The Future of Seminaries ... Is Not What You Might Imagine!
In my travels around the world, I’ve seen several trends in theological education, which partly correspond to trends in tertiary education, and declining religious adherence.
Seminary enrolments are generally down, more so in non-denominational seminaries than denominational ones, in some places it’s concerning, while in other places it’s dire.
Enrollment in three-year programs like the Master of Divinity are declining in favor of two year programs like a Graduate Diploma or Master of Arts.
Students are mostly part-time and less likely to move cities to go to seminary.
Most seminaries now have 50-80% of students online or at least online in some form.
Faculty hate teaching online and a synchronous live “zoom” option is the compromise.
This comes down to several things (1) Decline of people going into vocational ministry; (2) Over-supply of theological education providers; (3) Wrestling with the digital revolution; and (4) Challenges in funding high-quality theological education.
In a nutshell, we are faced with the problem of how does one fund, structure, resource, manage, and operate a seminary so that it attracts and keeps capable faculty, draws in students who want theological learning and proficient ministry training, offers high-quality divinity degrees in various delivery modes, produces graduates who embody key values, develop core skills, and exhibit graduate attributes, is affordable, and all done in a way that satisfies the needs of seminary stakeholders?
I have some suggestions, people aren’t gonna like them, but I think I’m right.
First, seminaries no longer have a monopoly on disseminating the premium content of theological education.
If I want to learn about Romans, I could study with Prof. Jim Blogs at the Seminary of Springfield and pay $3000 for the course. Or else, I could buy a book by Doug Moo, Tom Schreiner, N.T. Wright, or Beverly Gaventa. I could watch endless videos on YouTube and listen to hundreds of podcasts. I could watch the high-quality stuff produced by The Bible Project, purchase a course on Romans by Douglas Moo from Logos Mobile, find lectures on Romans from some famous Pauline scholar by subscribing to either Zondervan’s Masterclass or SeminaryNow.
For example, I spent 3 hours using AI to create a 6-minute video about Athanasius, which is getting 1000 views per day so far on YouTube, and it will probably get more views than an in-class lecture on zoom that you recorded and put on YouTube.
Let me say the quiet part loud. THE CONTENT IS ALREADY OUT THERE, IT IS EVERYWHERE, OFTEN GOOD QUALITY, AND MOSTLY FREE OR SUPER CHEAP IF YOU WANT IT.
What seminaries offer is not content. Okay, maybe you have a Doug Moo, a Lynn Cohick, or a Lisa Bowen in the NT department, maybe they are just as good in person as they are in print. But most seminary professors are not the Jedi master of their area and not usually gifted with the communication skills of Barrack Obama. Very few professors are both leading experts in their fields and also incredibly engaging!
So what can seminaries offer that you cannot get from YouTube, Logos, or a subscription service?
Well, there are several things, such as an accredited degree, scholarships, and housing, which are a big factor for many people. But pedagogically speaking what seminaries offer in a content-saturated age are two things: curation of learning and cohort experience.
In terms of the curation of learning, a seminary professor, who does not have the exegetical gravitas of a Doug Moo or John Goldingay, can help students navigate and negotiate their way through lectures by a Moo or Goldingay. He or she can explain the issues in further detail, raise questions, answer questions, lead tutorials, recommend readings, and offer alternative viewpoints. Professors are not necessarily the fount of knowledge, but they are the mediators and translators of knowledge to students.
Regarding cohort experience, perhaps the # 1 thing students get from their seminary experience is friendship with other students and the joy of being mentored by a faculty member. I learned a lot of great stuff in seminary, but what I remember the most are the friends I made along the way and the faculty who encouraged me and invested in me. Sidebar: I once had an argument with a CEO about the importance of tertiary education. He said, “Who needs an arts degree when you’ve got The Great Courses?” To which my response was, “Yeah, but does The Great Courses give you the life-experience, comraderie, life-long friendships, help you meet your future spouse, have built-in leadership training, and personal mentoring?” He came around in the end.
So what are the takeaways?
We are all struggling with the digital revolution, which, like all revolutions, is disruptive, it is forcing us to change the “how” of theological education. There are massive repercussions like switching from hardcover books to ebooks in the library, or delivering courses in multi-mode formats.
The seminary classroom no longer requires a three-hour monologue. Seminaries are no longer the sole providers of theological content. The premium content on Genesis, Gospel of John, Ethics, Apologetics, Reformation History, or Modern Trinitarian Theology is already out there, it’s either free or very cheap. We cannot continue as if content creation is our main purpose.
What seminaries can offer - beyond accredited degrees and funding - is the curation of learning and a cohort experience. You can watch videos of Tom Schreiner on Romans 1, but you won’t know how wrong he is on “the righteousness from God” until I sit you down and explain it to you. You can watch Tom Schreiner’s lectures on Romans in your bedroom and muse to yourself about the meaning of hilasterion in Rom 3:25. Or, you can watch some videos on the same topic, and then chat with a professor and twelve other students, from all over the world, in person or online, ask your questions, share your opinion, go back on forth on Rom 3:25, and find out how it applies in your context. Then catch-up with Becc or Tom for a coffee. Find out that Trevor’s church is looking for a youth pastor and you are passionate about youth ministry, then apply for the job.
However, to shift from content creation to curation of learning and cohort experience as a seminary’s primary purpose, that change requires a change in philosophy, rethinking pedagogy, and restructuring the resourcing of theological education. My prediction is that the seminaries that make these changes the fastest and with the highest quality, will make the biggest impact in the future.
This is more a comment on teaching and learning generally rather than seminary specifically, but another advantage of structured courses is that solid assessment and testing practices also matter for the purposes of learning and retention. Reading books or watching lectures is not learning in and of itself. You need to be engaging in a lot of work, either teacher-led or self-led like questioning, verbalisation, arguing on the basis of evidence etc in order to retain information, and retention is probably the most critical and underrated aspect of learning in today's day and age. Cognitive scientist Dan Willingham says "memory is the residue of thought" - if you passively receive a lecture but aren't pushed to think about what was in it, you won't be able to learn it.
25 years ago, I served on a board of directors at a seminary, and we were already wrestling with these issues. We would have benefited greatly from these insights. In the college where I taught, we moved to only 20 hours of instruction for lay people who wanted a degree and assigned great books on the subject from leading scholars to read outside of class, etc...