Posted on 12/09/2018 6:45:37 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Presbyterian pastor Ligon Duncan has listed out some of the biggest threats facing Christians seminaries in America, from unbelief to a lack of Biblical understanding in students.
Duncan, who is the chancellor of Reformed Theological Seminary in Mississippi, said in a video published on YouTube on Tuesday that one of the main threats facing theological education today is the undergraduate debt crisis.
The scholar warned that the debt is “causing a lot of students to stay away from graduate theological education who would really benefit from it both personally and in their public ministry.
Next, he said that there is a crisis in the devaluation of theological education.
“People don't have a high regard for what graduate theological education can provide people in preparing for the pastoral ministry.”
Duncan also warned of what he called the “perennial challenges of unbelief being propagated in theological institutions.” He said that such unbelief is not “committed to the inerrancy of Scripture” or to “classic Christian Orthodox theology” and the “Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Reformed Theological Seminary chancellor said that the biggest threat to theological education in North America, however, is people who think that “they can be adequately equipped for a lifetime of gospel ministry without really knowing their Bibles, and without really knowing theology.”
“We find today that more seminary students come to do graduate theological education with less knowledge of the Bible and theology than ever before. Fifty years ago, students came, they'd read through the Bible many times, they'd memorized a lot of the Bible, they had done their catechisms, they had been schooled in theology in their home churches.”
Today, however, churches are not “equipping people in the same way with a knowledge of the Bible and a theology,” he argued.
“So if people who know less Bible and less theology think that knowing more Bible, more theology is irrelevant to ministry, we're in trouble,” he warned.
Theology professors have also long been warning that biblical illiteracy in America has reached a "crisis point."
Kenneth Berding, professor of New Testament at Biola's Talbot School of Theology, told The Christian Post back in 2014 that biblical literacy has reached an "all-time low."
"My own experience teaching a class of new college freshman every year for the past 15 years suggests to me that although students 15 years ago knew little about the Bible upon entering my classes, today's students on average know even less about the Bible," Berding said back then.
In an article titled "The Crisis of Biblical Illiteracy and What We Can Do About It," the theology professor said that Christians “used to be known as 'people of one book.' They memorized it, meditated on it, talked about it and taught it to others," he wrote.
"We don't do that anymore, and in a very real sense we're starving ourselves to death,” he added.
I’d add to this a lack of knowledge of the original languages. Most MDiv degrees require only two Hebrew and two Greek. And that’s in Christian seminaries. Roman Catholic seminaries often only require Latin with no original language requirement.
Why would an RCC seminary need Greek and Hebrew....
It’s not like they regard the God-breathed theopneustos Scriptures as the final authority.
Liberalism. It’s full blown in the churches.
After that, if he thinks he is fit to preach the gospel, he only needs to cleanse his palate of contemporary cultural spew and lefty garbage. Then he has a fighting chance of actually bringing the Word and winning some souls for Christ.
It’s getting worse too, because I’ve noticed a tendency recently, for churches to use paraphrases like The Message, The Living Bible, and The Passion Translation, as their main Scripture passages during church messages.
While some expounding can help clarify a passage, I see it as danger in that it’s a subtle shift from a good solid translation to something that is squishier.
Satan HATES the word of God and would love nothing more than to get people away from it.
My pastor has several seminary degrees. He is very skilled in Greek and Hebrew. He is also a strong critic of seminary training feeling that seminaries spend all their time training more seminary professors and not really training people in pastoral skills. He believes that seminaries teach their graduates how to ‘talk the talk’ but not to ‘walk the walk.’
Quote(Any serious student of the Bible needs to know Latin, Classical Greek, and Hebrew. That is not to say that he should not also be conversant with issues of exegesis as explored by centuries of scholars.)
People can know zero Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and yet understand the apostle Paul has a different first/chief importance of the gospel than the Christian seminaries.
That takes only understanding the language one learned as a child.. if they have a Bible in that same language.
And it would be interesting if the Christian seminaries would see their biggest threat at that point- the bible itself..
A twist of irony for the serious students of the bible to gnaw on..
I’m not convinced “theology” is very useful to anyone. God isn’t someone you study. He isn’t a butterfly or electricity. He is someone you need to KNOW, not KNOW ABOUT. There is a reason the Bible isn’t a text in Systematic Theology.
I moved a lot in the military. A pastor who is sincere is in the top 50% of pastors I’ve met!
Duncan’s denomination requires at least a year of internship in addition to the seminary education in an effort to address the issue of practical skills.
Among the men whose Christian advice I would most seek out, two of them wouldn't have a chance to pass a theology exam. You would have a hard time finding two men who are more knowledgeable about their Bibles or who more consistently live out their Christian faith. Honestly, I'd rather have men like this leading a church than the typical seminary graduate. Seminaries tend to put way too much emphasis on the academic training and far too little on the pastoral elements.
That is commendable but I'm not sure that it is sufficient.
1. Boy buggering.
Duncan has taken a long swallow of social justice kool aid. Social justice is metasticizing in seminaries.
My sons 4 year m div program included Hebrew, Greek, and a year of vicarage as well as pastoral training. They are out there you just have to look for them. He is a well trained servant of the Word.
Pope Francis and his homo bishops and seminary rectors.
Heretics and apostates within like Homosexuals, Islamist apologists, etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.