"the Souls of Pickles, Theological Education Part 2

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Dave Roberts]

I think Tim has a good question. One of the issues is that the seminaries in the SBC that existed before the first Baptist Faith and Message in 1925 generally had their own doctrinal statements which faculty members signed when they became tenured by the institution. Which doctrinal statement is in the charter? If one is registered in the charter of the institution, then that is the governing document by law. All SBC seminaries are chartered with the respective states in which they are located, unless that has changed in the past fifteen years when I have not served in the SBC.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy,

Yes United Methodist related seminaries are independent. The United Methodist Church is not a legal entity or corporation. So the United Methodist Church cannot own anything as a denomination. There are institution which are owned by individual Annual Conferences (what we call our regional bodies) but the denomination is not a legal entity. Agencies of the denomination such as the General Board of Discipleship or the General Board of Global Ministries are incorporated and can own property, institutions, etc. The UMC doesn't even have a single headquarters anywhere. So the governance is a lot more diffused than a lot of people realize.

The UMC does offer scholarships to seminary students who are qualified candidates for ministry. Not just anyone can walk into a seminary and decide to prepare to be a UMC pastor. You have to be approved by your local church leadership (Charge Conference) and you have to be under the watch care of your District Committee on Ministry. If you are approved for seminary education then you are eligible to apply for scholarships. Recently the UMC has been looking to raise $35,000,000 for a seminary education fund to encourage more younger people to enter ministry.

Your assertion that the SBC Executive Committee is the doctrinal authority for the seminaries is problematic for Williams idea that the people who give the money should decide doctrine since it is individuals who give the money but those individuals are not, by polity, members of the SBC. They are members of the local church only. So in effect they are giving their money to another entity (the SBC) which they have very little control over and then the SBC decides the doctrine of the seminaries. Then the SBC teaches that doctrine to the pastors that go back to the churches. Honestly, from a doctrinal stand point, the SBC is more top down and hierarchical than I would have thought given the congregational polity.

Such doctrinal controls may or may not relate much to the doctrinal views of those in the pew. To be exact it only relates to the doctrinal views of the Messengers who show up at the SBC meeting on the one day (not even other days or years) when the SBC votes in the BFM. Many persons, even a majority of persons, in SBC churches could agree or disagree with the BFM but it is only the view of the Messengers on that one day that counts. And, if I remember my SBC doctrine correctly, they are called Messengers and not Delegate because they are not bound to represent their local church's view but only their own.

So I guess this leaves me wondering what the purpose is of the SBC leadership through the BFM controlling seminary doctrine? If the purpose is to make sure seminary graduates all come out believing the same things isn't it a way of seeking to control the doctrinal views of the local church through the seminary trained pastors? And, if so, wouldn't it just be easier to adopt official doctrine for everyone and be done with it?

[Sandy]

[Sandy]

http://jasonkallen.com/2013/04/for-the- ... he-church/

New President of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and his perspective.