Theological Education in a New Key: Narrative, Belonging, Diversity

by Richard L. Hester, Tom W. Boyd (Foreword by)

Overview

This book begins with the story of Huckleberry Finn trying to decide whether he should turn in his friend, Jim, the runaway slave. He believes that if he doesn't obey the god of slavery and turn Jim in he will go to hell. It's a crisis that reveals the power of the culture of slavery on the inner textbook of this White boy. Huck's dilemma points to the many ways this White professor explores his teaching career and his efforts to liberate theological education from the transmission of information--banking education--to opening the inner textbooks of students and their teachers. Richard Hester uses the metaphor of "inner textbook" to describe what we carry within ourselves that tells us who we are, what we seek, where we're vulnerable, and what we value. He contends that effective theological education opens these inner textbooks to be read along with the prescribed texts for the course. Hester gives attention to his own inner textbook, the Whiteness of it, and what he's learning about the Black experience. Theological Education in a New Key aims to help students and their teachers open their inner textbooks to the story of God's dream of belonging and diversity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798385223657
Publisher:	Cascade Books
Publication date:	07/31/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	196
File size:	794 KB

About the Author

Richard L. Hester is Professor of Pastoral Theology, retired, from Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina. He is co-author of Know Your Story and Lead with It: The Power of Narrative in Clergy Leadership (2009). He led the Southeastern Seminary faculty opposition to the fundamentalist control of the school. He completed his career as senior therapist at Triangle Pastoral Counseling, Raleigh, North Carolina, where he established the Narrative Therapy Seminar.

Richard L. Hester is Professor of Pastoral Theology, retired, from Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Wake Forest, North Carolina. He is co-author of Know Your Story and Lead with It: The Power of Narrative in Clergy Leadership (2009). He led the Southeastern Seminary faculty opposition to the fundamentalist control of the school. He completed his career as senior therapist at Triangle Pastoral Counseling, Raleigh, North Carolina, where he established the Narrative Therapy Seminar.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Reader, beware. Richard Hester’s Theological Education in a New Key invites you on a harrowing journey. Both memoir and challenge to the traditional theological education, Hester uses his own story and reflections on his ministerial career as pastor and professor to courageously confront his blind spots and shortcomings around race and the meaning of Other. With a confessional tone, Hester allows you to accompany him into his own learning that is subversive—and sacred.”

—Logan C. Jones, ACPE certified educator, retired



“Hester’s account of rewriting this book when confronted with the stunning realization of his Whiteness is akin to Augustine’s Confessions, and his integrity offers a brave witness that will captivate and challenge every reader. Those tired of hearing theological education in discordant tones looking for a melody worthy of our current moment would do well to steep themselves in Hester’s vision.”

—W. Benjamin Boswell, creator, Confronting Whiteness



“At the heart of progressive teaching are teacher and student learning alongside one another. As a career publisher of books incorporating progressive pedagogies, I recognize models for putting such approaches into practice when I encounter them. Hester’s book is this kind of roadmap. With uncommon humility and courage, he unpacks his own story as a teaching text and shows how centering humanity—both the teacher’s and students’—provides a pathway to new understanding.”

—Vicki Boyd, former executive vice president, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt



“Richard Hester has distilled his decades of theological teaching into an understanding that upends our conventional thinking. He shifts the focus of transformative learning from the teacher to what he calls the inner ‘textbooks’ of his students. Teaching from his own inner ‘textbook,’ Hester, awakening to his own embedded Whiteness, rewrote the manuscript with this awareness in mind. This book will awaken your curiosity about another way to see education by recovering its Latin origin, ‘to bring forth.’”

—Mahan Siler, retired pastor, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church



“Dick Hester was my professor and mentor in seminary. The problem-based, relational education that defined his teaching initiated the practices I now follow as a university educator. These practices are critical to my world of leadership education and are desperately needed in our world today.”

—Janice E. Odom, director, The Caldwell Fellows, North Carolina State University



“Richard Hester steers teachers from a professor-dominant posture toward fostering interactive peer-driven encounters. Regardless of one’s profession, reading this book can shape that profession into a vocation that influences others and, in turn, learns from them. I wish I had read this fifty years ago!”

—C. Michael Hawn, university distinguished professor emeritus of church music, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University



“Hester has given us three major concepts—narrative, belonging, and diversity—that could deeply enrich theological education. He has given us examples from his experience as a pastor, professor of pastoral theology, and counselor. I see how these concepts can enrich the teaching of my own discipline, the history of Christianity. And I also see how they can enrich the teaching of other disciplines. This is, in fact, theological education in a new key.”

—G. Thomas Halbrooks, retired president, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School

Editorial Reviews

Reader, beware. Richard Hester’s Theological Education in a New Key invites you on a harrowing journey. Both memoir and challenge to the traditional theological education, Hester uses his own story and reflections on his ministerial career as pastor and professor to courageously confront his blind spots and shortcomings around race and the meaning of Other. With a confessional tone, Hester allows you to accompany him into his own learning that is subversive—and sacred.”

—Logan C. Jones, ACPE certified educator, retired



“Hester’s account of rewriting this book when confronted with the stunning realization of his Whiteness is akin to Augustine’s Confessions, and his integrity offers a brave witness that will captivate and challenge every reader. Those tired of hearing theological education in discordant tones looking for a melody worthy of our current moment would do well to steep themselves in Hester’s vision.”

—W. Benjamin Boswell, creator, Confronting Whiteness



“At the heart of progressive teaching are teacher and student learning alongside one another. As a career publisher of books incorporating progressive pedagogies, I recognize models for putting such approaches into practice when I encounter them. Hester’s book is this kind of roadmap. With uncommon humility and courage, he unpacks his own story as a teaching text and shows how centering humanity—both the teacher’s and students’—provides a pathway to new understanding.”

—Vicki Boyd, former executive vice president, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt



“Richard Hester has distilled his decades of theological teaching into an understanding that upends our conventional thinking. He shifts the focus of transformative learning from the teacher to what he calls the inner ‘textbooks’ of his students. Teaching from his own inner ‘textbook,’ Hester, awakening to his own embedded Whiteness, rewrote the manuscript with this awareness in mind. This book will awaken your curiosity about another way to see education by recovering its Latin origin, ‘to bring forth.’”

—Mahan Siler, retired pastor, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church



“Dick Hester was my professor and mentor in seminary. The problem-based, relational education that defined his teaching initiated the practices I now follow as a university educator. These practices are critical to my world of leadership education and are desperately needed in our world today.”

—Janice E. Odom, director, The Caldwell Fellows, North Carolina State University



“Richard Hester steers teachers from a professor-dominant posture toward fostering interactive peer-driven encounters. Regardless of one’s profession, reading this book can shape that profession into a vocation that influences others and, in turn, learns from them. I wish I had read this fifty years ago!”

—C. Michael Hawn, university distinguished professor emeritus of church music, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University



“Hester has given us three major concepts—narrative, belonging, and diversity—that could deeply enrich theological education. He has given us examples from his experience as a pastor, professor of pastoral theology, and counselor. I see how these concepts can enrich the teaching of my own discipline, the history of Christianity. And I also see how they can enrich the teaching of other disciplines. This is, in fact, theological education in a new key.”

—G. Thomas Halbrooks, retired president, Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School

From the Publisher