Three conversations on the brokenness of seminary

In the past week I've sat down with three different people in three different phases of their seminary education. These conversations were unscripted and unexpected. One was a seminary newbie (a Junior), one had been here a year and a half (a Middler), and one was post-Internship (a Senior). What surprised me was that they had many of the same frustrations and saw the same problems with their seminary experience. So, in this medium, I'm hoping to draw together their thoughts and feelings in a way that is both helpful and true to the gravity of the situation, which is (I believe) severe.

I wish my seminary education was more practical.

I heard the same thing from all three. Nobody was complaining about learning theology, but they wanted to make it mean something. The lens of systematic theology to view the world as pastor is a failure; not because systematic theology is a failure but because the language it gives us as pastors is limiting to the experience of the people we serve. None of the people I talked with thought we should do away with systematic theology but each thought it sent a funny message that our systematics faculty outnumbered our pastoral care faculty by more than 2-1. One told me that they approached a seminary faculty member about a class on church finance. "Nobody will take that," she was assured. "Bull----," she told me. And I tend to agree. Classes like these are fit into January weekends when students are on Cross Cultural trips or in days filled with other required classes. What's more important, really, is that any seminary professor could feel that students don't want something practical. We crave practical!

I wish we felt safe at the seminary.

In one conversation, I was relayed the story of what happened in a Pastoral Care class with Dr. Latini when she asked the question, "Do you feel safe at seminary?" The class sat in silence... and nobody said yes. On the surface-level we all know that something we say can, and perhaps will, be used against us in the process of becoming a pastor--this is a constant and insidious threat that inhibits the learning process. However, I think it goes even deeper than this. When we don't know our neighbors it leads to mistrust and defensiveness. Unfortunately, seminary is a place where the defenses almost never come down.

The administration has sold the students out for the future.

This is the hardest to talk about because it could feel like a personal attack. So let me be clear: I don't feel like anybody in the administration of the seminary or the church proper set out to hurt the students--in fact, I think quite the opposite. Nevertheless, the idea that we are a forward-thinking seminary is troubling when you count the collateral damage that has been left along the way. Let me explain.

Luther Seminary has prided itself on the image of an institution that understands the economic realities of being the "declining church" in the 21st century. The administration has taken measures to ensure that the financial stability of the seminary is not withered by the markets and declining membership in the ELCA as a whole. For this they should be applauded. Forward-thinking is never easy and requires an eye on both the current needs and what will make the institution sustainable in the long-run.

The problem is this: in order to preserve the future, the seminary has instituted policies that are based on a principle of scarcity that makes more than a modicum of adaptation to the needs of the church in the world exceedingly challenging. Some of this is almost unavoidable. The kind of wholesale change that the student body would largely like to see (an increased influence in the areas of Pastoral Care, Worship, and Church Administration, among other more day-to-day realities in the parish) means that the status quo cannot remain unchanged. There has to be a demographic shift in the faculty. Nobody wants this--and for good reason. I don't want anybody to lose their job. I simply adore many of the Systematics faculty, and even if I didn't it's no small matter to consider measures that cut at the heart of their vocations. But here's the problem...

We've had three suicides in three years... and somehow nothing has changed.

Seminarians have the same problems as people in the church, because--and I can't believe this isn't more obvious to everybody--we are the people in the church. We spend too much time detailing the small way in which pastors are set apart from their flock at the cost of the whole self that is one and the same with all people of God.

Seminarians are hurting. And they are scared to say anything about it. Who do you talk to? Professors who have a vote in your graduation? Staff who are connected to the assignment process? Administrators and community members who have their hands in candidacy? Too often seminarians vent to the silence of Facebook or to the preoccupied ears of their peers who want to help but don't feel open themselves to pastoring one another.

The single greatest indictment of the seminary education is this: seminary students are not equipped to minister to one another.

So what's the fix?

I joked with my Senior friend and said, "Revolution." But maybe it's not such a joke. The problem is it's not going to happen. The system is perfectly self-perpetuating because students have learned to mistrust one another. They cling to particular professors and give others titles: "Systematicians," or "Feminists," or narrow-minded, or closed-minded. Dogmatic. Heretical. Students have hardly a minute to think about what God is doing in their neighbor's life because the defenses remain. What the student body needs is to see one another for who they truly are: sinners of Christ's own redeeming, yes, but more than that, Luther Seminary students are the future for the church-to-come. And we are the leaders who will lead this church out of the desert wilderness, but only if we see each other now as the gifts of God that we are.

Any change that will happen has to be student-led.

I don't want to preach in chapel because it is only an academic exercise.

My Senior friend hit a nerve here because I took the same stance my Senior year. I didn't preach because I didn't think it would be heard. But she got me thinking about what I would say if I did preach--what I could say to open the ears of a student body that's not listening. I realized finally all that I could say and it looks something like this:

What will it take for you to hear me? What will it take for you to stop speaking ill of this message in the halls and the cafeteria of this building? What can I say that you won't critique in ten minutes? Your ears must be filled with wax! The message from this pulpit has been one and same in all the years I've walked these halls: Christ has died for you. Hallelujah. Now stop acting like this is the small word and the big word is my theological move to get there. It's not. What little weight my words carry is a drop of water in the ocean that is the salvation you have in Christ. So sit down, shut up, and listen. Christ has died for you. Hallelujah.
Amen.