Seminary Deans Support Residential Schools
Episcopal News Service. February 8, 1979 [79030]
Stephen L. Brehe
Evanston, Ill. -- The three-year accredited residential seminary still offers the best training ground and preparation for the ministry of the Episcopal Church.
That is the opinion of the Council of Seminary Deans of the ten accredited schools and nine seminary trustee bishops.
At a joint meeting last December 7-8, they drafted a joint resolution calling for General Convention to acknowledge the importance of supporting the Church's residential seminaries.
The resolution calls upon General Convention to recognize:
- "1) That these seminary communities represent a unique combination of intellectual rigor, of informal opportunities for shared reflection which bring together differing perspectives and backgrounds for theological formulations, and of a community setting for liturgical life and for priestly and diaconal formation;
- "2) That such a setting, as described above, possesses manifest advantages for the preparation for full-time stipendiary service in the ordained ministry;
- "3) That preparation for ordination to the special ministries provided under Title III, Canon 8 and 10, Section 10, may take place in diocesan programs;
- "4) That assistance to these special diocesan programs should be seen by such seminaries as an opportunity for a wider service to the church in the area of theological education, and that diocesan programs should seek and welcome such assistance; and
- "5) That these seminaries must continue to be regarded as indispensable centers for theological reflection and for spiritual development for the whole church."
The deans and bishops also asked General Convention to authorize the Board for Theological Education to bring together the various agencies concerned with theological education at all levels to design strategies for greater coordination and planning.
The Council, presided over by the Very Rev. O. C. Edwards, Jr., of Seabury-Western, stated that at this point in the church's history there is a great transition taking place regarding ministry.
"Not too long ago it was generally accepted that all candidates for ordination would be trained in an accredited three-year seminary and subsequently serve as fulltime stipendiary priests. This kind of training, preparation, and ministry is still normative. In addition, however, there are new models. These may in some instances have attained maturity. Some are still evolving. Others may yet emerge," the statement says.
"We believe it is in a residential seminary that one receives the greatest opportunity for intellectual study of and reflection upon the historic content of the faith and its application. It is also in the kind of community which a seminary can be that the formation of such persons for the exercise of the ministry of either deacon or priest is given the most beneficial treatment."
Dean Edwards added that several dioceses have memorialized General Convention to declare that the accredited seminaries are the normative routes of preparation for ministry in the Episcopal Church.
The joint resolution by the deans and bishops recognizes, he pointed out, that there are also other avenues of preparation for the ordained ministry, such as diocesan training schools. These are valid forms of training in special situations, although the residential seminaries still offer the widest opportunities.
The 10 accredited seminaries of the Episcopal Church are: The General Theological Seminary, Nashotah House, Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Bexley Hall, Episcopal Divinity School, Seabury-Western, Virginia Theological Seminary, The Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, and The School of Theology of the University of the South (Sewanee).
The following bishops attended the meeting: Phillip F. McNairy, retired of Minnesota; David B. Reed of Kentucky; William B. Spofford of Eastern Oregon; John Krumm of Southern Ohio; Wesley Frensdorff of Nevada; Quintin Primo suffragan of Chicago; James Montgomery of Chicago; William Folwell of Central Florida; and Richard Trelease of Rio Grande.