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Abstract

In 2017, the Association of Theological Schools sponsored the Preparing for 2040 Initiative to help theological schools and seminaries respond to the growing diversity in faith communities. Seminary faculty play a crucial role in shaping and training future religious and spiritual leaders, who in turn act as pastoral helping professionals in their communities. Therefore, it is germane to understand the diversity and justice commitments and goals of the educators that shape and influence pastoral leaders in local communities. Little has been studied, however, about the diversity and justice commitments of these pastoral leaders’ instructors. To address this gap, we tested a model of relational spirituality and mature alterity previously used in prior studies with seminary students. Faculty and staff (N = 303) from seminaries accredited by the Association of Theological Schools across the United States and Canada were invited to participate. Participants completed measures of dispositional humility and compassion, social justice commitment, commitment to intercultural competence, respect for religious diversity, purpose beyond the self, and spiritual impression management. Results based on a series of hierarchical regression models showed both humility and compassion were significantly positively related to (a) social justice commitment, (b) commitment to intercultural competence, and (c) purpose beyond the self over and above the effect of spiritual impression management. Compassion was also positively related to respect for religious diversity. Implications are discussed for future research, faculty development, and theological education in these areas.
Vol.:(0123456789)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-023-01058-y
1 3
Compassion andHumility asPredictors ofJustice
andDiversity Commitments Among Seminary Faculty
KristenR.Hydinger1 · StevenJ.Sandage1,2,3 · XiaodiWu2· LauraStein2·
DavidC.Wang4
Accepted: 30 November 2022 /
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2023
Abstract
In 2017, the Association of Theological Schools sponsored the Preparing for 2040 Initia-
tive to help theological schools and seminaries respond to the growing diversity in faith
communities. Seminary faculty play a crucial role in shaping and training future religious
and spiritual leaders, who in turn act as pastoral helping professionals in their communities.
Therefore, it is germane to understand the diversity and justice commitments and goals of
the educators that shape and influence pastoral leaders in local communities. Little has been
studied, however, about the diversity and justice commitments of these pastoral leaders
instructors. To address this gap, we tested a model of relational spirituality and mature alter-
ity previously used in prior studies with seminary students. Faculty and staff (N = 303) from
seminaries accredited by the Association of Theological Schools across the United States
and Canada were invited to participate. Participants completed measures of dispositional
humility and compassion, social justice commitment, commitment to intercultural compe-
tence, respect for religious diversity, purpose beyond the self, and spiritual impression man-
agement. Results based on a series of hierarchical regression models showed both humility
and compassion were significantly positively related to (a) social justice commitment, (b)
commitment to intercultural competence, and (c) purpose beyond the self over and above
the effect of spiritual impression management. Compassion was also positively related to
respect for religious diversity. Implications are discussed for future research, faculty devel-
opment, and theological education in these areas.
Keywords Humility· Compassion· Social justice· Intercultural competence· Faculty
* Kristen R. Hydinger
kredford@bu.edu
1 Albert & Jessie Danielsen Institute, Boston University, 185 Bay State Road, Boston, MA02215,
USA
2 School ofTheology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
3 MF Norwegian School ofTheology, Oslo, Norway
4 Fuller Seminary, 180 N. Oakland Ave, Pasadena, CA, USA
Published online: 22 March 2023
Pastoral Psychology (2023) 72:169–185
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
... These findings combine with other studies showing positive associations between intercultural competence capacities or commitments and the virtues of general humility, intellectual humility, and gratitude among clergy and mental health trainees in Christian training programs (Paine et al., 2016(Paine et al., , 2022Sandage & Harden, 2011). A recent study of seminary faculty at a diverse array of Christian seminaries in North America also found that compassion and humility were positively related to intercultural, religious diversity, and social justice commitments (Hydinger et al., 2023). This set of findings invites further research in diverse spiritual and religious contexts on the interrelations among virtues (particularly humility), contemplative practices (including mindfulness), spiritual and relational development, and diversity competencies. ...
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