How Not to Train Pastors (1)

I wrote this near the very beginning of the Heidelblog, in 2007. As high-speed internet service was becoming more widespread, online education was beginning to catch on and all many seminaries were beginning to adopt it. The world has changed since then. . . . Continue reading →

Education True and False

Americans are busy people who continue to conquer a big place which has, since the 18th century, offered wealth and great influence to those who work hard and who produce a product or service valued by others. Education, per se, has not . . . Continue reading →

And Now for the Rest of the Story

CT Online has a piece today touting the virtues of online seminary education. I expected there to be, somewhere in the story, someone to present the other side opposing online seminary education but I didn’t see it. Perhaps I missed it? In . . . Continue reading →

Online Classes: Just Because They’re Hip and Convenient Doesn’t Mean They Educate

One of the primary purposes for the HB is to but there are limits to what can be done online. The limits of online education/distance ed is has been a frequent topic here and here on the HB. The maxim is this: . . . Continue reading →

Selling Short

My argument is not that learned monographs have no value (of course they do, whether widely read or not), or that blog posts are somehow superior as “scholarship” (of course they’re not), but simply that we might be selling online publications short . . . Continue reading →

What Is A Seminary?

The question arose on a discussion board  as to how a theological seminary relates to C. S. Lewis’ distinction between “education” and “vocational training.” The premise of the question was that one had to choose between the two, relative to a university I . . . Continue reading →

How Not To Train Pastors

I see that someone is starting an(other?) online seminary. The whole business of online/distance seminary education is troubling. Because the confessional Reformed churches (i.e., NAPARC) are conservative and theologically oriented, we tend to attract ideologically committed folks. That’s okay but it means . . . Continue reading →

Why “Distributed” Pastoral Education Is Not The Solution

There are problems with the traditional model for preparing pastors but some of the proposed alternatives are worse. One of those is “Distributed Education” model. The traditional model is that you have 20 professors on campus and all the students have to . . . Continue reading →