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.