Seminary Education Today

How did the Episcopal Church get to its present crisis? There are many answers to this question, but for me, one factor stands above all: the state of theological education in the Episcopal Church today.

Let me be personal. I graduated from seminary in 1976. After that I got a Ph.D. in systematic theology. I have had some ongoing contact with seminaries, talked to many seminary students, and read seminary publications. I think I have something worth saying on the vital subject of seminary education.

Not too long ago Spong published his Twelve Theses, a call for a theological revolution. He was right about the need for a revolution, but wrong about the theses. They were simply rubbish, the abandonment of the Christian faith. He did claim, however, that we need a theological revolution comparable to the Reformation. I think something along those lines is indeed needed. Where should we turn for that revolution?

Anglicanism is a reform movement within the wider stream of catholic faith and practice. Against Rome, the Anglican reformers proclaimed the faith and practice of the early church, especially the church of the first five centuries. That is where we need to go, and that is what we need in seminary education today. What does that teach us?

First, there was no division between spiritual life and theology. The great theologians of the early church were spiritual men and women who were not ashamed of the gospel. They proclaimed it by word and deed. One need only read the letters of Athanasius or his Life of Anthony, or Augustine's Confessions, to know that theology was intimately connected to spiritual life. When I was in seminary, none of the professors ever publicly witnessed to what God had done in their lives. None of them prayed with me or other students for personal problems. That just didn't happen. Their approach was academic, as if the academic life could be divorced from the spiritual. Of course we all went to chapel, and that was necessary, but that isn't the same as professors giving living witness to God acting decisively in Jesus Christ today. Rather, the professors remained academics, concerned with academic matters. You won't see that academic approach in the Church fathers. They witnesses openly to Jesus Christ, God acting in their lives to heal and set them free.

Secondly, the early theologians all believed there was such a thing as heresy. They fought against heretics. When I was in seminary I was taught the theology of Paul Tillich. That theology is heresy. It was fine for me to study Tillich, but I should have been shown why his theology was wrong. I wasn't. My primary theology professor believed Tillich. He also didn't believe that Jesus Christ was raised bodily from the dead. That is false teaching. That should not be taught in our seminaries. It should be opposed. Further, even when there are some orthodox members of the faculty, the Christian disciplines are often taught in an academic fashion -- namely, here is what Tillich thinks, here is a bit of Barth, here's some liberation theologians, and so forth, and all of this taught from an academic point of view. Many students can't find their way through this maze of conflicting opinions. No, the professors need to proclaim orthodoxy, revealing the objective, propositional content of the Christian faith and showing its distortions both past and present. That really didn't happen. If that had happened, if seminary students had been properly trained, they would have easily recognized the heresy being promoted by so much of the leadership of the Episcopal Church. That also doesn't happen. For example, I have scarcely seen any sustained theological analysis, in light of Trinity and Christology, of the false teaching inherent in the so-called liberal position in the Episcopal Church today. The orthodox know something is wrong, but they rarely penetrate to the essence of the heresies being promoted. By and large, as a church, we have lost the ability to think theologically and that, in part, is due to poor theological training.

Nor was I taught what the early church so clearly proclaimed -- that one should not celebrate Holy Eucharist with those who undermine the fundamental beliefs of the faith, nor with those who practice egregious immorality. All sorts of things could be taught by seminary professors, fundamental claims could be denied, but those who did these things were expected to take Holy Communion along with everyone else. Without thinking, I took Holy Communion alongside my theology professor, even though he denied the bodily resurrection and taught a modern form of the modalist heresy. I suppose if someone had advocated worship of other gods or committed a crime, they would have been removed from the seminary, but they were certainly free to deny certain fundamentals of the Christian faith. In actual practice, the academic norm of free inquiry as the road to truth was placed above the norm of orthodoxy.

Further, although I was taught that daily prayer and worship are important (the seminary community worshipped regularly and loved to talk about spirituality), I was not taught the spirituality inherent in these disciplines, nor was I taught what God does in the Eucharist. I was taught that grace was given, but I was not taught that God could physically heal people in the Eucharist. I was not taught that one can, after being purified by the Holy Spirit and fire, see God and hear his voice in a rather literal way in the liturgy. I was not taught that Eucharist is the end of the old creation, the beginning of the new, and that one can experience God with his people in the communion of saints. I was not taught that the Eucharist is a covenant renewal ceremony, although I was taught that baptism is that covenant ceremony. I was not taught how Eucharist, as a modified Passover, relates to social and economic liberation as seen in the Exodus, and how that relates to political and social liberation in the larger society. In other words, I was taught the form of the Eucharist, manual acts and how to speak it, but few professors ever witnessed to its saving power in their lives and in the larger society.

Further, I was not taught the catholic spiritual tradition of holiness of life. In light of that tradition, purifying the lusts of the flesh, including sex, is only the beginning of the deep work of the Spirit transforming us into the image of Christ. How that happens, how God works in the soul and in the community, how he uses the dark nights of sense and spirit, how he works in events to drive us beyond ourselves to reveal our sin, and how that relates to Word and Sacrament, was not taught. We now have generations of clergy who haven't been properly mentored in the spiritual life, who really don't know what it means to crucify the lusts of the flesh, and who haven't experienced the deep work of the Spirit. As a result, we have a church that scarcely believes that God can cleanse people of sexual sins, to say nothing of the deeper sin of self love. Very little of this was taught in the seminary. Perhaps things have changed since I was in seminary. Perhaps one can find courses in the rigorous spiritual tradition. But they need to be mandatory, and further, the faculty needs to be actively engaged in God's work of holiness in such a way that students are captured by their passion.

Further, the pastoral care I was taught was abysmal. What do the gospels proclaim? What was done in the early church? There we see a living, powerful, loving God who heals people. Jesus cast out demons, healed the broken hearted, restored the sick, and reconciled the alienated. Very, very little of that takes place in seminaries because so many professors really don't believe that Jesus heals today. What did the early church do? They practiced healing. What did they do before they baptized someone? There are always exceptions, but generally, in the months prior to baptism on Easter Eve, catechumens were thoroughly educated and exorcised so as to become spiritually clean. That doesn't happen in the Church. That doesn't happen in our seminaries. Virtually none of them. What is the result? -- graduates who have little sense of the power of God to set the captives free, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. As a result, our churches are more like clubs for the healthy than hospitals for the sick. I've been in the church for 35 years and I am convinced that a Christian pastor who know how to hear confession, pray the Scriptures for the broken-hearted, and can cast out evil spirits in the name of Christ, is far, far more effective than so much of secular counseling. But the church doesn't do that. No, all too often the church sends the broken-hearted off to the therapists. There are, of course, important roles for doctors, counselors, and psychiatrists, but ultimately, people only become fully themselves through a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. It is the business of the Church to offer that and nothing less.

Further, seminaries seem inordinately afraid of charismatic worship and the gifts of the Spirit. Part of the fear is well-founded. Among the churches of Christendom, there is a great deal of unhealthy magical thinking and practice in regard to the Spirit. What is needed is for an appreciation of the work of the Spirit in the context of liturgical worship, spiritual disciplines, and the Catholic spiritual tradition. Then, once in that context, the charismatic gifts of the Spirit can be exercised in as sober yet joyful fashion. As it is, as far as I know, most seminaries do not do this. They ignore the gifts of the Spirit and their evident use in the early centuries of the Church. What a terrible loss. God is not honored. Millions of people are left with the impression that God is dead, as if what happened in the New Testament cannot happen today. What a tragedy.

Further, I was taught the historical-critical method of biblical interpretation, but its limits were never explained to me. That method can shed some light on the meaning of words and the original social and historical context, but it makes no sense of the whole of Scripture as the Word of God. I so clearly remember my seminary professor teaching me Amos. He described Amos' social and historical context and his message in that context, but there was no reference as to how Amos related to Genesis one and two, to the Exodus, to Daniel and Apocalyptic, and finally, how Amos related to Jesus Christ, the Epistles, or the book of Revelation. In the early church there was the regula, that body of creed-like teaching that guided right interpretation of the whole of Scripture. The regula was a part and parcel of early biblical interpretation going back to the apostles. All of that was missing from my seminary study of Scripture. Nor was I taught now the doctrines of Trinity and Christology direct biblical interpretation. I was not shown how the hypostatic union of the human and divine natures in the one person of Christ has a bearing on how Scripture needs to be interpreted, nor how this relates to the authority of Scripture as a document of divine revelation yet fully human. These vital questions were never addressed. As a result, a great many clergy really do not know how to interpret Scripture in an orthodox fashion, nor do they understand its authority.

Further, given the nature of the historical-critical method, many students did not know how, nor do many know today, to address what in Scripture was peculiar to its original time and age and what applies to all times and places. That is the principal reason we have such a problem discerning biblical teaching on homosexuality. It would have helped had I been taught something as simple as Article VII (BCP p. 869) which states: "Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral." What are moral commandments? Where in the Old Testament are they found? Why do they bind Christians whereas "Ceremonies and Rites" do not? Had these questions been addressed, perhaps some of the miserable posturing about not keeping all sorts of Old Testaments commandments, and therefore we don't need to keep the commandments on homosexuality, could have been avoided. Needless to say the Old Testaments commandments on sexuality, which are made even more rigorous in the New Testament, are among the moral commandments.

Further, the historical-critical method, at least as taught by a number of its partisans, did not entail a belief in miracles. And even if a professor did believe in the biblical miracles, the attention to the original context so consumed seminary biblical teaching that the notion that God might do these miracles today got lost in the process. Day after day I sat in class hearing interminable lectures on how Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John reached their final stage of composition, or how they differed among the various pericopes, or what were Jesus' original words and what a later addition, all the while ignoring the possibility that Jesus Christ might do today in his body the Church what he did in the flesh as proclaimed in the gospels. All of that was left out, leaving us with a spectral Jesus who hovered discarnate over our academic researches.

Of course, not all was bleak. There was some emphasis on the importance of Christian social action. This was to the good. Nevertheless, the weaknesses given above imply that it was difficult to extract from the Bible a rigorous social and economic ethic relative to society at large given that Scripture was taught as a historically relative document. Even so, I do think that some of the worst aspects of our present social and economic order did receive some valid consideration. This is an important area and the teaching had some direct relevance.

The greatest thing I learned in seminary was taught to me by now bishop FitzSimmons Allison, and that is the wonderful doctrine of grace through faith in Jesus Christ. That doctrine has made a great difference in my life and ministry. Further, I was given the tools and context to continue my own studies. I became acquainted with the theological and biblical problems facing today's church, above all, the problems emerging from science and the relativism of historical studies. I was not, however, given an orthodox response to these problems. I was left to my own devices.

Unfortunately, many students graduate from seminary, start their pastorates, and under the pressure of daily administration and church duties, never take the time to challenge the defects of their seminary education. Some ascend to the Episcopate. They are elected, not because of their theological orthodoxy (many aren't orthodox), but because they are good administrations with successful resumes portraying their management skills. They know how to preach inclusive sermons about love and acceptance, but little about judgment, repentance, and forgiveness. In this sense, the present decline of the church is not due to the seminaries alone, but simply due to the fact that the church as a whole, laity and clergy, select leaders who reflect the tolerance, good will, and niceness esteemed by the Episcopal slice of our pluralistic culture.

The Episcopal Church will probably divide, a remnant will split off from the main body. Whether this remnant is simply reacting to the obvious errors of liberalism or rigorously addressing fundamental biblical and theological issues, remains to be seen. I must say, however, that I have not read too many essays that address the fundamental issues. To that end, let me invite the reader to continuing reading this web site where I do my best to address these matters.

Whatever happens, we can be sure of one thing: God will reform his church, seminaries and all, with or without us.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
November, 2004