Rethinking Seminaries Part 5

So what is the better way than seminaries?  I think it is the apprenticeship model. 

The whole world used apprenticeships for every kind of vocation for centuries.  You go and stay with a person already in the vocation.  You learn from him, are taught by him, get hands on experience that ends up helping both you and the man already in the job, and then you are ready and you go out on your own.  The same principle is easily applicable to ministry.

One could easily argue that this is the model used in the New Testament.  Jesus had twelve disciples.  They each went out and they appeared to train up men and send them out.  Paul for example always seemed to have men around him.  Timothy, Titus, Luke, and a host of others.  Barnabas could be argued to have been with Mark or maybe he started off around those at Jerusalem like Peter.  Mark would later be with Barnabas.  Mark is usually (according to tradition) with Peter too.  But at the very least we can say the Apprenticeship model fits with Titus 1:5 and 1 Timothy 4:6-16 and other verses.  I do not argue this is the only way, I just think it a better way that what we are doing now.

The basics of this model are people who desire to get into the ministry go to be with a pastor, perhaps even their local pastor, who then apprentices the man.  He takes him under his wing, teaches him, and gives him firsthand experience in the ministry.  And I think there is a big role here for elders in that church as well. 

I can hear people already complaining that this is not academic enough.  But yes, academics would be involved.  It would simply be done on the Cambridge / Oxford system, sometimes known as the Tutorial System.  The pastor would be assign readings, the student would do them on his own, and the duo would discuss.  Oral communication would be at a premium, which is the way an eventual pastorate would be.  Writing could be required to help people organize their thoughts.  I disagree that this would be a lowering of actual knowledge gained.  I simply think this would return pastoral education to a way in which people actually were trained and prepared for the pastorate.

Having ever so briefly outlined the model I recommend, I will in future posts outline some benefits of this model.

Rethinking Seminaries Part 4

Seminaries present problems because they are based on an academic model.  This means that like any graduate school, you have to pick up and move to take years of classes.  It is true that today many seminaries offer a lot of work over the internet, but that is just watering down the actual point of the seminary, class room instruction. 

Adam Parker penned a very nice letter to his wife about her wonderful labor during his five years in seminary, and I don’t want to diminish the love and care this letter shows to his wife.  I want to emphasize the problem with seminaries this letter shows. 

Adam notes that it took 17 years after his becoming convinced he had a call to ministry to get to the place where he could go to seminary.  Seventeen years!!!!  Now, it was probably lengthened by his marriage and having children, but he did not even meet his wife until two years after he had decided he was called to the ministry.  Adam knew he was called to serve God as a pastor, but took 17 years before he was able to start training for ministry and another 5 to complete it.  In other words if Adam felt called to the ministry at age 22, he is finally able to begin following that call at age 44.  The main reason for the delay is seminary.

Seminaries are expensive.  They usually have multiple professors (three at least) who need full time salaries, and probably a full time fundraiser.  Also they are going to need some part time staff like a secretary or two, maybe a janitor, and probably one professor who only teaches from time to time, but makes the catalog look better.  This does not include insurance, a building, and travel expenses, promotional material, and office supplies.  We could go on, but the point is it takes money and lots of it to run a seminary.  At least a portion of that is going to come from the student in tuition. 

Seminaries also take time.  Remember the whole model is class room based, so we have to be in a class room for classes.  You need to be in class to earn three credit hours for each class.  There are academic standards to be met, so you can’t just pretend a class earns three credit hours.  You actually have to meet enough to earn it.  Plus you need to be doing out of class work, and so many hours per every hour in class is expected (Academic standards again).  And you need to do it for at least three years so that the degree looks academically rigorous enough.  This makes full time employment during school difficult.  If you have full time employment, it makes full time school difficult, expanding the number of years you are there. 

I don’t know how old Adam is, but what I do know is that seminary has cost him 22 years of serving the church and following his calling.  Yes, he apparently has preached some while in seminary.  That is good.  The Jackson area benefits from having so many students able to help with preaching.  But, guest preaching during seminary is more like filling in than working in the church. 

It is amazing to think that the way we train people to work in the church so far removes them from the church.  It takes them into a setting they will never see again in church work.  And it stops them from actually being able to do what they feel called to do for something like 22 years.  There has to be a better way.

Rethinking Seminaries Part 3

One of the fundamental planks of Dr. Pipa’s defense of seminaries is the superiority of Princeton to other methods of training men for the ministry. 

There are somethings that cannot be denied about Princeton.  Princeton was a place of great learning.  There is no doubt those who graduated had a tremendous education.  Princeton made a bold and beautiful stand for orthodoxy for a little over 100 years.  That cannot be denied either.  Nor can it be denied that in 1929 Princeton Seminary went liberal. 

Yes, it is true Princeton was orthodox for more than 100 years and that is longer than every other seminary, but it still went liberal.  But, it must also be noted that remaining orthodox for 100 years is not the same as being the best way to train pastors.  The stand for orthodoxy is impressive precisely because of how liberal most seminaries are and how fast they go liberal.  This really ought to be seen as the exception that proves the rule that seminaries are not the best way to educate men for the ministry. 

But let us look beyond the fight for orthodoxy.  For here is the real key to the discussion.  Were the men who graduated from Princeton good ministers, better prepared than those who came before them being trained in a different manner? 

Think about the great graduates of Princeton Theological Seminary.  You think of men like Charles Hodge, Casper Witsar Hodge Jr., Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, Geerhardus Vos, and J. Gresham Machen.  You know what these men had in common?  They never served a church as pastor.  B.B. Warfield was an evangelist briefly and stated supply a couple of times, but never a full time pastor.  And these are not the only names that fit this bill either (O.T. Allis, James Moffat, and J.A. Alexander for example).  Princeton had trouble training men for ministry.  Listen to the evaluation of David Calhoun, a Princeton Seminary supporter, commenting on Princeton ignoring complaints from the student body in the early 1900’s.  “Princeton had maintained faithfully the founder’s priorities in promoting ‘solid learning’ and ‘piety of heart’, but it had lost something of Alexander’s and Miller’s ability to teach and model for the students skills of ministry” (Princeton Seminary Vol. 2 pg. 269).  Or again, Princeton faculty “concentrated their energies on fighting to maintain the legacy that they had inherited from Archibald Alexander, Samuel Miller, and Charles Hodge.  However, in Old Princeton’s desperate struggle, attention to some very good things was lessened.  Sturdy biblical exposition, great preaching, and more evangelistic and missionary zeal – along with its stalwart defense of the faith – would have strengthened the Princeton cause” (Ibid. pg. 398).  Calhoun explains why this was the case, “It was difficult to find the scholar-pastor-preacher combination to fill the need, and there was apparently some reluctance on the part of the faculty to develop this department fully, fearing that it would detract from the more “academic” work of the seminary” (Ibid., pg216). 

And there lies my chief complaint about the modern seminary.  It is based on the “academic” model, and what will always be stressed above all else is academics.  Dr. Pipa is holding Princeton out as a standard even though Princeton willingly sacrificed preaching and practical pastoral theology in favor of academics. 

Princeton did produce wonderful scholars and theologians.  Some of the best in American History without a doubt.  They produced not only replacements for themselves as professors, but also filled the chairs of other theological seminaries.  Men like William Henry Campbell (professor of languages at New Brunswick Seminary, and later President of Rutgers) who followed the Princeton theology, and some who didn’t like John Williamson Nevin (at Mercersburg Seminary), and some who were in the middle like James Petigru Boyce (founder of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary).  And for the record none of those men served as a pastor for any real amount of time.  In the end, Princeton failed to produce enough solid biblical preachers and pastors to combat the worldly influence and the church’s slide toward liberalism.  And producing solid biblical preachers was the weakest part of the Seminary.  Obviously there were many other factors in the Presbyterian Church’s slide into liberalism, but Princeton’s failure in the area of pastor training cannot be overlooked or excused either. 

After all this is a discussion of the best way to train men for the ministry, training men to be pastors, not training men to be future seminary professors. 

Rethinking Seminaries Part 2

Continuing a discussion about seminaries started from Dr. Pipa’s article “Seminary Education” from the Confessional Presbyterian 2007, we move into the discussion of how seminaries came into existence historically.

Dr. Pipa begins with the catechetical school in Alexandria.  This began as a place to train new converts, but apparently at some point begins training men for the ministry too.  Dr. Pipa admits that this first seminary fails and leads the church into error because of its foundation on the allegorical approach and Greek Philosophy.  This example then seems to be as much against seminaries as for them.

The Middle Ages presents the monasteries as the equivalent of seminaries.  Here Dr. Pipa suggests the monks were often better educated than the priests, and he points to Jerome in Palestine and Cassiodorus in Italy.  The problem here is he often neglects how in the middle ages the monks were bigger problems too.  It is the monks of Egypt who kill Bishop Flavius of Constantinople at the Robber Council of Ephesus.  It is the monks who demand the reinstatement of images and the Second Council of Nicaea while many priests were opposed to the images.  Leaving out such prominent negative examples seems to cast doubt on the supremacy of this method of training men for the ministry.  One could also make the argument that training men to be monks is not the same as training men for the ministry, but we will not pursue that avenue. 

I must admit that I am a little surprised Dr. Pipa leaves out the school of Charlemagne.  Perhaps because it was not meant to be for men going into the ministry, but just people in general.  Although it seems probable that some of Charlemagne’s illegitimate children were educated here and ended up in the ministry like Hugo and Drogo.  It was here Charlemagne gathered Alcuin, Theodulf of Orleans, Einhard, and others helped create a Caroligian Renaissance.  If Dr. Pipa ought to include counter examples, so should I. 

Dr. Pipa then points to the early Universities that helped spawn the Reformation.  The University system clearly aided the rise of the Reformation with the majority of Reformation leaders coming from Universities.  However, this could also serve as a counter example.  The point of the University was to turn out men in the Roman Catholic Church, but failed miserably by letting people read the Bible and allowing criticism of the church and non-conformity.  While these university/seminaries were great for the Reformation they failed in their job to provide an educated clergy for the Roman Catholic Church.

Dr. Pipa also notes the early American colleges that were meant for training ministers.  Harvard was founded just a few years after the colony itself was founded.  It was clearly important to the Puritan men.  He goes onto say that when “Harvard began to slip, Yale was formed; when Yale began to slip, Princeton developed. (pg.225)”  This is true, but shouldn’t this be another sign of the problems with seminaries?  And if we continue to look at this trend when doctrinal divisions arise the parties often responded with their own college.  College of Delaware was Old Side to combat Princeton (New Side).  Kings and Queens college were founded by opposing sides of the Dutch Reformed church.  We could go on.  This seems to point to a controversial nature embedded in seminaries that I think is part of the problem.  More on that to come. 

But Dr. Pipa sees some of these problems.  His answer to the failing results of seminaries is found in systematic theology, classical education, and a confessionally united faculty.  This, for Dr. Pipa, protects against the slide to liberalism by demanding confessional fidelity as well as not jettisoning systematic courses for practical theology (a problem he believes many modern seminaries have pg.228).  Much of this is taken from Princeton Seminary and their founding documents and teaching with slight updating to hit modern problems and issues. 

Yet a glaring problem is that Dr. Pipa assumes the greatness and superiority of Princeton rather than actually proving it (probably for lack of space in the article).  It is however an issue that deserves closer attention.