How to Spot a Liberal Seminary

Airport security seems to have surrendered common sense as a weapon in the war against terror. In a desperate attempt to appear politically correct and unbiased toward Arab Muslims, the TSA eschews profiling techniques. Profiling is when a person is singled out based on certain traits that they have in common with previous terrorist attacks. For example, the 9/11 bombers were all young, single, Arab, Muslim, males. 

The lack of profiling begets some silly scenarios, as when a soldier traveling with his platoon in full uniform had his nail clippers confiscated…but not his gun. Or, the case in February 2011, when Alaska State Representative, Sharon Cissna refused to allow the TSA to inspect the scars of her mastectomy surgery. She was barred from boarding the plane because common sense might look like bias, even though it is an undisputed fact that no lady’s prosthetic breast (or nail clippers for that matter) have ever been used in any assault on land, air, or sea.

On the other hand, if profiling had been allowed, perhaps they would have prevented what happened on Northwest Airlines flight 253 on Christmas Eve 2010 when Umar Farouk Abdul-mutal-lab, a 23 year told, single, Muslim  male, who paid cash for a one-way ticket, and checked no luggage, cruised through airport security without any hassles. But when the plane was in flight, he promptly activated the explosives stashed in his underwear. Fortunately, instead of exploding, his underwear just caught on fire. Three passengers incapacitated him (while, as I imagine, children nearby chanted “Liar, liar…”).   Continue at Clint Archer

Who Will Teach the Women Who Want to Be Taught?

It may be better to sleep on the corner of the rooftop than live with a quarrelsome woman, but friends, educate that woman and there is hardly a limit to what she can do with her mouth and mind—for good or evil.

God created woman as a helper knowing Adam would need help. What that help was exactly will be up for debate for centuries; we only know that the command to both man and woman at that point was to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue the earth. A friend of mine confesses that at times he fears exposing his weaknesses to women in his life for various reasons. To which I replied that a woman was born to see a need, to come and encompass that need, nurture it until the time is right for it to be birthed into something more beautiful than he could imagine. We are built to help in ways men will never be able to help. That is our good design.

Disciplers on the Rise

Another friend and I were talking recently about the droves of women coming out of seminary in the coming years. These women have or will have studied biblical texts, learned Hebrew and Greek proficiently, interacted with scholars, and written theses. They have a deep and true abiding love of God's Word, and a respect for the inerrancy of it. Women make up more than 51 percent of seminary students, and we can probably expect that number to grow.

These women have taken the command to be fruitful and multiply seriously, and for many, in the absence of their own children, they have become incubators of God's Word. They meditate on it, murmur on it, pray it, speak it, and teach it. They are poised for a gracious reception of hungry souls, souls weary of milk, starving for meat. They are disciples.    Continue at Lore Ferguson

“He Desires a Noble Task” The Erosion of the Evangelical Pastorate

The evangelical church has a problem. We’re going to run out of good pastors. For a variety of reasons, we are failing to sufficiently prepare the next generation of church leadership. I doubt this particular problem will ever feel like a full-blown crisis, given the many influences on church health and the wide diffusion of the effects, but it’s a trend with costly consequences. All things being equal, eventually there will be fewer churches than there could be, and on average they will be weaker.

This message is different than the common doomsday alarms. American evangelicalism is not in perfect health, but it’s strong in many respects. More 20-somethings are currently attending evangelical churches than any year since 1972. Enrollment in Christian Colleges is also up, as is diversity. The problem is not that there aren’t any young people in church; it’s that not enough of them are planning to lead.

Why think this?

First, the numbers. While Christian colleges are growing, seminary enrollment has either plateaued or declined at mainline and evangelical seminaries. Don Sweeting, President of Reformed Theological Seminary, told the Lausanne Consultation on Global Theological Education a few months ago in his plenary address, “We have more seminaries and fewer students.” It’s not just an enrollment issue. As anyone who has recently spent time on seminary campuses can tell you, more and more seminarians are not planning on leading churches. They are there for counseling, or para-church ministry, or simply to learn more about Scripture. Quite a few don’t know why they are there.   Continue at Jeremy Mann

Debt, Ethics and a Seminary Education

I am pleased to offer this provocative “guest column” by Bethel San Diego seminarian Matt Jeffreys. It is an abridgment of a research paper Matt recently wrote for a seminary ethics course.

A recent New York Times article described a successful financial advisor who was losing his home due to excessive debt. 

He said that processing what had happened raised profound ethical questions.  Americans have slowly come to accept debt, even extreme debt, as a normal way of life.  And Christians appear to be the same.  Believers seem to borrow just as much, and just as fast for everything from cars and houses, to furniture and vacations.  Churches are now filled with, and led by, people who are often drowning in debt and struggling to think about much else.  Even closer to home, debt has reached crisis proportions for those of us who venture to study at America’s expensive seminaries on our own dime. Maybe this is just wrong.

Every year in the U.S., thousands of students enter seminary in the hopes of getting an education that will both aid in maturing their faith and help prepare them for vocational ministry.  Most churches of any size still require some kind of theological degree for its ministerial staff.  Certainly for those who preach and teach, if not for all their staff.  This is a good thing.  The demands of ministry are extreme, the culture we lead in complex, and the need for correctly handling Scripture crucial.  Local churches rightly expect their leaders to be spiritually formed, passionately committed, and educated enough to be credible. Continue at Matt Jeffreys

Preacher: Lead the Congregation into the Presence of God

It is something of a truism that seminaries are not great at teaching preaching. 

Thinking does vary on this: some believe that preachers cannot be taught, simply improved; others that you can take someone who cannot preach and make him a preacher.  What is certain is that any student who simply relies on the preaching experience he has in the seminary classroom will be inadequately prepared for the preaching ministry.   Seminary preaching needs to be supplemented with experience in the local church, at the old folks home etc.

Yet there is another thing that is not done well at seminary, something which is rarely noticed and which is consequently something of a dying art: pulpit prayer.

In fact, pulpit prayer should be a vital part of the worship service.  It is at those moments that the pastor has the task of leading the people into the very presence of God.  This is an awe inspiring task, not to be undertaken lightly.  Such leading should be clear, suffused with biblical allusions and shaped by biblical thought patterns.  It should be built on the foundation of a solid grasp of the mediation of Christ and should reflect that in its content. 

Often Protestants concentrate so much on the sermon or the singing as the contact point between God and the congregation that we forget the importance of prayer.  Yet corporate prayer is surely a means of grace (Shorter Catechism 88) and it thus requires that those leading worship pay as much attention to what they say in their prayers as they do to their sermons.  The congregation should come away from the service believing that they have met with a holy and gracious God; and public prayer is a key element of that.  Keep Reading >>>

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“What Would You Say to My Husband if You were a Young Seminarian Again?”

Dear Students in the Gospel of Christ:

Recently, I was asked by a young wife and mother to write some thoughts on ministry reflections for her husband, a seminarian. Specifically, this godly young woman wanted me to answer the question, “As you look back on life and ministry, and where he is in life as a seminarian, what wisdom would you offer him as a husband, father, a man of God preparing for ministry? What would you do differently? What went well? What counsel would you give him? This will be my gift to him.” Well, perhaps she might have done better at Macy’s or with another minister, at least. But here is my reply. If the Lord could use anything in it in your life, then I would be most thankful.

“Here are some reflections on your wonderful question: As I look back on the season of life that your husband is in, I would…

…thank God even more for a faithful wife who was made by God to help me; with wisdom, insight into the challenges I face, the opportunities I have, and to listen better, more carefully, to her God-given intuitive understanding of how I could be a better father, husband and man of God.

…listen more and enjoy the changing cycles of growth in John Michael, our son. In short, enjoy the present stages in your little ones’ lives; soon they will pass. I have always told my son, all through his growing up, “Son, do you know what my favorite age is for a boy?” He soon learned that I would say his age back to him. Recently I asked him that and he told me, “Dad, I think it is (pause…): seventeen!!!” “Yes, Son. That is my favorite age for a child.” Yet don’t just say it, take time to soak up the unique blessings and challenges of every age.  Keep Reading >>>

Who Was B.B. Warfield? An Interview with Fred G. Zaspel

Fred Zaspel is the author of The Theology of B. B. Warfield: A Systematic Summary (Crossway, 2010). Recently, I had a chance to ask Fred a variety of questions: such as the process that led to the writing of a book on Warfield, the impact of Warfield’s theology on his day, and its continuing impact. And, how Warfield might address some of the theological issues the church faces in the 21st century.

Who was B.B. Warfield, and why is he important?

B.B. Warfield (1851-1921) was professor of theology at old Princeton Seminary (1887-1921). He was internationally recognized as the most broadly equipped and most deeply informed theologian of his day. His career took place in an era of enormous theological change in professing Christendom and in his own Presbyterian church. Essential teachings of the Christian faith held by the church since its beginning were being denied, and he above all others stood against the “liberal” tide at virtually every point of its attempted advance. He more than anyone in the history of the church gave exhaustive definition and defense of the inspiration of Scriptures, and in the century since relatively little of substance has been added to his hundreds of published pages on this basic tenet of the faith. He also provided massive exegetical defense of the person and work of Christ against the various “kenotic” theologians of the day whose de-supernaturalized views of Christ relegated him to mere “godling” status (to borrow Warfield’s description!). Broadly equipped in the original languages and all the tools of the modern criticism and widely read in all the disciplines related to biblical and theological study, both the breadth and the depth of his grasp were unsurpassed. With good reason he has been called the spoiler of liberalism and the man who propelled orthodoxy into the twentieth century. Keep Reading >>>

The Young Christian’s Guide to Sex at Seminary

I was not a geek in high school.  I know this because I never had a slushee tossed in my face (which, according to no less an authority than Glee, is the leading indicator of geek status in high school), and I never suffered the distinct indignity of a “wedgie,” and I never went to high school.  As a top-ranked gymnast, I worked through our high school’s “independent study” program, which meant that every person in every class I took thought I was perfectly wonderful.

Neither was I particularly uncool at college.  I was a varsity athlete, a relatively sociable person, and a leader in student Christian fellowships.  There were times when my counter-cultural Christianness was painfully clear.  I did not go to drinking parties, had no interest in joining a fraternity, and made no effort to bed the young ladies at Stanford University.  But, honestly, I never felt like an outsider.  Stanford had many thousands of students from hundreds of different cultures and faiths and value systems.  I was just a part of the mosaic.

It surprised me, therefore, when I found that I felt like an outsider at seminary. 

We were all Christians.  Princeton Theological Seminary is a fine institution, and I enjoyed my time there.  I formed friendships with fascinating people, found mentors in excellent professors, and enjoyed the classes immensely.

And yet…I did feel like an outsider.  There was a single prevailing culture there — and I did not belong to it.  I am an evangelical with conservative leanings.  I came to PTS at the recommendation of my famously-agnostic undergraduate mentor, Van Harvey, who strongly believed that I should gain a three-year seminary education before going on to a secular research institution for the more specialized work of a doctorate.  (He was right, but more on that later.)   Keep Reading >>>

See Also: Series on Sex in Seminary

Partnership or Compromise?

As discussed in last year’s MB Herald, it looks like some influential Canadian Mennonites have decided to go ahead and partner together to educate the next generation of church leaders…

WCMS is an inter-Mennonite partnership that facilitates the offering of graduate and professional theological education in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The primary role of WCMS is to link the church constituency with the resources of various Mennonite educational institutions. At this time, students can gain graduate theological education by seeking admission to the MA Theological Studies offered by the Canadian Mennonite University or the Certificate of Christian Ministry offered through Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary (MBBS) of Fresno, CA or Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) of Elkhart, Indiana. WCMS can also facilitate academic advising and coaching for those who train for vocational ministry. WCMS seeks to provide continued professional education for pastors and pastoral candidates through pastoral round tables, workshops and other special events.
[www.cmu.ca]

The WCMS centre, located on the Canadian Mennonite University campus in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is supported by the following Mennonite organizations:  Keep Reading >>>

Seventeen Things that Seminary Never Taught Me

Sex and the Seminary?

If nothing else, this report underlines the great divide that now exists among America's theological schools. There is good reason to ask whether any shared basis of accreditation is possible, given the depth and significance of this divide. Time will tell, but the aim is clear -- to put seminaries committed to a normative biblical morality on notice that such schools may for a time be tolerated, but the standards will push schools toward "inclusion" of "sexual and gender diversities" among students, staff, and faculty.