Lambeth XV: Exposing the Darkness Within

As predicted, false teachers are speaking out at the Anglican meeting of Lambeth XV this week.  The focus is on a resolution from 1998 (Lambeth I.10) that affirmed that marriage can only be between a man and a woman and that taught that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture.  At this international conference, instead of ‘resolutions’ certain ‘calls’ are being given, and attending bishops are asked to state their level of affirmation.  One call addresses this 1998 understanding of sexuality and marriage—an understanding the Church has always held.  Yet some whole ‘provinces’ or regions in the world and some bishops and archbishops are emitting their own calls to reject this teaching and to affirm the Western culture’s sexual immorality and error regarding marriage over against the Bible’s clear teaching.[1]  The larger part of the Anglican Communion remains orthodox, but the Western provinces have fractured the Communion with their false teaching on sexuality and marriage.

If we are now to entertain the idea of ‘calls,’ we might note the ‘calls’ of the Jerusalem Council, Paul, Peter, John, and Jude to abstain from sexual immorality and to pass judgement on any false teachers affirming such abominations.  The Jerusalem Council called the Gentile churches ‘to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood’ (Acts 15.20, ESV and throughout, except where noted).  In stating this, the Council apparently was summarising and affirming the Leviticus Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26) that established a code of ethics for God's people and the aliens [non-Jews] in their midst.   That is, the Church's teaching on sexuality, including that homosexuality was an abomination (Leviticus 18.22; 20.13), was reaffirmed by the Jerusalem Council.  They were also to avoid practices associated with other religious practices (eating meals associated with idolatrous meals).  

These two errors were repeated together throughout the New Testament.  Paul seems to have this in mind in 2 Corinthians 6.14-7.1, where he calls the believers not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers in their idolatry and defilements of body and spirit.  In his earlier letter of 1 Corinthians, he warned them not to associate or eat with anyone who claims to be a brother in the church but who is sexually immoral, greedy, idolaters, revilers, drunkards, or swindlers (5.11).  Rather than fellowshipping with such people, the church should pass judgement on them (vv. 12-13).  Anglican provinces such as Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda realise this full well as they have refused to attend Lambeth XV, which would involve partaking of the Eucharist together with these false ‘brethren.’

Paul’s own ‘call’ directed to the church in Ephesus was a clarion call warning of false teachers.  According to Acts, he warned the Ephesian elders that, after his departure, ‘fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; ³⁰ and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them’ (Acts 20.29-30).  Writing to Timothy, Paul warned, ‘For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, ⁴ and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths’ (2 Timothy 4.3-4).

Peter likewise reminded his churches of the apostolic warning, saying, ‘you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, ³ knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires’ (2 Peter 3.2-3).  A little later, he adds, ‘For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error’ (2 Peter 2.18, NRSV).

John warned the churches at Smyrna and Thyatira of groups promoting idolatry through eating food sacrificed to idols (probably at religious meals) and sexual immorality (Revelation 2.15, 20).  He referred to them with names from the Old Testament—Balaam and Jezebel—reminding the churches that this sort of promotion of false religion and sexual promiscuity is a perennial threat for the Church.

Finally, Jude warned that ‘certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality [licentiousness] and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ’ (v. 4).

Calls to immorality by false teachers in the Anglican communion are coming fast and furiously, even though the majority of Anglicans in the world are Biblical, orthodox Christians.  Lambeth XV is exposing the rot and will greatly help bring the necessary split in the Church that has already taken place in most mainline denominations and is underway among the Methodists right now.  Having been warned of this by the apostles long ago, believers should not be surprised.  Yet they need to speak the truth in love, judge the recalcitrant sinners and restore the repentant, and prepare themselves for the persecution that comes from those intent on sin.

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[1] Cf. Mary Ann Mueller, ‘Lambeth 1.10 Turning into a Slugfest at Lambeth 2022,’ VirtueOnLine; online at: https://virtueonline.org/lambeth-110-turning-slugfest-lambeth-2022 (accessed 25 July, 2022).

The Righteous Justice of Job (Job 29.11-17)

 Words are often shorthand for weighty concepts, but therein lies a problem.  We think we know what someone means by the word, or even what a culture means by it.  Yet we find at some point that we do not.  This happens with virtues—weighty concepts indeed.  To one person, love means letting others make their own choices; to another, it means caring enough to intervene when someone is going to do something harmful.  The following reflection will look at the virtue ‘justice’ in regard to how it is understood in Job 29.11-17.  We have heard of the patience of Job, but what about the righteousness of Job?  

At this point in the book of Job, Job is reflecting on his life at a time when he was a respected ruler in the city.  The specific passage explains how he ruled, and in it we get his understanding of justice:

¹¹         When the ear heard, it called me blessed,

                        and when the eye saw, it approved,

¹²         because I delivered the poor who cried for help,

                        and the fatherless who had none to help him.

¹³         The blessing of him who was about to perish came upon me,

                        and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.

¹⁴         I put on righteousness, and it clothed me;

                        my justice was like a robe and a turban.

¹⁵         I was eyes to the blind

                        and feet to the lame.

¹⁶         I was a father to the needy,

                        and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know.

¹⁷         I broke the fangs of the unrighteous

                        and made him drop his prey from his teeth.

What is the meaning of ‘justice’ in this passage?  The term appears in verse 14, but its meaning is clarified through the whole passage.  Consider three versions of justice: equality justice, equity justice, and righteousness.  The terminology used here needs to be explained, and especially ‘equity’ is being used in a new sense rather than its proper meaning. 

On the first view, justice is understood with regard to equality—equal opportunity and equal access to justice.  This justice is blind in the sense that it does not ‘lift the face’ of the person in the court to see who he or she is.  It uses honest scales, not weighting one side down.  It has to do with the rule of law and the equal administration of justice.

Equity justice involves a particular, recent use of the term ‘equity.’  On this view, the meaning of ‘equity’ is not equality but a preferential administration of ‘justice’ to right past wrongs.  One aspect of this new meaning of equity has to do with discriminating against one group and privileging another group.  Instead of equal opportunity for all it seeks equal outcomes for all.  This view is based on Marxism’s affirmation of a policy of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’  This encourages diversity in terms of allowing individuals to contribute to society according to their unique abilities, but it does not reward them according to their abilities, merits, or hard work.  It takes what is produced and redistributes it.  A focus on outcomes, not merit, may lead one to hire someone because of their group status, not on merit.  Pressed further, the notion picks up the idea of intersectionality and applies it to justice.  Intersectionality has to do with how one’s various group identities (gender, religion, race, sexuality, etc.) intersect to define your identity.  The theory says that these different identities give you an advantage or disadvantage that is greater or lesser with respect to other people’s intersectional identity.  The groups, it is said, that have experienced discrimination or that have been victimized or that are minorities deserve weighted privilege to rectify the injustices that they have experienced, and the individual with more of these identities than someone else deserve more privilege than others.  On this view, justice is not blind, and it weights the scales in favour of the select groups that can claim historical or systemic victimhood.

The third view of justice is what we find in Job 29.11-17.  A number of Old Testament passages reflect justice in the first sense—equality justice.  These are not in view here, but this first view can be compatible with the third view and, of course, is.  Yet this passage expresses a view of justice that we might call by its cognate in v. 14, ‘righteousness,’ to distinguish it from the other two types of justice.  Like the second view, righteousness knows that the world has oppressors and oppressed.  It knows that not all will be able to receive equality justice (the first view).  The righteous ruler, Job, does not trust individuals or society to provide justice but is active to search out the victims in society.  However, righteousness is not the same as equitable justice in the particular sense described above.  It removes the oppressor’s power rather than puts the victim in the seat of power.  As verse 17 says, it breaks ‘the fangs of unrighteous’ and makes ‘him drop his prey from his teeth.’  Further, it identifies the poor, the fatherless, the widow, the blind, and the needy in order to give them a helping hand.  These are all people who have fallen out of society’s safety nets and will not recover without assistance.  Leaving them in their situation is injustice.  Righteousness is active: it removes oppression, identifies the needy, and gives them help.  In doing so, it does not oppress others by insisting on equal outcomes, by practicing reverse discrimination.  It does not treat individuals in terms of their group identity (intersectionality) but in terms of their individual needs.

In conclusion, righteousness goes beyond equality justice and its equal opportunity before the law.  It is active in removing the power of the unrighteous and seeking out those individuals in need to give them aid.  Righteousness rejects the new ‘equity’ justice that treats individuals in terms of their group or their victimhood status.  It does not automatically interpret the needy as victims, but it still reaches out to help them.  It does not treat society as all about power, and therefore its help for the needy is not to take power away from the one group and give power to the other.  It rejects reverse discrimination.  It is not opposed to merit or private property; it rejects the idea of justice as equal outcomes.  On the other hand, it finds the powerless or oppressed and brings them help.  On this view, it is not simply a law to enforce but a virtue by which to live.

Paul, Epictetus, and Romans 1.26-28

In the apostle Paul's day, one of the great philosophical discussions had to do with the role of nature and nurture in ethics.  Did people do what they do because of the way that they were by nature or because of how they were nurtured?  Relatedly, one could ask why people sometimes live 'against nature.'  In the culture of the first century, Jews, Christians, Cynics, and Stoics could all agree that one should live according to nature, which, for religious people, was also the way God made the world.  A related question in antiquity--one that requires too large an answer for this post--is, 'Are desires innate or developed in human beings?'  This question, too, occupied philosophers of old.

The questions are still asked, sometimes in different ways with words like 'orientation' and 'identity' featuring.  Western culture has been at a peculiar cross-road of Modernity and Postmodernity over the past half century, and this has meant that older arguments based in science have given way to newer arguments based in choice.  However, individuals and groups easily slip back and forth between the two, opposed ways of thinking.  One person argues that someone has desires of a certain kind because of how they are put together: identity is innate.  Another argues that desire is a matter of choice.  In the postmodern world, which argument one chooses to bring forward is really not all that important, only what one concludes is.

The Postmodern world puts Christians--and all realists--at a considerable disadvantage.  Just when the Christian thinks that the argument for some settled reality is firm, his Postmodern interlocutor switches arguments to insisting that people have the right to choose their identity and lifestyle.  In antiquity, Jews and Christians could find common ground with certain Greek and Roman philosophers who affirmed a natural order, whether they were religious or not.  The Postmodern world is decidedly anti-natural on many fronts, even if natural arguments are entertained as long as they reach the right, politically correct conclusions.

These points come to a head in a discussion of a passage such as Romans 1.26-28.  Paul is arguing that non-Jews or Gentiles have rejected the Creator and therefore gone against the right order of Creation.  As a consequence, God has given them up to their bad choices and to a depraved mind such that they can no longer reason from the way the world is to the way it should be.  Instead, their thinking is turned upside down.  As to their relationship with God, they have given up worship of the Creator and started worshiping things that they themselves have made, which is idolatry.  As to their relationship with one another, they have given up natural sexual relations between a man and a woman and turned to lesbianism and male homosexuality.  Just as humans created their own gods, they created their own sexuality--both in opposition to nature.  That move away from God's world to the world of their own making--illustrated so well by the examples of idolatry and homosexuality--has led to every manner of opposition to Divine Law, and though at some level people still know that such things are wrong, they not only do them but approve of others who do as well (Romans 1.32).  Paul's argument sums up not only the way he found the world but the way we do as well.

Paul's argument is thoroughly Biblical.  That is, it was in line with what Jews and Christians said and believed not only in his day but for centuries before and afterwards.  Yet he would have found common ground with a 1st century, Stoic philosopher like Epictetus.  A passage in Epictetus' first dialogue shows important points of contact with Paul's argument in Romans 1.26-28.  In it, Epictetus describes a human being as a combination of animal (with natural instincts) and the gods (with reason and intelligence).  He says, 'these two things are mingled in the generation of man, body in common with the animals, and reason and intelligence in common with the gods….’ (Discourses 1).  This explains why humans do some things by instinct and other things by their own choices based on their own reasoning.  Humans, therefore, are capable of living against their nature.  Stoics, of course, taught that one should live according to nature.

Epictetus further speaks of living according to Providence (the way things are—nature) and being grateful/thankful about that, rather than living against nature.  He says, 'From everything which is or happens in the world, it is easy to praise Providence, if a man possesses these two qualities, the faculty of seeing what belongs and happens to all persons and things, and a grateful disposition’ (Discourses 1).  That is, one should not begrudge the way he or she has been made but be grateful.

Of further interest for a comparison with Paul is that Epictetus next applies this point to gender.  As Paul in Rom. 1.18-28 and vv. 26-27 in particular, Epictetus notes how desire is related to the construction of biological parts for male and female and that this declares God’s purpose by which we should live.  He says, 'And the existence of male and female, and the desire of each for conjunction, and the power of using the parts which are constructed, do not even these declare the workman?’ (Disourses 1).  Animals relate their constitution to its use, but humans also have the faculty of understanding—understanding related to the mind and use related to the way things work in the natural world.  And they need to exercise their understanding along with putting their physical constitution to its proper use.  Humans need to live, therefore, conformably to nature (Discourses 1).

Note that Epictetus speaks of a natural use of parts.  This is precisely what Paul says in Romans 1.26-27, although some English translations obscure Paul's language.  The English Standard Version, for example, translated Romans 1.26-27 this way:

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations [chrēsin] for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations [chrēsin] with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

The translation does capture Paul's argument, like that of the Stoics, about nature.  This is the way God created people, male and female.  Nature has nothing to do with someone's chosen orientation. In fact, orientation in the case of lesbians and male homosexuals is against nature.  Paul's words are, in fact, about 'natural use,' since the Greek word chrēsis means this.  Like Epictetus, Paul is speaking of natural and unnatural use of male and female genitalia in intercourse.  Paul and Epictetus could have been speaking at the same conference.  To repeat Epictetus, 'the power of using the parts which are constructed, do not even these declare the workman?'

Paul concludes his argument in v. 28: 'And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.'  This, too, is in part Epictetus' argument.  Humans are more complicated than beasts, who do what they do by natural instinct and not higher, human reasoning.  Humans use their reasoning capacity to justify their actions even when they go against nature.  For Epictetus, this is where all sorts of human problems arise, and the solution is to live according to nature.  For Paul, humans cannot do this because they are no longer able to figure out what is natural and what is unnatural.  The mind has been debased or corrupted in its thinking.  Paul will later explain this in more detail in regard to sin in Romans 7.7-25.  Only God can restore humanity, and, in fact, Paul concludes his lengthy argument by saying in Romans 12.2, '... be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.'  God's redemption of humanity from their sinful state involves a restoration of discernment, a renewed ability to use the transformed mind to know God's moral will for humanity.  That will is good, acceptable, and perfect.  Thus, Christians are able to understand the purposes of the Creator and see them as God's will for His creation.  Paul is more skeptical than Epictetus in believing that humanity has lost the ability to discern God's purposes in creation because of sin.  Yet he is more hopeful than Epictetus in believing that those in Christ and led by the Holy Spirit are able, by the power of God, to know and do the will of God.

Should Christians Use Someone's 'Preferred Pronouns' in Compliance with 'Transgender' Politics?

 The short answer to the question, 'Should Christians use someone's 'preferred pronouns' in compliance with 'transgender' politics?' is, 'Of course not.'  No realist should, for that matter.  Yet the issue is not simply one of realism, it is also a matter of truth-telling.  And, for those thinking that compliance with someone else's unnatural wishes is an expression of love, one can only hope that someone will love them enough to tell them the truth.

Paul Huxley, the Communication Coordinator at Christian Concern, has written a very clear, short article addressing this issue.  It is entitled, 'Christians Should Not Be Compelled to Lie by Using Trans Pronouns' (15 July, 2022), available here.  It is an excellent statement on the issue.  The main purpose of this blog post is to suggest to readers that they read Huxley's arguments on the issue.

In a cultural context that has elevated perception and choice above reality and nature, Christians are going to face a number of challenges to 'speak the truth.'  God is a God of truth.  He says, 'I speak the truth, I declare what is right' (Isaiah 45.19).  His people are to 'speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgements that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord' (Zechariah 8.16-17).  Only in a world of falsehood can one set up a conflict between speaking the truth to one another on the one hand and judgements that make for peace on the other, or equating truth with devising evil against another person.

Compelled speech is a challenge to liberal democracy and befits authoritarian dictatorships instead.  When the Roman Emperor, Decius, wanted to compel citizens to worship the traditional gods, he required that people complied by acquiring certificates, libelli, stating that they had sacrificed to the gods and to the genius of the emperor.  Under the emperor Diocletian, people were again compelled to offer pagan sacrifices.  People did so or found ways to acquire the certificates without doing so, and some Christians complied, but many were martyred.  Not only have tyrants forced people to contradict their consciences and religious devotion but other forms of authoritarian government have as well, most notably in recent times in Fascist, Communist, and Islamic State countries.  Yet compelled speech and actions against one's conscience or that of a particular group, such as Christians, is also possible in democracies where the tyranny of the majority takes hold--a concern that James Madison addressed in the 51st Federalist Paper.

Huxley draws attention to the Ninth Commandment not to bear false witness when addressing the subject of a Christian, who knows God made humans male or female (Genesis 1.27), on the issue of complying with a person's pronoun preferences.  Such compliance for those who confess the God of creation is false witness.  He further notes Paul's word in Ephesians 4.25: 'Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.'

The relativism of postmodernity has become the tyranny of postmodern tribalism.  Christians are increasingly pressured to oppose their own consciences and comply with the libelli of false testimony, particularly in the area of sexuality.  As Christians under the Roman emperors Decius or Diocletian , pressured to deny the one God, our Christian witness can simply come down to confessing the Creator and what He has created, saying to a world of gender make-believe, 'We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth....'  We reject your man-made gods, your humanly invented morality, and your false identifies in defiance of the Creator.  As Paul says, 'speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ' (Ephesians 4.15).  For us, speaking the truth over against the falsities and idolatries of the world is itself love.  It is, in fact, hateful to withhold the truth from those living by lies.

How to Destroy a Seminary: 5. Bend to the Present-day Social Justice Warriors of Western Culture

 Strange as it may seem, some have argued that churches decline because they do not bend to the culture.  However, every mainline denomination in the USA, Great Britain, and Europe has been declining for decades—60 decades in the USA—while enthusiastically embracing the culture.  Every one of them has shifted from support for orthodox Christianity to blend in with, even advocate for, the increasingly post-Christian culture of the West.  This was true when the culture was Modernity, and it is true now that the culture is Postmodernity.

During Modernity, Evangelical seminaries for the most part stood strong and in opposition to the culture and culture-affirming trends in the mainline denominations, such as scientifically based attacks on Biblical authority, sexual liberty, and abortion.  Evangelicals believed that Scripture was the infallible Word of God, upheld orthodox teaching about the deity of Christ, the meaning of the atonement, and justification by faith, and resisted the culture’s moral turpitude.

Evangelical seminaries (and colleges or universities) have, however, struggled to resist the social pressures of Postmodernity.  During Modernity, Evangelicals could claim a moral high ground even if viewed as prudish.  Postmodernity, however, claims the moral high ground even while advocating moral relativism.  It claims to represent justice in the form of diversity, equity, and inclusion—with all the twists and turns of meaning behind those new values.  This new social justice understands traditional Christianity to be immoral.  Some seminary professors and presidents, pastors, Christian organisations, and so forth have quickly trotted out statements and policies to prove to the culture that they are not immoral, support the new social justice, and are, indeed, ‘woke.’  To do so, they have had to accept the dodgy news and interpretations about social injustice on the one hand and fist bump their newly hired heads of Human Resources on the way in the door to fix their imagined problems with their Marxist toolkits.  Some version of Critical Race Theory is accepted either because those in charge really believe that they are a group of racists or unwelcoming homophobes after all or because they want to appear to be on the right side of social justice no matter what.

While this nonsense is bad enough on its own, a possibly more serious problem is that it has a variety of consequences.  It shifts the theological focus of the seminary and training of students for ministry to social agendas.  (Why not rather go into social work?)  It also removes the seminary from serving its constituents to concerns about social conformity, including fitting into the broader demographics of the larger society.  Further, to meet quota according to social demographics, it prioritises social categories over academic and ecclesiastical merit in hiring processes.  (This is a fancy way of saying that, in order to oppose alleged racism, it becomes racist by looking at individuals in terms of their race—or gender, we might add.)  The culture’s social justice is particularly fixated on homosexuality and transgenderism and, consequently, some Evangelical seminaries tip-toe around these issues with care lest they be caught believing something controversial.  They are setting themselves up to cave to the culture at some point.

All the points offered as examples here could be and have been discussed at length.  Suffice it to say here that, those seminaries that have caved to the present culture, all in the name of virtue signalling their affirmation of the new social justice, are certainly going to decline in the same way as the mainline denominations have been doing for similar reasons for sixty years.  This seems to be a tried and tested way toward religious decline.  So, if you want to destroy a seminary, bend to the social justice warriors of present-day Western culture.

How to Destroy a Seminary: 4. Offer Student Government Loans

 Government loans create two problems for the seminary.  This matter applies to American seminaries.  The government student loan programme is supposed to make education possible for students without the funds for study.  Its effect on education has been to increase the costs of an education well above the rate of inflation.  Seminaries have done what they can to keep education affordable, but with government loans as an option, they have allowed their costs to grow in comparable ways to other educational institutions.  That is, they have not solved their problem of the costs of an education as a Christian community should but as an academic institution does.  One result is that the graduates enter ministry with huge debts and, in America, they will already have accumulated educational debts from their undergraduate studies.

A second problem with seminaries that offer student loans for their education is that they open themselves up to government regulations.  If an institution accepts government money in the form of student loan programmes or funding for veterans’ education, the government may argue that its various regulations must be followed.  These regulations may, for example, apply to who can or must be hired.  In this way, the government oversteps any separation of Church and State and manages to make laws that regulate religion.  Even the threat of this happening can influence what a seminary stipulates for its community life.

The solution would be to ask denominations to step up to the game and provide the funding to train its ministers.  Some are much better at this than others, to be sure.  Yet the academic model for theological education allows other denominations to skirt this responsibility, leaves students to pay for their preparation for ministry, and sets faculty up for an academic career more than an ecclesiastical ministry.  This loose relationship between some denominations and seminary training also encourages the growth of independent churches.  A further consequence is that this weakens the denominations and leaves students and graduates with little serious ecclesiastical affiliation.  It distorts how the seminary itself might develop in many good ways as a Christian ministry, and so basing the seminary’s finances on student tuition funded by government loans is a good way to destroy a seminary over time.

How to Destroy a Seminary: 3. Start a Counselling Programme

 To quote Stephen Neill, “If mission is everything, then mission is nothing. If everything that the Church does is to be classified as ‘mission,’ we shall have to find a term for the Church’s particular responsibility for ‘the heathen,’ those who have never yet heard the name of Christ.”  Something similar needs to be said about the seminary.  ‘If every job is a vocation, and the seminary trains for vocations, then the seminary is a place to study for any job.’  Yet, you may object, Christian counselling is not just any job, it’s a ministry.  And then we’d have to discuss what is meant by Christian counselling, who teaches it, and what the curriculum entails.

And there are different answers to those questions.  If one means ‘pastoral counselling,’ then, by all means, gives some space in the seminary to this training.  If, however, one means by counselling a degree that is accredited by a secular accrediting agency and that teaches a curriculum for state licensure and certification, then the seminary has openned itself up to government restrictions on counselling for its faculty hiring, standards, and curriculum.

Moreover, counselling faculty with adequate training in theological subjects are hard to come by. That is a simple fact. They may have a few theology courses, since they are opting to teach in a seminary, but they are probably fairly ignorant of theological subjects, let alone have critically evaluated all the presuppositions in counselling with theology.  The rest of the faculty finds themselves biting their tongues when one of them addresses a topic touching on theology or attempts to engage the Biblical text.  If one believes that counselling is not just a social science but a ministry, and if one understands that Scripture and Christian theology cover crucial subjects that arise in most counselling sessions, then there needs to be advanced study in theology for counsellors.  Why not a PhD in theology before a doctorate in counselling?  This just does not happen enough of the time to support an ongoing programme in Christian counselling.

For one of my undergraduate majors, I studied psychology, taking most of the subjects one finds in an MA in Counselling at a seminary.  In my psychopathology course, my professor began by saying that, in this course, there would be no mention of sin.  I appreciated the point as I knew that many psychoses and neuroses, were not to be interpreted spiritually so much as psychologically.  I also knew that people could overspiritualise relational and psychological problems.  Yet I also knew that this lacuna would lead to misdiagnoses and inadequate treatments.  The human condition could not be analysed apart from sin, and some issues people face have demonic causes.  I remember one counselling professor at a seminary being shocked when I suggested that some ‘disorders’ may have to do with demon possession.  And I remember another counselling professor in a seminary say that, because of state licensure, she could not address the sin of homosexuality as a problem in any way.  If this was not a comment due to theological ignorance—or rejection of orthodoxy—it was a disconnect between the seminary and the counselling profession.  Or it was all three.

Finally, professors do not simply teach their subjects and then go home.  They sit on committees and in faculty meetings.  They vote on other candidates for positions in ethics, theology, Bible, Church history, preaching, and so forth.  Giving a counselling professor an equal vote with a theologian in a seminary makes no sense.  Counselling professors also get to weigh in on the curriculum.  How about substituting the usual ethics course for a course in professional ethics for counsellors for the students in counselling?  That happened, and the counselling students lost any meaningful ethics course that they should have gotten for doing their degree in a seminary.  When a whole counselling programme is started in a seminary, not just one counselling professor but several are added to the faculty, creating a sizeable voting bloc.

This point has nothing to do with the merits of counselling or Christians becoming counsellors.  It has to do primarily with locating a counselling programme in a seminary.  It would be far more sensible to have counselling as a graduate programme in a Christian university (though I see problems with that as well).  Be that as it may, if one really wants to destroy a seminary, one way to do so is to start a counselling programme with secular accreditation and licensure.

How to Destroy a Seminary: 2. Hire and Advance Faculty Mainly on Academic Merit

This point is in no way meant to undermine the essential importance of academic merit.  The point rather has to do with raising academic proficiency above other essential commitments that a seminary must have.  The weaker a seminary's connection to a particular constituency, such as a denomination, the easier it is for those driving the seminary to turn to non-ecclesial, non-theological concerns in hiring faculty, shaping programmes, planning, etc.  One of the obvious emphases that emerges is justifying the hiring of a faculty member because of his or her academic strengths.  As there are plenty of would-be faculty running around with PhD degrees these days, 'academic merit' is usually a criterion that hides other interests of those pressing for a particular hiring of a faculty member.  In this era, in particular, agendas to move away from Biblical infallibility, the centrality of the Bible for theology and ministry, racial issues, feminist issues, 'diversity,' and even sexual deviancy are agendas some have that can be cloaked under 'academic excellence.'

This point may apply to others in the seminary community, not just faculty.  Seminaries are destroyed when members of the board, the administration, or the faculty act in such a way as to undermine the seminary’s mission, vision, values, or ethos.  Yet the destruction is seldom due to a single action or even several acts; it comes in a package of various matters driving individuals, such as personal agendas, character traits, friendships, activities, or deep commitments.  People do not usually contribute to the seminary overall from their areas of expertise as they make decisions.  Rather, as they engage in the community, influence others, form cliques, let their theological convictions express themselves in hiring and other faculty activities, and model a certain character that others imitate, they contribute significantly to the seminary.  The faculty member might teach courses in preaching or early Church history, but all these other matters are what really make the community.  Persuasion in a community is occasionally by rational argument; more often it comes through relationships and political pressure from those in power or influence.  Thus, hiring persons on the basis of their academic strengths, while essential, is a weaker concern when the ethos of a seminary is at stake.  Woke universities, of course, know this, and that is why they want to cancel people without the politically correct views.  We can say that they have a rather pathetic understanding of academia, but we need to understand that a seminary does not serve higher education like a university.  The university thrives with academic debate, but the seminary is, as the name implies, a place to help seeds grow and flourish; its emphasis is nurture within the Christian faith and for Christian ministry.

I cannot recall witnessing a good process for hiring persons who are not already known at the personal level, despite the usual written materials, committee meetings, interviews, lectures, discussions, and voting that make up the hiring process.  Interviews end up like speed dating for marriage.  The best approach to hiring someone is to recruit people already known well as persons and by their ministry.  While academic competence, even excellence, can be essential, even more essential is the faith, witness, and potential spiritual contribution of the candidate.  Evangelical seminaries should not hire faculty members who have remained in non-Evangelical denominations (this might have been done back in the 1970s, but getting out of mainline denominations is long overdue and sheds light on some problem or problems with the candidate by this point in history).  Understandably, some churches and their ministers have been 'caught' in mainline denominations, but no seminary professor should still personally be in such a denomination.  It is like hiring a person claiming to be orthodox theologically who is a Mormon, e.g., as the mainline denominations do not represent Christianity.  When academics are made the key concern, denominational affiliation is made a minor concern, and sometimes seminaries are only concerned with local church involvement.  This has proven to be the undermining of a seminary.  Candidates should also be known in their ecclesial or missional roles as persons tested in ministry and put forward by their denominations or mission organisations.  Frankly, denominations should pay the salaries of faculty members rather than the seminaries themselves.  Communal recommendations, not simply personal recommendations, should play a key role in the hiring process.

One of the key roles certain people play in the seminary is that of being agents of memory.  These people know the institution well through its history.  While candidates’ academic preparation and accomplishments are very important, agents of memory for the institution should play a prominent role in any hiring process, looking to see if there is a ‘hand-in-glove’ fit.  Agents of memory play their role along with others and should not dominate the hiring process, but they need to be listened to over others newly hired or who are still fitting into the ethos of the seminary.  Giving everyone an equal vote for a candidate is a sure way to change the ethos of the seminary—for good or for ill.  If this is done, then the preceding process should only put forward candidates who have passed the earlier stages.  In fact, recently hired faculty should probably not be given a vote on key matters until they have fit into the community and become part of its ethos (five years?).

In summary, candidates for the faculty should have the following qualities.  They should, of course, hold academic credentials suited to their role and be competent to teach their subjects.  They should be known personally for their personality, convictions, lifestyle, activities, etc.  They should be recruited on this basis and because they have been put forward by the constituencies the seminary serves as worthy to train people for their ministry, and this should be done with a community’s approval and recommendation.  They should be assessed and commended by particular gate-keepers in the seminary, particularly agents of memory, before any final, equal vote by all faculty members.  If you want to destroy a seminary, make academic merit the main concern and be sure to have a weak interview and advancement process apart from this criterion.

How to Destroy a Seminary: 1. Train for the Curriculum, Not the Church

Seminaries with weak ties to their constituencies, that is, the denominations and organisations that oversee ministries, will lose their way soon enough.  This is especially the case when ‘Evangelicalism’ comes to be defined by independent churches and ministries more than by denominations with historical and ecclesial depth in particular, orthodox, theological tradition.  When the major part of a student body in a seminary declares non-affiliation with denominations, and when the seminary celebrates the great number of denominational affiliations it has on its faculty and in its student body, there is a vagueness about what ministry is, what convictions are to be affirmed, and who is interested in ‘purchasing’ the seminary’s ‘product’ (hiring graduates). 

The seminary without strong links to a denomination or denominations and Christian organisations probably teaches toward the academic subjects, encourages any publication by its faculty rather than collaborates on what the Church needs from scholars, and leaves students to figure out what to do with their costly education. 

The seminary claiming to represent ‘Evangelicalism’ and hoping to attract students on this basis is, in our day, likely to fail.  In some countries, like South Africa, there is too weak of a connection between churches, denominations, and organisations for there to be an ‘Evangelical movement,’ and formation of an Evangelical seminary or Bible college is difficult.  Those that there are have a small student body.  In other countries, like the USA, the definition of ‘Evangelical’ has become tarnished.  While in times past it represented a theological orthodoxy, evangelistic urgency, counter-culture activism, missional movement, and commitment to Biblical Christianity in all it taught—including the infallibility of the Word of God—Evangelicalism today lacks clarity as to what being ‘Evangelical’ means.  This is not, as some would like to suggest, because of politics, though political debates have undermined Christianity.  It is because the progressive culture has aggressively infiltrated all institutions, including seminaries, and introduced the politics of higher education into the seminary that defines itself broadly, vaguely, and in more academic than ecclesial terms.

Seminaries that teach toward the curriculum regularly overextend their budgets.  They sell their product, a degree, on the basis of its academic strength rather than on its producing well-trained ministers for its clearly identified, ministerial partners.  Non-denominational (or multi-denominational) seminaries even intentionally avoid close ties with constituencies.  They expect that they can attract individual students to what they teach.  They believe that individual consumers will want to buy their product, yet their product costs far too much for the average salary of a minister.  The only reasons that this approach works at all today, though very poorly, are that some denominations, failing their ministers, have outsourced theological education and treated ministerial training as though it rests on the shoulders of individuals, is an academic exercise, and is not about ministerial formation.  When costs of an education were low, and when denominations found ways to form people for ministry alongside the seminary curriculum, this arrangement worked fairly well.  This is simply not the case today, when the cost of education is beyond the worth of the degree and most in non-denominational seminaries are sent by independent churches without much of an ecclesiology and without anything to offer for ministerial formation in a theological and ecclesiastical tradition.

The idea of a ‘seminary’ is to be a nursery in which to form students for ministry.  Academics needs to serve this purpose; it is not an independent exercise.  Faculty need to be ordained to ministry and have ministerial commitments and ecclesial oversight.  They need to model the Christian life and ministry to the students, whatever their subject of expertise.  All faculty members need to have a theological degree, whatever they teach, and continue to read in theological subjects and be engaged with the Church and its ministries.

The point here is not that seminaries need to be more ministerial and less academic in their curriculum.  An academic curriculum is good training for ministry, at least in the areas of Bible, theology, Church history, and ethics—the classical curriculum, including Biblical languages.  There is nothing more practical than clear and correct thinking.  The point, rather, is that the seminary with its academic curriculum should be oriented towards a clear constituency or constituencies, which are denominations, mission organisations, and ministries with which it has defined relationships.  The seminary may do well to leave the ministry subjects to these constituencies themselves, on the one hand, while making sure that the teaching of academic subjects is ecclesial in partnerships, motivation, method, and purpose.