Academic study of theology

Ross Woods, 2004. Rev. 2020

It is incorrect to hold that the academic study of theology alone is adequate training for ministry. The idea of a strictly academic university degree as adequate training for ministry is an old and now thoroughly discredited idea. The education simply didn't equip people for the task  before them. Many dropped out; others learned on the job.

It is also incorrect to hold that the academic study of theology is unhelpful in training for ministry. The idea that people in ministry don't have to know theology is just as silly.

But if both are wrong, then these questions follow:

1. What should be the correct relationship between academic study of theology and training for ministry?
2. If the academic study of theology alone is useful, what is it useful for? Do you ant to support those purposes? If so, why?
3. Does the reverse also apply? Is ministry training alone adequate? That is, to what extent is a Christian worker also a theologian?
4. How much of it does one need to be useful? At what point does the law of diminishing returns kick in?
5. Is it a matter of strokes for folks? Some temperaments get frustrated with theory while others find it helpful for ministry. Yet others find it helpful for their academic aspirations, that is, they enjoy it in an escapist sense.
6. Why should the church support the academic study of theology if there is no tangible ministry outcome or benefit?
7. What is theology?
   • Is theology an academic discipline one knows, or something one does?
   • Is it an academic discipline with occasional ministry implications, or is it basically functional in real ministry?
   • I grant that some subjects lend themselves more clearly to academic study, and some subjects, while academically credible, lend themselves more clearly to ministry training. However, all subjects, even those that are more clearly academic, are subject to contextualization. So what contextualization assumptions one should make?
8. Which should ministry training be?
   • totally academic?
   • academic with ministry tacked on (as implications in relevant subjects or as a practicum)?
   • a context-sensitive view of ministry-theology?
9. This also applies to location and mindset. Which should ministry training be?
   • totally campus-based?
   • campus-based with church practicum tacked on?
   • church-based, even if located on a campus?
   • fully church-based?
   • community-based?

Further questions and implications

1. How could one safeguard non-campus programs against the centralization of power, staffing, funding and debt on a campus?
2. Similarly, how could one safeguard training programs against the prestige of Higher Education programs?
3. Are we seeking to train generalists or specialists? Is there a middle road? And who ins we?
4. Despite lots of tinkering, many current theological programs were designed thirty or forty years ago, and some B.Th. qualifications did not seriously change for a century. These programs have difficulty attracting students. What will theological schools offer that is designed for current needs?

All these ideas were thoroughly discussed in the 1960s and 1970s in Higher Education studies. It's probably not an oversimplification to state some key conclusions. Scientific courses are different from technological courses. (This especially affected research strategies and funding, so applied research become acceptable at Ph.D. level.) Academic study alone is inadequate as a model of professional education. Academic study must be integrated into actual practice on job as part of the learning process. The way that they are integrated continues to be a subject of interest.