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.
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