Writing Cultures, Enculturating Writing at Two Theological Schools: Mapping Rhetorics of Correlation and Liberation Lucretia B. Yaghjian Episcopal Divinity School & Weston Jesuit School of Theology Abstract. Taking the theory and practice of contrastive rhetoric as a point of departure, this article identifies two rhetorical models that inform the teaching and writing of theology at two theological schools where the author directs a joint writing program. The models of correlation and liberation are drawn from the official documents and typical theological/rhetorical practices of each school, exemplified by representative student and faculty writing. In conclusion, the common ground encouraging comparative and cooperative models of writing theological culture(s) is intimated by four concluding motives that warrant wider disciplinary discussion of the rhetorics we have and those we need as religious scholars and theological educators at the beginning of the third millennium. When you assign a paper in one of your courses, what are the pedagogical goals of that written assignment, and what presuppositions about writing as a mode of learning underwrite those goals? How do the genre, style and form of the paper reflect and facilitate the realization of those goals? In evaluating student papers, what criteria do you apply to determine if those goals have been met? Extrapolating from those criteria to imagine an exemplary paper in your own discipline of theology or religious studies, how would you characterize the style of that ideal paper? Does the school where you teach theology or religion have an exemplary writing style, evidenced both in faculty writing and in writing required of students? If you were asked to typify that style rhetorically, how would you describe it? This article engages these questions by proposing two rhetorical models specific to the writing cultures of Episcopal Divinity School (EDS) and Weston Jesuit School of Theology (WJST) and invites readers to contemplate and critique the rhetorics operative within their own pedagogical contexts. Inevitably, the models proposed will be schematic and prone to caricature. As James Clifford acknowledges in the classic of the genre, Writing Culture, ``Cultures do not hold still for their portraits,'' and ``attempts to make them do so always involve simplification and exclusion'' (Clifford 1986, 10). Notwithstanding her feminist critique of this classic, Ruth Behar commends the book for making ``an incredibly obvious point: that anthropologists write'' (Behar and Gordon 1995, 3). To make the point that theologians and religious scholars write may also seem obvious. But is it? My goal here is an explicit critical awareness of the implicit rhetorical models that inform our discursive practices as teachers of theology and religion who are also writing culture(s) and enculturating writing in our own contexts. Rhetorical Models and Methodology, Writing Styles, Writing Cultures First, however, I shall outline a rhetorical framework for this inquiry by defining my terminology and situating myself ethnographically in relation to the EDS and WJST writing cultures, where I direct a joint writing program for Episcopal Divinity School and Weston Jesuit School of Theology students. The WRITE (Writing Resources and Instruction for Theological Education) Program was conceived in 1992, when the deans of both faculties collaborated to pool resources to meet a common need for academic support for international students. As a graduate of Weston Jesuit School of Theology (M.Div. 1989) with a Ph.D. in English and twenty years of experience in the teaching of writing, I was hired in fall 1992 to teach ß Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002 Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA Teaching Theology and Religion, ISSN 1368-4868, 2002, vol. 5 no. 3, pp 128^140.