Nouwen did not believe that intellectual formation could be separated from spiritual formation. No methods, skills, techniques, films, or field trips could replace the influence of the teacher, because the essence of all religious teaching was witness, proclaiming ‘something which has existed from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have watched and touched with our own hands, the Word of life—this is our theme’ (1 John 1:1–2). It was hardly a philosophy to endear him to traditional academic approaches in theology, but Nouwen did not waver in his
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