BLOG 8/2/15. HELPFUL FEEDBACK (FLACK?) ON UN-SEMINARIES
I love it when I get feedback on these blogs. I knew that the last one, in which I raised serious questions about the viability of theological seminaries, would jiggle an idol of traditional church folk. Sure enough. So let me do a re-run. I am not at all questioning the huge value of well-trained minds, and profound theological and Biblical scholarship, or my gratitude for my own indebtedness to such. There is far too much mindless and even erroneous stuff out there that pertains to be Christian, that is more like entertaining deism than orthodox Christian formation.
But there is an insistent need for the Christian church to realize that there is a huge tectonic shift taking place so that many of the traditional ecclesiastical structures that served well in past generations—even centuries—will not survive in the post-Christian culture in which the younger generations are emerging. It is probably as subtle as the rise in the level of the ocean due to global warming that makes coastal cities at risk. I am quite certain that in the next twenty years, or so, there will be whole lot of the real estate and institutional baggage of Christendom that will either be up for sale, or will be useless in equipping the church for the mission of God.
As a matter of fact I want to see more good theological education, . . . but I want it to be in a form that is accessible to the rank and file of the church, so that they are thoroughly furnished to engage the challenges of the culture, and be agents of God’s New Creation among the folk with whom they are in communication in the realities of the “Monday Morning World.” Accessibility is my quest. How is that to take place? How are they to be to be formed into fruitfulness? How to be thoughtful and caring children of God’s New Creation 24/7?
Even Dale Stephens, who wrote the book about: “hacking your way through college,” acknowledges the value of engagement with the teachers and with others in the learning process. He devised ways to sit in on classes in colleges where he was not registered, and to make appointments with the faculty of such. Those who are proponents of on-line learning with all of its asynchronous possibilities know that personal engagement with the teachers and other learners makes it much more effective.
It is not as though only some church professionals, some clergy, are the only theologically literate persons, are the only equipping members of the Christian community. Centuries ago, to be sure, and before literacy was the norm, the clergy were called: “the parson”, because they were the only literate persons to teach the illiterate Sunday by Sunday. No longer. I know those laity who have briefly made place in their professional life to attain a Master of Theological Studies degree from a seminary so that they could be more effective in their witness in the information technology arena in which they were engaged. One of the most theological erudite persons I have ever known was a chemistry professor in a university. My own father, a mechanical engineer, was a perennial student who was a self-educated Biblical and theological resource because almost nobody else was there to be such in the church community we inhabited, … or my friend who is a tattoo artist and an articulate New Testament scholar!
Vast ecclesiastical institutions with magnificent buildings, endowments, and professional staffs do not guarantee that the individual persons who are ostensibly members are equipped in mature discipleship, . . . and are probably rapidly becoming obsolete. I am not a voice in the wilderness on this. There are more and more examples of communities of vital Christian faith operating without all of the accouterments of former church institutions. I think of Redeemer Church in New York, which has a profound and very fruitful teaching ministry but uses rented spaces for its congregational worship, while being focused on equipping its participants to be God’s children of light in Upper West Side New York. They have a counterpart to seminary training, but focused on their own participants, which you can see described at www.faithandwork.com. It is the form of the church that is in transition, and a clearer vision of equipping its participant for its mission—a tectonic shift. Count on it.
