Seminary and University: Two Approaches to Theology and Religion

Abstract

S THEOLOGIANS, scholars of religion, and educators we are facing challenges on two fronts: (1) scholarship in our seminaries for the church and its mission in the world and (2) the scholarly study of religion in the university. Churchmen are seeking those revisions in theological education which would better prepare men for the ministry of the church today. An increasing interest in the scholarly study of religion, particularly in tax-supported colleges and universities, and revolutionary changes in American higher education, are forcing a new look at the nature of religion as an academic discipline and its place in the college and university curriculum. The purpose of this essay is to consider some of the ways in which the two educational tasks seminary and the university differ. Largely as a result of historical factors, the distinction of the two tasks has not been clear. Up to the present, most of the significant scholarship in theology and religion has been done in Protestant-oriented graduate schools who train both ministers of the Gospel for the churches and scholars of religion for college and university faculties. Both groups are prepared in substantially the same curriculum and with the same faculty. Out ability to meet the two distinct challenges of the church and the university will be jeopardized unless the historically inherited situation is readjusted to present needs. I wish to make very clear from the beginning that in my judgment given the distinction between the seminary as part of the Church and the university as part of the common heritage of Western society, and given the unique character and purpose of each, the educational tasks are radically dissimilar. After several years of teaching experience in both college and seminary and several years of observation of both communities of learning, it is evident to me that the two institutions coincide with regard to the study of religion and theology only insofar as some of the same subject matter is appropriate to both. And even where there is a common subject matter, the reasons for its inclusion in each curriculum are, or should be, different; that difference being dictated by the unique ends for which each community of learning exists.