Educating for Intellectual Resistance

Baylor’s Jonathan Tran interviews Yale’s Willie James Jennings about his new book After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging (Eerdmans, 2020). Jennings writes in the book, “Theological education is about resistance. It is the seed from which may grow beautiful habituation or from which may grow mind-bending captivity. Yet how do you design for intellectual resistance? This may be the most pressing question in theological education today.” The interview examines the “mind-bending captivity” of contemporary education, especially theological education and remaining possibilities for resistance and what Professor Jennings calls “revolution.” At issue is how Christian humanities and liberal arts can design for revolution versus captivity, what it could look like and how it’s being done today.