Waiting for ord results
Posted by Carol Howard Merritt on 27 Oct 2008 at 11:44 am | Tagged as: church
Seminary students in my good denomination are waiting for their ordination exam results to come in today. And, based on history, more than half of our seniors will fail our exams. By January, the number will whittle down to 37 percent. We have talked about the failure rate on this site before, but I would like to keep discussing this.
I do not think that ordination is a right. I realize that we need to discern as individuals and communities. And yet, why are we happy that 37 percent of our seniors will not be able to look for calls upon graduation?
I know that 37 percent is about the same rate as lawyers, but the law has certain incentives (such as money and prestige) that would attract more candidates to the profession. We simply do not have the same incentives.
If we are using the exams to weed out students, are they weeding out the right ones? When we take these exams, we are told over and over again, “Don’t be too creative. Don’t be too smart. Shoot for passing. Shoot for average.” Anyone who tries to be smart or creative is seen as a “show off.”
I ask this because… just from my observations… it seems like we are getting rid of some really, really fine candidates. Of course, they often go to other denominations, where they have flourishing ministries. But, shouldn’t we start asking ourselves, Why should we spend all of this money training pastors for other denominations?
These are tough financial times, so, while we’re at it, why don’t we start asking, Do we want to continue pouring so much money into education and ministry preparation, when we are going to turn away 37 percent of our candidates at the end of the day?
When we ask people to consider seminary, are we supposed to tell them that they have about a 37 percent chance of not making it? Can we, in good conscience, really ask people to go into 30 to 40 thousand dollars worth of debt, watch them make great grades in seminary, and then tell them that they can’t pursue ordination because they didn’t pass an ord exam?
How are seminaries going to keep recruiting, if they have to say, “Well, it will take you three years to get the Masters, and then at the end of it, there’s about a 40 percent chance that you won’t be able to look for a job”?
Consider some facts:
Forty percent of churches in our denomination do not have pastors.
The number of retiring ministers each year will soon double.
The number of students entering our seminaries has gone down dramatically this year.
Our denomination would like to start planting 400 churches every year.
When you add to that, the number of pastors who burnout or leave the ministry during their first call, shouldn’t we begin to ask ourselves, Are we ready for the challenges in the years to come?
the photo is by john faherty photography
waiting, waiting, waiting…
taking the dog to the dog park to kill some time…
then I’ll come home and hit “refresh” every ten seconds…
sigh…
I’ve been told by a local pastor who went to the Raleigh area to grade that they only passed 54% of the polity exams…
sheesh..
I passed the ords on my first try, but I believe we should do away with ords. It’s another gate to unlock, another hoop to jump in a system that seems to focus more on “no” than “yes”. If someone is going to a denominational seminary and graduates, then why another test to see if s/he has mastered the material. Obviously the denomination doesn’t trust the seminaries. What a state of affairs! But isn’t that the state of our denomination? No one seems to trust anyone these days.
Yes. You’re right. We don’t trust people. And, if you take a good look at our system, it seems that we take out most of our dysfunctions on ordination candidates… the one place that the strength and hope of our denomination reside.
I too am holding our candidates in prayer today. It is certainly a day of uncertainty for many.
That said, I think our current system of exams is flawed and imperfect but not worth getting rid of entirely. I must say that I have much invested in it myself — I passed all four exams on the first try, I serve on a CPM and do a lot of work with people to help them pass the exams, and I read exams this fall. Still, there is something to be said for an ordination system that is not 100% “local option.”
The exams are not perfect — I personally despised some of the questions on the exams I read this fall as being badly written and unfairly tricky, and I made that clear in my evaluation of them. However, I think this system is a whole lot better than one where a candidate’s knowledge of theology, polity, etc., are examined in the rest of the call process. If this exam of knowledge were left to the final stage of the process, I’m almost certain that some presbyteries would subject prospective ministers to many hours of examination, while others would open the floor for questions and none would be asked. If this exam of knowledge were done by CPM, our candidates would be examined by people who knew them — but who would be more prone to assume knowledge that was not demonstrated. (On a side note, the biggest reason why I gave a failing grade to an exam was that people simply did not answer the question that was asked — they offered a satisfactory answer to another question that was not asked.) If this were left to the seminaries, we would need some sort of system for those students who attend non-Presbyterian seminaries that would probably look a lot like the ordination exams we have now.
I found the self-study document Carol linked to in her post to be very enlightening. The committee that coordinates the examinations is the process of a lot of change — perhaps not enough, even in my view. I suspect that the ordination exam process as we know it now will not be around in a few years. I for one hope that we can have some productive discussion and dialogue about what the best way to do this sort of thing is for us as a denomination, even in the midst of all the other things that get in the way of the conversation.
I really wasn’t aware of the number of people who don’t pass. I thought everyone eventually got through or were granted an exception. Wow. This is a eye-opener for me.
I don’t see any reason for them at all.
If it is to test academic knowledge, then seminary should have done that.
If it is a goofball theological litmus test (which I think it is) the more you are like passive sheep the better.
I vote doing away with ords altogether, Carol. Will take care of that for us! : )
While we are on it, I vote doing away with “ordination vows” as well. Another litmus test to keep creative and conscientious people out.
So true – I am deeply saddened when I think of friends and colleages who are not in parish ministry because they didn’t pass their exam. twice. Uprooting their families, working hard, and still not being able to do what God has called them to. The church would be so blessed by them, yet the church rejected them.
I understand the need for some type of exam that is universal – when there are so many seminaries, Presbyterian and others. There should be some kind of common standard. I am currently pursuing educator certification, and their process makes so much more sense in regards to ministry, rather than law or medicine. You have an exam, but you also have a reading group that works with you on it. Then once the exam goes for approval at APCE, you cannot really fail. If there is a piece that is not good enough, they give you comments and ask you to revise, working again with your reading group. The process itself is seen as educational and growing experience, rather than just another “hoop” to jump through.
I know that’s a time consuming process, but there has to be something we could learn from it and apply to ordination exams.
Can we, in good conscience, really ask people to go into 30 to 40 thousand dollars worth of debt, watch them make great grades in seminary, and then tell them that they can’t pursue ordination because they didn’t pass an ord exam?
This is a key question for me. If there were some other paying position besides an ordained one that an MDiv was considered viable for, I wouldn’t be all that concerned at all.
When you add to that, the number of pastors who burnout or leave the ministry during their first call, shouldn’t we begin to ask ourselves, Are we ready for the challenges in the years to come?
Once upon a time, I had heard that the average call lasted a mere five years. Is that correct? What does that say about what we do to our pastors?
John Shuck,
While we are on it, I vote doing away with “ordination vows” as well. Another litmus test to keep creative and conscientious people out.
Could you elaborate? I’m not sure what you’re getting at, nor sure that I agree. I think it’s entirely proper for an ordained person to affirm the essentials of the Christian faith as they are installed.
Jin Kim has observed that we spend a lot of time, effort and money testing our pastors on their knowledge, but very little on testing them for Christian character. So we end up with a lot of pastors who are very well educated jerks.
Andy, I would be interested to know which exam in particular had the “tricky” questions. I’m wondering if it was Polity, since I heard from a pastor here who was a grader that they only passed 54% of the Polity exams. I’m not an educator, but isn’t there something in education theory that says when there are large numbers who do not pass an exam then that might mean there’s something wrong with the exam?
Well, that said… I’ve just learned that I did not pass Polity and Exegesis. sigh… I guess I’m in good company with the Polity. The exegesis is depressing because that was a bear to try to write at home, with my kids still out of school, dog to walk, etc. So for January I’m planning to move out for five days, go to a hotel or something.
Anyway, I guess we just have to wait till we get the actual exams back to see exactly why we failed. The bright side, for me anyway, is that I do NOT have to re-study all that theology!
carol, I’m glad you posted about this. I know that once I got through this process I never looked back. You know, ministry is a funny thing. I don’t think that being the best student academically means squat to most parishioners, and it probably shouldn’t. Most of the things that matter in ministry are hard to measure and quantify. I’d love to look at the tests with the benefit of 18 years of actual ministry. What is the correlation between what I MUST do and what the test measures? I am out of the loop (and gladly, I hope I made that point) but I wonder if this is a justice issue that needs to be addressed. especially important to your concerns, Carol, with getting people under 30 into leadership. Who are we kidding, under 40!
I was a reader in Dallas. Lorraine, if I failed you in either test, I’m so sorry. You’ll know, because the grader’s names are on the comment sheets. We don’t get to know the names of the examinees. I didn’t think Polity was that tricky, but I did think the some of the worship exam questions were unfair, confusing, and poorly written; I think our stats ended up being about average– 67% passed in both exegesis and polity, with 80% passing worship (in part because I think a lot of the readers didn’t like the questions or the resource papers we were given). I will say polity was hard to grade, hard to read. And may have been graded harder because it was open book. And I agree with Andy– probably 90% of exams that I failed didn’t answer the question that was asked. People apparently thought, and I guess maybe this is legit, that if they really didn’t know how to answer the question, they should just talk about something they did know. Maybe they thought it was better than just saying they didn’t get the question, or didn’t know the answer.
On the topic of whether we should do these at all, I’m conflicted. I hated taking them, myself, and I chose not to take them at all in seminary. I waited a couple years, did other work, then decided to go for it. There was very little pressure on me to pass– I had a non-ordained ministry job that was okay at the time.
I like Dorothy’s description of the process for certifying educators; certainly in matters of EDUCATION and testing whether our pastor candidates’ EDUCATIONAL readiness to do ministry, we could pull from the methods that our actual educators use. Duh.
As for testing the character of our pastors, well, it seems we’ve left that to the congregations to take care of.
Lorraine, I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t pass Polity and Exegesis. I hope you’ll find someone to look over the exams with you and help you prepare for the next round. Personally, I think this is where we fail our candidates the most — by giving them limited feedback and not helping them to understand how they can do better, much as Dorothy describes above. Since the system won’t change overnight, I think that’s one place we can act now to make a difference for those in the system already.
As for the “tricky” question, I myself was troubled by one of the questions on the Worship & Sacraments exam. It presented a situation where an elder returned from a retreat and said that she wanted to be rebaptized. However, the required responses asked for nothing about rebaptism — they asked for an essay about the significance of renewing baptismal identity and vows. The question required overly careful reading that in the end didn’t really get at the bigger issue of readiness for ministry. No pastor in her right mind would respond to that situation without bringing up “one baptism” in some way, so the question could have been worded a lot better.
Oh yes, that question. lol… That’s precisely why I didn’t answer that one, I thought it was a slippery slope. So I picked the one on marriage. (the mother of the bride who wanted all sorts of things that were not appropriate). That question seemed to have fewer directions it could go, so seemed more doable.
And yes, we’ve all heard a million times about “answer the question as asked”. Yet I know we continue to make that mistake. So, we will see when we get back the actual exams. I hope that’s not why I failed because if it is I’ll really be mad at myself. I’d rather fail because I answered the question wrong than fail just because I didn’t follow directions!
)
The challenge with “trusting the seminaries” is that there are so very many seminaries, not all of them Presbyterian. I would HATE to see us go to a system like some denominations where one HAS to go to a denominational seminary in order to be ordained.
Good point.
I didn’t think the baptism question was that bad; you could briefly summarize the One Baptism thing then go on with your response, I thought. I ahd more trouble with the question about the “function of prayer” in the Lord’s Supper, based on knowledge of the Directory for Worship. Huh? I still don’t really get this. And we got such a huge range of answers that to me were indicative that the question was pretty vague.
Lorraine, when do you get the papers back?
Could you elaborate? I’m not sure what you’re getting at, nor sure that I agree. I think it’s entirely proper for an ordained person to affirm the essentials of the Christian faith as they are installed.
Hey Mark,
This is part of a much larger beef of mine. I think that ordination exams and vows are used for theological control. We do not reward creativity. We do not reward competence, skill, or knowledge. We reward mediocrity. We are learning so much about our universe, about history, science, spirituality, the Bible, Christian origins, other faith traditions and so forth. Yet, we force our clergy to bracket or dismiss all of that through reciting “essentials.” What are these essentials anyway?
Make no mistake. I think we should demand high quality from the leaders of our congregations. I think that ministers should demonstrate skills in higher criticism, psychology, evolutionary theory, cosmology, history, sociology, literature, other faith traditions, community organizing, and so forth.
The exams one has to pass in order to be a doctor, lawyer, or accountant are objective. You are right or you are wrong. Ordination exams are subjective. Except for Bible Content, they test neither knowledge nor skill (except the skill of being able to say things in such a way that no one takes offense–especially the exam grader).
Obviously, I am talking about a huge division in the Presbyterian Church and other mainline churches about what the church is about. The exams and the vows are being used as part of this battle for control.
This is one of my favorite quotes on this topic by Roy Hoover:
“Those who insist upon the unaltered retention of traditional forms of religious understanding and language and who retreat from the challenge posed by the actual world after Galileo want to direct the Christian community into the confines of a sacred grotto, an enclosed, religiously defined world that is brought completely under the control of scripture and tradition; and they want to turn the ordained clergy into antiquities dealers.”
Tradition and Faith in a New Era
John,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. The question (if I read you right) seems not to be so much whether or not we should have exams, but what should be examined. Is this a fair reading of your comments? I would agree with this question, myself.
I would question, however, what you would advocate when you suggest that creativity should be rewarded. I’m not trying to suggest that we keep shooting for mediocrity, but if a candidate cannot affirm some of the basics of, say, the Nicene Creed (A good, safe, set of “essentials” in my opinion), then they probably shouldn’t (in my opinion) be a pastor. On the other hand, I would want to allow for a “creative” expression of core doctrines that, so long as they weren’t heretical (and it would be up to church leaders to determine this, much as is the case with current readers on exams), could actually be useful for the church.
But to at least the degree that there IS a core set of essentials, I not only am not bothered by exams being used to “control” (although I’d never use that word) who gets to be ordained, but think it is necessary. I cannot support an “anything goes” attitude when it comes to the doctrines of the Christian faith, however much I cringe when people try to argue for doctrines that are not, in fact, essential. Our essentials are, and should remain, comparatively few.
(This, of course, does nothing to address the very salient point that exams don’t really assess competence, which I also agree with you on)
well, I’m an A student in a PCUSA seminary and I passed 2 of the 4. So, they definitely don’t test the same things/ways that classes do.
As Lorraine said, we won’t know why we failed for another month. It takes 2 months to be given a pass/fail answer and then another month to get our tests back to us? that seems like torture in itself. I passed polity, answering the re-baptism question; and worship.
PPB, my CPM STRONGLY recommended a PCUSA seminary — they stopped short of requiring, but not by much.
Hey Mark,
Good thoughts. I have more on my mind than Carol’s original post. But I have been blathering about that on my blog for two years.
Carol’s post jolted me a bit. 37% failure rate. Are we really saying that 37% of our candidates are not qualified to pastor a congregation? If they really aren’t qualified then I guess they shouldn’t.
I am not convinced that these examinations determine that so well. Seven years of higher education, psychological testing, evaluation by a CPM, practical experience, and so forth really ought to be enough.
Ministry is difficult but competency for this kind of difficulty may not be in the sense that these exams can test. I wonder if there are similarities among those who fail these tests. Are there certain personality types or perhaps theological types that these exams are prejudiced against?
As far as my other issues are concerned, I don’t want to take up Carol’s space for it. I think the vows are too narrow theologically. It would be enough for me to know that a minister will honor and draw from our tradition on one hand and be ethical on the other.
I can think of one or two people who should not have been ordained in my class. But the ords didn’t weed them out. It’s hard for an ordination exam (or even a psych exam) to detect the guy who hits on everyone and the youth director who secretly and serially dates teenagers… those are the real problems. The students all know who they are.
My Jesuit dissertation advisor told me to stop trying to be creative with my dissertation. He said, “This is your union card, John. You can be creative once you’re in the union.” He was right.
I don’t think the ords are a place to get creative. As currently conceived, they are an entrance exam.
That being said, we should do away with them. Do we think clergy today are any better trained than they were 70 years ago when there were no ord exams? I don’t. Get rid of them. There is no evidence that the denomination or candidates receive any “value-added” because of them.
Mark~
I would take issue with this idea of “essentials” in creeds. Plus, it doesn’t sound very people of the middle way Presbyterian. It does sound PCA. This view is not the prevailing historical view in our church. I would hope that we would look to reject credal fundamentalism. You might say that affirming the tenants of the Nicene creed are essential while I would say that the essentials would be to affirm the Confession of 67, Barmen and the Brief Statement of Faith. Yet I’m sure if I relied only on those Creeds to answer the theology exam I wouldn’t get very far. Looking at the creeds as fingerprints of a certain culture and time as been an essential to our historical faith as a Church in America. If that were to change we would lose one of the great strengths that the Spirit has given us. I believe that is why diversity of beliefs in our beautiful creeds is already part of our history and these litmus tests can only hinder that diversity.
BTW I don’t have a problem requiring our ministers to being limited to our own schools besides some small exceptions like geographical location.
john w,
Okay. I can go with you there regarding creativity. But what about smart? Why are testers often told that we are not to be too smart? Is it because lay people are grading them? What other entrance exams are professionals told to not sound too smart?
Why are we taking so long to get them back? When were these exams taken? It may not make much difference this time around, but next semester, it will be devastating for people who are trying to find jobs before they’re kicked out of seminary housing.
We make it very difficult for people to find their first jobs, they have little time to find a good match, then we wonder why they burnout within a few years.
john w — Seventy years ago, there were no *standardized* ordination exams, but there were still exams — some of them much worse than the ones we have today. Each presbytery made its own. Sometimes they were seated, written exams like we have now; other times, they were oral. Each presbytery had its own process and had to take its own time to do the work. I have seen plenty of people even now picking and choosing a presbytery of care based on their general requirements — CPE, additional coursework, etc. — that I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if candidates were choosing a presbytery based on the difficulty level of their ordination exams. At least with this current process there is some level of standardization, whether it be perfect or not.
As for the time it takes to return the exams, that has actually gotten better. Both rounds of exams have been moved back a few weeks since 2004 — they used to be September and February, but it is now August and January — so the results are also returned earlier. It still takes time to sort them, ship them for grading, tally the results, and send them back out. There are only two staff people who are full-time with this process, so I think they do a pretty incredible job to turn them around as fast as they do.
Shekinah Glory,
I would take issue with this idea of “essentials” in creeds. Plus, it doesn’t sound very people of the middle way Presbyterian. It does sound PCA. This view is not the prevailing historical view in our church. I would hope that we would look to reject credal fundamentalism. You might say that affirming the tenants of the Nicene creed are essential while I would say that the essentials would be to affirm the Confession of 67, Barmen and the Brief Statement of Faith. Yet I’m sure if I relied only on those Creeds to answer the theology exam I wouldn’t get very far.
To the extent that the theology exam does, as it stands, seem to require adherence to theological “orthodoxy” not actually inherent in the creeds of our Book of Confessions, I wholeheartedly agree. And those creeds, of course, do include C67, Barmen, and the Brief Statement of Faith. Your desire to highlight those in no way diminishes my earlier statement, nor do I wish to play “Nicene” vs. any other BoC creed. I merely chose one for the sake of expediency, and chose that one simply because nearly all Christians (not just Presbyterians) can agree to it.
But this is the PC(USA), and there are doctrines that make us distinctive. I could have said the same thing about any BoC creed with the same meaning. However, when we test beyond those creeds, we go too far.
Of course, going by your first paragraph, you would probably say that I still go too far by requiring “adherence” to creeds at all, be they BoC or otherwise.
My main response to that is to point out that the creeds in the BoC themselves give a range of acceptable Reformed theology. C67, for example, allows for atonement theories beyond the strictly substitutionary model of the 16th and 17th century creeds. This is as it should be. The tests shouldn’t be designed to test for a single “right” theology, but for a more generic “orthodoxy.”
I also wish to restate that I’m not uninterested in the fact that, as CHM points out, people who have no business being pastors can pass the exams. There are qualifications for ministry we’re not even addressing here. I would also affirm the importance for weeding out such would-be pastors. The fact that I’m talking about a wholly different problem does not mean that’s not important, too.
Good to know, SG,
I’ll just find the nearest exit then.
Carol, the timeline is
sitting: 22-23 Aug (23-24 January)
wait: 6 weeks
Grading: 5-9 October (1-5 March)
wait: 2.5 weeks
pass/fail released: 27 Oct (23 March)
wait: (I’m told 4 weeks)
early registration deadline for next round: 17 Nov
papers returned: ~24 Nov (Happy Thanksgiving as you review comments on your failed exams!)
retest: 23-24 January
I don’t understand the 6 weeks between taking and reading or the 4 weeks after the grades are recorded before we get them back.
ppb~
I am sorry that this seemed to hurt your feelings it was nothing personal. I do think that there is nothing wrong with making people have less choice. Yet, I am sensitive to the fact that many people must attend seminaries other than Presbyterian because of their geographical, financial or life situations. That said I don’t think that theological differences or market choice should allow our ministers to attend Fuller, Reformed Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Gordon-Conwell Theological seminary because they think that our many capable seminaries are bastions of liberal theology or aren’t good enough. That is my beef.
Mark~
I can go with you when you say “range.” It was just that you made the statement earlier about adherence to the Nicene Creed (later than the Apostles) and adherence to it as being “essential.” If you are talking about the canopy of creeds and the possibility that the Spirit might open us up to new creeds in the future I can go for that.
I think we understand each other now re: creeds.
Actually, although I don’t care to turn this thread into a defense of Fuller (my own institution), I think you’ll find that the perceptions of the school are based far more on what they were a decade (or more!) ago, rather than what Fuller is now.
Fuller is probably more conservative (certainly on some issues) than PC(USA) schools, but they are far more liberal than you probably realize.
I question any set of tests for ordination, whether they be psychological or intellectual. We have them now. How well are they working? Are they “weeding out” people who shouldn’t be in the ministry? Not from what I have been and am observing.
I think the market (congregations) are the only true test as to whether or not people should be in the ministry. If we make it in the marketplace, then we are in the right place. If we don’t, we probably aren’t.
I think we should have a seminary education. People who don’t pass tests there should flunk those courses. But beyond that, I think we are incredibly bad evaluators/predictors of who will succeed and who will fail in parish ministry. Let the parish be the ultimate testing ground.
about seminaries– I’m one who went to a non-PCUSA school because I never “intended” to get an MDiv, it was just that one thing led to another. I think my story will become more common, as fewer people set out to enter ministry. Why make it hard to kind of “slide” into this calling of ours? I think the Spirit works that way. I would not have considered relocating for seminary, it just wouldn’t have fit the picture. I was having babies! I left a high-paying job in the legal profession. So went to a UCC seminary and yet I am a perfectly competent PCUSA minister. Of course,I was raised in a hyper-Reformed household so knew some things through osmosis. Another point about preparation — I was one of the last people to NOT do a CPE,and you know what, I don’t think it mattered. The thing that only Carol would probably point out here — is that the denom is making it difficult to “get in” when the truth is that we will work hard for very little reward once we’re in. Does it make sense to throw yet more hurdles in the way?
On the other hand, do we really want seminary grades and seminary professors holding the keys? I for one do not. At least the ords are graded by pastors and elders.
This conversation is getting at a fundamental uncertainty about what it is that pastors are supposed to be good at. Unless we have a strong sense of pastoral identity, it’s hard to know how to properly evaluate anyone’s pastoral call.
What I meant above is: We have no shared view of what things pastors should be competent at; and thereby no agreed-upon way to measure that competency.
Andy,
While it’s certainly not true of all, a great many seminary professors are and/or have been pastors and/or elders. I wouldn’t want to do them a disservice by suggesting that these wise and learned folks are somehow “out of touch” with what’s going on in churches. I think that’s a stereotype that doesn’t hold up to actual scrutiny.
Andy: I agree that there is no shared view. All the more reason why we should stop trying to impose one through standardized tests. Who can test emotional intelligence? Who can test a work ethic that gets us in the office before 8 in the morning and home after 8 at night? Who can test an ability to intuitively understand when a parishioner is in spiritual trouble?
I think a seminary education is a high enough bar. Let the market (performance in the parish) filter out or confirm the call of everyone who gets over that seminary bar.
Ruth and Mark~
We could all point to our own personal experiences to buttress up our opinion. Ruth your situation is a little outside of the context of our conversation. No one is talking about those who feel the calling part the way through their theology degree. I do not know why you went to Fuller Theological Seminary Mark. I considered going there when I was a fundamentalist, but not after I became a Presbyterian. I went to a Presbyterian Seminary and would highly recommend it to anyone looking. As Carol points out we are seeing a dramatic drop in the enrollment at Presbyterian institutions. So, the no brainer is to require most eligible Presbyterian candidates to attend Presbyterian schools. I am sorry if this sounds harsh, but I do think that it is best that Presbyterians go to Presbyterian schools as their first choice. I am always surprised that there would be any resistance on this point among Presbyterians (except by the fundamentalists who want an alternative education). In both of my responses I am allowing for exemptions.
I really don’t want to get into defending my choice to attend Fuller. Suffice it to say that I DID come already having been a Presbyterian for quite some time. I came here having previously been to an even MORE conservative school (also non-PC(USA)) for one semester and being at a PC(USA) seminary for another (in that order). Both of those were done for geographic reasons. Before that, I was a student at a Christian college affiliated with the PC(USA), but which I think it is safe to say is more conservative than much of what is taught at PC(USA) seminaries (although anyone who knows me or reads my stuff for long will know that I pretty much always say that the labels “conservative” or “liberal” depend on what you’re talking about).
I chose Fuller for many reasons, almost none of which are really all that important to this discussion. I went through the process of obtaining permission from my CPM to attend, and they continued to work with me through the process while I earned my degree. I maintain that it was my right to choose Fuller, since I believe that Fuller is well within the Reformed tradition, has courses designed specifically for PC(USA) students, and has a good many PC(USA) students here. More, in fact, than at many PC(USA) seminaries themselves, given Fuller’s large size. If anything, my Fuller education smoothed out some of my more conservative rough edges.
I think that diversity is one of the hallmarks of the PC(USA). It is a reason why I am committed to remaining here, no matter what happens in the current debates. Moreover, I think that God is actively CALLING us to be a more diverse and tolerant denomination. Allowing for students who attend non-PC(USA) seminaries (however much you may have to “tolerate” some of our differences) can only add to that diversity, and thereby make the PC(USA) stronger as a denomination.
Mark~
I find it sort of ironic that you are heralding God’s CALLING to be more diverse and tolerant, but want people to adhere to essentials:-) I am not arguing against your quality education at Fuller, nor that it took off your conservative rough edges. I am sure that it was a very good education. I too had a good education at Moody Bible Institute. Yet, I still believe that our personal experiences are somewhat irrelevant to the argument at hand. To me there is a huge difference from tolerating evangelical viewpoints in the canopy of the Presbyterian church and in giving away our education to their institutions, especially when it is at the expense of our own schools.
In the end I still think that Presbyterians should go to Presbyterian (U.S.A.) schools as their first choice, if possible. Can I really be the only person that thinks this? I feel bad that this has seemed to touch a sensitive chord amongst so many people who are going to outside institutions. I still accept everyone as equal ministers of Word and Sacrament regardless of where they went to school, as well as, the ecumenical relations that I have with all my Evangelical brothers and sisters. Yet, I think that the longer that I am in the ministry (in a church outside the Presbyterian church) the stronger I rely upon my strongly reformed Presbyterian (U.S.A.) training. I find it even more ironic that I am the one defending Presbyterian education.
What contradiction is there between diversity and essentials? One does not by any means preclude the other, and I find it odd that you should suggest so.
I guess it matters who defines essentials.
oops…and whether in their definition of essentials they are tolerant of diversity outside of conservative or liberal norms.
That first part wasn’t my point and I should have excluded that first sentence, for some reason I thought it would be humorous. I guess not so much.
carol,
thank you, once again, for provoking us to spirited conversation. 43 comments in a couple of days! not bad. i have chimed in previously on this issue and continue to wrestle with the basic issues highlighted above: whether to have standardized exams or not, what alternative to propose, what environment candidates need to prepare them for ministry, etc. as i read through this post, i am of the mind to share it with my own cpm (of which i am the chair — whoopee me) and even with our inquirers and candidates, in the hopes that at our annual retreat we could have a roundtable discussion and hear from them outside the context of anxiety in preparing for, taking, or awaiting their results. i encourage you all to do the same.
Thanks, jg. I’m so glad there are good cpm chairs out there! The identification and development of our church leadership is so important.
I am pretty confident in saying that the PCUSA is self-destructing while we watch. A 40% pass-rate on the ords the first time you take them? A 50% burnout rate in 5 years?
Totally unconscionable.
There is no way to defend our current ordination process, in my opinion. It just fails. It doesn’t work, it doesn’t do what we want it to do. In some cases, I honestly think that the process is sabotaging the church.
If we wanted a guarantee of there being almost no viable Presbyterian churches in 100 years, then this is exaclty the way to do it. Drive out passionate, *successful* people from ministry (successful because they already have a 3 year master’s degree and have already completed a pastoral internship successfully) at a rate that defies comprehension.
What do we leave behind? A wake of disillusioned, heartbroken people, most of whom are probably genuinely called to ministry; a wake of empty pulpits and empty churches.
If we want to plant churches, we need to nurture pastors, and we are failing to do that.
I think its beyond little fixes to the current system. I’m in favor of throwing it out and starting over. Let’s try to find some method for actually having a viable future for the PCUSA.
Yes… there are days when our whole ordination system feels like we’re rearranging deck chairs…
Carol,
I passed my ords and never looked back. Still, I wasn’t guaranteed a call in a system that considered a young female a good candidate for associate pastor for youth. The system is filled with hoops, and there are no guarantees at any point in the process.
As a member of my Presbytery’s CPM, I found it extremely hard to encourage the members of the committee to uphold the standards for ordination. Many of the candidates in this Presbytery attend non-Presbyterian seminary. While I have liked many of the candidates, their theologies simply were not Presbyterian. I believe that the ordination exams should be written to ensure an understanding of Presbyterian theology, polity, worship, and exegetical skills so that there is some evaluation that is not biased by personal relationships. That said, I do believe a disservice is done to the individuals involved in the process as committees “wimp out” and fail to communicate honestly with candidates throughout the years of inquiry and candidacy.
As far as not being “too smart” on the responses to the exam questions, my understanding of the grading of the exams (which I have not done, so I have no personal knowledge of the instructions given to graders) is that the graders are to read as if they were a parishioner who had asked the question. In other words, the answers are to be pastoral and yet theologically accurate. It doesn’t matter how “smart” you are if you are not able to communicate the faith with common folk.
Carol,
Your comments make me reconsider a bit of Shekinah Glory’s and my back-and-forth on using PC(USA) seminaries and the issue of “essentials.”
As he pointed out, it does matter who defines what is “essential.” For me, I figure that’s a matter of accepting the creeds in the Book of Confessions, but looking at them as a “range” of acceptable Reformed theology rather than limiting to a single “right” theology. I’m not unbiased, of course, since I don’t see limiting to PC(USA) seminaries as guaranteeing this, and see many non-PC(USA) seminaries (including Fuller) as well within the Reformed tradition such that this shouldn’t be a problem.
But you would be speaking from actual experience with multiple candidates, so I’d like to ask, what kind of “non Presbyterian” theologies are we talking about? How would attending PC(USA) seminaries have likely corrected this problem? To what extent are we defining “essentials”? (I think we must do such defining, but do think we should be clear and open about it.)
Oops! That last was directed to Rebecca, not Carol. Sorry!
Hi, thank you for providing credit for my photograph! very much appreciated!
No problem. Your photos are fantastic. Thanks for sharing them.
haha