Category Archives: education

General Theological Seminary

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From the Dean of Bexley Hall Seminary (Ohio), in his personal blog, “Crusty Old Dean,” on the situation at the General Theological Seminary after the Board of Trusties refused to reconsider their decision to rid the seminary of the eight professors. Click the link to read the post.

Fear leads to believing control works. Fear leads to flailing around attempting to find a solution, any solution, any shiny thing, whether based on rational, calm consideration or not and if not generally only leads to continued failure. Wisdom is set down and forgotten. Laudable assertions and beliefs and convictions fall by the wayside. We are in the midst of chaos born of fear in this Church of ours.

The institutional decisions and directions I’ve seen over the last decade within my Church make me believe that we are in an eddy swirling around and around and having no clue how to get out of it. I don’t know whether we honestly want to get out… whether we want to succeed… whether we want to be a part of what God is doing all around. I hope, truly, that I am very wrong.

Last week I attended a conference full of young pastors of congregations in New York City that are thriving – tens of thousands in their congregations and dramatically growing. (It is good to learn from those who are succeeding in these new contexts!) They are joyful, excited about the Gospel and their people, and they pastor congregations that are the same. My inclination is to want to be a part of them – in all their disjointed glory. The Body of Christ is alive and well, but the question is whether we want to be a part of it or not. Thankfully, my parish decides to to be a part, even if imperfectly. I choose to be a part, even if imperfectly, but there are consequences.

The very sad thing is that I have heard from a number of priests, alumni of GTS, who are afraid – yes afraid – to say anything publicly for fear of what will come their way from ecclesiastical authorities. I well understand this! How ironic. The very people in this Church who screamed through the ’70’s, ’80’s, ’90’s, “Speak truth to power”… well, they did until those screaming found themselves to be “the power”, and, well, there goes any tolerance for “Speaking truth…”

Oh yes, we will come through this. We will be an example. We will teach, something. The decision is ours as to what we will example and teach. What we decide will determine whether what we example and teach lead to the good or the bad.

http://crustyoldean.blogspot.com/2014/10/requiem-for-seminary-requiem-for-church.html

 

The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church

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My seminary – for which I have great love, within which I made fast friends and found colleagues, from which I was formed in worship in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd (what incredible symbolism in that name, alone) and in scholarship found in classroom and conversation – this seminary of long tradition (honored by many, ridiculed by others) is in a very difficult place, a different kind of trouble in these days.

I don’t know the details. I don’t, so I can’t bring myself to throw down the club of blame and accusation on either side. I have to wait.  I know the Dean as a fellow seminarian. I know some of the faculty as teachers and mentors. I know them all, and respect them all. We not only studied together, but we lived together in the tight confines of the Close.

This is, I’m afraid, what tends to happen within institutions as they go through profound change. Frankly, this is what happens within communities and nations, too. We see it in our own politics, in the events in the Middle East, and in other graduate institutions, too. These types of things happen as a result of our very human nature – sources of great good and great evil, incredible creativity and deadening banality. This is way we need, frankly, the One who redeems and restores and saves us from the worst of our human nature, from ourselves – individually and collectively.

What we see happening at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church we will continue to see with increasing frequency and ferociousness until the turn comes. This is a microcosm of what is stating within the entire Church. How will we respond?  The question asked within the title of a book by Francis Schaeffer comes to mind – “How should we then live?”  This is the crux, isn’t it? How are we each to live out the commands of Jesus in this very difficult, but practical, situation? How will each of us love God with all of our being and then, and here is where the significance really finds it’s ground, how will we love our neighbors – deans and faculties and pundits all around?

Will GTS and will the entire Church make the decision to do the profoundly difficult thing, the profoundly counter-cultural thing, and be reconciled, be redeemed, be reformed, and be transformed in the glory of the grace and mercy and love and faithfulness shown to us by the One to whom we owe everything? We have a choice, don’t we? Frankly, we have to “man-up”, we have to “woman-up”, we have to “Christ-up” and do the right thing, else we are just another example of hypocrisy – a failed thought-system, a worthless religion. We know what we need to do, and with God’s help we can do it, if we are willing. Are we willing? If so, just watch what God will do! Amazing!

Entitled to your opinion, eh?

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So, does everyone have a right to their opinion?  It depends what you mean by “opinion” and by “right,” I suppose.  But, no, everyone does not have a right to every opinion, whether their own or by taking on the opinion of someone else.

An interesting commentary by Patrick Stokes, Lecturer in Philosophy at Deakin University in Australia.  Read the whole thing article: “No, you’re not entitled to your opinion.”

Quotes from paragraphs:

Secondly, I say something like this: “I’m sure you’ve heard the expression ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion.’ Perhaps you’ve even said it yourself, maybe to head off an argument or bring one to a close. Well, as soon as you walk into this room, it’s no longer true. You are not entitled to your opinion. You are only entitled to what you can argue for.”

A bit harsh? Perhaps, but philosophy teachers owe it to our students to teach them how to construct and defend an argument – and to recognize when a belief has become indefensible.

The problem with “I’m entitled to my opinion” is that, all too often, it’s used to shelter beliefs that should have been abandoned. It becomes shorthand for “I can say or think whatever I like” – and by extension, continuing to argue is somehow disrespectful. And this attitude feeds, I suggest, into the false equivalence between experts and non-experts that is an increasingly pernicious feature of our public discourse…

Perhaps that’s one reason (no doubt there are others) why enthusiastic amateurs think they’re entitled to disagree with climate scientists and immunologists and have their views “respected.”…

So what does it mean to be “entitled” to an opinion?

If “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion” just means no-one has the right to stop people thinking and saying whatever they want, then the statement is true, but fairly trivial.

But if ‘entitled to an opinion’ means ‘entitled to have your views treated as serious candidates for the truth’ then it’s pretty clearly false. And this too is a distinction that tends to get blurred.

….or to borrow a phrase from Andrew Brown, it “confuses losing an argument with losing the right to argue.” Again, two senses of “entitlement” to an opinion are being conflated here.