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It is not time to write the Eulogy…not yet Schmidt

By Matthew Barrett

Frederick Schmidt, an Episcopal priest and the Director of Spiritual Formation and Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality at Southern Methodist University, wrote an article back in March (2011) that has motivated (at least partially) patheos.com to conduct an online symposium on the future of seminary education. Schmidt’s provocative title reads, “Is It Time to Write the Eulogy?: The Future of Seminary Education.” Schmidt begins his article by writing, “Our seminaries are dying and the Master of Divinity degree has been discredited.” Quite a confession! After all, who wants to admit that the very field they have dedicated themselves to is on the brink of extinction? But Schmidt is honest, explaining how large numbers of mainline seminaries are “selling their buildings and property, cutting faculty, and eliminating degree programs.” Those leaders once considered indispensable to receiving a proper training for the ministry, says Schmidt, are now only one option among many. In fact, some church leaders now argue that attending seminary “may actually be detrimental to the process they once considered the gold standard.”

Why are seminaries dying? Schmidt gives several reasons:

“In the quest for academic respectability, seminaries have not always remembered that preparing clergy was the mission and lifeblood of their institutional life.”

“Some have focused on preparing scholars, which though essential, is secondary to its primary ministry of preparing new generations of spiritual leaders.”

“Some have prepared students who lacked the practical skills to effectively lead a congregation.”

“Others have produced students who were so poorly grounded in the Christian faith that they lacked the necessary spiritual formation to be effective.”

Schmidt, taking us on a brief tour through the history of seminary education in the past fifty years, criticizes those seminaries of the ‘60s for focusing on social justice to such an extent that “there was really little else to the Gospel.” The consequence, says Schmidt, was that “soon the church’s teaching on justice became little more than a brand of political discourse.” The social gospel of the ‘60s led to an emphasis in the ‘70s and ‘80s on pastoral counseling. While this is a good thing, “the net result was a generation of clergy who practiced unlicensed therapy.” More recently, “leadership” is the flavor of the day. The result, warns Schmidt, is that the next generation of graduates will simply be churchy CEOs. “There has never been any doubt that the church needs to be better led, but one has to wonder how much spiritual guidance there is to be had at the hands of clergy who think of themselves as ecclesiastical managers.”

Or consider, says Schmidt, the reality that seminary faculty “often lack any real affinity for the church.”

The complaint that anyone with a Ph.D. isn’t really interested in the church or is looking for advanced placement is a common refrain sung by bishops, boards, and commissions charged with overseeing the ordination process; and it thinks the ranks of those committed to serving the church in her seminaries.

Another reason for the death of the seminary, says Schmidt, is that faculty have “indulged their academic interests, creating both classes and curricula that correspond with their research issues and academic agenda but don’t necessarily speak to the basic and perennial needs of the church’s ordained ministry.” And if it is not the indulging of a minute academic interest, it is the slimming down of academic standards that have resulted in the death of our seminaries. Schmidt vents,

Seminaries have trimmed academic requirements in some essential fields to the point that graduates often have little more exposure to the Old and New Testaments than a general introduction to each and one elective. In most cases a biblical language requirement is completely missing, and the elective could be as arcane as a class on Bach and Romans.”

Schmidt goes on to list many other reasons:

Seminary is way too expensive!

Seminaries require more than 72 hours of course work, some even 106 hours.

The church has failed to communicate what it wants from its seminaries and graduates.

“The church uses seminarians to fill the chinks in its clerical armor, appointing them to serve in churches long before they have completed the education that is needed to do their work safely and with integrity.”

Denominations have abandoned seminarians financially, leaving them with the entire load of paying for their education, resulting in debt that clergy can never overcome. Often clergy are below the poverty line!

There are now alternative routes one can take to ordination, bypassing seminary altogether, communicating the message: “If the ministry is something you can do without preparation it isn’t really worthy of their attention.”

Mainline churches give little attention to the education of their clergy. In short, they could care less.

Schmidt goes on, listing other serious problems seminarians and seminaries are facing. But he is not content to leave it at that. No, he wants an answer, a solution, to this massive problem. So he has made a proposal himself. He begins by arguing that “rigorous academic preparation is absolutely essential to creative, competent, servants of Christ who are deeply formed and capable of forming others.” In our rapidly changing culture, says Schmidt, we need this preparation more than ever. Speaking within his own denominational context, Schmidt writes, “Churches that fearfully cast around for quick fixes to the training of clergy, give it scant attention, and then abandon their priests and pastors to the vagaries of forming themselves cannot expect to be a spiritual force in the world. Nor can they expect their clergy to be positive spiritual forces in the lives of others.”

Furthermore, Schmidt argues that despite the multitude of approaches to seminary education, what we need is an old-fashioned “residential model of focused, face-to-face education and formation in the faith.” This is the best means of “preparing a generation of thoughtful, faithful servants of the Gospel.”

Schmidt closes his article by listing all the ways the seminary system can be improved, which basically amounts to reversing all of the problems already listed above. He is fearful that if changes are not made then we will not be able to save mainline Christianity. If we do not change then “others will preach the Gospel, but God will not compensate us for faithless, feckless, unimaginative neglect.”

Is Schmidt right?

Schmidt’s article is sobering. Granted, Schmidt is working out of his Episcopalian context. Nonetheless, many of his critiques transcend his own denomination and strike a cord with mainline denominations nationwide. To be honest, when I first read Schmidt’s article I was surprised. “Our seminaries are dying and the Master of Divinity degree has been discredited”? At the risk of sounding elitist or arrogant, that was not my experience. I attended The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and the smell of death was not in the air. This made me think: what is it that Schmidt is experiencing that I am not? I believe the answer lies within the very context with which Schmidt writes. In other words, if you visit many seminaries within “mainline Christianity” (as Schmidt calls it) you will soon realize Schmidt’s observations are right on target. For Schmidt, his reasons for this decline are pragmatic (at least for the most part): Seminaries have produced academics, not pastors, intellectuals, not spiritual leaders. Seminaries have over-emphasized (or wrongly emphasized) certain hot topics, whether it be social justice, counseling, or CEO modeled leadership. Faculty lack affinity for the church. Faculty care only about their own interests, not the well-rounded education of their students. Seminarians are overwhelmed by the number of credits. And on and on and on.

In many ways, Schmidt has some great points (not that I agree with everything). I do not doubt that many of the problems he sees with seminary education are real and serious. Most seminarians could testify that they have been in a class where the class topic was eclipsed by the professor’s hobby horse. Most seminarians could tell stories of how their leadership seminar felt more like training to be the next CEO of Apple. Many seminarians will resonate with the frustration of graduating from a seminary where classes in the biblical languages were either not required or paled in comparison to electives on “Bach and Romans.” Schmidt is on to something here and we are all the better to pay attention.

With that said, however, are these reasons, as important as they might be, really what makes up the nucleus for why mainline seminaries are dying? As serious as these problems are, Schmidt has missed the problem that is resulting in the death of seminaries within “mainline Christianity.” The problem is simple: many (most?) mainline seminaries have lost the gospel. We could go further still: mainline seminaries have lost a focus not only on the gospel but on Christian orthodoxy. In other words, the reason why seminaries are dying is not ultimately because students are burdened financially, or overwhelmed with the course load, or lacking the support of their local church or denomination. The ultimate reason seminaries are dying is because the gospel of Jesus Christ has been flushed down the drain. In its place stands liberalism and secularism. Schmidt’s main concern is that if these problems are not fixed then our graduates will lose their spiritual force in the world. But the real leach on our spiritual influence is not ultimately pragmatic problems, but the presence of liberal theology and a secular worldview in our seminaries. It is the gospel that results in graduates becoming “positive spiritual forces in the lives of others.” Why? Because those who believe and stand by the truth of the gospel know, both from personal experience and from God’s Word, that the gospel saves and transforms sinners to be ambassadors for Christ. Liberalism does not.

For a seminary to thrive the most important facet is that it remains steadfast in its profession of the gospel. If the gospel goes, so goes the seminary. The gospel and the Christian faith properly defined provide substance. A seminary that has abandoned the gospel, like so many mainline seminaries have done, lacks food to feed its children.

In no way do I mean to sound superior, but it is because I attended a seminary where the gospel was professed and cherished by its faculty that Schmidt’s opening line (“Our seminaries are dying…”) surprised me. While it is not always the case, seminaries where the gospel is proclaimed, cherished, and defended tend to be seminaries where the students thrive and enter churches with enthusiasm, ready to proclaim that same gospel to the church they are now ministering to.

Brothers, what we ultimately need in the seminaries which make up “mainline Christianity” is the gospel. Only then will God be pleased to bless the work of our hands. Only with a gospel that saves will “mainline Christianity” be saved.

Matthew Barrett (Ph.D., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is the executive editor of Credo Magazine. Barrett has contributed book reviews and articles to various academic journals. He is married to Elizabeth and they have two daughters, Cassandra and Georgia. He is a member of Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.

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