Two Important Articles on the Future of Seminaries

For those involved in seminary education or administration, you might want to read these two pieces.

First, The Rise and Fall of the American Seminary by Tom Ehrich. A provocative piece, esp. in light of the GTS labour dispute in New York, but probably truer for mainline seminaries.

Does the Episcopal Church — or any mainline denomination — need all of its seminaries? Probably not. To judge by recent graduation rates, it probably needs only four. Two of the eleven have already closed. Hence the anxiety leading to conflict, as tenured faculty, cost-cutting deans and anxious trustees collide. Many congregations are in the same situation. The needs they filled 60 years ago — neighborhood churches providing a mobile postwar world with a place to belong and to ground the family — have largely vanished. Some congregations welcomed new purposes in a world of new lifestyles, new expectations, new family structures, new employment patterns and new attitudes toward Sunday morning, and they are thriving.  Most, sad to say, resisted change and now find that time and tide haven’t waited for them. Like GTS, they find themselves broke, conflicted, hoping for a future and yet mired in disdain and distrust. Seizing a new moment is never easy. It requires entrepreneurial leaders who risk being shot down and declared “other.” It requires mold-breaking ministry providers who move beyond the “way things used to be.” It requires constituents whose drive to serve stirs voices for change.

Second, Coming Around to Online by Tim Foster, Vice-Principal of Ridley College, Melbourne. Great piece explaining how Tim changed his mind about the value of online seminary education.

There is no one more zealous than a convert. That is certainly the case with me. I have been converted to the value and virtues of online theological education. For more than a year I opposed the proposal of Ridley’s accrediting body, the Australian College of Theology, to allow the delivery of a full degree online. I had good reasons for my opposition. I was concerned about educational quality. Good learning is interactive and community-based, and I couldn’t see how this could be achieved sitting in front of a computer.