The Seminary, Whence and Whither?

What can happen in the Third Millennium?

Ralph D. Winter, General Director, Frontier Mission Fellowship

The Orlando Institute, Friday, May 7, 1999

I consider it a privilege to speak at the first commencement of Campus Crusade's Orlando Institute. The Christian movement is a dynamic spiritual reality running on the two steel rails of faith and knowledge. We know after 2000 years that there has never been a time that either faith or knowledge have been absent.

The Orders as the Backbone

However, in the turbulence of the first thousand years, disciplined para-church structures called orders—such as Campus Crusade but earlier the monastic movement—carried the ball. In them both devotion and study flourished. The early monastics inherited the technology of the Roman Empire as well as its literary riches. And without them, humanly speaking, we would have no Bibles and only fragmentary knowledge of the Roman Empire itself.

Half way into the second millennium, Roman Catholics, at the Council of Trent, employed the word seminary to describe the disciplined study that they finally borrowed from their own para-church, or order tradition. Three hundred years later William Carey wrote a small book stressing the need for parachurch structures to proclaim the Gospel globally. It was a 100-page rationale for the development of mission orders within the Protestant tradition; Protestants thus began to borrow the order pattern from the Catholic tradition and not much later began to use the word seminary , as well. But Protestants were so quiet about these borrowings—or perhaps so oblivious to what they borrowed—that it took until 1990 for the IRS to recognize that Campus Crusade, Wycliffe Bible Translators and hundreds of other mission sending structures are basically Protestant mission orders that combine the steel rails of faith and knowledge in their work. However, while in the Catholic tradition that disciplined and devotional study took place first in the orders and secondly in the dioceses, by contrast, in the Protestant tradition, seminaries first appeared in the parish tradition and rarely in the mission order tradition—until now.

Here this evening we have a full-blown example of a major Protestant order that has turned enthusiastically to the disciplined faith and knowledge tradition, and has done so ahead of any other American Protestant parachurch structure. Even tiny denominations have their seminaries, but somehow not so the para-church ministries like Youth for Christ, Christian Endeavor, Mariners, Wycliffe, the Bible Study Fellowship, the African Inland Mission, or any of the 200 specific mission agencies associated together within the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies. Campus Crusade alone has done it determinedly, decisively and globally. I am here to commend and to encourage Crusade in this effort.

Most mission agencies conceive of their workers as having or needing some basic knowledge and faith commitment. But Crusade alone has founded a full-blown accredited seminary.

What, then, really is a seminary? What can we expect from a seminary?

Negatively, we don't want a seminary to wander from the Bible nor from either the faith or the knowledge the Bible demands. We don't want it to be merely a teaching institution that justifies its existence merely in the areas of informing and training, when, in fact, the seminary tradition with centuries of disciplined study behind it has contributed far more to the global work of Christ than passing on truth or skills.

Let's ponder together for a few moments three areas in which essential contributions have been made and modeled to the benefit of all of us by centuries of disciplined study.

1. Thinking Theologically

a. Review of the Old

First and foremost of the three I will mention, has been the disciplined endeavor that we might refer to as thinking theologically . This presumes an intimate knowledge of the Bible and of the story of the Christian movement. Such a basis equips us to tackle two kinds of problems: 1) It allows us to sit in judgment on what in our own cultural tradition is called Christianity. An example of looking back on the Bible and t hinking theologically about the theological tradition we have inherited is what Gregory Boyd, a professor at Bethel Seminary in Minneapolis, did in writing God at War , published by Intervarsity Press. He suggests that in a key area Christianity itself is syncretistic due to Augustine importing some of neo-Platonism into Christian theology, specifically a non-Biblical passivity before evil and suffering. If what he is saying is true, missionaries have been preaching a partially incomplete understanding of a living God who is presented as impotent before evils such as malaria and river blindness, etc.

Thus, reviewing and evaluating our own Christian theological tradition as we constantly seek a deeper understanding of the Bible is one of the things we need to do. This particular emphasis which Gregory Boyd of Bethel Seminary stresses in his book would allow us to question the Biblicalness of the behavior of a Mother Superior in the 13th century whose Augustinian theology apparently encouraged her to allow a worm to burrow beneath the skin of her forehead and stay for quite a period. She assumed, with her theology, that God had sent this little worm to plague her and make her suffer and thus deepen her spiritual life. It finally burrowed through the skin. You could see it. One day she leaned over and the worm fell out. Being perfectly obedient and consistent to her understanding of Christian theology, she reinserted it into the open sore in her forehead. Why?—so as not to frustrate the purposes of God. That may have been good neo-platonism but her theology professors did not realize it was not good exegesis.

I have wondered if this same non-Biblical element in our Western cultural Christian theology may explain something that happened when Jonathan Edwards, was exiled from his city pulpit (because he came to believe in the new birth—through Whitefield's influence) to work on the frontier in New England's West, in a missionary outpost. There he confronted the scourges of smallpox which caused incredible suffering among the Indians he sought to reach. Unlike the Mother Superior, he may not have seen smallpox as sent from God but as a “work of the devil,” which the Son of God appeared on earth to destroy—according to I John 3:8.

n fighting back against this work of Satan he employed a newly hopeful vaccine technique even though the vast majority of the faithfully Calvinistic pastors of Massachusetts assumed that to fight smallpox would be—and I quote—“to interfere with Divine Providence.” When Edwards actually died in the process—at a fairly young age—some of those theologically trained pastors may have assumed that it was God not Satan who killed him. Why? Because he was, so they thought, “interfering with Divine Providence.” Don't smile and pass this off as a momentary misinterpretation of our theological inheritance. If so, why did it take another 250 years before any one organized an effort to eradicate smallpox? And when that finally happened, note, it was not a Christian organization that led the way!

So, if this doesn't seem to be a theological corruption, take the example of malaria. One mission organization, presumably going out around the globe to glorify God, spends $500 million a year to raise children up to the age where they can die of malaria. And four suffering children continue to die of malaria every sixty seconds . Jesus did not concern Himself with suffering and disease, with the idea that healing would get people to heaven, but that His healing ministry would reveal to people what kind of a God was in heaven. That is, He did not show us how God wanted us to heal people but that we should heal people

If there is not a defective understanding of the Bible at work in this long-standing Christian paralysis in the face of evil, then why is it a Sunday School teacher who has not gone to seminary , namely former President Jimmy Carter, who is the only one Christian leader I know who has set out to “eradicate” major diseases? And why is he getting his vast funds not from the denominations and mission agencies but from secular corporations?

Yes, thinking theologically means using the Bible to review and refine our existing theology. The Bible, not our theological tradition, is the given .

1. Thinking Theologically

b. Review of the New

But, thinking theologically also means using the Bible to face situations that are wholly new to the Bible. I'm afraid we lag a great deal in applying the Bible to new circumstances. When the Bible does not speak about a specific problem, such as the U.S. pushing off cigarettes on the whole world, then theology should come to the rescue to make application of Biblical truth to the new circumstances. Again, it was not a theologian but the World Health Organization that pointed out that the U.S. kills more people in the country of Colombia by our government-subsidized nicotine-laced cigarettes than are killed in the U.S. by hard drugs from all foreign sources put together. What does the Bible want us to think and do about this?

Another example derives from the fact that Augustine, Calvin and Luther lived before germs were discovered. How differently does God want us now to think and act? It is evident that the greatest medical breakthrough in the twentieth century is the discovery that most heart disease, cancer, multiple sclerosis, alzheimer's disease—even schizophrenia—is caused by infections rather than a poor diet and a toxic environment. But why did this revelation appear on the front cover of Atlantic Monthly months ago and not even show up in Christianity Today? Are our Christian leaders and seminaries asleep at the switch?

Or take the greatest scientific breakthrough of this century, mentioned by James Kennedy two Sundays ago. I would not have heard this sermon had I not been in a hospital bed unavoidably watching TV at 7A.M. on a Sunday morning. Kennedy described this breakthrough as the discovery that a human cell is not just a tiny blob of plasma but is as densely complicated as would be a mile-square factory reduced down to the place where 200,000 could easily fit into the size of a period at the end of a sentence. He rejoiced that this blows Darwinism sky high. He noted the profound theological significance of this. It once again forces upon all scientists the God option. All over the earth students will now have to contemplate a world which, once again, cannot be explained apart from intelligent design.

I would hope, however, that Campus Crusade thinkers would help tackle the additional question, what about the evidence of evil design in the world? The discovery of the complexity of the cell is not the same as recognizing intelligent evil behind the viruses that attack the cell and take command of them for destructive purposes at odds with God's creative intent. I would add that this is combatable evil, not compatible , not something with which we should passively coexist. If “the Son of God appeared for this purpose that He might destroy the works of the Devil, (I Jn 3:8)” then we ought to start thinking more seriously about just what are “the works of the Devil.”

Thus, thinking theologically is an ongoing task, not a matter of merely passing on truth. “The faith once delivered” is the Bible, not our theological propositions.

2. Ministering Creatively

But a second major area of the seminary tradition in which Campus Crusade can make a contribution is the area of ministering creatively .There is not time here to list all the areas crying out for new ministry approaches. But one of them surely—in light of the Columbine massacre—is the serious question raised by American society in its extensive isolation of children from their parents, ostensibly for their best education . It may be that we need to pronounce education ”alienation.” Most non-Christian societies are much more intelligent at this point. How can you minister creatively within a social structure gone wrong? Most non-Western societies looking at the U.S.A would ask what's the use of marriage counseling if the basic problem is the absence of the shepherding multi-generational family which we see in the Bible and in most non-Christian societies? What should seminaries do when the problem is structural, when, for example, we our whole society fails to understand that what we call a ”nuclear family” is inherently unstable? Yet our seminaries fail to ask why it is that even in our Evangelical movement you find the highest divorce rate of any large country in the world? But this list could go on and on. Let's turn to the third area. There is a third area in which the seminary tradition has contributed and must continue to do so.

3. Behind- the-scenes Tasks of Benefit to the Entire Kingdom

I speak of the need for work being done that could be described as behind-the-scenes tasks of benefit to everyone, but which are the responsibility of no one organization. This is an area where today's seminaries are almost useless. Most Bible translations, for example, have been made by heroic individuals or teams gathered from various seminaries. Seminaries, themselves, in recent times have not taken the lead. Seminaries often are reduced to a pure teaching function rather than being research centers and sources of strategic planning. Many of them are reduced to a hand-to-mouth existence by becoming dependent wholly on tuition income. Or worse still, fail to reach out with their riches to the real leaders of the church and settle for whoever can make it to their doors with the necessary funds.

If you examine the seminary tradition in the first millennium, where disciplined study was mainly found within the para-church orders, you will meet a structural phenomenon that was, as the Bible put it, ready for any good work.The monastic movement, according to current Wheaton professor, Mark Noll, had the most beneficial influence of any institutional development in the history of the church (Noll 1997:84). It was the carrier vehicle for not only the Bible and the literature of the Roman Empire, but also the artisan skills and commercial formula and techniques of that civilization. A monastic settlement could be called upon to build 145 stone bridges in a given domain, employing the Roman arch as a structural feature. Most notably, they copied manuscripts by hand for countless millions of hours in order to preserve documents we greatly value today including the Bible itself. It's amazing what was accomplish by people I grew up thinking were unregenerate legalists!

But are there behind-the-scenes tasks not being done today? I hold in my hands a contemporary example of such labors, not sponsored by any seminary but by a para-church mission organization. This is the book of Acts in Greek. It contains the complete text of the 70 most reliable ancient manuscripts of the book of Acts. Incidentally it lists 270 errors in the Greek text used in most seminaries today —errors just in the book of Acts. This work could have been done a hundred years ago. Why is it only being done now? The first four volumes covering the four gospels are now available in this form. This means that more than half of the New Testament is now done. This material has been increasingly available for more than two years, but very few seminaries have taken notice. And the job may never be finished. An 85-year-old man is laboring ten hours a day. No protege, no school, no seminary has encouraged its faculty or its students to assist with this kind of tedious behind-the-scenes work. Will Campus Crusade? Will future volumes carry some reference to Campus Crusade cooperating in this task?

In concluding, and I generalize, I long to see the seminary tradition live up to its earlier breadth, and to go beyond vocational training to foundational training and beyond foundational training to foundational study and lend its help with foundational labors for the benefit of the entire cause. Crusade has spectacularly done this already in many ways, notably with its expensive investment in the Jesus Film. It is my hope and prayer that The Orlando Institute will further enhance Crusade's ability to think theologically, minister creatively, and work behind-the-scenes for the entire cause. Crusade has done many tough jobs and led the way in many areas. What may the future unfold?

You graduates in particular must now more than ever shoulder the burden of “thinking theologically, ministering creatively, and working behind-the-scenes for the entire cause.” And you must not just go from here. You must go on growing . Periodicals are key. Journals are important. Buy and read the books mentioned. As important as all the facts you have learned is learning how to learn —for what you have yet to learn is just as crucial as what you know now. And, remember that your adversary the devil will seek to distract you from any real counterattack. Go, and the God of peace go with you.

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Noll, Mark A.

1997 “The Monastic Rescue of the Church,” Chapter Three, Turning Points, Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity, Baker). One sentence stands out in particular:

The rise of monasticism was, after Christ's commission to his disciples, the most important—and in many ways the most beneficial—institutional event in the history of Christianity (p. 84).

========= (Guidance for institutions)=======

Dawson Trotman: “Never do anything that others are able to do or are willing to do if there are important things be done which others can't do or won't do.”

Corollary: If you are able, only do what others are unable or unwilling to do.

By contrast, if you follow the agendas of academia you may find yourself on a highway to trivia. (The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls took 7 years to get on the agenda of the American academic whirl!)