The word 'seminary' is related to the Latin word for 'seed plot' in the sense of a nursery nurturing young plants carefully so that they are strong enough to be planted and bear fruit elsewhere. The big debate is always over what it means to 'nurture young plants carefully.' My contention, and one that was once long been held in Protestantism, is that this first and foremost means to nurture them in the Scriptures. While many or even all seminaries would agree that a knowledge of the Scriptures is part of what a seminary's purpose includes, there are any number of ways in which seminaries understand this and, in fact, undermine this very purpose. Five will be noted in this post.
The first way in which a seminary might decentralize teaching the Bible is by only requiring a minimal number of courses in the Bible in the seminary curriculum. In the 1980s (and perhaps still?), Duke Divinity School required students to take Old Testament Introduction and New Testament Introduction and nothing more in the field of Bible out of a three year curriculum. Just two Bible courses. Moreover, these 'introduction' courses focussed on 'behind-the-text' issues of introduction: authorship, date, provenance, audience, purpose. They also discussed 'in-the-text' issues, genre and content, though the other issues crowded out a deeper focus on content. Not much was learned about Biblical truth itself. One can understand the sad state of the United Methodist Church in the USA on this point alone. I was once part of a strong Bible department at the International Baptist Theological Seminary when it was located in Prague. One day, the academic dean announced that, since other European Baptist seminaries offered degrees in Bible, IBTS would discontinue the MA in Bible. What sort of 'theological dialogue' would this mean for a theological seminary? Practical theology could finally get on with its agendas without the bother of a Bible department.
Secondly, this decentralization of the Bible in the curriculum has also been given hermeneutical justification. Exegesis, finding the meaning of the text by reading it in its original context, requires believing that the author's meaning is attainable, understandable, and authoritative. Biblical study used to be exegetical. Since the 1970s, however, this belief has been roundly attacked as hermeneutics took a literary turn away ('the Bible is to be read as any piece of literature and as in literature departments') from historical and linguistic (Hebrew, Greek) studies and then a further turn to the socio-political, ideological interests of readers.
The literary turn involved separating the text from the author, allowing people to ignore the original context and let the words speak a meaning of their own. Hefty scholars, like Hans Georg Gadamer and Paul Ricouer, threw their weight behind this. People without the discipline for serious study or desiring a license of any sort to make the communication of others mean whatever they like will eagerly stand on their arguments (as though they can consistently say they know what these authors meant with their words--consistency is never required by people with agendas!) In this approach, one could still theoretically appreciate the text. Positively, this shift to a literary focus allowed scholars to break away from the strangle-hold of a scholarship that reconstructed the sources of texts and the original historical setting such that their scholarly, often fanciful reconstructions controlled interpretation of the text of Scripture rather than the clear meaning of the text as we have it or the Church's reading of the Scriptures. This was, however, a move that did not have the Church's interests at heart. It was more a liberation of the text from Biblical scholarship so that others could have access to it (so far so good) and then make it mean what they wished (not good at all!). Who was to say that anyone else's reading of a piece of literature was wrong, let alone that the text held any authority in itself?
This literary turn in hermeneutics, however, very quickly went further and became a turn from the text to the reader. Neither the author nor the text was primary, but readers were. This was true in the university and in many seminaries. A socio-political turn in hermeneutics was inevitable after the literary turn. Once the Bible was read as a piece of literature, the input of readers increased in importance and, with this, their own agendas (feminism, liberation, post-colonial interpretations, critical race theory, etc.--even 'queer' readings of texts). In terms of authority, this meant that the text no longer held authority and did not even control academic enquiry into the meaning of the texts. Texts were simply artifacts, like a hammer or a bowl, to be used as one wished. The community itself or the individual him/herself controlled the meaning and therefore held the authority. If the Biblical text's point was simply too obvious, one could simply ignore or cancel it, as Walter Brueggemann, for example, unashamedly does with Biblical texts stating that homosexuality is a sin. He admits that the Bible opposes homosexual acts but uses the vague value of 'love' to oppose these texts and arrive at the position he favours. Luke Timothy Johnson is another such scholar of note who has held this position. (The game of arguing that these texts do not really say what they appear to say but meant something else seems to be waning as scholars admit the texts are clear in denouncing homosexuality. Non-orthodox scholars, however, feel comfortable in their little bubbles to insist that the Bible does not hold any authority over the readers, who are empowered to use it as they wish to squeeze their interpretations out of it.)
This is where every mainline denomination and seminary now stands. They insist that the present community holds authority over Scripture--community or reader-response hermeneutics. Scripture is at best a foundational document, but it is not something to be submitted to without the community's approval. As Rowan Williams (former Archbishop of the Church of England) said, it is not 'revelation' in the sense of revealed truth. Backing up this perspective are, of course, the fundamental convictions (!) of postmodernity. Postmodernity holds that there is no absolute or objective truth, only 'locally constructed' truth. This supports the new, cardinal virtue--diversity--since there will be different 'truths' for different communities. Yet, as I have often argued, there is an early and a late version of postmodernity, a shift from a 'literary' version to a 'socio-political' version of postmodernity. Postmodernity originally functioned as a literary move whereby there might be different significance found in a text by different reading communities. It quickly became a socio-political move whereby certain sub-groups of readers ('socio') gained control over others ('political') in their 'politically correct' readings. It originally held that there was no objective truth. Now, while it continues to believe this, it elevates certain perspectives to the level of objective truth as they are the perspectives of the right tribe.
In the seminaries, the socio-political version of postmodernity plays out in many ways. It not only reduces the Bible's status and function in shaping the 'seeds' or students into healthy, fruit-bearing plants ready to withstand 'every wind of doctrine' in the world. It introduces ideological and socio-political agendas throughout the curriculum. The Bible is not something to learn but to use for other ends. The future minister is not someone ordained to deliver the Word of God faithfully but to motivate and cheer on a church in their social activism couched in terms of 'justice.' The seminary, then, is the nursery of social activism. Of course, who would not want to be on the side of 'social justice'? Yet what this means must be determined Biblically for Christians and Christian ministers, not taken from the present, post-Christian public square or worked out through a Marxist critical theory. Even were a seminary to find a Biblically defensible and just cause--and there are, of course, many--it needs to grow its seeds in Biblical soil, not that of a public activism. Moreover, and this is the most crucial point, as such causes suck the air from the seminary classroom, the Gospel is reshaped from being Good News in Jesus Christ to being Good Causes in the World.
A decentralizing of the Bible, thirdly, takes place in a seminary when the courses in Bible are considered 'equal' to other areas of study. This is different from the first point, above, where courses might be counted. Even if there are an equal number of courses in a Bible department, Christian thought (theology, Church history, ethics) department, and Ministry department, the Biblical focus needs to run throughout all the courses. Theology needs to be a field that engages the Scriptures, not be a field that uses philosophy, cultural contexts, or political ideologies as ways to separate Christian thought from its Biblical context. Church history needs to pursue the study of the history of the Church critically, with the Bible in view, not with politically correct agendas derived from the secular arena evaluating it. Ethics needs to be Biblical ethics, not some pseudo-Christian version of modernity (looking for principles and values) or postmodernity (politicising values). One might simply ask, how much Biblical training has a potential faculty member being considered for the faculty have, and how central is Biblical studies to what that person teaches, whatever his or her subject? This leads to the next point.
A fourth way in which seminaries decentralize the Bible is in how they understand ministry and therefore how they teach ministry courses. The university's centre of gravity has become the social sciences, whereas in modernity it was the sciences. This is true in seminaries as well. Truett Seminary now has an M.A. in theology, ecology, and food justice, as a case in point. Yet Evangelical seminaries have various degrees in 'leadership,' and most people do not even question whether this has any justification from a Biblical perspective. If leadership courses involve any engagement at some point with the Bible, they will typically use the Bible to illustrate some point derived from business studies or sociology, not what the Biblical text is teaching. The Bible is at best used for illustration, not as an authority. (King David is not a model for pastoral ministry, must one really say? Nor was the Biblical narrative of the kings intended to teach ministerial practice. Worse, the very notion of 'leadership' is constantly undermined by the New Testament's understanding of ministry.) The fact of the matter, however, is that Evangelical seminaries have let the social sciences dominate the fields of ministry--professional counselling instead of pastoral care, demographics and anthropology instead of missions, leadership instead of ministry, preaching 'justice' instead of the Word of God, etc. Not only so, but faculty in ministry are often hired who have hardly any theological or Biblical study and, what they have had, has been of no significance.
A fifth way in which seminaries decentralize the Bible is in terms of its own community dynamics. Two examples might be given in reference to the progressive turn that Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary is currently vigourously pursuing. First, power is being removed from the faculty and lodged in the administration. The first move in this direction was couched in terms of the need for the president to dismiss faculty with tenure due to the financial crisis the seminary was in, but subsequent moves have continued to consolidate power in the administration. This in itself need not be a move that decentralizes the Bible in the seminary, but when the administration is turned into the 'vanguard of the faculty' to push a progressive agenda, it is the case. Increasingly, the administration is removing power from the faculty, who should be (not always are, mind you) the one's who keep the seminary on its theological tracks rather than pushed in political directions. (This is stated even though it is well-known that faculty are often political bodies themselves and grossly dysfunctional as a large, decision-making body. But a theologically focussed faculty would restrain the administrative forces with non-theological agendas, from finances determining pedagogy to politically correct agendas of crusading administrators.)
Second, power has been given to the Human Resources (HR) department to 'educate' faculty and staff and enforce progressive agendas through secular agendas phrased in terms of diversity, inclusion, and equity. From the top of the administration, Revelation 7.9 ('from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages,' ESV) has regularly been misused as a proof-text for diversity. (Diversity, inclusion, and equity have become so much the focus that one seldom hears the words 'Biblical inerrancy or infallibility' anymore, let alone the Gospel or Jesus Christ. One can do inordinate damage by letting these things be assumed while chasing some other wind.) The text of Revelation 7.9 rather undermines diversity by emphasising universality, and it undermines social diversity and intersectionality as all are clothed in the same colour of garments because they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb, Christ Jesus. Instead of cheering our own diversity, the text points all to the salvation that belongs to God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.
Similar to the HR department's authority over faculty is any committee that is given vanguard authority to define the social justice of the seminary. Community control, which includes students and staff, challenges the faculty's role to speak the truth in love to those who might be blown about by every wind of doctrine. The faculty needs to control the teaching and formation of the community, not the community control the faculty. (Once again, this comment assumes a theologically educated faculty, which is often a problem itself. Yet transferring this authority to the community is decidedly not going to improve the situation.)
Thus, in these various ways, the Bible is decentralized in the seminary. This is the case not only in unorthodox seminaries like Duke Divinity School (or any of the Methodist and other mainline seminaries) but also in progressive Evangelical seminaries. This post concludes by noting the problem is not at all limited to North America, and this is even a serious threat where one might expect it is not. Students pursuing PhD degrees in theology through African universities will run into the same issue: everything seems to work against the belief that the seeds being nurtured into maturity in a seminary need to be nurtured in the Word of God.
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