San Francisco Seminary professor trains students to listen, understand and articulate in conflict situations
Dr. Carol Robb
Developing informed leaders who can analyze conflict in the church or society from the perspective of ethics and see the conflict’s different factors and sides is the goal of San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) Professor Dr. Carol Robb.
“I ask them to be able to vocalize their own position on something that is a matter of moral importance, but also to be able to verbalize the positions that the people who don’t agree with them have,” said Robb, the Margaret Dollar Professor of Christian Social Ethics at the seminary.
The students need to be able to do that in such a way that those they don’t agree with can say, “Yes, that’s what I believe; you understand,” Robb said. “That capacity to articulate your opposition’s point of view builds trust. Then you can move forward.”
She said that those skills in listening, understanding and articulating that are necessary for students preparing for ministry are taught in many courses at SFTS, and that she is especially interested in leadership preparation around the area of conflict.
In every form of ministry, from congregations to institutions, there is going to be conflict, said Robb, who holds a master’s degree and a doctorate from Boston University. Yet the hope is “that we can understand each other and encourage each other to speak.”
“If you feel understood, you are much more likely to share where you are coming from,” she said.
Robb came to SFTS in 1985 after serving as assistant professor in religious studies at the University of Massachusetts–Boston. She lectured on Christian social ethics at Harvard Divinity School prior to that.
Among the courses Robb teaches at San Francisco Seminary are Introduction to Ethics: Economic Justice; Environmental Ethics: Focus on Climate Change; and Contemporary Theory in Christian Social Ethics.
Her teaching philosophy includes the belief that students at all levels need the introductory courses “to become proficient in the tools ethics provides us when we sense society is at some kind of crossroads.”
Students should be able to understand tradition and history and should comprehend that each “is full of conflict and it is full of different voices,” Robb said. “That’s another way of going deeper into the faith.”
Robb’s own work reflects this philosophy. Her most recent book, Wind, Sun, Soil, Spirit: Biblical Ethics and Climate Change, explores scenarios for the future in light of climate change and assesses criteria for ethical policy in this area. Robb also reflects on implications of the New Testament worldview for ethics now.
We must look at how our being people of faith has bearing on how to consider the future regarding climate change, Robb said. “There really isn’t any forum in which to discuss that.”
Her commitment to looking at the environment theologically is incorporated in the work she does at SFTS, which also has among its priorities care for the natural environment.
Robb’s environmental ethics classes use a theory-practice model of education, and each class chooses a project to teach itself something new about how to live on the earth.
“The projects help everyone learn a new competency, something positive to heal the fragile ecology,” Robb said on the SFTS Web site. “By learning how to do something positive, we find a path beyond an otherwise overwhelming sense that humankind is destroying the web of life.”