FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
1. Is the DLSC primarily a professional association or a learned society?
- No. The DLSC is primarily a religious community. Unlike professional associations whose chief and often sole purpose is to improve the scholarship of their participants, the DLSC is primarily committed to fostering the spiritual welfare and apostolic potential of its members.
2. Is the DLSC an organization for professional theologians?
- The DLSC is an organization for lay scholars in every intellectual discipline, including theology. However, its educational priority is to facilitate the study of theology by scholars in other fields and thus develop the latter’s apostolic potential. Although professional theologians do not have an unmet need for DLSC assistance to further their own theological understanding, their knowledgeable participation in DLSC activities greatly enhances the theological discourse of other members. In addition, their interaction with other DLSC members often helps them to refine their understanding of how theology intersects with other intellectual disciplines. For both these reasons, the DLSC regards their membership and participation as highly desirable.
3. Is the DLSC a Third Order Organization? Are its members Dominican Tertiaries?
- No. Although the DLSC and the Third Order (now better known as the Dominican Laity) are both designed primarily for lay persons, they form different communities of the Dominican Family.
4. Is the DLSC a religious organization for students?
- No. Membership in the DLSC is reserved to professional scholars at the university faculty level, both active and retired. However, doctoral students, if otherwise qualified, may also be admitted at the discretion of local chapters. Other highly valued options for participation in the Dominican Family are available to persons who do not meet the DLSC membership profile. For laypersons, recommended options include the Dominican Laity (Third Order), the Dominican Young Adult Movement (if age appropriate), and Dominican Secular Institutes.
5. Is the reservation of DLSC membership to professional scholars at the university faculty level compatible with the Dominican tradition?
- Yes. Although most branches of the Dominican Family recruit an occupationally diverse membership, there is also precedent within the Dominican tradition for communities to be organized along professional lines. Priestly fraternities within the Dominican Third Order offer one prominent and longstanding example of this precedent. The DLSC policy is based on the perception that academics have particular needs which are best served by communal practices, a level of scholarly discourse, and policies designed specifically for them and less helpful, even burdensome, for others.
6. Can someone simultaneously hold membership in the DLSC and other religious communities with highly similar purposes?
- Apart from some exceptions, the DLSC follows the standard practice of canonically established religious orders (and other branches of the Dominican Family) which excludes simultaneous membership in more than one religious order, or in more than one branch of the same religious family. This common policy is based on the perception that membership in more than one religious community with highly similar purposes and membership expectations is not only redundant but generally dilutes participation in each of the affected communities, rendering both or all less effective. However, this DLSC policy does not discourage additional memberships in religious associations other than canonically established religious communities. Nor does it rule out exceptions for clergy scholars and certain others, as deemed appropriate by the DLSC’s general council.
7. Is a professional scholar at the university faculty level free to apply for membership in another Dominican community instead of the DLSC?
- Absolutely. Although the DLSC is designed specifically and uniquely for professional scholars, other Dominican communities, both clerical and lay, are also pleased to consider their candidacy.
8. How does the DLSC fit into the Dominican universe?
- The DLSC is an integral part of the Dominican Family, a broad grouping of Dominican communities and associations of which the canonically established Dominican Order and its several branches form the essential core. The Order includes friars, cloistered nuns, professed sisters of apostolic life, priestly fraternities, the Dominican (Third Order) laity, and secular institutes. The larger Family includes the foregoing entities as well as newer communities and groups like the DLSC, Dominican Volunteers International, and the Dominican Young Adult Movement.
9. Is the DLSC committed to the inculcation of a particular theological outlook?
- While recognizing the high value and great importance of organizations that undertake such a commitment, the DLSC believes that its ecumenical status requires a broad and highly inclusive approach to theological inquiry. However, this policy is not intended to diminish the commitment of individual DLSC members to doctrinal views favored by the denominational communities to which they belong.
10. Does the DLSC’s ecumenical status involve a detachment or distancing of its members from their particular faith communities and ecclesial traditions?
- No. To be ecumenical is to be inclusive, not exclusive; attached, not detached; engaged, not disengaged. It generally results in a higher regard for the DLSC member’s own ecclesial tradition as well as greater appreciation for the traditions and perspectives of others. Among its membership expectations, the DLSC recommends increased participation in the worship, service-providing, and other evangelical activities of the individual member’s own denominational community. Membership in the DLSC does not substitute for, nor take precedence over, commitment to a member’s own denomination.