CHAPTER II
THE CRISIS IN THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION, AND AN ANSWER
In order to better understand the need for a decentralization of theological education, we ought to look at some recurring problems that have been surfacing due to the traditional seminary education method.
In many areas of the world, in those churches that are experiencing rapid growth in Latin America, Indonesia, Africa, and other Third World countries, the pastoral shortage is acute. The deficiency of the numbers of men being trained is partly attributed to the astronomical cost of traditional theological training. Even in the United States, the cost of theological training is so high that it is not uncommon for a seminary graduate who has finished his education to begin ministerial service with a loan in the tens of thousands of dollars. Moreover, the rising cost of buildings with their continual upkeep, the salaries of the staff, and the subsidizing of students has put a great financial burden on denominations. Often funds have to be diverted from mission endeavors in order to maintain this plant.
Cultural dislocation is created by the traditional seminary in the Third World and sometimes in our United States. When the student leaves his home area to enter a seminary and then returns, he finds it difficult to fit in and communicate with his peers again. In the United States this is experienced by seminary students from minority races or subcultures.
Another problematic area in the traditional theological training is the quality of instruction. Adults who are accustomed to the give and take situations of life find it difficult to absorb the information in a lecture setting. Heavy dependence is placed on rote memory in this method. Good test grades may have been obtained, but they have really little significance in relation to the student's ability to succeed in the local church. Graduates from many seminaries frequently fail in the first church, not in the pulpit but in their role as compassionate shepherds.5 Wayne C. Weld quotes Jencks and Riesman in regard to this crisis. "A study of professional education in the United States indicates that there is very little relationship between course grades and occupational success."6 Weld also quotes Miller: "Few final examinations even reflect the goals stated in the course descriptions printed in the school catalog. Examinations show little about the student's ability to apply truth in his local church situation."7
A high rate of pastoral failrue and local church stagnation can be related to the quality of instruction. Seminaries are prone to indoctrinate with facts, and little attention is given to instructing in the application of truth, group-interaction, and guided discussions. Weld tells us, "The student who has learned by the lecture method will teach in the same way. He may in some cases tend to be dictatorial and dogmatic in his teaching ministry in the church. Unable to listen to the questioning of truth or his interpretation of it, he will feel threatened by questions or attempts at discussion in Sunday School or Bible studies. Nothing of group dynamics has been learned and therefore is not available for application in the local church or home Bible study."8
Another problem is an age barrier. An older man with pastoral gifts, but with a family and responsibilities, cannot often consider the traditional seminary. Also, others who would have to remain in their locale due to various reasons would be excluded from studying for the pastoral ministry even though they might have the gifts.
The area of ministerial gifts has often been neglected in the traditional seminary educational model. Theological education should be directed toward those who have demonstrated the gifts of ministry in the local church or in the field of life. Theological education should be for the purpose of training and developing those whom God has already gifted and thereby called to the ministry.
"In 1935, a seminary was founded in Guatemala City, the nation's capital, to train leadership for the entire denomination. Most of the graduates trained by the seminary either never entered the specific ministry for which they were trained or else left it in order to enter non-church related occupations. In fact, a 1962 inventory disclosed that after twenty-five years, only ten of the more than two hundred students who had enrolled in the seminary were still functioning as pastors. Once accustomed to urban life, many students of rural background did not return to the agriculturally rich, but unhealthy and economically depressed areas from which they have come. ... In 1963, the seminary leaders took the daring step of de-emphasizing the residence program in order to begin an extension system. They organized several regional centers so located that nearly all who desired could attend. The professors met with students for a three-hour seminar each week at the center. The seminary paid student travel expenses. Periodically during the school year, once a month at first, meetings were held at the central campus for all the students from all the centers. Thus, the extension movement was born."9
In spite of "opposition from one segment or another of the Presbyterian Church of Guatemala ... by 1966, not only had a coherent extension program emerged, but it was beginning to attract continental-wide attention. With no increase in funds, the student body of the Presbyterian Seminary had increased from seven to two hundred taught by three full-time and twelve part-time faculty members. Furthermore, many of the evident needs of the churches for trained leadership were being met. ... The magnitude of the movement is best grasped when one realizes that programs are in existence in at least seventy-seven nations."10
George Patterson, a missionary to Honduras, has carried decentralized theological education a big step further. He has made it more personalized and evangelical. Patterson has incorporated Evangelism into the theological educational extension system. He has within this theological, educational model developed a very practical program of church planting and church multiplication. This church multiplication is engendered through a close personal relationship of a Paul-Timothy congregational nature. Patterson calls his program "Church Planting Through Obedience-Oriented Teaching." I have denoted much of his program in the practical part of this paper under Section III. The results of this theological education program in church growth are fantastic. For example, in one northern region of Honduras alone, one mother church has through its many daughter and granddaughter churches reproduced sixteen churches. God has richly blessed Patterson and the Christian ministers with him through their endeavors in theological eduction by extension and Evangelism. Therefore, we see that through the decentralized theological progams of Guatemala, Honduras, and now the World, phenomenal church planting and reproducing are occurring. We will be greatly blessed if we prayerfully and carefully study and then imitate some of the ways in which our Lord is working in these His church growth movements.
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