Why Methodist seminaries are becoming irrelevant and dying

July 7, 3:25 PMMethodist ExaminerJames-Michael Smith

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[This article was written by Dr. Riley Case of The Confessing Movement within the United Methodist Church.  As a graduate of one of the top seminaries in the country, and one that has been removed from the list of approved UMC seminaries, Methodist Examiner James-Michael Smith WHOLEHEARTEDLY agrees with Dr. Case's assessment and urges Methodists everywhere to raise this issue with their Bishops, District Superintendents and Pastors.]

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These are tough times for church institutions and agencies.

Right across the board--progressive, evangelical, in the U.S. or overseas--church groups are struggling because of the economic recession. The Billy Graham Association is laying off 55 workers, or 10% of its staff. The Association's budget is being cut 15%, to about 84 million.

Christianity Today is shutting down four publications (it has 9 more still in operation) and laying off 31 (or 22%) of its staff. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) is reducing its next year's budget by $5.6 million and has eliminated 23 jobs. Other staff salaries have reduced 3%. The Presbyterian Church (USA) has dropped 56 jobs since September of last year. The Friends Committee on National Legislation has cut 12 staffers. The Church of the Brethren has simply closed its Washington office.

As for United Methodists, the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) is reducing the 2009 operating budget by $3.9 million, or 7%, which will include cutting 17 staff positions. The Publishing House has indicated it will not be able to donate the $1 million to annual conferences for pastors' pensions. The Board of Discipleship (GBOD) has laid off 30 employees since January. The bishops have voted to roll back their salaries in 2010 to 2008 levels, from $125,658 to $120,942.

Annual conferences are facing similar cut-backs. Clergy pensions and retired clergy health benefits are facing deductions. Local churches are eliminating staff positions.

United Methodism's seminaries (and indeed, seminaries of all traditions) are also facing budgeting problems. While some seminaries are well endowed, the endowments are themselves suffering as the result of falling stock markets. In this climate it is time to ask the tough (actually it shouldn't be such a tough question since the answer would seem obvious) question: does The United Methodist Church have too many seminaries?

Forty years ago, at the time of the Methodist-EUB merger, the newly formed United Methodist Church declared that the combined fourteen seminaries of the new denomination were too many and not well located to be effective. The General Conference mandated (or at least strongly recommended) at least two mergers. One merger did take place: Evangelical Seminary merged with Garrett Biblical Institute to form Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. The other logical merger, United (former EUB) in Dayton, and METHESCO, in Delaware, Ohio, never took place.

Because there were too many seminaries chasing too few students, the seminaries made urgent pleas for help. The church responded by establishing the Ministerial Education Fund in 1972, a "bail-out" fund before the term "bail-out" was widely used. The fund would subsidize US seminaries (but do nothing for overseas seminaries where the help was really needed) to the tune of $15 million a year. This means that over the 40-year period since 1970 the church has poured $600 million into the seminaries.

Since the merger The United Methodist Church has lost 3 million members. Despite the loss of 27% of its membership there has been no reduction in the number of seminaries to serve the smaller denomination. Enrollment has plummeted in many of the seminaries. At Garrett Evangelical, there were 73 graduates in the 2009 class. Fifty years ago (before the merger) Garrett alone graduated 153.

One of the unfortunate by-products of this pressure to keep the seminaries viable has been the effort to force students to attend these United Methodist seminaries. Numbers of excellent seminaries, where students would prefer to attend, have been disapproved for the training of United Methodist seminaries in an effort to force students to attend United Methodist seminaries.

There is a further question as to whether these seminaries are really serving the church. Claremont School of Theology was put on probation in 2006 by the Association of Theological Schools, and in danger of losing accreditation because of continual bleeding red ink. The school has recently announced, with great fanfare, that its financial house is now in order. Not only that but, thanks to a $5 million gift by an anonymous donor, it is transforming itself into a "multifaith university," with a new vision and a new mission statement and a new set of values.

The new vision and new mission statement and new set of values say nothing about Jesus Christ, nothing about preparing pastors, nothing about United Methodism, nothing about theology or Biblical studies, and nothing about the Christian Church. The statements stress preparing "leaders" for an increasingly diverse, multi-faith world. As evidence of what the seminary is all about, a Muslim graduate of the class of 2009 read from the Koran at the graduation ceremonies.

Claremont can obviously do what it wants to do. But does The United Methodist Church need continually to pour $1 million yearly into such an institution? Isn't The United Methodist Church supposed to be something about winning disciples to Jesus Christ?

The University Senate while disapproving numbers of excellent seminaries because they do not "reflect United Methodist ethos" evidently feels that Claremont does reflect "United Methodist ethos." It is a strange understanding of United Methodist ethos.

So the question remains. Does The United Methodist Church have too many seminaries? The church downsizes programs and personnel; when will it begin to downsize the total number of seminaries?

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Thanks to Rev. Talbot Davis and Rev. John Wesley Slider for bringing this article to my attention.  -JMS