美国最佳神学院校排名

（2006）http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=447

By R.R. Reno  邱慕天译

U.S. New & World Report has just published its annual rankings of higher education. In addition to calling the horse race for No. 1 university, the magazine also puts out rankings of graduate programs. By their reckoning, the best place to study political theory is Harvard. Harvard is tied with Cal-Berkeley for No. 1 in medieval and renaissance literature, and Michigan is tops in behavioral neuroscienc

美国New & World Report的年度高等教育排行刚出炉，除了最高学府之争，该杂志也就各领域的研究所做出了排行。哈佛是政治理论的翘楚；医学和文艺复兴文学等领域由加州柏克莱大学与哈佛大学各据山头；密西根大学（ 安那堡分校）则称霸行为神经科学领域。

The ratings game got me thinking. The magazine has nothing to say about theology (or religious studies, as it is called at many universities). So I thought I might throw out some observations about the best places to pursue a doctoral degree in the sorts of fields I study—theology and ethics. I haven’t developed any objective method of analysis, but this is not the first time I have thought about graduate programs. Students often ask me for advice, so over the years I have formed some impressions about how the programs compare to one another. Here are the best schools, to my mind, followed by some comments about the also-rans.

这些评比活动给了我一些想法。该杂志对神学领域（有些学校叫「宗教研究」）未曾提及只字片语，这让我打算就自己专攻的神学、伦理学领域发表一些观察，比较各学校博士班的优劣。我手边并没有什么客观的评比标准，就是凭借多年下来的学术经验，对学校间特色强弱所累积的心得。由于这个问题我并非初次思考，也常有正在准备申请的学生来向我咨询意见。因而接下来要提出的就是我心目中的顶尖神学院校，另外也会把遗珠之憾列出，并加上个人注解。

 (Duke University)

At the top of my list is Duke. Richard Hays and Ellen Davis are leading a strong cohort of biblical scholars toward the recovery of a theological voice in biblical interpretation. Add to that the creative mind of Stanley Hauerwas, the rigorous mind of Reinhard Huetter, the learned mind of Geoffrey Wainwright, and the outspoken voice of David Steinmetz, as well as some excellent younger faculty (Amy Laura Hall, Warren Smith, Steve Chapman, and others), and you have a program firing on all cylinders. Three cheers for the Dean, Gregory Jones. He has done wonders in bucking the trends toward the banality and post-Christian distraction that afflict other mainline institutions. It isn’t perfect, but it’s as good as we have now in the United States.

在我排行榜里领衔的是杜克大学。Richard Hays和Ellen Davis领衔一票精锐圣经学家，夺回神学在圣经诠释中应有的一席之地。看看Stanley Hauerwas的新颖思维、Reinhard Huetter的严谨逻辑、Geoffrey Wainwright的学富五车、David Steinmetz的发聋振聩，外加一群头角峥嵘的后起之秀（Amy Laura Hall、Warren Smith、Steve Chapman…等等），一同建立起了这个人才济济、头角峥嵘的学术研究院。应该给院长Gregory Jones几声喝采！当其他主流神学机构不是愈形迂腐就是陷在「后基督化」的泥沼无法自拔时，他简直展现了奇迹。杜克神学院并非十全十美，但至少在美国要算是台面上最出色的了。

 (Notre Dame University)

In the No. 2 spot, I put Notre Dame’s Department of Theology. It’s not firing on all cylinders. The biblical scholars pretty much follow the tired old distinction between “what it meant for them” and “what it means for us.” This guarantees their marginal relevance to the study of theology. Most of the systematic theologians are still living in the 1970s and 1980s. But this is a huge department with some great people. Notre Dame is the best place to study the Church Fathers (Brian Daley, John Cavadini, Robin Darling Young). Gary Anderson and Cyril O’Regan are first-rate Christian intellectuals capable of inspiring a wide range of doctoral students toward genuine vocations in theology rather than careers of expertise. Jean Porter and Jennifer Herdt have creative things to say in moral theology. It’s a strong program, and it is getting better every year.

第二名的席次我给了圣母大学神学系。它的缺点就很明显。圣经学者食古不化，墨守解经和释经的二分法。他们的东西跟真正的神学研究难说能沾上什么边。这里的系统神学家大概都还活在70、80年代。但话说回来以这个学系的庞大规模，是少不了大师级人物的。圣母大学是研究早期教父的圣地（Brian Daley、John Cavadini、Robin Darling Young坐阵）。Gary Anderson和Cyril O’Regan是一流的基督教知识份子，能够给予博士生广泛的启发，使其走出象牙塔内的学术、迎向神学真正的呼召。Jean Porter和Jennifer Herdt研究道德神学亦颇有创见。这是个优秀的学院，且每年还在蒸蒸日上。

Duke and Notre Dame are clearly top choices. I’m less sure as I move down the list. Other choices involve compromises and limitations. At No. 3 and No. 4, and in something of a tie between two very different options, I put Princeton and Boston College.

杜克和圣母作为首选是肯定的。再往下我就不太敢打包票了。无论怎么选都不免有妥协和限制。第三名和第四名不同特色且各擅胜场–嗯，我选了普林斯顿大学和波士顿学院。

 (Princeton University)

If you are interested in “the problem of faith in the modern world,” then Princeton University’s Department of Religion is a good place to be. Eric Gregory and Jeffrey Stout are occupied with the role of Christian faith and Christian churches in a liberal democratic society, and Leora Batnitzky has interesting things to say about Judaism’s engagement with modernity. Another positive is the fact that the department has a stellar reputation of supporting and forming graduate students. The negatives are two-fold. First, this is not a place with strong resources for study of theology in either its historical or systematic forms. Second, the historians of ancient Christianity, which includes New Testament studies, are pretty antagonistic to the idea that what the Church has taught over the centuries is, in some important and legitimate way, to be found in the Scriptures. Overall, then, Princeton has nothing like the depth of Christian scholarship that you can find at Duke and Notre Dame.

如果你对信仰与当代性的议题感兴趣，普林斯顿大学宗教系会是个绝佳的去处。Eric Gregory和Jeffrey Stout致力于基督信仰与教会在当代自由民主社会的议题。Leora Batnitzky对犹太教与现代性互动有独到的见解。此外一个优点是：这个系所大力栽培与支持研究生是出了名的。缺憾则是双重的：一是这个学校欠缺足够资源可让你挥洒历史神学和系统神学的研究计画。二来这里研究早期基督教（当然包括新约研究）的史学家对于教会传统的敌意很重，不管就重要性或合理性而论，他们认为教会历来的教导是错读圣经。总之，像杜克和圣母大学那样深厚的基督教学术，普林斯顿看不到。

 (Boston College)

Boston College has depth. Like so many Catholic schools, required theology courses for the undergraduates guarantees a big faculty. Moreover, Boston College has money, and they support their graduate students well. The problem is that the faculty is solid but not stellar. BC is a good place to study, and certainly a graduate student will learn the Christian theological tradition well. But unlike Duke and Notre Dame (and Princeton in its own, more limited way), I don’t think Boston College is pushing theological questions forward in interesting ways.

波士顿学院有深度。一如大多的天主教学校，他们大学部规定了一些必修神学课，这让他们必须维持庞大的神学师资。此外，波士顿学院有的是钱，自然少不了对研究生的「照顾」。遗憾就是他们师资阵容虽整齐但并不突出。波士顿学院是个好学校，研究生可以将基督教神学正统一字不漏地习得。但是不像杜克和圣母（以及普林斯顿–附带但书），波士顿学院的神学走向就欠缺了开创性。

 (Catholic University)

 (Princeton Theological Seminary)

 (Trinity International University)

I’m going to cheat and put three schools in the No. 5 spot: Catholic University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. These are radically different places. Catholic University has lots of problems, but it’s not a place where the liberal-revisionist Jesuits have hired an anti-magisterial majority. PTS and Trinity Evangelical are primarily places for training ministers, but both offer doctoral programs as well. PTS has living and breathing Protestant dogmatic theologians who know the Reformed tradition thoroughly—and Karl Barth especially. Trinity Evangelical has Kevin Vanhoozer, a creative mind committed to thinking through an ecumenically minded and biblically sophisticated evangelical theology. I’m not sure I would want to be a Presbyterian at Catholic University, or a Catholic at Princeton Seminary, and I think Trinity Evangelical is probably best for someone whose theological vocation is in the evangelical movement. But all three have the advantage of being very engaged in the reality of the Church.

我准备要耍赖了，我把三所学校并列第五：天主教大学、普林斯顿神学院、三一福音神学院（照起首字母排列）。它们是风格相差十万八千里的学校。天主教大学自己问题一堆，但至少没有自由派修正主义耶稣会搞来的一票反威权人士（译注：第二次梵谛冈会议天主教回应自由派的批判，决定发起内部改革以修正不合时宜的传统。这股运动卅余年的今天仍由教廷外部组织及耶稣会旗下的众多学术机构持续推动）。普神和三一主要是训练教牧人员，但是都有不俗的博士班。普神一帮活跃的教义神学家，对改革宗传统（特别是卡尔巴特）钻研透彻。三一神学院则有Kevin Vanhoozer这个具开创性的思想家，致力于合一导向和在圣经基础上纵深的福音神学。

但是长老会人应该不会想去天主教大学，天主教徒也大概不会来念普林斯顿神学院（译注：普神为长老会创办的神学院）。神学志向在于福音运动的人，三一应该是最适合了。至于三者的共同优点是都具有务实面向，关注教会现实面的需要。

You may have noticed that I’ve left some of the famous schools off the list. In doctoral study, it’s the professors and fellow grad students who make the program, not the general reputation of the university. Take Harvard, for example. If you want to study theology at Harvard, then you need to do a Th.D. at Harvard Divinity School. There are some good minds there who are interested in thinking about the living form of faith in our time (Ron Thiemann, Sarah Coakley, and Jon Levinson), but the overall atmosphere of HDS is aggressively post-Christian. I’m all for challenging intellectual environments, but its just foolish to try to swim upstream all the time.

你大概已经发现我的名单上刻意遗漏了某些名校。以博士研究而言，教授和研究同侪就是一切，大学整体的名望应该放到一边去。例如，你若想在哈佛念神学，就必须在哈佛神学院读神学博士。那儿的确有几位了不起的思想家（Ron Thiemann，Sarah Coakley，以及 Jon Levinson），企图在我们当代演绎出信仰的鲜活形式；但是哈佛神学院整体呈现的氛围是一种后基督化的侵略性。当然我绝不是反对充满智性挑战的[学术]环境，但没事刻意逆流而上还满自讨苦吃的。

  

Most of the old-line, mainline divinity schools suffer from this problem. Vanderbilt, Emory, and Yale have seen a decline in serious intellectual life brought on by the intensely ideological agendas of Christian feminism, gay and lesbian liberation, as well as recycled versions of liberal Protestantism. Again, some great folks teach at these places. Lewis Ayers at Emory is one of the most exciting scholars working in patristic theology. I cannot say enough good things about Gene Outka, my mentor, who teaches ethics at Yale, and Miroslav Volf has a fine mind. But, again, the larger currents of these schools are flowing in the direction of post-Christian “theology.”

大多主流传统神学院校都在面临同样的问题。范德堡大学、艾墨瑞大学、耶鲁大学这些学校成天光开庭审理一堆意识型态议题就没完没了，包括基督教女性主义、同性恋解放运动，还有一些新教自由神学的冷饭。当然，这些地方还是有不少大咖。艾墨瑞的Lewis Ayers就是研究教父神学最令人惊艳的学者之一。耶鲁开授伦理学的Gene Outka是我的属灵长辈，我再怎样也道不尽他的好；何况还有Miroslav Volf这位杰出思想家。但无论如何，这些学校的大趋势是朝向后基督化「神学」靠拢的。

  (University of Chicago)

The Divinity School at the University of Chicago has problems as well. It has some famous names on staff, but some recent graduate students have told me that the professors are never around. Choosing the right program is very important. Doctoral study is all about intellectual formation, and that cannot be done by faculty who live hundreds of miles away or who are always out lecturing elsewhere.

芝加哥大学神学院也有问题。教职员名单上是有些响叮当的大名，但近年他们研究生告诉我那些教授从来不见人影。选对学校是很重要的。博士学习最重要就是智性塑造，但如果你的老师要不一年到头四处演讲、就是处在他那几百哩开外的老家，这只能是缘木求鱼。

The Catholic world has it own set of difficulties. Historically, the Jesuits have dominated graduate study in the United States, and I don’t think I am revealing any secrets when I tell you that the Society of Jesus has committed itself and its institutions to a liberal-revisionist agenda. In the 1970s and 1980s, this may have seemed cutting-edge, but these days it’s pretty tired, and tiresome.

天主教界本身可说是遭遇一系列困境。回顾历史，耶稣会的确是一度掌握美国高等教育半边天。但现在无论组织本身还是旗下的学术机构，他们倒向修正主义早已是公开的事实，我不觉得这有啥天机不可泄漏。话说自由修正主义在70和80年代可以称上前卫创举，但时至今日实在是没完没了、甚至穷极无聊了。

This complacent liberalism has hurt Jesuit graduate programs even at Boston College, and it has badly injured places like Marquette, Fordham, and St. Louis University. Rahnerians, feminists, liberationists—these places carry some serious ballast. In my experience, intellectual life is too easily perverted into postures of protest and a quixotic quest against the long dead Catholic ghetto. Again, some excellent faculty teach at these places: Ralph Del Colle, Michel Barnes, and Susan Wood, for example, are at Marquette. But because it is a Jesuit program, the 1970s is still going strong.

这种自爽的自由主义对耶稣会研究所造成了伤害，还累及波士顿学院。马奎特大学、福特翰大学、圣路易大学则是遭到重创。这些地方现在要算是拉赫纳[教义]派、女性主义者、解放主义者的重镇（译注：拉赫纳可谓天主教自由修正主义的神学先驱）。我的经验是，学术生命是禁不起这样的扭曲的：一群人挟带虚幻的理想、犬儒作态地纠着天主教废墟死缠烂打，殊不知后者早已是过去式。

让我重申：这些地方不乏杰出的教授。Ralph Del Colle、Michel Barnes、Susan Wood，都在马奎特。但就因为是个耶稣会学校，70年代思想氛围还是浓烈弥漫。

I have painted some negative pictures, and I may not be winning popularity contests anytime soon. I’m not saying that a person cannot obtain a serious theological education at Harvard, Yale, Emory, and Chicago, or, for that matter, Marquette and Fordham. But prospective students should know they will have a harder row to hoe.

如此绘声绘影地道人是非，看来我一时半载是别想拿人气王了。我并不是说在哈佛、耶鲁、艾墨瑞、芝大等地方无法获得严谨的神学教育，马奎特和福特翰同理；只是有志就读的学生最好能预期遭受更艰辛困苦的耕耘过程。

As I thought about this casual assessment of programs and the quick drop-off from the top two programs to a list of less-than-ideal choices, I was struck by the fact that three individuals whom I would very much like to send my best students to study with are largely out of the picture.

当我发现这个非正式评比在前两名之后产生了急遽的断层时，脑海就立时涌现了三个名字，三个我很想推荐自己最优秀的学生去跟随的名师，而且是没有涵盖在前面的图像之中的。

When Bruce Marshall published Trinity and Truth, I wrote a positive review. After teaching and rereading the closely argued book a couple of times, I have come to see that his analysis of theology and truth is as fundamental and revolutionary as Karl Barth’s strange and difficult discussion of Anselm, published in the 1930s. Unfortunately, Marshall teaches at Perkins School of Theology (at Southern Methodist University), a school apparently locked in a liberal Protestant death-spiral. You can’t take all your classes with Marshall, and most of the rest of the program will leave you swimming upstream against a hard current.

Bruce Marshall出版《三一与真理》时，我写了个书评回应赞赏。在教学使用和反复阅读这本论证繁琐的书之后，我发现这本书真理和神学分析跟卡尔巴特是同样地基要且带有革命性，尤其是卡尔巴特上世纪30年代的作品中讨论安瑟伦时呈现的那种诡谲深奥。不幸地是，Marshall任教的珀金斯神学院（属于南卫理公会大学）完全就是困在新教自由派的死亡漩涡里。你总没有办法除了Marshall的课以外谁都不修吧？而整个学院除了Marshall以外的一切都会让你人感到处在急湍逆流。

Ephraim Radner’s extraordinary book The End of the Church is the most creative, erudite, and important book of historical theology since Henri de Lubac’s Surnaturel. David Hart’sThe Beauty of the Infinite is a bold (and to my mind brilliantly successful) theological campaign that carries the fight for truth into the deepest reaches of our sad, failing, postmodern academic culture.

Ephraim Radner的巨着《教会的尽头》，可说是Henri de Lubac的《超自然》之后最博学、有创造力，且不同凡响的历史神学著作了。David Hart的《无穷之美》则是胆识不凡（在我看来是成就辉煌）的神学宣言，为真理而战、直捣黄龙进入那可悲堕落的后现代学术文化核心。

These two remarkable theological minds are not just in less-than-ideal places for an aspiring, adventuresome graduate student interested in serious theology in the service of the Church, as is the case with Marshall. Radner and Hart are totally inaccessible. Radner is a parish priest in an Episcopal church in Pueblo, Colorado. Hart has a temporary, one-year appointment at Providence College. For all intents and purposes, both have been excluded from academia. It is a sign of the times. The United States, a wealthy country with vibrant churches, has only two graduate programs in theology that get even a relatively strong thumbs up.

这两位了不起的神学思想家所处的岗位不像Marshall，后者的学校对一个胸怀大志且有心以严谨神学事奉教会的研究生来说仅是较不理想，但Radner和Hart是根本遥不可及。Radner是科罗拉多州「普部落」（译注：为印第安人村庄且地处沙漠）的教区牧师。Hart在摄理大学只有一年的短期教职。总之他们两位不啻与学术界绝缘。这是时代的记号。美国，一个富裕且教会如此活跃的国家，竟然只有两所神学研究院能让人坚定地竖起拇指叫好。

(About the author: Dr. Russell R. Reno [PH.D Yale University] is a professor of Christian Ethics at Creighton University who recently joined the Roman Catholic Church.