Staying Christian in Seminary

An unbelievable helpful post from Dane Ortlund, How to Stay Christian in Seminary.


What's the secret to soul-health while in seminary?

There are many good things to be said. Stay prayerful, be involved in the local church, cultivate meaningful friendships, fight for sexual sanity, find a brother to confess your sins to, get enough sleep, don’t neglect your wife if married. All important.

But above all else I would say two things to a young man given the privilege of seminary: you are justified by another, and you are strong in weakness.

1. You are justified by another. 

Fallen human beings are walking courtrooms.

In a strange and wonderful text in Isaiah 28, God declared that the inscription on the cornerstone of the future temple would be, “Whoever believes will not be in haste” (Isa. 28:16). Have you tasted that?

Internal, tense, anxious, emotional scurrying about will define your seminary experience if you do not settle the astounding truth that for those united to Christ the courtroom verdict over your life is now a past reality rather than a future one. It’s behind you, not before you. A period, not a question mark. You are justified.

The unanswered questions of the heart not at rest are: Am I ok? Do I matter? Who am I before others? How do I measure up? Am I significant? What’s the judgment over my life?

But when Jesus came he didn't tell us to prove ourselves. He said he gives rest (Matt. 11:28-30). He came to stop the haste. Paul even took Isaiah 28 and said Jesus is that cornerstone so that whoever believes in Christ will not be in haste (Rom. 9:33; 10:11).

In seminary as much as any time in your life you must remember that the sigh of the soul you so desperately desire is yours, freely, abundantly, as you trust in Christ, the radiant Friend of screw-ups. United to him, you are co-justified with him. For you to be un-okayed, Jesus would have to be un-okayed. His verdict is in, and therefore yours is in.

That’s hard, strangely hard, to remember. For various reasons it’s especially hard to remember in seminary. While studying the Bible as a full-time student I found I could write a paper on justification by faith alone and then seek to be justified by its publication.

At Covenant Seminary I startled myself with how quickly I slipped into impress-mode around professors I admired. I forgot the verdict was in. I was bolstering what God thought of me with what others thought of me. Justification plus. Haste.

The pressures of seminary will force you either into greater rest or greater haste. One thing determines which way you go: regular bathing of heart in the gospel of a secured, irreversible verdict won by the now un-condemnable Christ.

His unflappable hug, his undentable favor, is impervious to your mediocre grades, fickle human approval, up-and-down marriage, number of Twitter followers, or how long it’s been since you abused Youtube.

How do you stay Christian in seminary? Above all else, defibrillate your heart daily with the invincible favor of God shining down on you because of the love and sacrifice of another.

Only the doctrine of justification by faith alone will enable you to experience seminary as joyful, relaxed ministry training rather than frantic, fretful impressing.

2. You are strong in weakness. 

Few things bring our weakness to the surface like seminary. Spending all day with classmates who read faster than you, memorize paradigms more easily than you do, and preach better than you do pours gasoline on the flames of our insecurity. Ongoing moral failure--for young men in today's hypersexualized world I am thinking especially of sexual failure, though spiritual pride, laziness, envy, intellectual haughtiness, and a bent toward divisiveness also reveal our weakness.

Seminary gathers up all our latent insecurities and forces them before us. We begin to ask questions of ourselves.

Am I supposed to be here? we wonder. Shouldn't I be better at the languages if this is where God wants me? Shouldn't I be able to preach in front of 8 brothers in a homiletics practicum without my eyes being chained to my notes and my palms sweating? Shouldn’t my finances be less strapped if seminary is the Lord’s good purpose in my life? Shouldn’t I be able to finally kick that habitual sin if I’m spending so much time pondering God and the Bible?

Brother: those soul-squeezing questions are your friends. Without them you would coast through seminary and graduate a shallow, twaddling little man with no depth and trite answers.

God’s grace is sufficient for you. Get over yourself. You are weak. You are inadequate. You always will be. And the story of the Bible is God’s delight in taking weak, inadequate men and doing the unthinkable. Stop insulting the Holy Spirit. Your weakness is the single crucial prerequisite for him to make your life a miracle. To think “I don’t have what it takes” is precisely what it takes. Don’t try to overcome your weakness. Leverage your weakness into a lifetime of 1 Corinthians 2:1–5 ministry.

God’s power is made perfect in your weakness.

Is It Time to Write the Eulogy for Seminary Education?

A very thoughtful article from Don Sweeting, the president from Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando.

Frederick Schmidt wrote a recent article wondering about the future of seminary education, entitled, Is It Time to Write the Eulogy?: The Future of Seminary Education.  The article begins by saying, “our seminaries are dying and the Master of Divinity degree has been discredited.”  Schmidt writes about a shrinking pool of prospective students, and notes that a large number of “mainline seminaries” are selling their buildings, property, cutting faculty and eliminating programs.

And there, my friends, is the give-away.  Schmidt, who writes a column for what the Patheos website still refers to as “mainline Protestants,” is describing a mainline that is no longer the main line.  It is fast declining, and so are its seminaries.

According to Rodney Stark, one of America’s preeminent scholars of religion, it is time to redefine our terms.  Stark is quite forthright in saying that the true mainline Protestants in America are now evangelicals.   And the old mainline is, in his words, the “sideline.”  

In other words, it may be time to consider writing a eulogy for mainline seminary education, but it is not for evangelical seminary education.   Among ATS schools, evangelical schools are proliferating and their numbers remain strong.  

Stark and others note the “evangelicalization of Protestantism.”  The churches that are growing, he says, have evangelical clergy. Not only that, but he ties the decline in numbers in the old mainline churches with what is happening theologically in the seminaries.   As denominations get liberal, says Stark, they shrink.   Liberal clergy lose their faith. They no longer believe in the Bible as God’s Word.   Or they disbelieve in the divinity of Jesus Christ.  Or they decide that they are no longer in the business of saving souls.  Instead, their preoccupation becomes left wing radical politics.   Stark lays the blame for this decline of the old mainline at the doorstep of the liberal seminaries. (Seehttp://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Are-Evangelicals-the-New-Mainline?offset=2&max=1&showAll=1). 

All of this interests me because I am now the president of a reformed, evangelical seminary (RTS Orlando http://www.rts.edu/orlando/ ).  And from what I see, business is ramping up and seminary education (at the right schools) is more important than ever.  By the way, by “right schools,” I mean seminaries that hold on to basic Christian orthodoxy.  That is, they believe in the truthfulness and supreme authority of the Bible.  They believe in the gospel of Jesus with a passion, and find an urgency to share it because people’s souls hang in the balance.

Once a seminary abandons its belief in the supreme authority of the Bible, they set their theological soul adrift.   Eventually they let go of orthodoxy and redefine the gospel.  Something else besides the real incarnation, atoning cross and bodily resurrection of Jesus becomes the center.

Here’s why this seminary eulogy does not apply to a seminary like RTS.   And here’s why seminary education at the right schools is more important than ever:

1          The gospel is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes:  first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.” (Romans 1.16,17)   This gospel was and is the best news on earth.  

2          The knowledge of God is the most important knowledge in the world.   It was A. W. Tozer who wrote in the chapter, “Why We Must Think Rightly About God,” from his book Knowledge of the Holy:  “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its ideas of God.” Hence the need to give people a true knowledge of God.

3          Seminaries rooted in the Word train men and women in Biblical wisdom like no other institution.  That is what makes us unique.  This wisdom is exceedingly important for the church, and for civilization.  The core belief driving this is that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2.3). 

4          Related to this, seminaries train students to study the Word and know the Word in the original languages.   They train students in Christian spiritual formation.   Along with this, they train in subjects related to living a God-glorifying life—subjects like biblical and systematic theology, Christian ethics, church history, practical theology, preaching, teaching, worship, prayer, Christian leadership, missions, evangelism, pastoring, apologetics, etc..

5          Preparation for faithful, competent and creative Christian ministry is more important than ever.   We live in a complex, fast changing world.  The spiritual battles are hotter, and the stakes seem higher than ever.   So when it comes to training for ministry leadership and soul care, we must encourage the very best training possible.   We demand it of our doctors and our engineers.  Can we demand less of our pastors and spiritual leaders?   That’s why good, quality seminary training is so critical.  And that is why quick fix training, through  easy degree diploma mills, undermines the ministry of the church.  To be a spiritual force in the twenty-first century, our leaders need the best and most thorough training possible.

6          Seminaries play a strategic role in the life of the church and nation.   We desperately need strong and healthy churches.   Healthy churches bring Christ’s redemptive hope to our communities.  As our communities are transformed, so goes our nation.   Churches generally do not rise above the spiritual level of their pastors.   And the seminary is the critical institution for training pastors.   Pastors are either made or marred in the seminary. 

Sharing this news story about “the dying seminaries” with a businessman friend over lunch today, he said “Don, quite frankly, some seminaries deserve to die.”   He explained, if they have abandoned the Biblical gospel and the Holy Scriptures, they have lost their reason for existing.   But if they hang on to that Word which abides forever, they are desperately important.

I couldn’t agree more.