Mandatum Seminarium

Mandatum Seminarium

 

The Status of Seminaries – Theologians and Practicing Clergy

 

Theologian: (Definition)

A theologian is someone who studies the nature of God, religion, and religious beliefs. The studies include debate over meanings, translations and conjecture of biblical intent. Theologians may be university ‘professors’ of the theological content.

 

Priest/Clergy: (Definition)

An ordained minister of certain Christian Faiths having the authority to perform certain rites and administer certain sacraments.

A member of the clergy that disseminates the word of the Christian Bible to the people and serves as a shepherd for their spiritual well being.

 

Synopsis: Theologians can be priests, even though they may not serve a congregation. Priests must be trained in day to day operations of a parish and the services they must provide to the flock. The need for clergy to examine the human experience of faith, how different people and cultures express it along with examining the many different religions of the world and their impact on society is dubious.

 

This discourse will delve into the dichotomy of the training requirements for Christian clergy, using history and contemporary information to evaluate the current state of the church.

 

For over 1500 years of history, Christian individuals did not attend universities in order to become practicing clergy. Practicing priests generally had their training in a monastic environment. A large portion of priests received their training via an apprenticeship with a knowledgeable parish priest. Even though universities existed from the earliest time of Christianity, it was the purview of theologians or ranking church members (bishops and above) to attend universities. University training did not become quasi available until the Roman Catholic Church began the ‘counter reformation’ during and after the Council of Trent. ¹

 

One example of this was the priesthood of Martin Luther. In 1507, Luther was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Jerome Schultz. Luther did not earn his bachelor's degree in biblical studies on March 9, 1508. ²Hence, he was a practicing priest long before he held a religious degree. Once he achieved higher degrees, he then became a professor of ‘biblia’. The previous statement is of great consequence, Luther was a priest BEFORE university training in religion.

 

The accreditation system in American higher education began in the late 1800s and early 1900s as a way for colleges and universities with high academic standards to distinguish themselves from institutions that had curricula based on the primary education model. ³

 

Accreditation was a ‘voluntary’ process until 1944. The GI Bill of that era allowed veterans to use federal funds for a college of their choice. After an initial attempt to allow states to generate a list of ‘approved’ colleges, the issue of corruption in the process was raised and affected the release of federal funds. The Federal Government did not process a law until 1952 to create a federal system of accepted accreditation agencies. ⁴

 

If this is put into perspective, accreditation of ‘seminaries’ did not exist for nearly 1900 years in Christian history.

 

So why did seminaries fall into the same accreditation process and universities? First we must understand that outside of the ‘apprentice’ training of priests and monastic environments mentioned previously, universities became a natural setting for theologians to practice, study and debate religion and divinity. Theologians were ‘trained’ to study and debate and were called upon to disseminate their findings to clergy and the church at large. Over time financial and political pressures on the churches forced a ‘redirection’ in the training of clergy, and churches sought out the theologians in academia to assist. Soon, the university seminaries went beyond training theologians and absorbed the task of training practicing clergy.

 

At this point, let us describe the basics of accreditation for a secular university, a seminary as part of a university or a standalone seminary:

 

There are three main types of accrediting agencies operating in the United States. Seven regional accreditors accredit degree-granting colleges and universities in specific regions of the country, with each region being served by a particular agency (except for California and Hawaii, which have separate accreditors for two-year and four-year colleges). The regional agencies accredit about 39 percent of colleges and 85 percent of students nationwide, including most public and private nonprofit colleges and some of the largest for-profit college chains (CHEA 2015). In addition, there are 10 recognized national accreditors. (NOTE 1): Four small faith-related accreditors serve small, religiously oriented institutions, while six career-related accreditors (excluding ACICS) serve mainly for-profit colleges with a strong vocational education focus (CHEA 2015). Finally, the federal government recognizes 17 specialized accreditors that cover institutions with only one type of program (e.g., a law or nursing school). ⁵

 

Note 1: The Association of Theological Schools is the largest accreditor in the United States for seminaries.

 

Accreditors typically judge a college based on five broad standards. ⁶

1. The college’s mission must be appropriate for the accreditor.

    

2. The college must have adequate governance structures and an independent governing board.

    

3. The college must demonstrate financial health—the ability to continue operating throughout the accreditation cycle. This is the most common reason colleges are at risk of losing recognition (GAO 2014).

    

4. The college must have sufficient academic resources, including faculty members, facilities, and library resources.

    

5. Finally, the federal government began requiring in the 1980s that accreditors use student learning outcomes as a standard. But because explicit standards were not set, the implications of this change are unclear (Ewell 2010). For example, regional accreditor Middle States requires 3 institutions to define the goals for each educational program and offer appropriate assessments—a fairly broad requirement (MSCHE 2014).

 

Point 1 is problematic to the structure of seminaries. With the advent of growth of denominations and sects within the church, a mission for one church group may be in dichotomy with the mission of any other church.

 

Point 2 appears logical on the surface. Yet, this may have drawbacks. The governance and board may have far too many secular ties that go against religious practices. This may include political interests and financial greed.

 

Point 3 is a huge problem for seminaries. While not-for-profits are allowed large cash reserves, the financial health creates a situation where the cost of seminary is far beyond the cost/benefit to the seminarian.

 

Point 4 along with point 3 creates a financial situation that drives costs to a point of unacceptability. University seminaries in particular have the greatest cost in paying ‘tenured’ faculty.

 

Point 5 is a continuing issue that has never been rectified. The issue with accredited seminaries is the use of university models for training; wrote memory and finite testing. This is at odds with religious training, whereas the search for the divine is not a finite measurable quantity.

 

Common Critiques of Accreditation: ⁷

 

Critique 1: “Backscratching” in the accreditation system lowers accreditors’ standards. One common critique of the accreditation system is that the peer evaluation process creates an atmosphere in which reviewers allow a college to pass an accreditation review in exchange for the same courtesy being extended to their institutions.

 

Critique 2: The regional accreditation system is a “cartel,”limiting innovation at existing institutions. A college can only use the regional accreditor that serves its area. This has led to critiques that the absence of competition leads accreditors to set standards that are lower than desirable to allow most colleges to receive federal financial aid. Note: Seminarians may access loans via Federal Student Aid (FAFSA).

 

Critique 3: Accreditation is too focused on financial metrics and not sufficiently focused on student learning. Much of the interest in accreditation reform among lawmakers can be traced to a Government Accountability Office report that showed colleges were far more likely to lose accreditation for financial reasons than academic reasons and also for low graduation rates (exacerbated by ‘part time’ studies)

 

Critique 5: The accreditation process is too burdensome, particularly for high-quality institutions and seminaries. The cost burden for small to medium seminaries is problematic.

 

Issues Regarding Accreditation

 

Much of the following information is taken from various sources including The History of Seminary Education and Theological Accreditation and Problems Observed in Seminaries based on writings of Gregg and Krejcir.

• Mainstream accredited seminaries have been pricing themselves out of the market for decades. No small part of that issue is accreditation is not an inexpensive task. Even for small to medium scale seminaries, the initial cost of accreditation can be in the 10’s of thousands and into the 100’s of thousands of dollars in overhead investment. That does not account for ‘membership’ fees that run in the high four digits of overhead cost. There any many (far too many) incidental costs per year or per accreditation to list here.

• The cost of seminary has kept pace with secular university costs. The issue at hand here is two fold;

  • Accredited seminaries do have access to federal direct loans by virtue of accreditation. The issue is this binds the seminary to the government, which violates the churches right (and seminary) to operate without governmental oversight or intervention.

  • Along with the seminaries structured similar to a secular university, accreditation costs/overhead, and other factors it is no longer unusual for per credit costs of $650.00 or even higher to achieve a Bachelors of Theology. This does NOT include living costs. And many churches (sadly) are requiring a Masters. The underlying issue is the church monies to support scholarships is drying up at an alarming rate. Very few seminarians can afford 4-6 years of seminary and pay off the loan on the wages most clergy make in their first church assignment. Many churches facing financial issues themselves, are actually no longer paying some of their clergy, they must seek secular employment. While this is how Independent Churches Operate, the mainstream churches operate as businesses, and the situation for them is a hard pill to swallow.

• Far too many seminaries seek to conform to secular universities and focus on new and "career scholarship" to the detriment of training students correctly. Most offer little encouragement for growing in the faith, either watering down theology or making it so overly scholarly that it is un-practical, un-touchable, and un-teachable in a local church.

• Most seminary courses are seen as irrelevant to the type of ministry the students, who are in the ministry now, face. They see doctrine as dry and unfulfilling or unrelated to faith and practice when in fact, doctrine is thrilling because it means learning about our Lord and Savior!

• Many seminaries offer little encouragement for growing in the faith, either watering down theology or making it so overly scholarly that it is un-practical, un-touchable, and un-teachable in a local church.

• Ministry preparation is lacking in theological education! Graduates leave seminary with little to no application on how to lead and manage a church, council a person in distress, or relate Bible doctrine to the everyday ongoing of their own lives and congregations.

• Most seminary students are finding their theological instructions, books, and curriculum to be pragmatically vacuous and irrelevant to them and/or their congregation's life; for them, seminary is not practical.

• Many graduates of seminary think that there is a "double-consciousness" of being a theologian and a Christian disciple, that the two cannot be related. Thus, the result is being unwilling or unknowing of how to build a congregation up in love towards Christ and one another.

• The emphasis in seminaries is so scholarly now, there is disconnect between effectual faith and academic knowledge. Thus, students cannot put together faith and reason or lead themselves or others deeper in real, authentic Christian formation. They graduate without the tools to be pastors and leaders for today's churches.

• Seminaries have left behind the requirement for logical sermon preparation and especially delivery. Far too many clergy today simple cannot write an understandable sermon and have negligible speaking skills.

• There is an increasing lack of practicum in the seminaries. Most have become so institutionalized in the ‘secular’ format of book learning and rote memorization, there is little or no time to actually practice being clergy. Practicing the liturgies, offices, writing sermons, delivering sermons, interactions with the public, proper Altar Guild Techniques – all are lacking.

• Far to many of the teaching staff perform their tasks as theologians. They no longer desire to provoke free thought, demand spirituality as part of a seminaries individuality, how to pray, how to pay reverence, how look for the deeper faith. Teaching as theologians has an adverse effect; the seminarians bogged down in deep debate, rather than searching for deep faith.

• Far too many accreditation associations have members of the board of directors that are actually from the seminaries that are being accredited. Hence, a school is accrediting itself, and that becomes an issue of ethics.

• The Scholastic Focus of the Seminaries. Unfortunately, the scholastic, academic framework that God used to bring revival to the Church in the Reformation became a scholastic bottleneck that choked the life of God from seminaries and seminarians. Seminary leaders became enamored with scholarship more than practical ministry training.

• Seminaries often turn a deaf ear to the needs of the local church and arrogantly defend scholarly education

• The narrow focus on scholasticism in seminary education left no room for the Holy Spirit to move or guide the learning process.

• Whitefield characterized the schools as “not far superior to our <secular> Universities in piety.” The devolving of the seminaries was seen as far back as the mid 1700’s.

• Seminary does not facilitate spiritual growth; it frequently lacks a deep spiritual base

• There is a gap between the education provided and the pastors’ duties as performed.

• Modern training is primarily intellectual.

• Schools which are separated from the local church are very apt also to be separated from that real world where the future minister must labor.

• According to the Murdock Trust: In the pastors forums those who were seminary graduates reported that they found 70% to 80% of their seminary education did not apply to the duties they were expected to perform in the churches they served as ministers.

• Pastors are highly educated but generally feel poorly prepared for the job they hold.

• John Woodyard: Currently, major rewards for the seminary professor are research-based, academically and intellectually-based affirmations from published books and articles. Unless different spiritual, emotional, economic, and social rewards for the professor can be created, little or no change can be expected in seminary operations, relationships with the churches, or instruction for the students.

• Murdock Trust: Authority for the seminary rests in the control of accreditation associations. Evaluation is built around the shrouds of academic freedom and tenure as defined by their peers in the accreditation process.

• Seminaries are denominational based. This creates a real issue with respect to accreditation. One of the major point of the accreditation process is credit the capability of transfer. That process fails across denominational lines.

• Accreditation Associations disagree with one another on standards

• There is much discussion of the logic of seminaries on secular campuses. Secular events of dubious morality creates a haven for clergy morality shortfalls.

 

Issues regarding Operations of Accredited Seminaries

 

Operations of Seminaries today is based totally on University Models. This creates a myriad of issues that may not be immediately apparent. Some examples:

 

• The seminaries are surrounded by a purely secular environment that is not conducive to to the moral substance of any religious studies.

• One of the biggest complaints by seminarians is too much of the curriculum is rote memorization and finite question/answer testing. This does not and cannot work in a ‘denomination’ based religious environment.

• With concentration on ‘university academics’ as an outcome, hands on training on how to perform the duties of clergy is minimalist (nearing non-existent).

• Public speaking (sermons/homilies) are not a major part of accredited seminary curriculum. This is a major portion of the duties of clergy. Far too many clergy have tragic outcomes on the pulpit via this omission of training.

• Far to many Bachelors degrees contain secular ‘liberal arts’ in the curriculum. Most have no relationship to the religious environment.

   

Accreditation lends itself to ‘forcing’ seminaries into a University Model. Some examples of the issues:

 

• Increases the likelihood that far to many ‘secular’ activities and curriculum will hinder the religious aspect of the seminarians experience.

• Raises costs due to the relatively high cost of accreditation.

• Accreditation cannot take into account ‘denominational’ differences and requirements.

• Private accreditation agencies have far to many Seminary/University staff that sit on the Board of Directors of the Accreditation Agencies. Therefore, these seminaries are being accredited by their own staff.

• Accreditation stresses academics and not seeking true theology or the search for the divine, which is the basis for the existence of clergy and their practice.

 

Cost of seminaries is out of control and beyond the reach of seminarians.

 

• One of the main reasons for seminaries to accredit is to provide scholarship assistance. This is very misleading as scholarships traditionally over cover 10-19% of the overall cost.

• In many of the accredited seminaries accepted by the top four (4) mainstream churches the credit hour costs range from $400.00 to $700.00 for the two main degree programs – Bachelors and Masters

• A bachelors degree is normally 120 credit hours and takes 3.5 to 4 years to complete. The tuition alone may approach or exceed $84,000 ($100,000 + expected).

• The average book costs nationwide can exceed $3000.00

• Incidental charges can approach $2000.00

• If the seminarian MUST live on campus, the cost per year for lodging ranges from $14,000 to $20,000 per year. That equates to $56,000 to $80,000 for housing. If they have a family and wish to live off campus, that costs rises substantially.

• Masters degree with a nominal 60 credits comes in at approximately $42,000 or more. This excluded book costs and incidental costs.

• If the seminarian for the masters must live on campus as describes above, a typical masters is two (2) years and that adds $28,000 to $40,000 in housing costs

• Most mainstream churches require a masters. If we assume a seminarian can complete both degrees in 5.5 years, the total costs floats around $200,000.

• If we assume that the seminarian obtains the ‘normal’ scholarship assistance (we will use 19%) the seminarian must pony up $162,000

• Assuming the seminarian obtains a 3.8% student loan with a term of 20 years, the monthly payment alone is $1500 per month.

• The median wage of a starting clergy sits roughly in the range of $35,000 to $50,000 per year. Keep in mind many small churches can no longer afford ‘free housing’, and even if the clergy obtains free housing, the payments on the student loan brings them down to near the poverty level.

• We must keep in mind the seminaries that have endowments provide ‘minimal’ financial assistance. The total endowments in the United States sits at approximately $30 Billion. The seminaries use the interest money made on the endowment to provide financial assistance, and is in the mere millions. This covers only a small percentage of seminarians. The rest of the endowment goes for wages, operations and property.

 

Time is one of the critical issues related to bringing clergy into the church.

 

• Normal seminary to obtain the masters requirements of our mainstream churches is optimally 5.5 year (sometimes more). Most seminarians do not have active employment, or a simple low wage part time employee, during this period.

• Many mainstream churches require a ‘minimum’ formation period as a deacon of one (1) year (sometimes more).

• Some mainstream churches require a further formation period beyond these requirements and varies widely (2-4 years).

• Deacons are usually unpaid

• Total time without meaningful employment can be 6-8 years or more.

 

Within the context of all of the information provided here we may state that university seminaries are targeting the explicit training of theologians, who will become ‘professors of biblia’. They will perform as researchers and debaters who will then pass on their knowledge to the church hierarchy. We may also state this for private seminaries. Far to many are no longer training clergy to deal with the day to day needs of shepherding a flock and running a church.

 

For over 1900 years of Christian History the church trained clergy outside of the university environment with great efficiency and success. And to be very clear, the cost of that training was negligible as compared to the standard of today. The training was very specific and targeted not only the faith, but also the HAND ON EXPERIENCE required of an apprentice. This process is lost in many of the contemporary seminaries.

 

Seminaries based on university academia no longer train parish priests. The universal church operated successfully for centuries without training priests as theologians. The false ideology of academia created an environment of ill trained shepherds not provided the tools to manged the day to day operations of the ‘physical’ church.

 

The possible solutions have been discussed by many theologians, historians, church leaders and others of interest. If we use the success of the historical universal church, moving back to monastic or ‘internal church’ seminary training, and eliminating accreditation for ‘practicing priests’ may be the one and only solution. This would leave accredited seminaries to focus on theologians who desire to research, debate, translations and bringing new insights to the ‘church hierarchy’.