[Magdalen] The Value of Seminary in a World Gone Mad | Kyle Roberts

[Lynn Ronkainen]

Having started my business (vesting clergy who were drawn to my contemporary designs) by visiting/displaying in seminaries (primarily Episcopalian, with a few Methodist on occasion) 30 years ago I can say that all of the Episcopalian seminaries have changed and morphed over that time- the ones that are still standing. The morphing at some seems to be survival mode - additional secular majors and distance learning. Some dioceses have created education modules for permanent deacons or "local" stay-in-the-diocese appointments (has a special name which escapes me just now)although many of those priests seem to eventually find calls outside the dio, at least here in dio TX where we have the/a Iona program (I believe others so named exist in other dioceses). And of course this is just the in the Episcopal church. 
The proliferation of nondenominational churches with "raised up" pastors/preachers has also muddied the waters of the big picture value of a grounded rigorous seminary education IMO. 

We live in interesting times. 
Lynn

On Sep 27, 2018, at 8:31 AM, Scott Knitter <scottknitter at gmail.com> wrote:

A friend and former fellow parishioner just started at Berkeley-Yale
Divinity School and sent me a copy of all his syllabi on my request. He's
got tons of reading to do, including something like 12 books he needed to
have read before the first day of classes. Looks like a rigorous semester,
anyway.

> On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 8:09 AM Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Depends on the person and the seminary, I would think. My priest graduated
> from an Orthodox seminary and has a boatload of theology. Of course he was
> a philosophy major in college and had an interesting religious background
> before that, so I'm sure that makes a great deal of difference. Somewhere
> along the line he also picked up a social work minor too so he could do an
> "outside" job. He's one of the best educated people I know around here.
> 
>> On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 6:37 AM ME Michaud <michaudme at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Yes and no, I think.
>> Someone close to me graduated from seminary a couple of years ago. He
> seems
>> to have learned almost nothing. No theology, no church history, damn
> little
>> homiletics.
>> Lots of social gospel, some of it quite bizarre.
>> Result: Nothing remotely resembling professional self-confidence.
>> -M
>> 
>> 
>> On Wednesday, September 26, 2018, Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Very timely and interesting article about a Seminary education in our
>>> polarized world today.
>>> 
>>> Lynn
>>> 
>>> 
>>> http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unsystematictheology/2018/02/
>>> value-seminary-world-gone-mad/
>>> 
>> 
> 


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA