As president of Union Theological Seminary, I am very proud of this institution's 175-year history as a force for socially-engaged Christianity in America and around the world. It's fascinating to me, though, how many people know of Union but have absolutely no idea what happens on our campus, or at other seminaries.
If you announce plans to attend law, medical, or business school, your friends and family will have a fairly good idea what you'll be doing for the next few years. Share your goal to become a seminarian, however, and you likely will be met with puzzled, if not skeptical, looks. Images of medieval, monastic endeavors are conjured, happening at a place where those who are excessively pious go to become even more excessively pious. And, they probably wear long brown robes.
While it's true that Union's front door opens onto a convent-like courtyard -- where the commotion of Manhattan is stilled -- that's about all we share with our medieval forebears. Today's students, both bleary-eyed and overly-caffeinated, wear hipster sneakers, or bow ties, or industrial earrings. Their conversations range from the ethics of organic vegetables, to the religious roots of 12-step programs. Just this last year, we welcomed to our chapel speakers ranging from popular columnist Dan Savage and artist Marina Abramovic, to the great pulpit preacher Reverend Dr. James Forbes.
Coming from a Latin word for "seed," a seminary is a garden where new ideas and new viewpoints are carefully cultivated. And, not just so-called "religious" ideas, either. Union, you see, embodies a model of protestant education created by John Calvin, the 16th-century French intellectual and Genevan Reformer. Calvin advocated that to discern the meaning of life, you must study everything -- math, science, history, and languages -- and all with equal intensity of purpose.
We tend to forget many of America's best-known academic institutions -- Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Duke, Emory, and Vanderbilt, to name only a few -- were originally founded as seminaries. To become ministers, students at these schools were given what we now think of as a "liberal arts" education. Union Theological Seminary still stands by this broad ideal of intellectual freedom. The more we know about the world, the more we know about ourselves. As we understand ourselves better, we gain a greater understanding of God. And the more we come to know God, the more truly we know ourselves.
With fundamentalism of all sorts on the rise in the religious realm, and ever-more narrowly-defined partisan rhetoric overtaking the political, this academic goal -- no limits; no "off limits" -- is just as crucially relevant now as it was in Calvin's day.
There are basically two types of students who show up at Union each autumn, ready to engage in such a fearless style of learning. First, and most traditionally, are those who've grown up in a church or a faith-based community, and are now highly-motivated to become a pastor or religious leader. They are Baptists, Unitarians, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and the list goes on. They've come to Union because they want to be on the leading edge of religious leaders who are rethinking church life, to make it more faithful and pertinent.
Secondly, and equally important, are those who might not have grown up in churches, or read the Bible, or even heard of John Calvin, yet they're drawn to Union because of spiritual yearnings and an abiding concern about social justice. Most of these students aren't headed towards traditional pulpits, but to work in the non-profit realm or other professional environments. We teach the value of community and the joy of connecting with people who are different from them, yet with whom they can find great common cause. All our students discover they're not the first seminarians to ask hard questions about society, to push the boundaries of what is considered acceptable theology, or to protest against abuses done in
the name of God. In our classes they meet centuries of rebels who have put their lives on the line to stand up for unpopular causes. Moreover, they learn that deep thought and wise action requires rigorous study.
How do we discern a truth that can grasp us fully, and what is demanded of our lives when we stand, humbly, before this truth? A seminary education centers on thinking about the "why" of existence, and making it come alive in a vision for both what the world is, and could be.
It is demanding work -- and satisfying beyond belief.
Because organized religion is a very lucrative con.
New storefront or industrial park office churches opening every day. All hoping to become the next Crystal Cathedral televangelist millionaire. Saul of Tarsus was no different.
But they all grew up and became real schools so I'm not understanding this comparison at all. Are you saying that one day, you too will be an actual learning institution?
- Professional ministry is a disaster. Ministers have the highest rates of stress, alcohol abuse, and depression among any professions.
- Prepare to be broke, poor, and in debt forever. The average graduate is $39,000 in debt - and going into a field where the average annual salary is $25,000.
- In fact, 25% of seminary graduates end up leaving ministry and finding another career. 50% of them have to work a second job to pay their bills.
- The mainstream churches represented by liberal seminaries are dead. They've lost anywhere for 20-50% of their total memberships over the past 30 years, and the trend continues. There are fewer churches to hire seminary graduates, and the remaining churches can barely pay their bills, let alone you.
- An M.Div, the "professional" degree for ministry, won't earn you one cent more - not like other fields, where your education tends to increase salary. In fact, ironically, many of the highest paid pastors (almost all of them being conservative, of course) working today never set foot in a traditional seminary.
Bottom line: if you're looking for a way to completely waste $50,000 or more, with no hope of ever recouping the loss, yeah, go to seminary.
Your concerns are no doubt valid. I myself begin a Master's program at Union this Fall, so actually I do appreciate the realism of your perspective, but just because you didn't have the experience you wanted (or perhaps failed to take advantage of as much as you should have) doesn't mean the seminary experience is DOA.
You don't know of anyone who has benefited from seminary? And I don't just mean materially but spiritually. Knowing the people I do in NYC and at Union who have had their lives defined in such an incredible and positive way by their seminary experience makes your whole point seem very shallow, no matter how many facts and figures you throw out there.
Have others benefited from seminary "spiritually?" I can't answer that question because its poorly defined and utterly subjective. What is "spiritual" and how is it improved or degraded?
When the mistake of choosing seminary now forces me to subsist on food stamps and worry constantly about how to feed my family, trust me it's far more than a "shallow" issue. If you enjoy having any kind of security and plan on raising a family some day you might want to reconsider your choice.
Nobel prize winners who graduated from:
Harvard: 46
Yale:49
Princeton: 35
Duke: 12
Emory:2
Vanderbilt:7
All Seminaries (combined): 0
Apparently the other schools you mentioned were wise to rise above their original charter.
That said, all of those schools have seminaries or divinity schools as part of their university system and when noting a Nobel Prize winner's school affiliation they tend to list the university not the college within. Without even trying, I can point to MLK Jr. to refute your claim. He was a graduate of multiple seminaries.
And if you do as a scientist seek answers outside scientific materialism agenda's scientists have been rejected and sometimes even asked to leave the university.
I mean there really is no faith in the belief or theory that something came from nothing is there? :-)
Maybe then the religious folks can look into a mirror and say to themselves if scientists can be that closed minded about data and evidence outside their profession maybe we can learn something about our own profession and teachings. wishful thinking I know but hey it was worth a try. ie or not. :-)