Proposal for a New Kind of Seminary
My review of Mark Strom’s Reframing Paul and my more recent post concerning John Armstrong’s article “Getting the Role of the Pastor Right” generated discussion about how we train and ordain pastors. I was delighted, therefore, to stumble across a 1972 essay by Reformed Theological Seminary professor John Frame entitled “A Proposal for a New Seminary.” My wife and I are currently seminary students, and being inside the system has caused me to think deeply and often about why we do it the way we do it.
Even though in the 1979 and 2001 postscripts he added to the original article he backs away from some of the more radical aspects of his original proposal, Frame’s article still packs a punch to the guts of our modern seminary system. Here’s a taste…
I propose first that we dump the academic model once and for all - degrees, accreditation, tenure, the works…The academic machinery is simply incapable of measuring the things that really matter - a man’s obedience to God’s Word, his perseverance in prayer, his self control, his ability to rule without pride, the spiritual power of his preaching in the conversion of men and the edification of the church… A man does riot become qualified for the ministry simply by writing a number of good papers and memorizing enough material to pass all his exams. To give the impression that he does, as the theological “academies” do, is to encourage a false pride in learning a knowledge that “puffs up,” (I Cor. 8: 1), a gnosticism that in the past has led the church far from the truth of God’s Word.
In place of the academy model, Frame proposed an updated version of the way ministers were trained before the rise of the seminary system in the 19th century: by living and working in churches under an organized system of mentor/teachers. David Brainerd, whose posthumously published journals almost singlehandedly launched the modern missionary movement, was kicked out of Yale (back when it was primarily a school for training ministers). He went on to live and work with a parish minister, who in addition to providing “on the job” training set up for him a rigorous reading list that enabled Brainerd later on to hold his own in conversations with the brilliant Jonathan Edwards.
The question I want to ponder is whether the professional school type of training provided in the traditional seminary is really the best way of producing church leaders in this postmodern age. Good related reading would be John Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not Professionals.
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August 22nd, 2005 at 9:32 am
Hey!!! He calls it gnosticism, too!
August 22nd, 2005 at 2:14 pm
It seems to me that something along the lines of the “Proposal” is going on with C. J. Maheney and Sovereign Grace Ministries at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD.
August 22nd, 2005 at 3:35 pm
Excellent call, Kyle! I don’t know intimate details about their program, but what I do know of it sounds very much like what we’re talking about here. I do know that they very carefully shepherd the training of their new, young pastors.
August 23rd, 2005 at 10:16 am
I’m an academic so I’m probably biased, but I guess I’d like something more both/and than either/or (though Frame’s proposal does preserve some of that both/and-ness).
Perhaps something more like an adapted medieval model would work well, where seminarians are under spiritual direction, serve parishes, pray the Hours together, share in the lectionary, etc. I also think the compartmentalization of disciplines is problematic, so that exegesis and church history and dogmatic theology and liturgy are too sharply distinguished.
But I don’t have a proposal, so feel free to ignore me.
August 23rd, 2005 at 1:03 pm
Don’t sweat it, Joel…Frame doesn’t really have much of a proposal either
at least not in the details.
Online last night, I ran across another group of churches who are attempting something like what we’ve been talking about here. The Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches, associated with Doug Wilson and Peter Leithart, encourages its member churches to educate and train their developing pastoral candidates within the church itself, including instruction in the biblical languages. From what I’ve seen, their churches tend to attract people with the background and intellectual ability to actually do that. Richard O. from Lynchburg, a sometimes reader of this blog, is a member of one of their churches, so if he sees this perhaps he would add some insight.
August 29th, 2005 at 10:58 am
Thanks for this. What I’ve seen of these church-based ministry training centers firsthand has left something to be desired (e.g. personally I’d prefer to combine such training with traditional seminary education), but that’s not to undermine what these churches are trying to do, or their vision. They’re still just trying to figure out how to do this, and it takes some time to realize the vision of any new work.
August 29th, 2005 at 1:14 pm
I’m sure there’s plenty of shoddy ones out there, Jon. But because of this post I’ve been hearing about some very good ones as well, programs that include seminary level classwork (including original languages).
August 30th, 2005 at 10:55 am
I hope I didn’t sound like I was disparaging these centers; that certainly wasn’t my intention. I’m sure there are a lot of shoddy ones out there, too, but I haven’t seen them firsthand. I’ve just seens centers that have come into existence during the last five or ten years and that, thus, have less experience at what they do (compared to the amount of experience that, say, WTS has at what it does, acknowledging that the two do different things).
It also occurred to me that other traditions do something similar or better. E.g. in the Anglican tradition, most aspirants go through a couple years of parish internship/discernment process; then three-four years of seminary; eventually being ordained to the diaconate and then, six months to a year later, the priesthood, during which transitional time (from deacon to priest) they serve at least a year as a curate or assistant pastor under care of an experienced rector. I think that’s a pretty ideal model, although it’s certainly a long row to hoe. The fast track in summary: 2 years of internship/discernment + 3 years of seminary + 1 year of curacy = 6 years total!
August 30th, 2005 at 3:39 pm
That’s interesting, Jon. I was vaguely aware that there was a “row to hoe” in the Church of England, but didn’t know the details until now.
Much of my ajita about all this probably comes from my background in the fundamentalist/evangelical world. It’s much more typical there for young pastors to be thrown into their first church ministry with very little mentoring, or even schooling, in some cases.
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:07 am
[...] A while back we had a brief discussion here over a plea for a “new kind of seminary” from Dr. John Frame (formerly of WTS, now at RTS Orlando). In that essay, Frame traced the history of modern seminaries back to the 19th century, where respectable American Protestants wanted to have a proper professional school for their pastors just as they expected for their doctors and lawyers. Until the last generation seminaries were, by-and-large, exactly that exclusively. In the last couple decades, though, there has been an increasing number of students at most seminaries, WTS included, who have no intention of entering traditional pastoral ministry. They are there for various reasons: to train for work in parachurch ministries, as Christian school teachers, as counselors, or just to become more educated lay persons. Some come just to sort out their own spiritual problems or curiosities. [...]
October 19th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
Brothers,
I just came across your post about church-based pastoral training. I am the Dean of such a program called the Reformed Evangelical Pastors College. It was largely inspired by Frame’s Proposal. You may be interested in reading about it at training-pastors dot com.
Warmly,
Stephen Baker
October 19th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Thank you, Stephen. I will take a look at your site as soon as possible. Since this is an old post, perhaps I’ll do a re-post on this topic with reference to your site if it is as related as you say.