In the previous part, we looked at the first mark of a true school: genuine learning. We continue here with a discussion of the second mark: what makes a proper faculty.
A second objective mark of the quality of a faculty is the number of credible academic and popular publications by that faculty. Again, I am not suggesting that if a faculty has not written much that it is necessarily a poor faculty. The original faculty at my school was busy founding an institution in what was then still something of an ecclesiastical wilderness for Reformed confessional theology, piety, and practice. In the nature of things, they had not time in the early 80s to do a lot of research and writing. We are all conscious here of standing on the shoulders of those of our predecessors and teachers who carried heavy teaching loads and who traveled and made it possible for us to write more than they. Still, it is fair to ask whether a faculty has produced notable, academically responsible, peer-reviewed, and recognized doctoral research and publications. Has the faculty published in peer-reviewed journals? Has their work been of service to the churches? These are fair questions.
The first two marks have focused on the substantial and formal academic qualification of a seminary faculty. This is reasonable since we are discussing those whose vocation it is to teach and conduct research in schools. Nevertheless, since we are also talking about a seminary faculty, it is also important to recognize that the school exists to serve the visible, institutional church. Thus, it is fair to ask whether and to what degree a seminary faculty is involved with and serving the visible church. At my school, most of our faculty are ministers of Word and sacrament in NAPARC churches. We serve on consistories and sessions (the assembly of elders and ministers of local congregations) and are delegates to classis and presbytery (the regional assemblies of pastors and elders) and to synods and general assemblies (the national assemblies of pastors and elders). We preach, we administer the sacraments, we do house visitation, we counsel, and we visit the sick. Balancing all this with a commitment to academic excellence is demanding, but it is our calling.
The quality of a faculty is at the heart of the seminary experience. But judging by the correspondence I have received and conversations I have had with prospective students, many of them are unaware of what it is that makes a seminary faculty properly prepared to offer an education. It will be well for the prospective student to investigate the quality of a given faculty before committing time and funds toward an education that a faculty may not be prepared to offer.
Proper Accreditation
The third mark of a true school is quite controversial in some circles. By proper recognition I mean accreditation. This is not something that every prospective student considers, and it may be something about which consistories/sessions are unaware. In case you think accreditation is unimportant, you should know that a school’s accreditation status (or lack thereof) affects the ability of students to receive student loans, enter the military chaplaincy, and to attend graduate school among other things. Accreditation has more to do with the quality of a school than one might think. If a seminary is not accredited by one or more such agencies (i.e., a regional accrediting agency and/or ATS), that fact should cause the wise student to pause and consider why that might be.
Accreditation is a corollary to the academic peer-review process mentioned above. Just as journal articles, chapters, and books are reviewed by other scholars before being accepted for publication, so schools are also reviewed to see that they meet basic standards, to see whether a school is fulfilling its promises made to students and to prospective students. Accreditation evaluates whether a school is meeting certain basic academic and administrative standards (e.g., sufficient faculty, library, staff, and other resources). My school is accredited by two agencies recognized by the Department of Education: WASC (Western States), which accredits colleges and graduate schools, and ATS (Association of Theological Schools). Beware that there are other bodies that offer accreditation that may or may not be recognized by the Department of Education.
In some, usually hyper-conservative/fundamentalist circles, the lack of proper accreditation is a badge of courage.1 The rhetoric, at least in some instances is, “we’ve resisted ‘the man,’ those allegedly oppressive leftist bureaucratic types, in the interest of biblical/confessional/cultural (fill-in-the-blank) fidelity.” Certainly, there may be instances where accreditation is genuinely problematic on the basis of principle. For example, it was not long ago that the Middle States (regional) accrediting agency threatened to remove the accreditation of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia over a matter of conscience. The courts intervened and the school’s liberty was preserved. In such a case, ideologues were willing to use the accreditation process to force conformity. No one with conservative religious convictions should be naive about potential challenges in the accreditation process. Nevertheless, I have had conversations with visiting accreditation teams about such issues, and however much they have disagreed with our conclusions, they have always been respectful of our convictions, the intellectual rigor with which they are supported, and the grace with which they are explained.
The proliferation of unaccredited schools presents a challenge to prospective students, to donors, and to churches who send students to school as part of their preparation for ministry. For one thing, it means they lack an external, objective measure of the health of the school. Imagine sending a child to a physician whose degree was not recognized by the American Medical Association. Does this mean that the prospective physician is necessarily a quack? No, but it does increase the probability. Just as most of us are not qualified to work on today’s high-tech cars, most prospective students (and their consistories/sessions) probably are not expert in educational administration. They may not be aware of all the moving parts that help a school to function. The accreditation process is designed to check all those moving parts (while they are moving!) to make sure everything is in place. For that process, a school produces an extensive series of reports. The visiting teams meet with the administration, the board, the faculty, and others to evaluate comprehensively whether a school is operating well and serving its students faithfully. In turn, the visiting teams produce their own reports. Accrediting agencies also produce annually a volume that records what is really happening in a seminary, how many students are actually enrolled, and other relevant facts. The variance between what some schools report to the accreditation agencies and what they say in their publicity can be interesting to note.
Students considering an unaccredited school should think carefully about whether there is a legitimate reason for a school not being accredited or whether a school lacks a real accreditation (i.e., one recognized by the Department of Education) because it is simply a poor school and thus, likely, a waste of money. There are more than a few homemade seminaries, which are unable to provide the necessary education, which lack a qualified faculty, which lack the necessary library (and other) resources, and that are all too ready to take your money and give you a degree. Would you attend medical school in someone’s basement? Would you trust your health to a physician trained at such a school? Why should we entrust the care of our congregations to pastors trained at homemade seminary? Consistories/sessions, classes/presbyteries, and other bodies should consider why we are sometimes willing to accept lower standards in our seminaries than we would for medical schools.
Notes
- For an example of fundamentalist rejection of accreditation, see James Bartlett, “The Snare of College Accreditation,” Bartlett University, Report, April, 2005.
- David French, “The Persecution of Gordon College,” The Christian Post, February 04, 2015
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on the Heidelblog in 2009.
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R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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I guess a better question is what specific accreditation should students look at amongst faculty in the reformed circles especially NAPARC.
My school is accredited by ATS (religious) and a regional (secular) agency.
I would wonder why a school would have less than that.
Dr how do students discern between reformed seminaries. I’ve been called Lutheran for holding the law gospel distinction by people in the reformed churches. It feels like many reformed people have to defend the reformed orthodoxy amongst its one people which is really sad. How does one make a right decision of choosing a reformed seminary when it seems like a lot of the faculty of many schools in the reformed circles have put law gospel to the side or the guilt Grace and gratitude model of the Heidelberg catechism which is under the umbrella of law gospel to the side as well?
Recovering the Reformed confession is a process.
I think the answer to your question is is implicit in your question.
Have these faculty/seminaries “put aside” the law/gospel distinction fully, or do they emphasize/prioritize it in different ways? If it was put aside fully it would be a major problem. To me this seems like two completely different categories of faculty/seminaries.
I know that seminaries that aren’t big on Lutheranism certainly hold to the law/gospel distinction, they just don’t prioritize it the same.
Ben,
Are there any Reformed seminaries that a “big on Lutheranism”? If so, where are they?
As to teaching it but not emphasizing it, well, I was a Reformed seminarian from ’84-87 and I had to learn it from reading Olevianus et al.
If we gauge what faculty are teaching by what they publish, then the evidence for your claim, in the 20th century anyway, is limited.
See the chapter on this in CJPM:
https://heidelblog.net/cjpm
I’m assuming most would get the law gospel distinction from Colquhoun as a baseline for where to go, I love his work and have friends in seminary who are enjoying his work as well. I think the heidelblog has posted a few times about his work as well which I deeply appreciate you doing!
As you mention in your article in that link, there are differences in approach. There are those who embrace the law/gospel distinction, and some who speak of a more encompassing law/gospel hermeneutic. I’ve heard professors/pastors detailing how some seminaries (such as RTS/mid-america/PRTSfor brief examples) might see it more as a distinction, and others (such as WSCAL, WTS) as you mention the article you link would tend more towards the hermeneutic side. I remember reading an article in a reformed journal detailing this difference too. (Can’t remember where from memory) All this to say, some seminaries might not embrace the hermeneutic perspective, but we shouldn’t doubt they have jettisoned the distinction as well.
Hi Ben,
You should not assume that, until very recently, people were reading stuff like Colquhoun. The evidence is that they were not. You may take it as a baseline but that’s my point. Until very recently that was not the case. There are still plenty of people out there who think that Colquhoun is “Lutheran.” When I was first learning the Reformed faith anyone, in the Reformed world, who distinguished between law and gospel was regarded as Lutheran or quasi-Lutheran or a crypto-Lutheran. At WSCAL, when I was a student, Godfrey and Kline talked about it a little and they defended justification against Shepherd et al but not everyone on faculty (e.g., Frame) was with them. I don’t know where everyone else was on those issues. I think Strimple came to be with them but the Philly faculty in the 70s mostly supported Shepherd.
You shouldn’t assume that even today everyone at WSCAL thinks exactly the same on this issue. I learned from Mike Horton how to use the distinction but we don’t all agree as to whether it is or should be a “hermeneutic.” That’s really a matter of definition. What is a hermeneutic? Broadly, it is a way of interpretation. I don’t see how distinguishing law and gospel is not a hermeneutic or how that it was not a hermeneutic among the early Reformed (excluding Zwingli, who was typically vague about justification etc.). The juxtaposition that so many seem to see between Luther and the Reformed just didn’t exist for Calvin, as I document here. That was a 19th-century invention as is so much of what we think about ourselves today (e.g., that the Lutheran “Central Dogma” was justification and ours was predestination—a total fiction).
Look at what the Reformed wrote about justification and the law/gospel distinction and show me how it differs materially from what Luther said? I don’t think it can be done. The truth is the there are two kinds of Reformed folk: those who’ve read Luther and those who haven’t. Most in the NAPARC world just haven’t. I see scholars, whose work I’ve critiqued, who argue this Luther/Reformed dichotomy (not to say that we agree on everything) who don’t even know how to cite Luther properly. That means that they’ve not really read or studied Luther.
Read Rollock’s commentary on Ephesians. He read Luther and he used the law/gospel distinction as a hermeneutic. It was how he interpreted Ephesians. Olevianus said that the entire point of Romans is to distinguish law and gospel. Those are hermeneutical approaches.
Look at the sources on law and gospel. That’s what pushed me in this direction.
Ps. I’ve reorganized and updated the Law/Gospel resource page. Check it out. It’s much easier to use and much clearer and it has a lot of new resources.