New College Berkeley would like to introduce you to Bill Betts, a new member of our Advisory Board. After graduating from UC Berkeley, Bill moved to San Francisco and joined San Francisco Christian Center. He earned his M.Div. degree at Golden Gate Seminary and served as an associate pastor over Christian Education. Bill is currently a full-time PhD student in Educational Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Chicago. We asked Bill to share a bit about himself:
Bill, please share some highlights from your background and faith formation.
My Southern California roots run deep as all four of my grandparents came with their families from the Midwest and South during the Great Depression. My parents met at UCLA and most of my growing up years took place in Santa Monica. However I became a “converted” Northern Californian first by attending UC Berkeley and then settling in San Francisco and Oakland. That is until three years ago when my family and I moved to Chicago -more about that when I discuss my current interests. My earliest spiritual influences entailed occasional visits to my grandparents’ traditional Christian church services and my parents’ dabbling in Western-appropriated versions of Eastern religious thought. Through a friend in high school I was introduced to Christianity and since putting my faith in Christ I have lived under the larger evangelical umbrella in one form or another. Having said that I should add that the predominantly African-American church where I have belonged and served for over thirty years prior to moving to Chicago had other identities/streams of influence, just as if not more significant, than might be implied by its being included as “under the evangelical umbrella”.
What are you currently working on?
The convergence of my mid-life, mid-career, empty nest crises has led to a privileged place for me currently as a full-time PhD student in Educational Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. My broad interest in Intercultural Theological Education has honed in on what I’m calling ‘personalist education’. It seeks to highlight the ways that our views of personhood inform our educational/formational approaches and frameworks. From an academic discipline perspective, I seek primarily to draw from philosophical/theological anthropology, epistemology, sociology, media ecology, education and intercultural studies. However, it has been in the discovery of a kind of intellectual movement more than a “school of thought” entitled ‘Personalism’ that my studies have been completely reoriented. If I were to attempt to express the core concern of my studies at this point I would state that my growing conviction is that impoverished, truncated and reductionist views of our personhood lead to shallow, distorted and divisive expressions of our educative/formational practices. And if anyone has the resources and calling to promote a richer, fuller, more holistic, robust, truer understanding of personhood it surely is the Body of Christ.
What is one hope you have for the Church today?
If I could name one hope for the Church and her witness to the Gospel today I would want to focus on hope. I would highlight the hope that thrives in our aliveness and integrity to the ever-expansive, never-fully-articulable, excessively generous Reality that we have found but are all still seeking – the now-and-not-yet of the Kingdom of God. This may sound overly abstract but in times of such deep intellectual skepticism, social hemorrhaging and emotional fragility when overweening self-determinism hollows out love and erupting anger devolves into large scale broadcasting of bitter root seeds, I believe that the simple, secure incarnation of sufficient Hope provides a beachhead of promise that proves that our longings do have resonance with a Fulfillment. So my hope for Christians/the Church in these times is not for a new trend or technique but fresh ways of communicating the resilient Good News in compelling, thoughtful expressions in word and deed, confident that our faithful response to the Spirit’s moving/transforming work will breathe new hope for our oxygen-deprived times.