How to waste a theological education

Derek Brown, a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (in Louisville, Kentucky, USA), has a great post about "How to waste your theological education". He gives forty-five (count them, forty-five) different ways. Here are some of my favourites:
2. Perfect the fine art of corner-cutting by not really researching for a paper but instead writing your uneducated and unsubstantiated opinions and filling them in with strategically placed footnotes.

4. Nurture an attitude of superiority, competition, and condesension toward fellow seminary students. Secrectly speak ill of them with friends and with your spouse.

8. Practice misquoting and misrepresenting positions and ideas you don’t agree with. Be lazy and don’t attempt to understand opposing views; instead, nurse your prejudices and exalt your opinions by superficial reading and listening.

9. Give your opinion as often as possible - especially in class. Ask questions that show off your knowledge instead of questions that demonstrate a genuine inquiry.

17. Convince yourself that you already know all this stuff.

19. Save major papers for the last possible moment so that you can ensure that you don’t really learn anything by writing them.

24. Do other things while in class instead of listening - like homework, scheduling, letter-writing, and email.

26. Avoid chapel and other opportunities for corporate worship.

31. Master Calvin, Owen, and Edwards, but not the Law, Prophets, and Apostles.

33. Pick apart your pastor’s sermons every week. Only point out his mistakes and his poor theological reasoning so you don’t have to be convicted by anything he says.

34. Protect yourself from real fellowship by only talking about theology and never about your personal spiritual issues, sin, and struggles.

36. Don’t serve the poor, visit the sick, or care for widows and orphans - save that stuff for the uneducated, non-seminary trained, lay Christians.

41. Love books and theology and ministry more than the Lord Jesus Christ.

42. Let your passion for the gospel be replaced by passion for complex doctrinal speculation.

45. Don’t really try to learn the languages - let Bible Works do all the work for you.

He is thinking about how to waste your education while you are in the middle of it. I'd love to see some ideas about how to waste your education after you've finished.

Here are a few:

1) Forget all about Greek and Hebrew.

2) Never read anything that you disagree with.

3) Never disagree with anything you read.

4) Remember that theology should never get shaped by pastoral experience, keep it safe in the text-books.

Training and education

In an article about John Caligari, a rising star in the Australian Army, in the Sydney Morning Herald on the weekend there was an interesting quote about training. He explained that the modern army is putting more emphasis on education which helps people know how to think, rather than training which tell people what to think.

It pulled me up with a start and made me wonder if I have become too apologetic for theological education. I've been convinced for a long time that the a theological education which helps students develop skills in handling the scriptures and thinking about issues and ministry is the most significant type of ministry preparation available. However we live in a society which is obsessed with 'how to' and it rubs off on the church and we often value 'training' above 'education'. I find myself focussing more and more on 'training'. Then I read that the Australian Army is discovering that education is primary, something which reformed Christianity has known since its inception almost 500 years ago.

 

It isn't that I think that there is no place for training. Resources such as the Ministry Papers are terrific. We want people to come into PTC with well developed ministry skills and to leave with even better skills. However for the long term skills need to be underwritten by theological thinking.