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Christianity Today, February, 2009 |

Stocks Squeeze Seminaries

Financial crisis may claim more evangelical schools in 2009.

Collin Hansen | posted 1/12/2009 10:37AM

One evangelical seminary fell victim to the American economy's recession in 2008, while others teetered on the brink of collapse or faced serious cutbacks.

Salt Lake Theological Seminary, the only Christian ...

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Galen

Posted: January 13, 2009 11:41 PM

Good analysis. No solution. Some quailfied friends and I chose this moment to launch our new pastoral training initiative. We charge nothing for tuition and our apprentice church planters are invited to live in community, sharing expenses. Together, we hold seminars and workshops in homes and garages. We and our apprentices start and multiply little gatherings with folk who are willing to learn to obey all the commandments of Jesus. We study together Scripture, historical theology and pastoral methods. All the more experienced mentor less experienced studentsm, empowering them to do the same with others "on the job". We remain amazed at the practical wisdom that emerges among our "seminary" students who implement their learning at once in new little churches. We almost wish that criminally wasteful wealth should never return.

Richard Jones

Posted: January 13, 2009 11:41 PM

What saddens me most is that schools founded on teaching God's Word and proclaiming His kingdom are so bound by world financial systems. Either Christ and His kingdom is preeminent over the ups and downs of world financial markets or it isn't. And if Christ has preminence over all things, and His kingdom is the greater reality, then we must begin to trust in Him and seek first His kingdom. The great problem is many who say they trust in the Lord actually trusted more in the uncertain riches of world financial markets. The end result is a weakened Church that appears powerless to those who are of this world and which has become a reproach upon the name of the Lord. Let us not forget the parable of the 3 stewards. The one who did the least with what the Lord entrusted to him had all that he held taken away from him and it was given to the one who did the most. When will the Church ever learn.

Jay Blossom

Posted: January 13, 2009 12:59 PM

Salt Lake had been struggling since long before this current economic downturn. See this article from the Salt Lake Tribune in 2007: http://www.intrust.org/learn/news_detail.cfm?id=99. And see this article from In Trust magazine (which I edit) in 2008: http://www.intrust.org/magazine/pastarticle.cfm?id=561. Because all seminaries are funded from a combination of sources -- individual gifts, foundation grants, denominational support, tuition, and endowment income -- and all those are suffering right now, I don't see how this is a theological issue. Unless, that is, one is inclined to "abandon the corporate church" and formal ministerial training altogether.

martin

Posted: January 13, 2009 9:48 AM

Having a responsible plan for running and or growing a christian institution is not irresponsible. If this plan includes borrowing a reasonable amount of money to forward a christian ministry, then do it. Is it better to sit in your hands and do little or nothing or get moving for God and perhaps borrow some money. i agree irresponsible borrowing for a ministry is not being good stewards with God's money, but sitting around and doing little because you don't want to borrow is not always a good idea. I think alot of people bring their own personal beliefs into this. It's not always how you want it to be done, but what is best for the ministry. Unprportional large debt is wrong, but responsible debt is fine if that is what it takes.

Art Vesterdal

Posted: January 12, 2009 6:53 PM

We run our churches like market driven entities - searching, hiring and firing like any corporate giant. But the pastoral wages are generally lousy, the working conditions are poor, most of our pastoral staffers will be forced to move every 4 years and 1 in 3 of them will be disqualified from their field of study due to an eventual failure of their marriage. Since the above demonstrates an terrible career, it is not surprise that the training institutions are going broke. You could not pay me to send a young woman or man to seminary today. It is no surprise no seminaries existed in the first century AD and the young church spread like wildfire. We should slaughter these sacred cows, let the seminaries sink, abandon the corporate church, and let the chips fall where they may. At worst, we might end up returning to the New Testament model of church which was so successful. And at best, we might reverse the decline of Christianity in North America.

Mike B.

Posted: January 12, 2009 6:27 PM


"Declining to replace departed staff," is a huge stretch of terminology. Extensive layoffs would be more accurate. Positions were eliminated, people lost their jobs. That's the harsh reality of it.

Howard Pepper

Posted: January 12, 2009 5:06 PM

I appreciate specific, practical articles like this, along with theological and other ones. Might you, CT also consider more on seminaries and cover areas touched on above, as well as trends in their theologies and types of students (theologically)? The enlightening work of "higher criticism" (overall, aside from the many silly extremes) would seem to be finally having some influence, though it is the top of the Evangelical educational heirarchy that has naturally resisted it the most, and will continue to, often against all common sense and objective truth-seeking.

Jesse James

Posted: January 12, 2009 5:02 PM


Maybe we can restart this new year with more Bingo nites, or selling aunties pies, or have grannie make quilts to auction off, or sell indulgences at a higher price .... or better yet, demand more than the tithe from the parishioners !

Xinosaj

Posted: January 12, 2009 12:49 PM

Too many evangelical institutions, including churches, drank the Kool-Aid that DEBT was the way to attain the American Dream. Just as their parishioners were buying big houses, the churches and organizations were buying large campuses and new facilities with the same shaky loans offered by the banks. The crisis in commercial real estate is just beginning, and many institutions will be caught up in it. Years from now, evangelicals will be looking back wondering how they thought that they were so resolute in standing against homosexuality and pornography, but how they completely blew it when it came to living by the Bible's injunctions against DEBT. It's all part of the Republicanization of the American Church that has brought the once-promising evangelical movement to utter ruin in the U.S. Because Anne "Chainsaw" Coulter and Bill'O the Clown didn't have a thing to say about DEBT, neither did we. Christians better learn to be smarter than that.

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