NO RENEWAL WITHOUT SEMINARY REFORM

There was a good feeling at the 2011 Indiana Annual Conference.  There was not the wrangling one sees at some annual conferences.  An outstanding class of twenty persons was ordained elder, promising a hopeful future for the conference.  Of the twenty, nineteen did not graduate from an official United Methodist seminary.  Almost all graduated either from Asbury, from Mennonite Biblical, or from Christian Theological Seminary.  This leads to some commentary.

Many, many ministerial students do not choose to attend a United Methodist seminary in preparation for ministry.  For some this is a matter of convenience; for others it is because they believe they can get a better education elsewhere.  These decisions are made despite the millions of dollars poured into UM official seminaries from apportionment monies, despite the pressures of Boards of Ordained Ministry to attend official seminaries, and despite the aggressive institutional moves by the University Senate and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry to deny approval to non-UM seminaries in order to force students to attend official schools. 

Is there any reason to believe that official schools prepare UM students better for ministry?   It depends on what kind of ministers we are seeking. 

Claremont School of Theology, which also desires to train Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and Jewish persons in religion, does not even pretend to support the mission statement of the UM Church, which is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  Indeed the catalog of the seminary does not even use the word Jesus with the word Christ.  There are almost no courses on mission or missions.  But of course.  The school has made it clear it believes it is inappropriate to try to convert persons of other faiths to Jesus Christ.  One does not need to be a Christian to enroll atClaremont; the purpose of the school is to “educate religious leaders in a multi-religious consortium.”

The school, of course, would not support the Social Principles of the UM Church, especially in regard to sexual practice.  The school makes a strong point that it is welcoming to Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, and Intersexed persons.  One can take a course entitled “Queer Explorations for Pastoral, Theological and Ethical Issues,” during which time students explore Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, and Intersexed sexualities and gender variances for which the goal is to discover “traces of graces within our erotic experiences…and work toward an integrated theology of liberation.”

In addition one can also take the course on Animal Theology and Ethics: Rethinking Human and Animal Relations.  There is also discussion about Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism.  And there are courses on Womanist Theology and on Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Islam.  The school seems not so interested in classes on Christology, the Atonement, the Holy Spirit, and the Church.  The M.Div. program for Christians is “informed by the history of thought and practice within Christianity, by deep and open dialogue with other religious traditions and by a quest to understand and respond constructively to the contemporary world.”   How much that helps minister to farmers inIowaor coal miners inWest Virginiaremains to be seen.

So, the question still remains: does one get a better preparation for ministry at official UM schools?  The question for schools like Claremont is whether school exists to serve the church or whether the church exists to serve the school.  The major focus of the school has always been on its graduate degrees and the major portion of the catalog is devoted to those programs.  While the school reports a student body of 275, only 10 students during the 2009 school year sought ordination in the UM Church as elders or deacons.

For thisClaremontreceived from Ministerial Education Funds (MEF) in 2009 a total of $850,000 of apportionment money (or $85,000 for each person ordained in the UM Church).  The $850,000 is about the same amount that the Indiana Conference paid into the MEF Fund for which there was one person graduating from a UM school who was ordained elder in 2011.

The University Senate intends to change that.  For the past number of years the Senate has increasingly de-listed for approval to educate UM pastors independent, denominational, and particularly evangelical seminaries.  ForIndianathis means persons who attended Mennonite Biblical Seminary can do so no more (except for a new program which allows them to attend if they take so many courses at Garrett-Evangelical).  Is this because Mennonite Seminary students were ill-prepared as they were examined by the Board of Ordained Ministry?  No.  Is it because the conference suggested students take Garrett-Evangelical courses because they would be trained better for UM ministry?  No.  (The persons teaching UM courses at Mennonite Biblical were highly trained and from within the conference.) Is it because churches were complaining about Mennonite Biblical graduates?  No. 

What then?  Since there is no empirical evidence that persons trained in official schools are better prepared for ministry, one must assume the reasons are institutional.  There are too many seminaries, not enough students, and not enough money without the institutional pressure to generate more students and more revenue.  Over the past 40 years the church has poured something over 500 million dollars into our seminaries.  $500,000,000 could start a lot of churches.

It could also do marvelous things inAfrica, where the church is growing rapidly and where clergy are poorly trained with almost no denominational funds to help struggling seminaries. 

So the church has a problem, a very serious problem.  It wants vital congregations but the seminaries do not seem to be disposed to deal with vital congregations.  The church wants to make disciples of Jesus Christ but the seminaries do not seem to be disposed to teaching persons how to make disciples of Jesus Christ.  The church loses members but no one seems interested in holding the seminaries accountable for their part in contributing to the decline (why no questioning of the seminaries in the Call to Action studies?). 

The Indiana Conference did take one action affecting the seminaries.  It is sending to General Conference a petition that would change the formula for distributing MEF funds.  Instead of 75% of the funds being used to subsidize seminaries (with nothing going toAfrica), the petition would change the formula so that 50% would go to US seminaries and 25% to African seminaries (25% of the funds stay with the annual conferences).

It is a very small step in an effort to reprioritize how funds are used.  But it would be a hopeful step.