Divinity School Dante

With the exception of eight years spent in a secular religion department, I have conducted my professional life at a Divinity School where one's religious affiliations are neither bracketed nor hidden. The school's website proclaims to anyone wandering through the Internet that Professor Peter S. Hawkins is by "Denomination: Episcopal." None of my colleagues wears his or her personal religion on the sleeve—a few for whatever reason remain without denominational marker on the website—but the general assumption is that as faculty of a school whose stated mission is "to foster the knowledge and love of God," all of us have a stake in lived religion, our own included. I routinely attend chapel upon leaving my Dante class, for instance; I read, lead prayer, or preach at its services. Occasionally I am also asked to speak with students informally about my "personal faith" (which must surely disappoint them in its hesitations and dry patches). I am fine with all of this.

My students at Yale are mostly one kind of Christian or another, some fervent, others deep in search mode. They expect that my yearlong course, "Dante's Journey to God," will have an impact on their spiritual development; indeed, the title implies a direction beyond the curriculum, and rumor has it that "the course will change your life." Although curious about the Middle Ages, my students are not interested especially in the medieval period or even in the past in general—though there are exceptions, of course. Instead, they are drawn to what the poem has to say to them now, to the world in which they live, and insofar as it can contribute something to their understanding of God.

The same is true of their biblical studies. Although professors try to excite them about the historical critical method, for instance, they are not by and large interested in such issues. Yes, the Scripture is ancient, foreign, needs to be seen in context, poses problems of interpretation; but what is more important to them is what the Bible means "for life," how it can be preached, how its narratives and metaphors constitute a living tradition of which they are a part—whether as traditionalist Roman Catholics hurrying off to Eucharistic devotion with the Dominicans or "open and affirming" Protestants in the Age of Trump asking the question, "What Would Jesus Do?"

During my eight years in Boston University's Department of Religion I taught Dante in another universe. To begin with, in contrast to Yale Divinity School, no one claimed that religious studies had anything to do with "fostering the knowledge and love of God." Nor did the BU faculty website proclaim, in addition to academic interests and accomplishments, anyone's affiliation. This is not to say that my colleagues lacked religious commitments—many of them were practicing Jews—but no one was expected to bring personal religion into the classroom. My Dante students never challenged this tacit policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. They seemed to accept my explanations of recondite Christian doctrine in the same way they heard me on the issues at stake between Guelphs and Ghibellines: it was all information needed for the class.

In RN101, however—a lecture course simply called "The Bible"—there was always some speculation as to where I might stand. Evangelicals were afraid to take the class unless they could be assured from the outset that I was a Christian: was I? Some Jews assumed I was "way Reform" because I confessed to not knowing Hebrew: was I? By training and preference, I do not intentionally bring my politics, religion, or sexuality into the classroom—except when there is a Sodomite on the page and I cannot help but come out as one of the tribe. I avoid cross, button, and bumper sticker; don't ask, don't tell. But before RN 101 I had never been asked directly about my identity. My approach was to say that I attempted to represent whatever text I was teaching as appreciatively as I could; it was for them to make of those texts what they would. Figuring...