Seminaries are a complex mix of more than one culture. They are part school, part business, and part church. Most academic communities struggle with the first two.
For seminaries the church part is defining. In some ways seminaries function like a church, even when they don’t they are deeply dependent upon the church. Until recently churches largely defined the mission of most seminaries, provided them with students, and supported them financially.
During the second half of the twentieth century this relationship served both the church and seminaries fairly well. Now that relationship is rapidly unraveling.
In part, the reason for the demise of this partnership is traceable to massive changes in “church” itself.
The changes in “church-as-we-have-known-it” could fill a book. It has already filled lots of them. A few of the better ones are listed below.
But, briefly, here are some changes:
• In the United States mainline Protestantism is already a minority movement. It will get more minor as time goes on. Where it does thrive, it will thrive not as denominations, but as individual congregations.
• Nonetheless, the church in the United States will grow. Most of it will be Catholic, charismatic, and non-denominational.
• There will be fewer full-time clergy and more bi-vocational clergy.
• Lay people will do more.
• Globally the church will continue to move south and east — to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The churches there will also dominate the global stage.
• Boomers will continue to retire and the agenda they have promoted will retire with them. People are already tired of it and the generations behind the boomers don’t even understand why they are fighting over the things they fight over.
• The critical issues that facing the church in the next fifty to seventy-five years will revolve around genetics, brain research, inter-generational conflict (huge elderly populations and much smaller populations of young people behind them), fiscal conflict, the decentralization of political authority, technology, and globalization.
• In order for the church to have anything significant to say about those issues the church will first have to prove that it is still relevant — as a spiritual voice and as a community.
• A growing number of Americans are spiritual, not religious. They find community on line, not within the walls of churches and they are perfectly capable of giving their faith expression without the church’s help. Only a church that can convince them that it has something to offer will get attract much interest.
Seminaries cannot ignore these changes. They can
play the tape,
whistle in the dark,
cobble together programs with other seminaries,
join forces with other schools in their denominations,
and/or sell property
These are Saab-like choices.
But these are attempts to save approaches to theological education that cannot be saved. They mask the realities and postpone the inevitable. They don’t change a thing.
Think Fine Cooking…
Other things to read:
Allen, John L. The Future Church. How Ten Trends are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church. New York: Doubleday, 2009.
Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom. The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Tickle, Phyllis. The Great Emergence. How Christianity is Changing and Why. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008.
Wuthnow, Robert. After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty- Somethings are Shaping the Future of American Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Natalie pointed me to this; I enjoyed reading it. This issue of the future of the church is an interesting one. As a younger person, I see special resonance in where you discuss in various ways what churches (and those people you are working to educate) have to offer. One come into a church wanting to “get involved” and then….nothing. Give us money, maybe do some dull work like picking up trash, but otherwise, we really don’t need you for anything that might actually engage your God-given talents. Why then bother coming? It would be interesting to hear more comments on these issues. As Natalie was telling me, our churches are too ready to keep doing the same old things, and yet these things are clearly failing to reach people.
As someone with a JD, MBA and soon enough an MDiv (I am now doing an internship before graduation), I can share that the JD and MBA did a better job of preparing me for life in the business and legal worlds than the MDiv program has prepared me for parish life (note that the MDiv program did teach me to think theologically, and my parish provided very good formation – I am fortunate). This should not be taken as a glowing recommendation of JD or MBA programs or a suggestion that they should be used as models – these programs need help as well, but we can learn from them. As others have noted, the problem is multi-layered: denominational self-definition, discordant ideas of mission at all levels (when “mission: is even understood or defined), intergenerational disconnect, etc. I think future clergy want good formation (as do the parishes that will eventually hire us) but whose responsibility the formation is seems to be subject to debate. In a perfect world the parish that raises someone up for possible ordination should provide solid initial formation, followed by Diocesan formation, then seminary, and then more Diocesan formation in the first years of ordained ministry. All too often what I have seen instead, in many Dioceses, is a “check the box” process or, even worse, an arbitrary process, followed by high rates of burnout for newly ordained clergy and surprise at the burnout by those who designed the process. Fred raises the critical point, which is that trying to “save” the current system is not rationally related to either preparing future clergy or helping to make the changes that need to be made in the majority of our churches to reach the people who are seeking, often desperately, the Good News. In a few weeks the Consortium of Endowed Episcopal Parishes will be addressing these issues (among many others) and I hope to gain some new insights and further engage in this continuing discussion (to the extent there is interest in hearing from those who did not attend TEC seminaries, which is yet another issue I have encountered).
Hi, I am from Australia.
What if all theological education has nothing whatsoever to do with Real God, and is thus essentially a waste of time. A waste of time because it does not, and can not, provide the means for fundamental whole-body change. It is just brain created mind-games, just like conventional secular philosophy.
Hence:
http://www.dabase.org/tfrbkyml.htm
http://www.dabase.org/noface.htm
http://www.dabase.org/teaching/aletheon/truth-god.aspx
John, if theology is not capable of making such change possible, then that would, indeed, be a problem. But Augustine (in On Teaching Christianity) believed it was and I am convinced that it is as well.