Before I went to seminary, my greatest fear of seminary was that I would freeze to death. Not literally, but spiritually. I tried my hardest in seminary to ward off the frostbite, but to this day, over six years after graduation, I am not sure whether or not I succeeded.
I Was Afraid of Freezing in Seminary
I certainly know a lot more about the Bible and theology than I did before entering seminary, but looking back over my life, the times I felt the closest to God were all before entering seminary. Of course, I tell myself that feelings aren’t everything, but of course, feelings aren’t nothing either. And so there is a part of me that is afraid that despite my best efforts to ward it off, I froze to death in seminary.
I wrote about entering seminary several years ago, and also about my post-seminary experience. Yet I am still struggling with much of the aftermath of seminary and whether it was a help or a hindrance to my life as a follower of Jesus.
A Book about Surviving Seminary that might have helped
So it was with great interest that I recently read Blessed are the Balanced by Paul E. Petit and R. Todd Mangum, which purports to be a book about how seminarians can maintain their passion for Jesus while in seminary and after graduation. Interestingly, they frequently used the “freezing” and “frostbite” analogy in the book for what happens to many students while in seminary. I was also interested to see that both authors attended the same seminary I did…
Anyway, having read Blessed are the Balanced, I am not sure what to make of it.
On the one hand, I think the information it contained was good. If a person is in seminary, or is thinking about attending seminary, I recommend they read this book for helpful insights and suggestions on how to maintain a passion for Jesus while in seminary.
I also found the discussion in the book about the purpose of seminary to be extremely helpful (pp. 52-55) The authors equated seminary with boot camp where soldiers train for war. It is not the war itself, and in fact, many of the skills and behaviors learned at boot camp (or seminary) will never be used in war (and in fact, may be a hindrance). Nevertheless, it is helpful to learn these skills, not for their information, but for the way they teach discipline and commitment.
I think this is exactly true. I would not say that seminary taught me much that was helpful for life outside of seminary, but I would say that seminary taught me study habits and disciplined thinking patterns that have served me every day since graduation.
So in that sense the book was good. It really helped show what the seminarian should and should not expect to receive from seminary.
But while I was reading the book, it struck me as odd that I was reading a book about maintaining a relationship with Jesus which basically says that reading books can get in the way of maintaining our relationship with Jesus! It made me feel a little bit like an alcoholic who tries to beat his addiction to whiskey by turning to wine.
Nevertheless, what other way is there to learn information quickly than by reading? So I read the book.
If you are in Seminary…
Ultimately, I recommend this book, especially for people who are about to enter seminary, for those who are in seminary, or for those who have graduated from seminary. While many of us are acutely aware of the dangers of freezing in seminary, this book not only provides a good reminder of that danger and how to avoid it, but it also provides good insights for what seminary is (and is not) for.
If you are headed for seminary (or there right now), consider getting a copy of Blessed are the Balanced from Amazon and letting me know what you think!
“…. what other way is there to learn information quickly than by reading?”
You’ve put your God fearing finger right on the button. Here, under the microscope, our contemporary psycho-spiritual plague: we lose ourselves in the desire for ever more objectified knowledge, knowing yourself lost to reading a book.
How is it that rigorous, academic “discipline and commitment” leads a devout chappie into feeling less close to God? “I certainly know a lot more about the Bible and theology…” yes, but it’s objectified knowledge, about an objectified God, by an objectified self. What draws us closer to God is subjective, our inner life, our experience, our relationship with the unknowable infinite One.
What knowledge do we really have, if what we supposedly know dulls our life? What value in expounding what we “know” if we know it only by rote?
Dear friends, you think that you can know He who surpasses knowledge, who we can only approach in ignorance.
“If Christianity is essentially something objective, it behooves the observer to be objective. But if Christianity is essentially subjectivity, it is a mistake if the observer is objective.” Soren Kerirkegaard
TUF,
I may have overstated my view on this in my post, but I personally feel very close to God when I read and study. For me, study is an act of worship. Some of my best moments in life with God have been when I am studying.
Jeremy, again! It’s so difficult to have a conversation with a man that never quite means what he writes.
LOL! It probably comes with the territory. It’s so hard to write what you mean, mean what you write or even to know what you mean, when the subject is as ultimately indeterminable as “God” is.
Oh, hey, that wasn’t so hard after all!
Yes Jeremy, but when you are having these best study moments, are you reading from a subjective or objective point of view?
Seminaries are businesses, businesses meant to train and educate the students to become professional religious practitioners. I found little or nothing about loving the Lord my God with all my heart and little or nothing about loving my neighbor as myself. Instead, I learned how to become a better public speaker, the theology of that seminary’s particular variety of Christianity and how to get and keep a job as a religious professional.
I stopped attending classes when I needed to complete only a couple of classes to graduate. My professors were shocked. Why would I throw away three years plus of seminary and my future religious career? I answered that I found religion there, but little of Jesus or loving and caring for others. They didn’t understand.
In all fairness to my professors, most of them were sincere, loved their students and wanted to help them succeed in their future careers as pastors, missionaries, and other religious professionals.
In my experience, many seminary students see a side of religion while in seminary that they had not seen before. Learning more about Jesus and how to share him with others, which they thought was why they went to seminary, never happened. Instead they have a head full of information, information about how to succeed as a religious professional, information that will help maintain and perhaps even expand the variety of religion taught by their seminary.
This may sound like a harsh critique of seminary. On the other hand, I have tried to summarize not only my experience, but also the experiences many of my fellow students, as viewed in the “rear-view mirror”.
“The authors equated seminary with boot camp where soldiers train for war.”
Hmm. Sounds like a Christian version of Islamic jihad.
Ha! Yeah, a bit. OF course, I think they would say it was “spiritual warfare” not physical.
As I understand it, jihad was originally intended as spiritual warfare too, but that concept barely got past the prophet Muhammad’s tent flap before it came to mean physical battle. According to Wikipedia and other sources, the “greater jihad” is the inner spiritual struggle, and the struggle against the “enemies of Islam” (which can take a non-violent form, such as debate) is the “lesser jihad.”
Christianity has already demonstrated that its own spiritual warfare can turn physical and ugly, with incidents such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, persecution of Jews as Christ-killers, the Salem witch-hunts, physically and emotionally abusive clergy, and even such righteous-seeming but emotionally abusive practices as shunning and excommunication.
My point is that it’s easy to go astray with the warfare imagery, so maybe we should lose that. Dialogue works much better than warfare, but a good example is the most convincing reformer of all. The only spiritual war we have any business waging is that inner struggle. The only way to fix the world is to fix yourself.
You’re talking about the schizophrenia of the Abrahamic faiths. It comes from having a schizophrenic concept of God. One minute they’re sweetly praying beneath their crucified savior, the next they’re arming Israel to bring on the apocalypse. All three children of Moses are dreaming about the slaughter of all those not in their faith. What can you do but try to wake them up?
We all need to wake up together, and soon, because that dream is really a nightmare, which keeps getting worse. But there’s that predestination thing in the way again. It’s the idea, in all three Abrahamic faiths, that all hell must break loose, because God said it would, before God steps in to save his favorite children (of which, of course, “I’m one, so I’m okay, and the rest of you can go to hell”). But prophecy is not the same thing as predicting the future. It’s a warning. That future is not carved in stone. It’s the worst-case scenario, one of the options we can collectively choose. Or we can all wake up, grow up and smarten up.
Prophecy is a tool of social control. It builds expectations that the elite play on. Israel boasted in an official document that 25% of Americans support them no matter what, “because their faith tells them to.”
Yes, we all need to wake up, but some dreams are more dangerous than others, and in times of great social change and insecurity, there’s nothing more dangerous than apocalyptic beliefs.
That’s why I’m here, causing trouble and much unloved,
Same here. you could call it a non-Islamic, non-Christian, non-dogmatic, non-violent jihad against impediments to the Kingdom of God!
That’s another danger. The non-apocalyptic folk feel so threatened by the apocalyptic ones that they’re drawn into the fight.
Some major apocalyptic movements of our time, ready for mutual destruction:
Jewish
Christian
Muslim
New Age
Environmental Population Control
Transhumanism
In addition to them you have all the local genocide groups, the most dangerous one being European Multiculturalism.
It’s a serious storm.
I think the greater danger is that the non-apocalyptic folks are too busy with mundane business (like just keeping food on the table) to get involved in turning this ship around.
Part of that is the complacency that comes from the belief that Jesus (or some other messiah, depending on your religion) will come down from the sky with a big stick to put things right, whereas the truth is that the Christ needs to appear in individual hearts, so we have to get busy letting that happen.
I periodically looked at going to seminary. Under no plausible scenario, would doing so be economically justified. The ROI is invariably a negative figure. YMMV.
I acquired the same knowledge, simply by obtaining, and studying the material used in seminary. To save money, downloaded the material used in seminaries prior to 1920 from The Internet Archive, and Google Books.
The only change in problems that congregations, and churches have, is the proposed means to fix the problem. I’ve forgotten which book it was, that discussed the “unseemly behaviour” of a drunk that stumbled into church by accident. The “unseemly behaviour” was when the drunk pulled out his pistol, and threatened to shoot the preacher.
The primary component is Biblical software:
Jeremy’s reviews are at:
* QuickVerse: https://redeeminggod.com/quickverse/. As if to emphasis his dissatisfaction, QuickVerse is no longer on the market;
* BibleWorks: https://redeeminggod.com/bible-study-software/;
* Logos 5: https://redeeminggod.com/logos-bible-software/;
http://blog.bibletechconference.com/selecting-bible-study-software/ is about choosing Biblical software.
Yep, the ROI is rarely worth it. Thanks for pointing out the Bible study software reviews. Those are a great aid to people who want to study Scripture.
“I tell myself that feelings aren’t everything, but of course, feelings aren’t nothing either” THANK YOU! Conservatives don’t understand that we can’t just shut off our feelings all the time. Sometimes I think our feelings are what God feels. I love how you said this.
“But while I was reading the book, it struck me as odd that I was reading a book about maintaining a relationship with Jesus which basically says that reading books can get in the way of maintaining our relationship with Jesus! It made me feel a little bit like an alcoholic who tries to beat his addiction to whiskey by turning to wine.”
“Nevertheless, what other way is there to learn information quickly than by reading? So I read the book.”
LOL