The following article, which appeared last January in Theology Today, is reprinted here with permission. We also asked two pastors and two seminary presidents to respond to its ideas.
To speak of the relationship of the “seminary” to the “church” is to reveal a conceptual canker on the church today. For the seminary is as much the church as the local congregation. As near to the church as smoke to flame, to position the “seminary” against the “church” is to position the seminary against itself. The academy and the chapel are part of the same whole-the body of Christ. They need each other, for the church is incomplete when either is missing.
I
The most prominent feature of theological education today is the rediscovery of the congregation. For the past forty years, and indeed ever since seminaries breathed the air of biblical criticism, the body of Christ has not been fully united. Various organs of that body, the mind (theological seminaries) and the heart (koinonia congregations), have each been prone to say to the other, “I have no need of you” (1 Cor. 12:21).
The beginnings of theological education in America were quite different. Ministers were then trained to be “masters of the common faith,” in Glenn T. Miller’s marvelous phrase. The connection between the faith of the members of the church and the faith of the “doctors of the church” was, up until the last two decades of the nineteenth century, an intimate and trusting one. But the way higher criticism was taught shattered this relationship, as ministers began to be trained in a faith quite different from their people. Just five years ago, for example, an extremely bright seminary student rejected my pleas for the development of a colloquial theology based on the reconnecting of the chapel and academy. He responded with a haughty insistence that lay persons could be consumers of biblical interpretation, but seldom participants: “People in the pew can never learn the skills necessary to properly understand the text. It is a waste of time even to try to teach them.”
II
For the last forty years, the seminary and the congregation have proved to be very good at getting things wrong about each other. To the congregation the image of the seminary has been one of dry-as-dust, desk-bound professors whose academic fussiness (what Freud called the “narcissism of small differences”) does battle with the problems of the day-before-yesterday and whose academic uncommittedness occupies empty seats on Sunday morning. To a congregation on fire, seminaries have all the attraction of ice. Like the student who complained about his New Testament professor (“she has taken away my Lord, and I know not where to find him”), congregations have complained that seminaries promote a kind of placebo piety (an it’s-all-in-the-head faith), an education where nothing is missing but what matters most. Disturbed by what is perceived to be large portions of theological goulash served with only a garnish of spirituality, congregations shake their heads and wonder. If the study of God does not bring one closer to God, what good is it? Even when the communication continues between congregations and seminaries, congregations have the uneasy feeling that seminaries tell what we already know in language we can’t understand.
The seminary’s attitude toward the congregation has often been one of uncomprehending superiority, and its response to being badgered by bothered congregations has been far from sweet-tempered. Academics do not suffer fools gladly, of which there appear to be plenty in every denomination (as in every seminary), and find insufficient balance of reason and faith in the clich piety and shirt-sleeve theology dominating popular religious life. Congregations do not seem to be interested in what seminary professors are interested in, or even tough-minded enough to pursue responsibly the questions they are interested in. The issues congregations seem willing to ponder seriously are about as controversial as a debate on the merits of the beatitudes. When the seminary turns its head to look at the congregation or denomination, it often musters only a grimacing glance.
III
All this is beginning to change. Congregations are coming to realize that seminary professors generally carry a lot of learning lightly, many of them have held at one time or another the greatest title in the world (“pastor”), and all want to be seen and heard as “doctors of the church.” Similarly, seminaries are coming to realize that, in the words of James Hopewell, “the congregation is as central to theological education as the human body is to medical education.” For a seminary to ignore the congregation or denomination is to saw away at the very branch it is sitting on. The amazing speed with which slow-moving theological institutions within this past decade established D.Min. degrees and continuing education programs is solid evidence of an attempt to reconnect pastors with seminaries. The support for the local congregation has become a diapason of seminary life. Not since the nineteenth century has there been such a widespread movement to bring theological curricula into significant conversation with congregational life.
One hates to throw ashes in everyone’s ice cream. But while seminaries and congregations may be discovering the facts of life about each other, they are still getting a lot of these facts wrong. This is because the relationship is not yet based on trust and intimacy, but on need and neurosis. In many ways it is a relationship born of frustration and fear-for congregations and denominations, fear of losing members; for seminaries, fear of losing their existence. Unless these unhealthy patterns of relationship are broken, what today is a neurosis in the body of Christ can tomorrow become a necrosis.
Congregations and denominations are now poised to call the shots for theological education. Denominations enjoy a surfeit of clergy, and many seminaries languish under a scarcity of students. This puts the curriculum of the seminary in a double bind-pressured on one side by the increasing rigor of requirements for acceptance into the ordained ministry, and pressured on the other by panic-stricken cries for razzmatazz courses that will solve denominational difficulties.
The “congregational paradigm” can be as fickle and faddish in its orientation and priorities as theological seminaries have been accused of being when congregations were seldom consulted or considered. At first, denominations complained that pastors were deficient in administrative skills, and demanded either through ordination standards or indirect means that seminaries emphasize “church administration” and the theology of management. Seminaries, many of which had been there before (with H. Richard Niebuhr’s “pastoral director” and Seward Hiltner’s “pastoral administrator”), by and large responded until “professionalism” became the word on the lips of theological educators, and the management of meetings and organizations almost became the pastoral trade.
Very soon denominational interest lurched in the direction of evangelism in response to the hemorrhaging of the mainline churches, and seminaries were told “let’s have more courses in evangelism.” Now the denominations have veered once again, this time in the direction of “spirituality”-without, of course, revising their stockpiling expectations in administration and evangelism. Congregations and denominations are not in the best position to dictate to seminaries what courses divinity students should have. Seminaries cannot simply add more and more courses to a curriculum, after every dressing down by denominations for failing to meet certain needs, without doing irreparable harm to the educational process.
IV
As Edward Farley has so masterfully argued, seminaries must recover their theological bearings and restore the lost overarching vision and focus to the enterprise of theological education. Only in this way can theological education remain unaffected by fashion and resist the denominational drubbings and plethora of pressures to plug various gaps and meet the need of the month. For example, it has become quite routine to take a few whacks at seminaries every now and then for being too academic in their curriculum and not “experiential” or “practical” enough. Yet this is not such a bad thing.
During the course of a national consultation on our Black Church Studies program, one of the students complained that he felt the education was too “theoretical” and did not adequately prepare him for the variety of situations he would face in the parish. As far as he was concerned, he confessed, the best course he had taken during his three years in seminary was on the administration of the black church. The response of the black bishops and denominational leaders in attendance was swift and merciless. We are not sending you here to take nuts-and-bolts courses or to get practical experience in parish life, he was told with some annoyance by the President of the Congress of National Black Churches. You will spend a lifetime in continuing your education on a practical plane, and we can always establish workshops to address specific needs or deficiencies as they arise. We send you to seminary for three years to get what you will really need to begin your ministry-the broad, biblical, historical, and theological background for ministry in the church today. If you aren’t getting that by shunning those courses, then the problem is not with the seminary, but with you.
The seminary and the congregation would do well to sit down together and read in each other’s presence 1 Corinthians, chapter 12. The body of Christ is not whole or totally present in the congregation unless the seminary is there-and vice versa. The health of the church as a Christbody community depends on the parts of the body performing their assigned functions in a common spirit of partnership and purpose. It is only on this basis that the current healing between the seminary and the congregation will be a lasting one.
Leonard I. Sweet is provost of Colgate Rochester Divinity School and also minister of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, both in Rochester, New York.
* * *
Although I disagree with Dr. Sweet over the original cause of the tensions between seminaries and congregations, no one could disagree that there is a growing gap between the two.
To my mind, its sources are more general than the introduction of biblical criticism. The crisis is rooted in the alliance between seminaries and the academic establishment. Seminary professors, caught between the demands of the academy and the values of the church, have usually pleased the academy. The academy, with its values of academic elitism, pursuit of intellectual minutiae, and presumed scholarly objectivity, has become the credentialing agency for seminary faculty-to the detriment of the congregation.
What to do?
Should we ask the congregation what it wants? Sweet is right in noting that this way has its perils. I have not been happy with some attempts at the seminary to get “practical” and let the congregation call the shots. Why was it that the so-called “practical” courses I took in seminary-church administration, polity, even preaching and worship-proved so impractical in my first parish? I was taught how to administer a church in the inner city, how to conduct church board meetings using corporate management skills, how to preach to Christianity’s cultured despisers. None of this was useful in my rural Georgia parish.
Of course, some might say the answer would be better or even more practical courses and professors. But I, like Sweet, am unimpressed by much of the “congregation-based learning” I have observed in the seminaries. I know it is all the rage today, but too many of these courses are superficial, descriptive rather than prescriptive, ad hoc, and, in an odd way, utterly impractical to the long-term demands of the parish. Why was it that I could say, three years into parish ministry, that the most useful courses I took in seminary were the most theoretical? My course in church history, in which we walked through a dozen heresies, was more helpful in administering a rural South Carolina parish than my course in congregational planning.
Having lived in both worlds, as a parish pastor and a seminary professor, I can testify that each of these is a unique and specifically demanding vocation. The burden of the parish ministry is the burden of the day-to-day demands of congregational embodiment of the faith. The burden of the seminary teacher is the weight of thinking for the church, standing back from important struggles and reflecting upon their implications, worrying about what makes our contemporary prayer and practice either heretical or orthodox. The church needs people who are willing to bear each burden.
A few years ago, I attended a national denominational conference on evangelism. There was much tough talk about the failings of the seminaries. A resolution was passed urging our seminaries to require practical courses in evangelism techniques and strategies and to establish professorships in evangelism.
Finally, a pastor from rural West Virginia said, “Look, I’m out here where the evangelization must be done. And I can tell you, we don’t need any more programs or strategies. Our problem is not that we don’t know how to communicate the gospel. Our problem is that we don’t have a gospel. We have lost something to say to another person that is ultimately significant.
“So let’s ask our schools to do what they do best for us-to help us think as clearly as we can as Christians, to give us something faithful and important to say to the world. Then leave the rest to me and my people. We’ll find a way to say it.”
William Willimon, pastor
Northside United Methodist Church
Greenville, South Carolina
* * *
The uneasy alliance between the seminary and the congregation is natural and not necessarily undesirable. Creative tension is a sign of health in the body of Christ. If two members are coordinated under the control of the Head, however, they perform complementary functions. Without that control, all signals are short-circuited.
Biblical criticism, as Dr. Sweet suggests, short-circuited the deity of Christ and the authority of his Word as the point of control. No surprise should follow. Seminaries and congregations lost their common confession that “Jesus is Lord” and became distant members reacting erratically to external pressures. Seminaries took their cues not from the needs of the congregation but from the expectations of the academic community, with its emphasis upon scholarly research, critical thinking, intellectual freedom, and professional publication.
At the same time, congregations were swept into a social revolution where Christian values, institutions, and authority were turned upside down. Like neurotics trapped in a vicious cycle where every response aggravates the problem, seminaries and congregations moved further and further from each other until they came to the verge of war.
The divisive influence of biblical criticism hit hardest those seminaries that represent theological liberalism. Evangelical seminaries have stayed closer to their congregations because of their common confession of Christ and their common commitment to the authority of his Word. Still, an air of suspicion lingers in the evangelical community about seminary education. Last summer at Amsterdam, Billy Graham mentioned the congregation that set up two stipulations in its search for a pastor. One, they did not want a seminary graduate; two, they wanted no one who had taken Greek. Even though his comment was made with tongue in cheek, it reveals the underlying tension.
How can seminary and congregation become friends? First and foremost, their common confession of Christ and their common commitment to the authority of his Word must never be broken. On this foundation must be built the common purpose of the Great Commission, which cannot be accomplished without both units performing effectively the special task to which each is called.
If we are to work together, some form of continuing dialogue must be established. There is no substitute for professors who are also pastors in the field, so that they bring the pulse of the congregation to their classrooms. Likewise, congregations might well invite seminary teams to evaluate their ministries of worship, preaching, music, and education in order to keep the critical balance between substance and style. If expectations on both sides can be translated into learning outcomes for seminary students, a bridge will be built.
David McKenna, president
Asbury Theological Seminary
Wilmore, Kentucky
* * *
There is something to be said for a theological education that seems impractical. As I headed off to seminary, my uncle, an ordained minister, gave me this bit of advice: “Don’t bother taking all those ‘practical’ courses. You’ll learn how to run a mimeograph machine soon enough.”
He exaggerated to make a point, of course, but I took the advice and never regretted it. I avoided most courses with titles like “_____ in the Parish” (you can fill in the blank: Evangelism, Social Action, Spirituality, Administration). Instead, I immersed myself in biblical studies and theology. To my surprise, when I graduated from seminary I discovered these courses were the most helpful and “practical” of all.
In seminary I was equipped with a particular way of viewing the world that became bone-deep. In short, I learned how to think Christianly. This was an immeasurable gift. But a lifelong challenge remained: to find sufficient faith and imagination to apply it to the range of ministerial tasks, not only preaching and teaching but also evangelism, social action, and the like.
That is not to say the gap between seminary and congregation could not use a wider, sturdier bridge. Although I learned the fundamentals in seminary, I have been left to my own sometimes flawed devices in applying them to particular situations in the parish. And I am also sure my theological education would have been enriched if some of my professors had had a more intimate knowledge of the ministry they were preparing me for.
So here is a specific proposal: When seminary professors become eligible for sabbatical, why not urge them to spend it in a local parish rather than on another campus somewhere? After all, when ministers are on sabbatical, they often head for a seminary. Any bridge worth constructing must be worthy of two-way traffic. The professor could become a “theologian in residence” at a large church or in an association of smaller churches. The benefits would be enormous.
Church members would gain from the rich knowledge of the visiting professor, particularly in a time when churches seem to be looking for more adult education opportunities. If the professor is a teacher of Scripture, the possibilities are obvious. But there would be exciting possibilities for professors in other fields as well. A professor of counseling could offer a course on how to become a more effective listener. A theologian could offer a course on the basics called “Theology Is Everyone’s Business.” And so on. Beyond specific courses, a visiting professor could help a local church understand how its life and worship and work fit into larger spheres.
The minister of the church would benefit. Through the help of the professor, his or her skills could be sharpened. Particularly, the minister would get invaluable guidance in applying theory to practice. Then, perhaps, theology would be rescued from its reputation as a dusty and dormant business and would be seen for what it is-at once exciting and practical.
The professor would benefit. Obviously, it is one thing to give instructions for battle from a distance, another to be able to see what happens when those instructions are followed on the front lines. It would be a great challenge to the professor, unlike any to be found in a seminary setting. It has been said that the preacher’s task is to take the larger denominations of thought and turn them into the smaller change that anyone can use. That would be a good exercise for the seminary professor as well, a faith challenge as well as an intellectual challenge. As C. S. Lewis said, “If you cannot turn learned language into the vernacular, you either don’t believe it or don’t understand it.”
When such professors return to the seminary, they may not teach a course on “Sabbatical in the Parish,” but the knowledge gained will infuse their teaching, no matter what their area of expertise.
A practical footnote: Since most professors continue to be paid by their schools while on sabbatical, there would not be a large expense to the local church. And certainly there would still be much time to pursue private study, and maybe even a chance to try one’s professorial hand at the mimeograph machine.
Martin Copenhaver, pastor
First Congregational Church
Burlington, Vermont
* * *
The underlying causes of mistrust are more complex than Sweet-perhaps due to space limitations-has suggested. In addition to the rise of higher criticism, there has been a loss of appreciation for the ministry of the laity and the priesthood of believers. Proclamation has suffered from an uncertain locus of authority. Denominational bureaucracies have interposed themselves between the seminary and congregations. Faculty allegiances to the academy have become more dominant than loyalties to the church.
These and related factors, often theological in nature, persist as threats to seminary/congregation relations. Sweet’s solution, I fear, is more hope than substance and sidesteps difficult issues that must be faced.
Numerous and powerful parachurch organizations exert influence on the seminary’s agenda. The electronic church may now be a stronger leader and influence in the local congregation than the seminary. Much theological education, including lay and continuing education for the clergy, is being provided by independent authors and workshop leaders-some attaining “guru” status. Evangelical seminaries, for their part, have diversified to offer a variety of programs and services not directly related to preparation for church vocations. Wisely or unwisely, most evangelical seminaries have hesitated to address the growing “politization” of the faith or to engage single-issue movements in the church. As a result of all this, seminaries may be losing the opportunity to participate in the continuing reformulation of congregational life.
Competition among seminaries will become more severe if church growth slows and the surplus among the clergy becomes more acute. The higher professional demands congregations are placing on those in ministry are beginning to back up to the seminaries. But are congregations identifying, nurturing, and directing their “best and brightest” toward preparation for ministry? On the contrary, the evangelical drive for upward mobility is shunting many promising prospects toward other professions and business careers. This is surely “eating the seed corn” of the church. Seminary and congregation together must re-examine the doctrine of calling.
Finally, seminaries must see the local parish as the essential environment where the skills of ministry can be developed and perfected. Field education, as usually handled, has often failed to produce these outcomes. The traditional dichotomy between the classical academic disciplines and the applied or practical areas can best be resolved when the seminary puts its instruction within the arena of congregational life. Perhaps the seminary’s task is not completed until after the graduate has done a successful “residency” of several years in a church. Diploma as well as ordination might well wait until then.
Faculty as well as students need to draw strength, encouragement, and admonition from the congregation. The congregation, for its part, must be open to renewal and guidance from members who teach and study in the seminary.
George Brushaber, president
Bethel College and Seminary
Saint Paul, Minnesota
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