Is the sky falling or has a new day dawned?

I am in the interesting position here in the Diocese of Western Michigan to afford a culture shock that I have never had before. I grew up in Alpena, then moved to Midland and attended Holy Family, and became a postulant in the Diocese of Eastern Michigan—my home diocese since its creation in 1994. I went to seminary at Huron University College in London, Ontario, serving as one of the few American ‘outsiders’ before returning to the States permanently last spring. Now that I am in Western Michigan, I have found a new, unexpected outsider status. No, it isn’t simply my ‘foreign’ seminary experience or my different diocese that separates me. It’s that everyone seems to have gone to Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston Illinois. My Fresh Start group had five Seabury grads (out of seven of us). A recent dinner out with another couple of Gen X clergy was with two Seabury grads.

I normally don’t notice this, and as you can expect, I have come to expect being the outsider, but there was something different about it this past week: the recent announcement of the end of the traditional 3-year residential MDiv from Seabury. Our lunch on Thursday and my dinner on Friday were dominated by this discussion. Of course, I hadn’t read the statement published by the dean on Wednesday (2/20) or the article in Episcopal Life from Friday (2/22), but I missed out on the anguish and sorrow that they feel. It is that feeling of the end of legacy and of tectonic shifts that uproot those that long for the grounding of their seminary experience. I couldn’t share in that experience.

But from the statement itself, and the reaction from the deans at General and Church Divinity School of the Pacific, it appears that Seabury is not making a huge mistake in eliminating its moneymaker, but is perhaps jumping the shark.

In the opening paragraph, The Very Reverend Gary R. Hall, dean of Seabury-Western, suggests that:

There are, first, enormously creative opportunities facing seminaries today. Many areas of the church are developing new ways both of doing and preparing for ministry. And multiple church groups continue to call for a new range of educational services from our institutions of theological education: continuing education for clergy, lay education, distance learning, and consulting services for congregations and dioceses.

He continues in the second paragraph by stating:

At the same time, all the seminaries of the Episcopal Church face real economic and missional challenges. The stand-alone residential model developed in the nineteenth century is becoming unsustainable for most of our institutions. Bishops, congregations, and seminarians have fewer resources to allot to the education of seminarians. And the cost of theological education has resulted in an unprecedented level of student debt.

The dean suggests (in vague terms) that there are three major aspects to consider for the long-term future of seminary-led education in the Episcopal Church (as in every other church):

1. The current model is not sustainable and has not been sustainable (i.e. we can’t afford it today and won’t be able to afford it tomorrow).
2. The current model is not cost effective for postulants or dioceses and it may be deterring participation in seminary education.
3. At the same time, there are opportunities for new models of education that require the tools that Seabury can offer.

It would be easy to think that this is a ploy to get more money or is Chicken-Littleism run amok. You could hear the words “consulting services” and rightly worry that Seabury will slip from being a prominent seminary possessing a storied history into the morass of those independent spiritual organizations or to become a Political Action Committee or think tank, like those that line K-Street in D.C. I wouldn’t go there yet.

Perhaps none of us really knows what Seabury is starting to do and what they are about to come. Perhaps they themselves don’t know, but they are willing to test it out.

The simple truth is that our traditional understanding of congregational ministry is failing and our traditional understanding of diocesan structure is failing. It only seems reasonable, therefore, that our means of educating clergy would also be failing. With dioceses paying less and less of the tuition, this training that we so esteem is clearly becoming much less of an option. Throw in the effects on uprooting families (or splitting families apart for three years, perhaps including two summers), and the potential for traditional seminary training seem to be an increasing disadvantage for those with aspirations to ministry.

At the same time, many of our local dioceses are currently ill-equipped to do the training necessary to form our clergy in the way seminaries can. And speaking as a recent seminary graduate, Huron formed me in a completely different (and I think better) way than my supporting diocese would have (this isn’t a knock on Eastern Michigan, but a fist pump for Huron). Not to mention that the business of church will no doubt produce businesspeople, little priestly CEOs if you will, in place of the scholarly-trained clergy that we seem to want.

So here is what I think Seabury should do to change the model:

• They should encourage a radically new way of thinking of seminary-led training: out of a more monastic, residential theological training within an institution that reinforces an academic response to scripture: but to isolate the academic study from the seminary experience. It is, perhaps, an opportunity to take responsibility for the academic work of the education (perhaps through summer courses, independent studies, and consultation with individual dioceses) while shifting the field education and priestly training to the dioceses. This would lead to training that is directly related to the needs of the diocese and would allow for local accommodation that might encourage aspirants to ordination to eliminate the move to seminary and then the move to the first cure.
• This may also be able to enhance the training of mutual ministry support teams or total ministry teams. Giving some of these groups more exposure to seminary training, and bringing them up to appreciable, potentially universal standards.
• This would also encourage interested dioceses (most likely those from Province V) to not only collaborate in the education of the postulants, but would encourage a new education framework that could become not only more cost-effective, but would encourage more education for diocesan clergy through the expansion of diocesan examining chaplains.
• Further, the developed framework may lead to greater collaboration between neighboring dioceses within the Province, sharing in the training in aspiring clergy with the potentially greater opportunities for placing the individual after s/he completes the requisite training. With a greater hand in the development of the new clergyperson, the diocese will be confident in what s/he will need to know when embarking on his/her first cure, making that first experience more beneficial.
• Lastly, the emphasis of the training of new clergy in these two spheres: academic and priestly will no doubt deal with that cry every new priest shouts in his/her first year: “They never taught me this stuff in seminary!”

There are problems, of course. And I’m partial to the intensive seminary experience, if for no other reason than the Daily Office. But considering the evolving problems being faced by non-evolving institutions, it is wonderful that one seminary is willing to avoid extinction.

We’ll see if I’m right.