Christian Formation and Education in Episcopal Boarding Schools: Historical Origins, Contemporary Context, and a Proposal for Reform

Emma Mcdonald

doi:10.1017/s1740355322000055

Abstract

Abstract This article will consider James K.A. Smith’s proposal for Christian educational reform by examining the historical animating principles and the contemporary embodied practices of Episcopal boarding schools in the United States. Drawing on historical accounts of the early years of Episcopal boarding schools, this paper will surface resonances between Smith’s vision for Christian education and the hopes of the first rectors of Episcopal boarding schools. Moving from the founding of these schools to their contemporary configurations, this paper will draw on ethnographic accounts of Episcopal boarding schools to complicate Smith’s vision of the formative Christian school. Ethnographic accounts of Episcopal schools offer further support for Smith’s cultural liturgies paradigm; at the same time, the concrete realities of Episcopal boarding schools will call into question Smith’s convictions regarding the potential for Christian schools to operate counter-liturgically. A consideration of the Episcopal Church’s ecclesial mission will demonstrate how it departs from Smith’s post-liberal ecclesiology to suggest realistic ways forward in the negotiation of Christian identity and practice in the context of Episcopal boarding schools.

Highlights

Smith suggests that cultural institutions capture our desires and draw us into embodied practices, which in turn shape us toward particular ends
Establishing the power of cultural liturgies to shape – and oftentimes misshape – the human person by training our desires, Smith suggests that the task of Christian formation and worship is to be ‘intentionally liturgical, formative, and pedagogical in order to counter such mis-formations and misdirections’.2. He posits that contemporary models of Christian education operate with an overly cognitive anthropology, leading Christian schools to focus on imparting knowledge of Christianity rather than inculcating Christian practices in students. He worries, ‘Could we offer a Christian education that is loaded with all sorts of Christian ideas and information – and yet be offering a formation that runs counter to that vision?’3
Smith hopes that a renewed emphasis on embodiment accompanied by attention to practice rather than worldview can transform the focus of Christian education: in his view, the aim of Christian education should be ‘formation’ rather than ‘information’