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Note: This essay first appeared in the
April 2008 Baptist Studies Bulletin.
Ron
Crawford, elected president of the Baptist Theological Seminary at
Richmond last year, is facing tough times at the Virginia-based
seminary. Moderate Baptist's first seminary formed in the wake of the
fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention, BTSR, now
in its 19th year,
"is
burdened with a $6 million debt and faces a significant deficit in its
budget this year," according to an Associated Baptist Press
article. Four of fifteen full-time professors, and at least three of
sixteen administrative staff, will be let go to bring costs under
control. Adjusting to financial strains that have hit Baptist and
other Christian groups across America in the face of national economic
malaise, Crawford expressed confidence that the crisis is short-term.
The lean years will serve to allow "the time to restructure and
refocus our efforts on responding to the challenge of providing
theological education in a 21st century world," Crawford noted.
BTSR deserves the prayers and support of moderate Baptists
during this difficult time. And Crawford's last statement deserves
serious attention from Baptists of all stripes. The "challenge of
providing theological education in the 21st century world" may be one
of the most difficult tasks facing Baptists this century. While there
is no shortage of Baptist seminaries at the moment, the dynamics of
the 21st century are calling into question the role of Protestant
seminaries in general as financial support from denominations wanes,
costs increase, ministerial callings change, and local church life
experiences fragmentation.
Nick Carter, president of American Baptist-affiliated
Andover Newton Theological School,
recently noted that “concepts of religious leadership,
mission, denomination and the status of ministry are being redefined.
Other than the Gospel itself, most of the assumptions that our
programs of study are based on are being swept away." Carter also
noted that seminary presidents "are asking what insights and skills
are essential for the practice of transformative ministry in the 21st
century, and how do we teach it?’”
The Southern Baptist Convention's answer to this question is
to cling ever more tightly to indoctrination. Within the past month,
for example, a federal judge in Texas ruled that
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is in effect a church
and that academic freedom is moot and gender discrimination
allowable.
But for many other Protestant seminaries―evangelical,
moderate, conservative or otherwise―education, rather than
indoctrination, is critical for future success. Nick Carter of
Andover Newton and David Kelsey, a professor of theology at the Yale
Divinity School,
point to the need for seminaries to provide training and
hands-on experience within the context of the cultural, economic and
pluralistic realities that are the 21st century.
In a broader sense, whereas Baptist seminaries in the past
existed almost exclusively for the purpose of supplying local church
pastors and denominational workers, today's challenge is to train a
generation of Baptist leaders whose primary places of future service
may well lie outside (or alongside but not within) the walls of church
buildings and the halls of denominational institutions. In the face of
an increasingly non-religious Western world, effectively communicating
theological concepts will be ever more challenging. Creativity and
entrepreneurship will be critical, and listening will be every bit as
important as proclamation.
The challenges now re-shaping our Baptist seminaries are not
insurmountable. But overcoming these hurdles will require committed
and innovative leadership to ensure that the best of our Baptist
traditions are carried forward in the sea of change that is our 21st
century world. |
