Christianity Today features an article about the growth of online seminary education: ‘The iSeminary Cometh’. Here’s a one page link.
Scott Clark provides a vigorous reply about the value of campus based training: ‘And Now for the Rest of the Story’.
Clark also has an essay which carries the same theme in a more nuanced fashion: ‘Why Pastors Need A Seminary Education’.
I have sympathies with some of Clark’s points. You’ll hear the same points made in support of campus based education in many disciplines.
But I wish the campus based theological industry would make those points with a little more humility.
Campus based training is not an imperative. But it is wise, especially when the campus is accountable to, and a part of, the denomination whose pastors they are training.
The argument should be about why campus based training is the best choice, not the only choice.
Then, of course, the seminary has to see itself as an accountable, serving part of the church.
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