The seminary or theological college finds itself today under more fervent attack than perhaps at any time since the modern seminary became a fixture in Christian circles.
Its critics are many, articulate, and sometimes scathing. Let me enumerate three principal criticisms to which seminary staff and leadership must respond if they are to remain viable.
First, the seminary’s critics allege that the seminary has uncritically adopted a university model that privileges academic pursuits over training for ministry. Second, the seminary’s traditional focus on biblical studies, systematic theology, and ministry skills such as counseling and preaching comes under criticism as irrelevant to modern ministry and incapable of training adept servants for the modern or post-modern church and world. Third, seminarians are told that their institution has become inaccessible to most trainees for Christian service and—not an entirely separate concern—slave to an economic model that is no longer viable.
If these allegations are sustainable, then it appears that the seminary—and its younger brother, the Bible institute or Bible college—is doomed either to decline or collapse. (more…)
Canter Bridge 