Culture and Seminary

Posted by Scott McClellan on June 8th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

While interviewing author/filmmaker/professor Craig Detweiler (Purple State of Mind, Into the Dark) for the upcoming July/August issue of COLLIDE, our conversation took an interesting turn toward the importance of culturally aware pastors and the impact that might have on the traditional seminary education. Unfortunately, we didn’t have room for that part of the discussion in the print article, but I wanted to share some of Craig’s thoughts with you anyway. It went a little something like this:

COLLIDE: It seems to me that the majority of seminaries spend the majority of their students’ time focusing on 1st-century culture. Is there going to be a shift toward incorporating 21st-century culture as well? Or is that ahead of its time?

Detweiler: No, that’s the right question. Seminaries were created in an era where ministers were prepared to have the most information. The ministers were supposed to be the most educated and the most informed about the Scriptures.

COLLIDE: The most literate maybe?

Detweiler: The most literate. And none of that has necessarily changed, but we’re now dealing with an age of too much information. And so, the job is to help people sort through all of the inputs to find out what matters amongst the avalanche of information. It’s about pointing people to reliable sources, pointing people to credible interpretations, inviting people into ongoing dialogue with their friends, neighbors, and coworkers around the pop cultural expressions. So, it’s moving the seminary education from pastor as most informed to pastor as most insightful because people no longer have an information problem. It’s not about lack of information. It’s about lack of discernment. Information is available to all. Wisdom and discernment remain rarer than ever.

COLLIDE: So, is that change going happen at seminaries anytime soon?

Detweiler: The best seminaries for the 21st century will be born in the 21st century.

Well, what do you think? Does the traditional seminary education need to grow to include preparation for navigating a congregation through the 21st century? Why or why not?

To make sure you receive the July/August issue of COLLIDE so you can read the rest of our interview with Craig, subscribe today!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 2:10 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “Culture and Seminary”

Yeah, of course seminaries need to change. I don’t know if the best seminaries will be born in the 21st century, I think the best Bible schools maybe, I don’t know what his definition of seminary is. Seminaries are a dying breed, I think that the ones at the end of the 21st century that are still here will be the ones that made a shift. I believe there will continue to be many great ministry training centers all over the world though that aren’t necessarily seminaries.

posted at 7:01 pm on June 8th, 2008 by Ross Middleton

Thanks for sharing this piece with us! I serve full-time in Student Ministry for a great church. To enhance my ministry, we decided that I should enroll at a nearby denominational seminary. I dropped out after 7 classes because I found the seminary was so out-of-touch with my ministry today.

I believe we need a more Biblical model of relational education, similar to what Jesus did with His disciples. Teach the Scriptures in relational communities, partnering seminarians with Godly pastors in the field who will disciple them in the Spirit. Wisdom and Discernment will come as we draw closer to God through the Scriptures, Prayer, Fasting and other spiritual disciplines.

posted at 7:25 pm on June 8th, 2008 by Jason Christ

Not only must the seminaries include culture in their curriculum, they must do it as soon as possible. Some of the guys in our church were taking a “church and technology” course at one of the big-name seminaries. Would you believe they were still discussing how to handle email and should you use projectors? No wonder people think we’re out of touch and irrelevant. Interacting with culture IS what defines a Christian.

posted at 8:55 pm on June 8th, 2008 by Marla Saunders

Unfortunately past generations valued information rather than transformation. Christian culture has excelled at creating a movement where we have the trained (pastors/professors @ seminary/seminary students) and the untrained (everyone else) and failed to empower people to live out the call God has on everyone’s life (not just the trained). Well we need some sort of training, to better equip those who will do ministry…culture awareness is only part of the solution.

With more and more pastor’s failing morally, finincally, and doing things counter to the gospel…we need less professors (most of whom have never done ministry-other than at college) and more mentors-disciplers.

posted at 9:41 am on June 9th, 2008 by Kevin Mattison

I think it’s a good call to change that all the seminaries need to hear. I think the best ones know they need to incorporate culture into their curriculum and are trying to, with some success and some failure—at least that was my experience in seminary. I do not regret going and learned tools that help me every day in my ministry (although probably about 1/3 of what I learned in seminary falls into that category). I think it’s quite a stretch to say that the best seminaries for the 21st century will be born in the 21st century. Certainly that’s not true for the 20th century for seminaries or for colleges—generally the ones that are the best are the ones that have stood the test of time and been willing to change with the times—a rare but necessary combination.

posted at 2:52 pm on June 9th, 2008 by Eddie H

I think that there are some valid points made here. I wish the article where longer and could have gone into greater detail so that I could better understand what is really meant by this, but I do think that seminaries should be careful about too much of a focus on the 21st century.

Its true that many seminaries focus a lot of time on 1st century culture (and even further back in history as well) but that is because this is an important element of a seminary education. I would argue that a truly informed understanding of what the Gospel means in the 21st Century requires an informed understanding of what it meant at the time it was written. If we are to correctly contextualize the Gospel to our current culture we need to understand it in its original context (i.e. When Paul writes to Corinth, why does he say what he says and why does he say it the way he does?) Understanding this helps us to declare the timeless truths of the Gospel properly.

That said, I do think that seminaries should encourage and push their student to be sure that they not only have a historical understanding of the Gospel but a proper understanding of how to put it into a context that can be understood by the culture they are being sent to.

posted at 4:44 pm on June 9th, 2008 by Brian Ayers

I was incredibly fortunate to get a MA from a seminary doing it right. They did the smartest thing I’ve ever heard of any seminary doing - they went out and found the very BEST creative arts pastor available. He was in the middle of the sweet spot of his pastorate. And they hired him, part-time. Then, they asked him to come up with a graduate program for those of us wanting to take the next step. He did NOT quit his job. He simply expanded it to us.

We would constantly visit other churches in the Los Angeles area, meeting with their creative media staff members. No question was out of bounds.

They hired trained Christian counselors to come in and lead classes on our emotional challenges, especially those challenges uniquely related to the pastoral profession. We studied addiction, people-pleasing, and control freaks.

They challenged us with the mission of the church.

At regular intervals, a live band would come in an teach us how to play with dynamic. We learned how to sing. We studied the Psalms, in depth. It was incredible.

And… here’s the coolest thing of all. I was 38 years old, a father of 3 girls, and I only had to attend for 3 weeks per year. The rest of the experience was an online blogging course, moderated by the Chair of the program. We read every ministry book out there, and then some more. We wrote more papers than I knew could be written.

And it was amazing. It literally set me up for everything I do today, every day.

This is truly a seminary who is listening, shifting, and desperate for the Kingdom to be seen in this generation of leaders.

posted at 9:26 pm on June 9th, 2008 by Gary Molander

[…] Magazine has an excerpt of an interview/article with Craig Detweiler on the the state of seminary, Culture and Seminary. In what I read so far, Craig brings up some interesting points. COLLIDE: It seems to me that the […]

posted at 11:47 pm on June 9th, 2008 by » The Changing Seminary–The Changing Pastor

@Kevin Mattison - I totally agree with you, the Gospel transforms the heart, we are in an age were we need more pastors/ministers to 1. Know the truths of the Gospel and 2. Teach and disciples them to their people. The Gospel is culture-less. It impacts a heart and transforms a man in the jungles of Africa in the same way it does in suburbia America. The problem is for it to transform it must be preached, the absolute Truth of the gospel, so many are teaching watered down, “your best life now” messages that the are unable to transform, there for we tend to look at the state of culture or church rather than are we hearing THE Gospel? Man desires sin. The Gospel changes man’s desires to be of God. Any day, any year, any century. God has never changed, nor has the state of man. Only by the blood of Christ can it.

Check out 1 Corin. 2:6-16 v.12 “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

posted at 1:23 pm on June 11th, 2008 by Bill

[…] Pastor where Scott McClellan of Collide Magazine interviews Craig Detweiler in the article Culture and Seminary. Here is a brief exchange: Detweiler: No, that’s the right question. Seminaries were created in […]

posted at 10:13 am on July 23rd, 2008 by » Thinking Out Loud: Making Disciples in an Age of Information Extraction

[…] Pastor where Scott McClellan of Collide Magazine interviews Craig Detweiler in the article Culture and Seminary. Here is a brief exchange: Detweiler: No, that’s the right question. Seminaries were created in […]

posted at 3:33 pm on July 23rd, 2008 by Thinking Out Loud: Making Disciples in an Age of Information Extraction « Collection of Crumbs

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