FTE "On Call" Blog

Melissa Wiginton

Vice President for Ministry Programs and Planning

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March 04, 2009

Theological Education as Divine Refuge? Where is the love?

Newsweek recently reported that applications to seminary and divinity school may be on the rise in the wake of the economic downturn. In Divine Refuge in the Storm, Lisa Miller suggests that people are entering the world of theological education to re-evaluate the cynical world of commerce and capitalism. The Dean of Yale Divinity School says people are turning to religion; one of his students says, “People turn to God when things are so grim.”

These re-evaluators will indeed find riches in theological education—the luxury of reading and writing about ideas that not only quicken the mind but also move the heart and soul, the adrenalin high of talk about things that really matter with other smart people who love to learn. I see how theological education could be a refuge from empty work or no work or work confusion. I also know that engaged solely for our own sake, to satisfy our own personal needs, theological education can turn us back into ourselves rather than opening us up to the life of God and the people of God.

Only about one-half (some say one-third) of the students at Yale Divinity School will go on to become ministers who serve congregations, and that statistic is common at many leading divinity schools. For those who will become pastors, theological education may have a quality of refuge, but it is pointedly a time of preparation and formation for leadership. Yes, it is about deconstructing cultural icons/idols, understanding and interpreting complex ideas, thinking hard and writing clearly. Good pastors must be equipped to do all these things to lead the people of God in such a grim time. But the enterprise is not first and foremost about themselves: Those who would be pastors also have to know how to love—God, themselves, their neighbors, their congregation—to pour themselves out in love. That is extravagance in God’s economy.

I am quite pleased that former i-bankers, insurance company presidents and all manner of other searchers for meaning will be theological schoolmates of the young adults we support in preparation for ministry. I didn’t even know the term “i-banking” until I read the quote from Yale’s dean in the Newsweek article and I definitely want our pastoral leaders to know about i-banking and the cynical world of commerce and capitalism---so that they can lead the church in becoming not just a place of refuge, but a place of transformation for the extravagant spending of our lives in love.