Dean's Letter

April 2008

From The Very Reverend David Bird, Ph.D., Dean and Rector

Whither the Seminary ?

 A question which has suddenly reached the public square is: what is the purpose of a modern seminary?  The question is particularly urgent for the Episcopal Church. One of our seminaries, in Evanston, Illinois has announced that it is shutting down its traditional three year training program for clergy; another is closing its Rochester satellite campus and has affiliated with a local Lutheran seminary in Ohio; and a third, the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass, has sold seven of it buildings to a local university (it still retains thirteen buildings). And this may be only the beginning. 

What is going on? Thirty years or more ago the traditional seminarian was less than thirty years of age, male and frequently unmarried. In the United Kingdom, special provision was made for older students (i.e., those thirty and over). There was only one theological college for candidates forty and over.  

The number entering class in 1972 was dismal at the New York Seminary I attended.  We were fewer than twenty. The problem, then, is not new. Gradually, however, endowments have been eroded to the point were in some cases they are insufficient any longer to bolster the shortfall. Action has had to be taken. 

This is not all bad if it means we have to look seriously at what training for the ordained ministry should look like today. I have just taken a distance learning course from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. I could easily have driven there for a course but I have children and a job and would spend almost as long on the commute as the hours I am expected to put into the course. Seemed like a win-win for me–and it was. I could go at my own pace; ask questions without interrupting; and when I had to deal with a boring contributor the look on my face was hidden, as was my distinct lack of attention. Competence, however, was assessed on my written contributions and my final paper, so there were real standards.    

What are the positives here? I suspect many highly competent candidates for the ordained ministry would prefer a training which was predominantly provided through the Internet and which enabled them to keep their jobs. Secondly, three years in a seminary could become five or six years on the Net, with training programs on spiritual discipline, pastoral awareness and liturgical sensitivity (to name the obvious) could be held at a local level.   

This, of course, would require a thorough and exhaustive assessment of local standards and training by external evaluators. Dioceses are notorious for being run by cliques and “in-crowds,” so the quality of the external evaluation of programs and instructors would be critical to providing worthwhile clergy for the future of the Church. 

The rise of outstanding university and college courses in theology and religion on the Internet should dramatically raise the educational standard of the new wave of clergy. When we add this to the possibility of attracting people who are happy and fulfilled in their jobs but who also want to serve the church, I see great hope for the future. 

In the early to mid-nineteen eighties I read a devastating exposé of the type of candidates being accepted as seminarians in U.S. Roman Catholic seminaries. Basically the author depicted an overwhelming number of older candidates seeking priesthood who had experienced significant trauma in their private and professional lives and who did not seem to have risen beyond that state. Heaven knows the priest who has rebuilt her or his life and engaged in new or renewed commitment to Christ is a wonderful gift to the Church. The Church’s task is to discern who those people really are.  

Carl Jung is frequently quoted as judging that every crisis over the age of thirty is a spiritual crisis. This statement is both opportunity and warning. We need to provide a vision of God in Christ for those who are who are ready to develop a spiritual life. For this, we need competent, spirit-filled pastors. It is the Church’s task to find and call these people. The aspirant is called only to offer herself or himself. The community, not the individual, discerns the call—sometimes with much agonizing on the part of the commission on ministry and, ultimately, the diocesan bishop. 

What do we need in such people?  They must be able to tell the story of the faith: especially the biblical story of how God leads a people and fits it to be a force in establishing God’s vision for the world here and now. We need pastors who can tell creatively the story of church history, remembering that  those who ignore history are often condemned to repeat it. The controversies of the past, and their resolution, sometimes reveal tragic inhumanity, unworthy of the Church. To read those controversies is to remind ourselves that we are called to behave otherwise. 

Struggling to understand how other centuries and generations sought to explain the nature of God, the existence of evil and why bad things happen to good people is the very stuff of theology—and we are asked about these questions. People want to know how to make moral choices and it is the clergy’s task to be able to give a credible account of how we think through problem situations in our lives and in the wider world.   

 In what I’m writing I am trying to see the squeeze being put on the seminaries as an opportunity to attract excellent candidates for ministry. Harvard Divinity School, rather than drop standards to stay full, has raised their requirements in the biblical languages. They want to challenge their students to know what Jesus, Paul and the prophets actually meant—a difficult task when often two, three or four languages are involved before the translator settles on a particular word or phrase. 

To sum up: the possible demise of some of our seminaries may result in much higher standards of training for clergy if we use the Internet creatively; raise, set and rigorously impose external standards upon dioceses; use the talents of local clergy in verifiable areas of their expertise; and take with the utmost seriousness the theological, pastoral and liturgical traditions and insights which have distinguished our national church and our wider communion over the past few centuries. 

— David

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