I agree with your bullet points. May I add that Seminary product is synthetic, not "organic", in your parliance. Seminary credentials are designed to bypass the requirements of church leaders that are laid out in Timothy and Titus, so to advance young and untested people onto the christian careerism conveyor belt.
I once sifted through about 45 resumes of applicants for a Senior Pastor role. 95% of them from the same seminary. 95% of them presenting a resume that begins with a proudly humble biography describing persistent failure at some set of ordinary ambitions while living life on an exploratory basis in their early 20s... and then finding their way to a redeeming Seminary education that revealed Social Justice to them. Frankly, many of them struck me as lazy slobs trying to use Social Justice as a sort of religious lipstick.
All of them seemed to have written similar papers with the same buzz-phrases for the same classes for the same professors and getting the same grades. I pictured Social-Justice McPastors flopping out the drive-thru window behind the McCalvinist McSeminary in located in Michigan. Many of the McCandidates were able to keenly ascertain, after knowing our Congregation for negative minutes, that what our church likely needed was more "Social Justice". This was the McVision of their McCalling. None of them seemed to grasp how reproducible they were, how trite, how check-boxy. A few of them seemed like they should try bagging groceries for a while... and then try to lead a church.
I quit the Pastor search team after a year of frustration because of the requirement for credentials from the denomination. I began to see seminary credentials as something below useless. I left the church and denomination after that. So I'm sorry I don't have a good ending for the story.
The stump of this story is just enough to show how and why I agree with your bullet points, Joel.
Thanks for the comment, Uncle Jim! Wow: "Seminary credentials are designed to bypass the requirements of church leaders"... what an indictment.
That is disappointing to hear. I know my seminary was mostly free from the Social Gospel form of Christianity, but it had its own McCalvinist synthetic product. All of it is a professional credential quite different from the full-orbed kind of maturity and character needed.
I also sympathize with the young pastors who are given positions that require expertise in organizational turn-around, accounting, management, and leadership but are only equipped with knowledge of the original languages. It's akin to a failure to properly arm and train military personnel. We need to adjust training to the actual needs at hand.
I agree with your bullet points. May I add that Seminary product is synthetic, not "organic", in your parliance. Seminary credentials are designed to bypass the requirements of church leaders that are laid out in Timothy and Titus, so to advance young and untested people onto the christian careerism conveyor belt.
I once sifted through about 45 resumes of applicants for a Senior Pastor role. 95% of them from the same seminary. 95% of them presenting a resume that begins with a proudly humble biography describing persistent failure at some set of ordinary ambitions while living life on an exploratory basis in their early 20s... and then finding their way to a redeeming Seminary education that revealed Social Justice to them. Frankly, many of them struck me as lazy slobs trying to use Social Justice as a sort of religious lipstick.
All of them seemed to have written similar papers with the same buzz-phrases for the same classes for the same professors and getting the same grades. I pictured Social-Justice McPastors flopping out the drive-thru window behind the McCalvinist McSeminary in located in Michigan. Many of the McCandidates were able to keenly ascertain, after knowing our Congregation for negative minutes, that what our church likely needed was more "Social Justice". This was the McVision of their McCalling. None of them seemed to grasp how reproducible they were, how trite, how check-boxy. A few of them seemed like they should try bagging groceries for a while... and then try to lead a church.
I quit the Pastor search team after a year of frustration because of the requirement for credentials from the denomination. I began to see seminary credentials as something below useless. I left the church and denomination after that. So I'm sorry I don't have a good ending for the story.
The stump of this story is just enough to show how and why I agree with your bullet points, Joel.
Thanks for the comment, Uncle Jim! Wow: "Seminary credentials are designed to bypass the requirements of church leaders"... what an indictment.
That is disappointing to hear. I know my seminary was mostly free from the Social Gospel form of Christianity, but it had its own McCalvinist synthetic product. All of it is a professional credential quite different from the full-orbed kind of maturity and character needed.
I also sympathize with the young pastors who are given positions that require expertise in organizational turn-around, accounting, management, and leadership but are only equipped with knowledge of the original languages. It's akin to a failure to properly arm and train military personnel. We need to adjust training to the actual needs at hand.