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Choosing a Seminary President

My friend, Ron Benefiel, recently stepped down from his role as seminary president. The search to fill the opening has me thinking about the role of seminary leaders in our changing world.

From my view, Ron did an excellent job as seminary president of Nazarene Theological Seminary. The seminary and denomination are greatly indebted to him. Ron departed in large part because his wife is dealing with cancer. My prayers are with her, Ron, and their family.

Financial Expectations

Like any leadership position, a multitude of expectations comes with the position of seminary president. As the old saying goes, only Jesus could meet them all.

Recent trends have changed some expectations. We no longer expect seminary presidents to be exactly what they were decades ago.

Most seminaries receive far less financial support from their sponsoring denominations. Both mainline and Evangelical seminaries suffer from the decline in denominational giving to education. The economy in recent years hasn’t helped. Some seminaries receive less than half what their denominations gave them even three years ago!

Although they give less money, denominations typically want to maintain whatever level of influence they enjoyed in the past. This creates tension. As seminaries increasingly rely upon student tuition and outside funding instead of denominational resources, seminaries understandably feel less obliged to follow the advice of denominational leaders.

While seminary presidents have always been asked to help raise money, many who think about the president job description expect candidates to excel in this practice today. The financial stakes are high.

Cutting-edge or Cutting Off?

Seminary presidents must attract students eager to minister in a postmodern world. But they also must assure traditional ecclesial leaders and financial supporters.

On one hand, students today are attracted to seminaries addressing cutting-edge questions. Many want to study under faculty with the reputation for leading from the frontline. Seminary presidents do well to portray their institutions as engaging leading issues under the direction of leading thinkers.

On the other hand, financial supporters and ecclesial leaders often want seminaries to follow traditional ways. They worry when seminary education becomes too progressive, too faddish, or too “ivory tower.” Seminary presidents do well to portray their schools as preparing students for the practical demands of ministry.

Seminaries not willing to engage exciting questions with exciting faculty are cut off many students’ lists of potential schools. Seminaries not willing to follow proven paths of pastoral preparation can be cut off denominational support. And donors with a conservative view of what seminary education should entail may not want to provide funding.

Seminary presidents must strike the right measure of cutting-edge engagement and time-honored ministerial training. That’s not easy!

The Technology of Education

Technology changes constantly. But many seminaries do not have the financial resources and/or desire to keep up with those changes. Seminary presidents must make tough choices about how much technology to embrace in the educational process.

Seminary presidents work with professors. It’s natural for professors to want to follow the educational delivery model they learned when students. They understandably prefer using teaching practices that have worked for them in the past. Encouraging professors to learn new educational methods or become more technologically savvy can be a chore.

Many seminaries have generally been slow to embrace online education. Most are built on a face-to-face delivery system that, to a greater or lesser degree, competes with online teaching. Many have bricks and mortar costs that work against the nimbleness required of online education.

My own institution embraced online teaching for graduate theological education more than a decade ago. While not perfect, it allows us to lead in teaching undergraduate and graduate students. But this change requires great commitment in terms of time, finances, and learning.

Mainstream theological education is generally suspicious of online educational modalities. The Associated Theological Schools (ATS), for instance, does not yet accredit degrees delivered fully online. (My own institution is fully credited regionally.) To remain viable in the future, however, ATS will need to change its accrediting policy.

Seminary presidents need to work in a new era of theological education delivery systems.

The Theological Core

Seminary presidents face changes in what counts as relevant theological education. Theology always changes. Keeping up with the changes is part of the seminary president’s job.

When I graduated from seminary near the end of the 20^th century, “contemporary theology” meant studying people like Paul Tillich and Thomas Altizer. It meant reading liberation theology from Gustavo Gutierrez or narrative theology from George Lindbeck.

When I teach contemporary theology today, I talk about postcolonial theologians, deconstructive theology, open and process theologies, radical orthodoxy, womanist theologies, and the role of science for theology. Some ideas in these theological movements were latent in previous theologies. But theologies influential today also ask radically new questions.

A seminary president must navigate these new waters. She or he must do so, while also affirming great theologies from the past and key ideas from the denomination or tradition’s heritage.

I’ve not even begun to address other important changes in biblical studies, philosophy, spiritual formation, missions, homiletics, etc. While seminary presidents need not and cannot know all changes in these disciplines, they at least need to be aware of what’s happening. It’s a difficult task!

Seminary presidents must also deal adequately with religious diversity. Some seminaries address the issues by discussing world religions in their classrooms. Others virtually ignore it.

One denominationally supported seminary – Claremont School of Theology – officially involves professors and students of various religious traditions and offers degrees in those religions. Understandably, a move like Claremont’s raises questions about a denomination’s financial support. But even critics admit such a move takes religious pluralism seriously.

Academy and Pew

The best seminary presidents walk and talk comfortably among academicians and laity. They care about the best in scholarship and in what happens among laity in the pew.

It takes an extraordinary person to move effortlessly between academic language and “plain talk for plain people.” It takes certain gifts to meet the expectations of the intellectual elite and "average Joes and Janes" in local churches.

To do well in these very different settings, many seminary presidents have both a Ph.D. and experience in ministry settings. This affords them “street cred” in the classroom and sanctuary. Such people have “lived” in both worlds.

Few people exist, however, with both doctoral degrees and traditional ministry experience. For this reason alone, finding capable seminary presidents is increasingly difficult.

Conclusion

There are other important issues to consider when choosing a seminary president. But these come quickly to my mind.

My prayer and support goes to selection committees who search for seminary presidents. They have a difficult – but extremely important – calling. The present and future church depends, in part, on choosing wisely.

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Posted in 2011 under ...and the Kitchen Sink

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