How to Save Seminary: an uncommon proposal.
Alan Rudnick is an American Baptist pastor with some good ideas about seminary. In a series of posts here and here , he engages with an Atlantic article about the crushing debt and poor job prospects. His solution is novel and practical; take the degree online and reduce the M.Div degree to 45 units. I do not know if this is possible according to the accrediting agencies, but the idea has merit, and seminaries are struggling. It is an important discussion, and one that leads me down a different but related path of thought; maybe seminary should not train for ministry at all? I am struck by some of the comments in the comment sections of such posts about seminary and church (to be clear - not from Mr. Rudnick himself,) and those I hear elsewhere that it has become too academic and does not train ministers to minister. I think it it is worth examining whether or not seminary can actually do that. Perhaps seminaries are not too academic, but rather, they are the
