Second Terrace

An academic question, part 3 (and last, for now)

Here is a series of questions about the idea of an Orthodox seminary.

Some of these questions you will recognize as rhetorical, if not outright "leading." Others are frankly open.

1. How mature (emotionally and spiritually) should a man be before he entires seminary?

2. How specific should a seminary preparation be for the practices of a particular diocese? Let us look at one particular case (and there are many others): the Carpatho-Russian plainchant is profoundly different from the polyphony practiced in other jurisdictions. There are rubrical differences as well that differentiate diocesan practices from one another -- and these differences cannot be chalked up to "mere" ethnic anachronisms that ought to be erased: they have become, by now, actual and valid American practices. The Carpatho-Russian plainchant, for example, is now part of the contemporary American Orthodox tradition.

3. How much exposure should a seminarian get in terms of community and missional service? Is is important for seminarians to be required to experience a "street ministry" modality, like in a soup kitchen or a rescue mission?

4. How important is it for seminarians to become adept in contemporary communication modalities (like social media, podcasts, web sites)?

5. Should a seminarian be able to graduate if he is academically successful, but has "poor social skills"? How important are qualities like "leadership" (whatever that is) and "gregariousness" or "niceness"?

6. What should be the qualifications of instructors? A Ph.D. degree? D.Min. or Masters? Do degrees matter? (they do, by the way, in accreditation requirements).

7. How important is it for seminarians to be aware of cultural currents? Is prophetic critique a value in Orthodox seminary education? 

8. Is it valid for Orthodox seminary education to operate by the ethical categories of Western academics in its teaching of "moral theology" or "applied dognmatics"?

9. How ascetical should an Orthodox seminary be?

10. The Wall Street Journal suggests, in this article, that a seminarian ought to be able to say, from the outset, just how he will fund his seminary education, as opposed to candidates being chosen just because they claim to have a "calling"? Is this, at all, a legitimate criterion for the Orthodox seminary?

These are only ten particular questions. There are many more.

I am not going to ask whether there ought to be Orthodox seminaries at all. There are some who doubt this, or they strongly suggest that seminaries ought to play a far less essential role in the preparation (or formation) of Orthodox clergy.

I disagree. Other less formal and more local structures are attractive in theory, but I doubt whether any of these "non-seminary" strategies is able to maintain a persistent structure of spiritual and academic discipline. An internship with a good priest is necessary, I think -- but it cannot comprise the entire preparation experience. The kenotic community and fellowship with fellow seminarians cannot be missed as a man prepares to minister in and through a parish community.

A bishop-directed program on the campus of a cathedral is a nice idea, but the fact remains that bishops are away more often than not: they can be a Dean or a Rector of a Seminary, but not a Prefect or someone who must manage the day-to-day program. Besides, my little seminary is very much associated with the bishop and his cathedral, but we still call it a "seminary."

And -- without getting mired in a troubling conversation -- the American monastery is usually not sufficiently substantial or stable enough to manage a seminary. Besides -- and I say this as someone who treasures Orthodox monasticism -- I do not think that a monastery is ever appropriate for parish-training.

Someone suggested that "the church does not need the seminary, but the seminary needs the church." No. The church needs the seminary as a separate place where men -- physically present -- are trained for the Orthodox priesthood in piety, theology, liturgy, fellowship, rhetoric and service. The church does not need a seminary that is trying to be something other (or more) than it is -- it is not a university.

Whether the seminary "needs the church" is a question that seems to be referencing an antinomian state of affairs in heterodox communities, where Holy Tradition is looked upon with condescension, if not sheer embarassment.

An academic question, part 2

I want to express my thanks for all the comments thus far (from the last post).

Please continue to think and contribute to this discussion. Your offerings are more than helpful. I like the wide array of thoughts that are represented in these comments. They are all at variance, and some are opposed to each other -- a state of affairs I find attractive.

I offer these points of my own -- please affirm, redact or oppose them as you wish.

I think the idea of the "seminary" -- at least in its Orthodox manifestation -- is limited essentially to priestly formation. Its historic association with the humanist university institution is, by now, more the product of Western Enlightenment than of Byzantine or Russian influences, or of the New Testament.

That said, I would not want a seminary to become an Orthodox version of the evangelical/fundamentalist "Bible School." Yes, some of those biblical studies (Scripture interpreted by Scripture, supposedly) can be very good. But the Fathers -- including some of the Apostles, especially St Paul -- engaged fundamental philosophical questions in current cultural idioms.

This engagement requires what we used to call a decent liberal arts education. In the good old days, a “BA” meant that the degree-holder had been involved in such decency. Unfortunately, the liberal arts seems to be in very low demand.

On the other hand, such engagement does not require "academicization." Indeed, it might even be hampered by such scholarly specialization.

Is there a need for advanced scholarly study in the Orthodox American context? Certainly. But here is the particular question: is an advanced degree, like a real "masters" level, necessary for priestly formation?

I do not think so.

I do think that at advanced Orthodox academic studies, clergy and non-clergy should be in attendance. But at seminaries, there should only be those who want to be ordained as priests -- and this mainly is because that is all a seminary degree should be good for, no more and no less.

Under this rather restricted re-definition of "seminary," then any theological/religious education outside of priestly preparation can proceed in regionally-appropriate universities for advanced academics, and in parochial extension programs (like deanery-organized continuing education series) and even "webinars."

But (and here you may disagree) I think that for a man to become a priest, he needs to pack up and move from his familiar surroundings, embark upon a relatively impoverished lifestyle, and enter a demanding community that requires an almost "Chalcedonian" union of study and fellowship, of hard learning and hard lessons in patience and forgiveness.

I have seen more than one superior academician fall to pieces when it came down to doing the dishes and feeding the bishop's cat. Likewise, I have seen more than one mediocre scholar who showed intimations of saintliness when it came to ministry to the weak and downhearted.

This sort of exercise in bratija (i.e., brotherhood) and koinonia cannot really be expected of a university. And its academic demands of study in Bible, Patristics, and contemporary culture really are not modeled by a monastery, or a "bible school." Each of these models -- i.e., university, monastery and bible school -- are seriously deficient in providing a design for the Orthodox seminary.

Moreover, I do not think it is possible for a local setting to preside over priestly formation: surely you will tell me, as one friend already has, about the old Byzantine practice of recognizing a vocation in a parishioner, then training him right there on the spot and ordaining him for his native or neighboring parish.

The difficulty with that old practice is that we do not live in any such Byzantine culture -- we are far, far removed from such a traditional atmosphere that is essential for such local formation. I think this difficultly is insurmountable. Because of the toxic, hyper-passionate and anti-Christological culture we find ourselves increasingly in, I believe all the more in the necessity of removal to such a theological seedbed.

Thinking about the Orthodox seminary requires thinking about “priestly formation.” How do you prepare a man for the priesthood?

We have some familiarity with this subject already. We know enough to say that he needs to get ready for a lifetime of working with people, a lifetime of prayer, a lifetime of liturgizing, a lifetime of Biblical and Patristic study. 

I suspect that we have, unwittingly, admitted a lot of implicitly protestant values and definitions into our understanding of formation -- but I will leave that for another discussion.

Apart from these familiar preparations is something that may be more fundamental: priestly formation is first and foremost a matter of deification. That, of course, is the working of Divine Grace -- a grace that always “fills that which is lacking.” But we priests who remember those words from our ordination cannot interpret them as license for nonchalance on our part. Our efforts will always end up being deficient or “lacking.” But our efforts are required, and necessary, all the same.

The reason why I bring this up is that I know, from personal experience, that a “calling” is necessary, but it is not sufficient. A man who is called to the Orthodox priesthood can be deified by God’s grace -- but he must work fervently to mortify his own passions, to practice the virtues, and to establish his thinking in the ways of Apostolic dogma.

A seminary must indoctrinate successfully men who would be priests into the mindset and ethos of its particular Orthodox community. Key to this success is a bishop who leads the seminary, and who participates -- as an exemplar -- in deifying grace ... who can say, like St Paul, "imitate me as I imitate Christ" ... who reveals, in his own person just like the Theotokos (whom he bears on his chest), the stigmata of all the Beatitudes.

I think that we have assumed too readily the idea that the American Orthodox community will develop, inexorably, into a single monolithic community. 

I do not think so.

Indeed, I think the opposite is even more likely. Accordingly, I think there will then be even more seminaries, smaller, cheaper and humbler, hopefully where Homer and Macbeth are discussed, along with Maximos, Irenaeus, Moses and Paul, and the practices of the fast are rehearsed with winsomeness and grace (instead of the dire sternness that we assume Orthodoxy must involve).

An academic question

I do not think I've ever done this before on this blog, but I'd like to pose several questions.

There is no irony here, and this is not a rhetorical question, so do not worry. I am interested in your response.

What do you see as the value and goals of an Orthodox Seminary today?

How do you think such a Seminary needs to change in order to accommodate cultural changes -- which, as you may have noticed, are going on at light speed?

As some of you know, I teach at a small and faithful Orthodox Seminary, and these questions literally comprise a matter of life and death for all such institutions.

Seminaries are where we train priests -- at least, for now: do we dare consider giving up, wholesale, all the artifacts of the humanist university, and relocate clergy-training more locally into the diocese, deanery, the parish or monastery? Do we settle for "distance-learning" and/or internet-enabled "virtual academic communities"?

Time was when we required the learning of "old country" languages, like Church Slavonic, Byzantine Greek, or even Latin, and some facility in philosophical discourse. Nowadays, I wonder whether a seminarian wouldn't be better off learning conversational Mandarin AND Spanish, and learning how to code (i.e., web apps, etc.).

Here is a current article from WSJ that brings a few of these issues into view. Russell Moore suggests that there might be some hope for seminaries who preserve a strong, organic attachment to the ecclesial communities they serve. Usually, such an attachment is a given in Orthodoxy -- but at my old evangelical alma mater, one is hard pressed to find explicit signs of denominational distinctiveness. So I am happy about my school -- it has certainly fared better in continuity than my old protestant seminary.

But the pressures for distance-learning continue to mount. The economy for the middle to lower-middle class population -- from which most seminarians by far are derived -- has made attendance at seminary more and more difficult. Distance-learning (and/or "virtual community") appears to be a convenient fix for this problem. I, however, think that community and fellowship -- especially a fellowship so critical as a seminary, which is modeled ideally on the three-year sojourn of the apostles -- must involve the exchange of molecules, not just electrons.

Is this just me, a romantic agrarian luddite wannabe?

And this is just one area that pertains to my general question: what do you think about the future of the Orthodox Seminary?

A penny (well, at least a virtual one) for your thoughts.

Chesterton and Belloc in Pittsburgh

Warning. This is something of a self-serving notice, but read anyways.

For those of you in the Pittsburgh Metro area, I will be teaching a course on Chesterton and Belloc from January to April this Spring Semester at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary (Perrysville Avenue off McKnight Road).

The class will meet on Monday nights from seven to about nine-ish. Full graduate credit and auditing options are available. Check out this Spring Semester page for contact info: http://www.byzcathsem.org/news/springcourses2010.php.

The course is entitled "Moral Theology in Chesterton and Belloc."

In addition to a number of essays and drinking songs that I will distribute, texts will include Orthodoxy, The Man Who was Thursday, The Four Men (of course), and Essays of a Catholic.

We'll have a good time.

A rare three-way pun

The Reformation has led to the University deserting theology,
just as the State left the Church.
Now, theology, at the academic table of courses, is only dessert.
Can it ever go back to the queen of sciences?
Even if asked and begged and properly remunerated?
No: its proper place is where it should have always been.
Away, far, far away from the madding crowd.
Far into the wilderness and the desert.

The only place where theology still shines.

Perhaps a few words are in order?
As if puns need annotation,
like a comic urging his audience: "Get it? Didja get it?"
after the snare and cymbal and before the gong.

What if, next week, before the annual gladiatorial banquets
for the alumni begin, State University decides
to bring Theology back in, out of the cold.

The price of admission to the Table, the executive washroom,
the Academic Club where faculty can practice being eccentric
though few of them really enjoy their pipe,
savor the taste of brandy or are comfortable in tweed –

The price?

Sign off on the secular order, give it its due.
Burn a little incense, bow before the statue.
Utter the shibboleths, take a flat in the zoo.
Give your parole, say it's all a point of view.

The fullness of Time is always missed by clockwatchers and bureaucrats:
if you quantify chronos, you will always miss at kairos.

The signs for one are only obvious to the poor,
the ones who still know dirt and touch the growing things
and can tell when the fig trees are about to give fruit.

But the chronologists,
whose heads are baked in flourescence:
they are scribes playing at theology, but only able to publish footnotes and quotes,
who compete for tenure at being doctrinaire,
who give themselves poetry prizes and Pulitzers
while the funeral parlor maven plays on her Wurlitzer
a nice diapasonic cover of Elton John,
"Sweet freedom whispered in your ear,
You're a butterfly."

No amazing grace here, for God's sake,
as academic ashes are burned for the urn.

Theology is forged only in the desert.
It is not welcome in college anymore,
nor can it ever be.

That is the principal reason why the Son of Man was driven by the Spirit into the wilderness.
It is where He emerged announcing the here-ness of the Kingdom of God,
and the fullness of time,

And why the academic scribes pay no mind.

____________

A particularly ironic footnote:

My thanks -- and not for the first time -- to David Bentley Hart for his part of a testy symposium, which can be read at First Things.