Protestant Seminary Research Articles

Childhood Abuse and the Mental Health of Seminary Students: The Mediating Role of R/S Struggles

Seminary students have been found to be at a higher risk of experiencing abuse in childhood compared with the general U.S. population, as well as demonstrate mental health struggles. This study aims to understand how R/S struggles might explain the relationship between childhood abuse (emotional, physical, and sexual) among a sample of seminary students, a group that is at a higher risk of experiencing emotional and physical abuse in childhood compared to the general U.S. population. Drawing on a unique sample of seminary students at a Mainline Protestant seminary, ( N = 535), regression results suggest that among seminary students, all forms of childhood abuse studied (emotional, physical, and sexual) were associated with greater depressive and anxiety symptoms. We also found consistent evidence that R/S struggles were a mediator of this pathway, explaining anywhere between 20 percent and 35 percent of the overall association between each form of childhood abuse and depressive and anxiety symptoms. This study adds to the growing body of literature describing the associations between childhood trauma and mental health, as well as the role of R/S struggles. We also discuss how seminaries and divinity schools should implement targeted programs for students with a history of childhood abuse.

“There’s theology and then there’s the people I love. . .”: Authority and Ambivalence in Seminarians’ Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Relationships, Marriage, and Ordination

Abstract Drawing from 102 in-depth interviews conducted with first-year Master of Divinity (M.Div.) students at a Mainline Protestant seminary, this paper examines how students describe and account for their positions on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. We found that students on “both sides”—i.e., those who lean affirming and those who lean non-affirming—invoked three primary authorities in their accounts: Biblical authority, Godly authority, and the authority of lived experience, as demonstrated in the lives of gay and lesbian people. We also found that nearly one-third of the students in our sample expressed uncertainty, ambivalence, and/or contradictions in their responses. Through a close analysis of these accounts, we show that ambivalence and uncertainty are rooted in attempts to navigate and “reconcile” the pulls of these different authorities and that attitudinal certainty is often accomplished by privileging one authority over others.

Pedagogical values in teaching public theology: Resonances from an underground seminary

AbstractThis article is a reflection on the teaching of public theology in two very different contexts: in a Protestant seminary in the US (1985–2019) and an underground seminary in Nazi Germany (1935–1937). The author analyzes her teaching career over years of change, both institutional and social, that challenged pedagogical methods to remain relevant and effective. Yet informing and shaping her pedagogy were five values that remained constant throughout: contextuality, democratic participation, collegiality, dialogue, and inclusion of diverse voices. These values resonated with another theological school in another time and place—the underground seminary at Finkenwalde in Germany, created by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in 1935. It trained students for the Confessing Church until it was shut down by the Gestapo in 1937. Moving into a future in which pedagogical methods are changing and instructors are retooling to learn new technologies and teaching skills, these core values remain as touchstones in shaping curriculum and the educational experience.

Humility in Seminary Student Formation: A Mixed Method Community Action Study

This cross-sectional mixed method community action study exploring the virtue of humility was conducted as part of a collaborative practical theology project at a pluralistic, ecumenical Mainline Protestant seminary. Students ( N = 65) in a spiritual formation graduate class completed quantitative measures of humility, spiritual well-being, differentiation of self (DoS), mentalization, and mindfulness, while open-ended qualitative data captured their perspectives about the role of humility in formation. Qualitative results revealed important nuances about emerging religious leaders’ views on humility, including experiencing this virtue as (a) facilitative to their vocational growth (e.g., promoting learning, self-understanding, relational connections, and deeper spirituality), (b) challenging (e.g., self-deprecating, unnecessary, and contrary to ministry), or (c) some combination of both. Quantitative results documented positive associations between relational capacities (e.g., DoS, mentalization) and humility, and these links were mediated by mindful awareness. Implications for measuring and promoting holistic spiritual development among emerging religious leaders are discussed.

Preparing to Educate for a Thriving Bivocational Ministry: A Seminary Case Study

How can institutions of higher learning in theological education respond to an increasing need for bivocational ministry preparation, training, and support? This article presents detailed findings from one US, mainline Protestant seminary’s effort to evaluate current and perceived needs in this area. Data from surveys of students, staff, faculty, and trustees at Lancaster Theological Seminary and learnings from a six-session student focus group are presented. Explored are questions of perception and relevance of bivocational ministry, distinct stressors of bivocational ministry, opinions about current educational programs at the seminary, and opinions about institutional changes designed to better support and prepare seminarians for bivocational ministry. These findings are indicative rather than definitive, inviting further research involving more schools and a larger set of respondents. The article concludes with a discussion of challenges and opportunities facing this seminary in its strategic effort to educate for a thriving bivocational ministry.

Theologie in laizistischen Zeiten

Abstract Theology in laicistic times. The breakdown of Habsburg monarchy and the consequences for protestantic colleges in the region of Danube and the Carpats. The article deals with the fate of protestant colleges in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy and its descendant states. Protestant teaching was restricted by a laicistic course of policy in Czechoslovakia (under Masaryk) and Austria (Socialist party). In Hungary, Horthy expected help and hope by the churches during the depression after the lost war, and therefore founded ecclesiastical academic institutes on university level. To this day, pastoral training is located in church-directed universities and colleges, whereas the public universities and colleges offer no theological courses. In Austria, the „Großdeutsche“ party supported the „Christlichsoziale“ party and its powerful (clerical) leader Ignaz Seipel under the condition that the 100 year old protestant seminary was incorporated with Vienna University. In Prag and Bratislava, Masaryk’s system of separation of state and church postboned the academic incorporation until 1990.

Creating, Practicing, and Researching a Global Faith: Conceptualizations of World Christianity in the American Protestant Pastorate and Seminary Classroom, 1893 to the Present

ABSTRACT This article investigates how North American Protestants conceptualized and studied “world Christianity” from the turn of the twentieth century onward. It examines references to world Christianity in historic newspapers and scholarly books and surveys how North American Protestant conceptualizations of world Christianity translated into curriculum and professorship changes at three flagship Protestant seminaries: Union Theological Seminary, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Boston University’s School of Theology. It argues that world Christianity developed in the American Protestant pastorate and seminary classroom in relationship to three phenomena: world evangelization, worldwide ecumenism, and indigenization. During these three stages, American Protestants utilized “world Christianity” to describe their changing relationship to foreign mission and non-Western Christianity, particularly in light of shifting theological commitments at home and historical developments abroad. With each development, world Christianity transitioned from being a concept with America at its center to one reflecting a multipolar, global Christian faith.

More Than a Question of Debt: A Qualitative Study of How Seminarians Think About Money

As the funding environment for higher education and theological education changes, an increasing number of graduate theological students hold student loan debt that will follow them well into their postgraduation working lives (Delisle, 2014). This study reports the attitudes about money voiced by master of divinity students at one mainline Protestant seminary. Using interactive qualitative analysis, researchers discovered seven key themes that function as a conceptual system (mind map). Participants reported that the three themes that exerted the most influence in the system were beliefs (how money fits in with other convictions held by students), societal impact (what students think about the results of government policies and actions of private firms regarding money), and financial awareness (how students know about their income, expenses, and obligations). These themes influenced what students thought about debt, saving, giving money away, and their emotions about money. Most participants voiced explicitly theological beliefs about money, including a variety of reasons for their own giving. The article discusses these findings in relation to other research about student debt and Christian attitudes toward financial giving. Recommendations arising from these findings include providing explicit curricular attention in theological schools to money as a problem for Christians and to developing students' financial literacy. Theological schools may benefit from exploring the relationship between the institutional need to admit tuition-paying students and the needs of churches for full-time pastors. Areas for further research include the relationship between a sense of Christian vocation and money, as well as what, if anything, is distinctive about donating money to explicitly Christian organizations.

All Flourishing? Student Experience and Gender in a Protestant Seminary

Existing research suggests that men and women have similar reasons for attending North American seminaries and are influenced strongly by faculty while in school. To increase understanding of the experiences of women and men in seminary, this study used interactive qualitative analysis to discover and compare the main themes of seminary experience for men and women at one Protestant seminary. Study results show men and women differed in their perception of how seminary influenced their sense of calling. One third of women interviewed reported experiences of resistance to their pursuit of ministry as a vocation. Further research is needed to explore the mechanisms that continue to reproduce sexism. The author argues that seminaries need to increase the proportion of women faculty members to promote the flourishing of all students.

Remodeling Catholic Ruins in William Wordsworth's Poetry

William Wordsworth's poetry reveals his interest in the social model of the Catholic monastery, his sense of this model's vulnerability during political crises, and its potential in addressing the social and environmental concerns of the nineteenth century. While Wordsworth laments the devastation of religious communities during the French Revolution, he targets industrial capitalism as the modern-day threat to a communal ideal of environmental and spiritual harmony. Underexplored works such as “Tuft of Primroses” and “St. Bees” legitimize a celibate religious vocation and female leadership within this context, views he shared with the founders of the Oxford Movement who sought his involvement in a shared agenda of religious reform on the local level. Catholic ruins in Great Britain, in Wordsworth's estimation, can be remodeled along Protestant lines congruent with the original founders' institutional mission to address the needs of the local community. Thus, the transformation of “St. Bees” from a medieval nunnery to a nineteenth-century Protestant seminary is just one way in which a legacy of service and sustainability can continue in the modern age. Wordsworth's writings on the relevance of monastic culture in the nineteenth-century make visible his contributions to the Victorian projects of local reform, historic preservation, and religious liberalization.

Strange Affinities: Biblical Scholarship and the Rise of Racism

Research Article| April 01 2009 Strange Affinities: Biblical Scholarship and the Rise of Racism: A Speech to a Protestant Seminary in Germany Susannah Heschel Susannah Heschel Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Tikkun (2009) 24 (2): 24–29. https://doi.org/10.1215/08879982-2009-2009 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Susannah Heschel; Strange Affinities: Biblical Scholarship and the Rise of Racism: A Speech to a Protestant Seminary in Germany. Tikkun 1 April 2009; 24 (2): 24–29. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/08879982-2009-2009 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter Books & JournalsAll JournalsTikkun Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © Tikkun magazine2008 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Rethinking Classroom Diversity: Three Student Cultures in a Mainline Seminary

Abstract. Discussions on teaching and learning within theological seminaries often center on the question of student diversity, focused primarily upon issues of race, gender, and ethnicity. At the same time that seminaries are challenged to deal with a multitude of pedagogical suppositions emerging from increasingly diverse learning goals, seminaries must also pay attention to the ways their students challenge an institution's core mission to train ministers for service in churches and denominations. Based upon the author's experience teaching in a mainline Protestant seminary, the essay discusses three student cultures that often overlap among today's seminarians. These three student cultures, referred to here as “church seminarian,”“new paradigm seminarian,” and “vocational seminarian,” carry very different understandings of the seminary's role to prepare students for ministry. A critical discernment of these cultures might challenge seminary faculty to reevaluate their educational and missional suppositions amidst divergent student career objectives.

Facing the Stained Glass Ceiling: Gender in a Protestant Seminary

Facing the Stained Glass Ceiling: Gender in a Protestant Seminary

Facing the Stained Glass Ceiling: Gender in a Protestant Seminary

Facing the Stained Glass Ceiling: Gender in a Protestant Seminary

The New Breed of Minister

Reports research findings focused on the question, Have persons entering the ranks of clergy changed in recent years? Examines psychological test data and demographic factors of 1,139 M. Div. students entering a mainline Protestant seminary in an attempt to identify the changes among seminarians over a twenty-five-year period. Pays particular attention to the variables of gender, second-career students, liberal and conservative seminarians, and students who leave seminary. Offers personal reflections generated by the quantitative research findings.

The Faculty Meeting

Setting: A Protestant seminary in the near future. It is 5:00 a.m. The faculty members are slinking down the corridors like tenth century monks fleeing the Vikings. There are no Vikings living in the seminary, but there are students. Why is the faculty hiding from them? Because it intends to assemble illegally, that is, without the students (who constitute the majority of the voting members), and at an irregular hour. (The stated time for faculty meetings is, of course, Sunday morning at 11:00. The notices for illegal meetings are sent out one day in advance and simply read: “collegium illicitum”).

Africanization and African Studies

In connection with the founding of a Protestant seminary for French-speaking Africa,1 and particularly in connection with the formation of an African Studies Department in that seminary, Dr. Reyburn presents this analysis of the nature of the Africanization which has already taken place — the unconscious and subtle reorientation of the Christian message as received from the West into African points of view. Dr. Reyburn will be teaching part-time in this new African Studies Department, in addition to his work as a translations consultant of the American Bible Society.