Related articles and links |  1 of 5

Ft. Worth's Tyndale Theological Seminary ordered to pay $173,000 fine for awarding diplomas, calling itself a seminary
Concerned about diploma mills, the Texas Legislature in 1975 passed a law barring unaccredited schools from using the word "seminary" in their titles and from using "bachelor, master, and doctor" in their degree titles.

That's a problem for Ft. Worth-based Tyndale Theological Seminary (not to be confused with the Dutch school of the same name, or the similarly named Tyndale University College & Seminary in Toronto), which has between 300 and 350 students, the vast majority engaged in "distance learning." The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board fined the school $170,000 for awarding 34 diplomas, and an additional $3,000 for calling itself a seminary.

In 2001, a judge supported the diploma-related fine, but threw out the "seminary" fine. Yesterday, however, the 3rd District Texas Court of Appeals in Austin supported both fines, and ordered Tyndale to pay all $173,000.

"The legislative purpose in regulating private postsecondary educational institutions is secular—to prevent public deception and confusion resulting from the conferring of any fraudulent or substandard postsecondary degree," Judge Paul Davis wrote in his decision. "Regulating the granting of degrees under the statutory scheme does not amount to a step toward establishing an official state religion. … [The school's] predicament is not the result of government regulation of its religious function of training individuals for ministry; rather, it is Tyndale's role in the secular practice of operating a school that grants degrees, which is not a religious activity."

"This is an outrageous decision," said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel for Liberty Legal Institute, which sued on Tyndale's behalf. "The state has now been given control of all seminaries across the state and can now dictate the education of the pastors and their churches. If religious training for all theological degrees has to first be approved by the government, then religious freedom is dead." (Shackelford used exactly the same quote in 2001.)

But accredited seminaries disagree. In 2001, Kenneth Hemphill, then president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told the Associated Press, "We are a conservative, confessional institution, and we have not found that our accreditation has caused us to compromise our biblical convictions. We have found accreditation valuable in that it provides accountability for the institution and credibility for those looking for graduate theological work. It is important to have standards of quality."

Don't expect many Christian higher education institutions, or even Christian civil rights organizations, to jump to Tyndale's defense.

Church life:

• Vicar with no faith keeps his job | He apparently is still an atheist, but he apologized for saying so (Nettavisen, Norway)
  
  

• Thought for the day: you're fired because you're too religious | The BBC's agnostic head of religion is under fire for his dumping of long-standing presenters (The Daily Telegraph, London)
  
  

• Collection plates shrink | More turn to religion, but money doesn't follow (The Detroit News)
  
  
• Should clergy endorse 'living in sin'? | Cohabitation is here to stay and on the increase, whether we like it or not. Clergy members, therefore, should move beyond the moral condemnation of cohabitation to more practical approaches. (Gerald L. Zelizer, USA Today)
  
  
• Church fight imperils children's center | Respite proposal brings out concerns over size, traffic (The Washington Post)
  
  

next page... |  1 of 5

July (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47