、對教會有關懷的神學導向等。

與去年相比，更多的天主教學校浮上抬面。值得注意的是，耶魯神學院自2010年秋天得Kathryn Tanner從芝加哥大學轉任後，（搭配原有鎮院之寶中生代的Volf）現終於被Reno視為可以在「正統基督教」框架下討論的學校了－儘管除此之外，耶魯整體距離「好人當道」還有相當一段的…我們說「改進空間」。

Reno並指出當前的北美學界有幾個似是而非的論調：

學術歪風一：大家學術齊頭並進、無須比較與競爭互動。因標榜自由，學程進度自理即可，個人造業個人擔。

真相＊其實學術嚴謹的學校，一定會讓人有某種緩不過氣的壓力。世上沒有所謂輕鬆快樂無壓力學習，又能得到卓越學術成果的地方。

學術歪風二：名師應時常在外講學、在國際研討會露臉、上各州縣教區講壇「服事眾教會」。這樣榮神益人也打響學校知名度。

真相＊其實不安內何以攘外。若教授一年到頭四處演講授課或講道，使自己的導生要見上一面卻難、電郵也從來不回，研究生一定會被「餓」壞，最終發育不全、出去沒一個能代表學校。依過去經歷，這似乎在影射芝加哥大學的一些大牌人物。

學術歪風三：所有的老師都在追求一種最高境界，即無事一身輕。升等到最後，不用行政、不用教課，只要作自己的研究、甚至將來作榮休教授、掛牌顧問，可以不帶義務地隨時行使發言權，且有高薪、優退、終身俸。

＊其實學術機構的向心力、凝聚力是很重要的。各自為政、師生位階差距懸殊的地方不啻將人放逐到一座座學術孤島。唯有老師真正地付出時間、心力、關心學生、扮演屬靈導師的工作，才能把學風帶起來。

最後也不得不說此番Reno在文末署名中的頭銜，不再如06 和09年撰排名文時用「Creighton University神學倫理學教授」這樣的個人學術立場，而是稱「First Things的資深編輯」，這某種程度上意味著Reno的排名文到了今年已經默默代表了First Things這份「普世合一」性刊物的公開立場。

因雜誌背書而增加的排名公信力，一些新上榜的學校傳開的歡騰幅度（如惠頓、聖母頌、威克理夫學院等），因為這對他們是更為實質的肯定。原網址底下的讀者回應還在不斷增加，當持續關注。

Schools of Thought

When choosing a graduate program in theology, the best is not always not the brightest

R.R. Reno

It’s not easy to answer, the simple question of where to study theology. Interests, backgrounds, convictions, and levels of academic preparation combine in complicated ways when choosing a graduate program in theology. Still, certain qualities always matter: intellectual climate, commitment to students, corporate personality, and the atmosphere of faith at the institution. Keeping these factors in mind, we can try—or at least I can try—to work up a rough ranking of graduate programs in theology. Let’s start with intellectual climate. Am I smart enough? Am I working hard enough? Are my standards high enough? Taken to an extreme, the pressure of such questions becomes demoralizing. But the more common danger in academic life is lassitude and self-congratulating mediocrity. All of us tend to walk when we don’t have to run—a universal human tendency made worse by a very American egalitarian ethos that prizes amiable stupidity over demanding intelligence.

Academic reputation can serve as a rough proxy for high standards. But beware programs whose big names fly in for a semester here or there. Academic culture cannot be built in airport lounges.

The same holds for professors in endowed chairs, who function as lofty aristocrats, removed from the faculty members who actually advise students and oversee dissertation research. Professors who won’t answer emails or meet with students are worse than useless. They encourage a selfish atmosphere that injures their less famous but more committed colleagues. The latent (or not so latent) rancor can make the experience of graduate school sour indeed. Like clergy of old, professorial superheroes scramble for sinecures. More than fifty years ago,Jacques Barzuncorrectly identified the academic flight from students: “The highest prize of the teaching profession is: no teaching. For the first time in history, apparently, scholars want no disciples.”

So, when looking for a graduate program in theology, don’t get starry-eyed over big-name schools or celebrity professors. A unified, committed group of professors at any university is far, far superior to famous professors who are rarely around. Graduate programs flourish when professors give more time and attention to graduate students than to their own careers.

In other words, assess themoralcharacter of any graduate program you consider. An uneven academic climate can be overcome by the special chemistry that often develops between a few superb professors and their graduate students. A culture of selfishness or conflict among faculty almost always leads to the neglect or mistreatment of graduate students.

A good graduate program in theology doesn’t just have high academic standards and a commitment to students. It needs to stand for something—neo-Thomism, orBarthianism, or postliberalism, or neoorthodoxy, or some other angle of vision. The labels never fully capture the complex interplay of faculty interests, but they do suggest a theological culture—a corporate personality capacious enough to allow for interesting arguments yet defined enough to give the arguments weight and focus.

Too often, students, faculty, and administrators—in their different ways—underestimate the importance of corporate personality. Not long ago,Harvard Divinity Schoolstood for something. So did Claremont, Yale, theUniversity of Chicago, andUnion Theological Seminary. They were alive with the urgency of the mainline Protestant project, which reflected the needs of a living community of believers negotiating the relations between modern identity and the traditional demands of faith.

The dramatic decline of the once dominant Protestant establishment has set these programs adrift. With little sense of purpose, they tend to divvy up faculty appointments: some historical specialists, a feminist, a liberationist, somebody doing world religions, perhaps a Jewish scholar or a Muslim—even a faculty member or two who represent a moderately traditional outlook. The whole is far less than the sum of the parts. Education in its fullest sense “will never issue,” asJohn Henry Newmanwrote, “from the most strenuous efforts of a set of teachers with no mutual sympathies and no intercommunion.”

The same trend toward ungrounded diversity can be found in some Catholic programs. The liberal Catholic project, less rich and significant than theliberal Protestantproject, also has become increasingly marginal. Losing touch with the reality of the Church, these theological programs are sometimes animated by a spirit of protest against magisterial authority. For the most part, however, they just drift, often becoming programs of “Religious Studies,” a title that almost always signals the death of theological seriousness.

Unlike the study of philosophy or mathematics, and more like the study of history and literature, the study of theology is given sharp outlines by the coherence and integrity of a historical community. The reality of the Church—her doctrines, her endless problems, and her alluring beauty—sets the agenda for theology. The best programs have a connection—not necessarily official, not always happy, but still fundamental—to living churches.

Intellectual rigor, commitment to students, a church-oriented theological personality—all these factors are important, but none more than a healthy spiritual atmosphere. You are no more likely to mature as a theologian outside an atmosphere of prayer and piety than to progress as a scientist without intimate experience with the experimental work of the laboratory.

Graduate study in any discipline always involves the formation of the intellect, a disciplining of desire, and a training of habits. Of the intellectual life in general, the Dominican A.G. Sertillanges once wrote, “We must give ourselves from the heart if truth is to give itself to us. Truth serves only its slaves.”

In theology the spirit of devotion is all the more important, for theological wisdom is rooted in an act of intellectualsubmission to God’s revelation in Christ. As St. Bonaventure warned, we must ground our life of study in prayer, setting aside the illusion “that it suffices to read without unction, speculate without devotion, investigate without wonder, examine without exultation, work without piety, know without love, understand without humility, be zealous without divine grace, see without wisdom divinely inspired.”

Not every professor and graduate student must be Christian. Not all scholarship has to crackle with the ardor of faith. Committed Jewish or Muslim or Hindu scholars can contribute to a spirit of faithful inquiry at a Christian school. In fact, their witness in our contemporary academic culture of antinomianism and unbelief can be far more powerful than the example of a Christian scholar who bows to the latest academic fashions.

A program in theology is worth undertaking only if it includes the possibility of a spiritual formation that complements intellectual formation. That spiritual formation may, perhaps, be only latent, perhaps only partial, perhaps emerging from fellow students rather than from official goals. But it must be a real possibility.

And what about specific programs? Here is my crib sheet—a necessarily imperfect and idiosyncratic ranking of graduate programs. I’ll begin by cheating. I’ve ranked two schools in the number-one spot:Duke and Notre Dame. They have different strengths. Duke projects a stronger corporate personality, while Notre Dame offers an overall academic environment more profoundly and extensively sympathetic to the intellectual significance of Christian faith.

A Methodist institution, Duke features some of the bright lights of Protestant theology: Stanley Hauerwas, Geoffrey Wainwright, Jeremy Begbie, Amy Laura Hall, and J. Cameron Carter. Reinhard Hütter is a Lutheran turned Catholic, and his work moves in a strongly Scholastic direction. Paul Griffiths, another Catholic professor, is a polymath who combines a remarkable plasticity of mind with a vigorous defense of orthodoxy.

These folks do not agree about everything, but, taken together, most are committed to the postliberal project. Understood broadly, postliberalism means taking seriously the venerable liberal project in Protestantism: Contemporary Christians need to come to terms with the intellectual, moral, and spiritual challenges of the modern world. Yet, unlike the liberal project, which looked for philosophical or sociological concepts to mediate or soften the clashes between classical Christian faith and modernity, postliberalism returns to the specific language and practice of Christianity—the Bible, the Nicene tradition, and the liturgy—for solutions.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Duke is the best place for someone who wants to integrate theology with biblical studies. Richard Hays, now acting dean, has consistently broken down artificial barriers between historical study of the Bible and theological analysis. Kavin Rowe, Stephen Chapman, and Ellen Davis encourage their graduate students to be formed in theology as well as biblical studies. Stanley Hauerwas and Paul Griffiths have written substantial commentaries on books of the Bible, and Reinhard Hütter plans to do so as well.

The main problem with Duke is, well, Duke. The Ph.D. program is run through the university’s department of religion, not the divinity school, and this has tended to restrict artificially the number of students admitted. A few years ago, however, the divinity school inaugurated a Th.D. program, thereby allowing more students to be trained at the doctoral level.

This institutional adjustment cannot overcome the larger fact that Duke is a typically secular elite university. The intellectual firepower of the professors of history, literature, philosophy, and classics—all disciplines that a good program in theology should draw on to some degree or other—remains largely alien and unsympathetic, a reminder that theology has an eccentric place in the intellectual culture of late modernity.

Where Duke is weak, Notre Dame is strong—very strong. As the flagship Catholic university in America, Notre Dame attracts a great deal of attention, not all of it positive. Many—and I include myself—gripe that Our Lady’s university doesn’t do as much as it could, or that it compromises unnecessarily with the academic status quo. But, such criticisms duly noted, Notre Dame still has a remarkable array of Christian scholars in many different disciplines. The upshot: A theological student can get a real sense of theology as the queen of the sciences.

The department of theology itself is huge and, although uneven, nonetheless contains many superb professors. Graduate students sing the praises of Cyril O’Regan, as generous with his time as he is brilliant. Brian Daley is one of the most influential figures in Catholic theological education, not only because his scholarly work commands the respect of his peers but also because he mentors students and builds a community of theological scholarship. John Cavadini, the longtime chair, is one of the best contemporary interpreters of St. Augustine and another professor who cares about students. Ann Astell provides a unique theological and literary expertise. Gary Anderson unites theological study with the modern tradition of historical study of the Bible.

But in systematic theology proper—Cyril O’Regan aside—Notre Dame has remained bland, hobbled by the legacy of the liberal project in post–Vatican II Catholic theology. This important movement in modern Catholic theology has intellectual integrity, but, too often, figures such as Richard McBrien think of theology almost entirely in light of contemporary Church politics.

Turning theology into an instrument of church politics remains a problem for many Catholic programs in theology. Fordham provides a sad case in point. As the old agenda of the 1970s calcifies, it becomes more a list of talking points than a living theological project. “Theology must take history seriously!” The first time I heard the slogan I yawned; the hundredth time, I sighed.

Fortunately, new hires in systematic theology have strengthened the Notre Dame program. John Betz, a fine young scholar of modern theology, joins the faculty this year, along with Francesca Murphy, one of the most creative and forceful theological writers of her generation.

After Duke and Notre Dame the rankings get murky and I have to cheat a bit more, identifying the odd and strictlyunofficial hybrid of the Princeton department of religion and Princeton Theological Seminaryas the third-best place to study. The seminary, founded in 1812, has always been independent of the university. They are, however, contiguous, and in recent years a spirit of cooperation has developed. As a consequence, doctoral students at the university can draw on the very intense and sophisticated theological atmosphere of the seminary, while graduate students at the seminary can participate in the supportive department of religion and the first-rate intellectual environment of the university.

Princeton Theological Seminary has a very strong corporate personality. George Hunsinger and Bruce McCormick are world-renowned interpreters of Karl Barth. But one doesn’t get all Barth all the time. Ellen Charry provides an alternative voice, and John Bowlin brings St. Thomas to the Calvinists. A Protestant doctoral student will find a rich atmosphere in which classical debates continue. By my reckoning, Princeton Theological Seminary is the best place in the United States to study Protestant dogmatics.

The Princeton University department of religion may be the Ivy League program that has remained truest to the liberal Protestant ethos that long dominated private East Coast institutions. Jeffrey Stout, the presiding presence, is preoccupied with the social and cultural influence of Christianity in American democratic culture. Eric Gregory advances similar concerns, working closely with such classical Christian theologians as St. Augustine and St. Thomas.

Other professors are good as well. Leora Batnitsky can help students see the ways in which modern Judaism has negotiated the conflicts between tradition and modernity. But more important, perhaps, is the reputation that the Princeton department of religion has for lavishing love and attention on graduate students. I’ve read many recommendations for recent Ph.D.s looking for jobs in theology. The slapdash, almost bored letters graduate professors write often shock me. Not so those from the faculty of the Princeton department of religion.

If you are a young Catholic, neither the seminary nor the department of religion at Princeton will provide anything approaching the depth and breadth of Catholic theology available at Notre Dame. Yet the accidents of history have made Princeton spiritually congenial. An intellectually engaged Opus Dei house in town provides a healthy spiritual center of gravity. If your interests run in the direction of social ethics or the classic Vatican II question of the role of the Church in the modern world, Princeton might be for you.

Fourth on my list isWycliffe College, an Anglican institution that is part of the Toronto School of Theology,a consortium of programs affiliated with the University of Toronto. Developed under the leadership of George Sumner, Wycliffe shares with Duke a strong postliberal corporate personality. Joseph Mangina is an astute interpreter of Karl Barth, and Ephraim Radner has articulated one of the most compelling and richly theological accounts of the Christian experience of modernity. Chris Seitz approaches biblical scholarship with theological depth and penetration.

You need not be Anglican to study at Wycliffe. In fact, many of the doctoral students are evangelicals of various stripes. Yet I think it is fair to say that graduate study at Wycliffe has a churchy, pious atmosphere. It’s a place where St. Bonaventure’s warning is heeded.

In the fifth and sixth slots I put two Catholic institutions:the Catholic University of America and Marquette University.

Catholic University proper offers degrees through the School of Theology and Religious Studies. It’s an uninspired program limited by inadequate resources, a clerical past that no longer corresponds to reality, and a tendency to teach post–Vatican II theology as if it were 1970. But there are other options: the John Paul II Institute and the Dominican House of Studies. David Schindler, Michael Hanby, Nicholas Healy, and others at the John Paul II Institute introduce graduate students to the enduring achievements of twentieth-century Catholic theology. At the Dominican House of Studies, students can find several fine professors devoted to reformulating a Thomistic synthesis for twenty-first-century Catholicism.

Overall, inadequate funding for graduate students and the fragmentation of faculty into distinct institutes and programs can make Catholic University a difficult environment for graduate students. But the university’s problems largely reflect the reality of the Catholic Church, which lacks a clear theological consensus; thus, paradoxically, the raggedy-edge atmosphere has a genuine ecclesial integrity. And at Catholic University the discipline of theology remains utterly central, and the role of Church doctrine as the foundation of the discipline is presumed and debated.

Alone among Jesuit doctoral programs, thetheology department at Marquettehas as its greatest strength the fact that it is not hobbled by the increasingly superannuated agenda of liberal Catholic theology. The faculty in historical theology and systematic theology don’t necessarily jell into a corporate personality, but professors such as Ralph Del Colle and Susan Wood are pushing forward, trying to discern the possibilities for Catholic theology in North America after the collapse of the short-lived but once ruthlessly dominant Rahnerian consensus. Some of the avatars of the declining Rahnerian approach still teach at Marquette, but the theologies of Hans Urs von Balthasar and St. Thomas are also well represented.

Marquette’s biggest liability is Marquette. It’s a fine institution, but it lacks the overall atmosphere of academic excellence that one finds at most elite universities, and this invariably holds back the theology department as well.

Two problem children rank seventh and eighth:Boston College and Yale University. Both schools have ample resources and many fine professors, but both lack robust theological cultures.

Boston College has a large faculty, made even larger by the recent absorption of the Jesuit faculty of the nearby Weston School of Theology. There are plenty of professors who are fine scholars, and among them Khaled Anatolios shines the brightest. His approach to the Church Fathers trains aspiring graduate students to think theologically.

The corporate personality at Boston College isn’t always congenial. Since the 1970s the Society of Jesus has thrown most of its weight behind the liberal Catholic project in theology, and the programs at Boston College suffer from the soft authoritarianism that has arisen to prevent a younger generation from deviating. Don’t be deterred, however. I know some very fine young theologians who have emerged from Boston College, suggesting that the vast resources of the school can be mobilized to support good work.

Yale has some fine professors as well. Miroslav Volf and the recently hired Kathryn Tanner make an excellent pair. Volf has a vivid phenomenological imagination guided by liberal evangelical sensibilities, while Tanner has an almost purely conceptual mind put to the task of preserving as much of classical orthodoxy as possible for twenty-first-century liberal Protestantism.

But, as an institution, Yale lacks a corporate personality. Only a few students are accepted for doctoral study in theology in the department of religious studies. Meanwhile, the Yale Divinity School has been demoralized by the decline of mainline Protestantism. A lack of contact with a living church has led to the almost unconscious but complete alienation of biblical studies from the classical traditions of theological analysis. The resources of Yale provide many opportunities, but the aspiring theologian will need to find a mentor and colleagues to anchor a theological vocation.

In the ninth slot I putPerkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. Once a hotbed of an intellectually formidable process theology, Perkins now suffers from liberal Protestant political correctness. But Bruce Marshall, one of the most important Catholic theologians currently training doctoral students in North America, teaches there, as does William Abraham, a vital Protestant voice in contemporary theology. They make an otherwise uninteresting program a potentially exciting place.

The tenth and final school? Perhaps it’s better to consider up-and-coming programs.Wheaton College, for example, recently launched a doctoral program in theology, hiring Kevin Vanhoozer, perhaps the most interesting contemporary evangelical theologian today.Ave Maria Universityhas a fine faculty and a clear corporate personality as a theology program loyal to the magisterium of the Catholic Church. TheUniversity of Daytonrecently hired Matthew Levering, thereby strengthening a group of younger scholars who won’t bore smart graduate students with the usual liberal Catholic pieties.

I hope my prejudices are clear. The people under whom and with whom we study do far more to shape our theological vocations than systems such as Barthianism or Thomism and certainly more than the grand reputations of places such as Harvard, Yale, or Berkeley. Good theological formation requires peers and professors who encourage our trust in the essential truth of the Christian tradition. A big library, generous graduate-student stipends, the name recognition of a school—all are empty without this spirit of confidence and commitment.

R.R. Reno is a senior editor atFirst Things.

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