Eutychus

Students Flock to Seminaries, but Fewer See Pulpit in Future – New York Times March 17, 2006

This New York Times article: Students Flock to Seminaries, but Fewer See Pulpit in Future – New York Times (HT: R. Albert Mohler) looks at the phenomenon of seminary graduates either deciding not to enter pastoral ministry, or entering seminary with other goals in the first place. The reporter spoke to administrators and graduates of Candler School of Theology at Emory University (United Methodist), Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, and an official from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

My question is, how representative is this sampling? Not in a pure statistical sense, but how can you get a feel for what is happening in seminaries without inquiring what is happening in the Southern Baptist Convention seminaries and three other large evangelical seminaries, Dallas Theological Seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary, and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. The last time I checked, the four largest SBC seminaries and the three seminaries just mentioned make up seven of the ten largest seminaries in the U.S.

The only mention of evanglical Christians was this: "Students who are evangelical Protestants, meanwhile, often end up at advocacy groups, sometimes called parachurches, which have defined the priorities and solidified the influence of conservative Christians." That is not an accurate definition of "parachurches," which includes far more than advocacy groups.

Reading this article just confirmed my belief that the mainstream media still doesn't get evangelical Christianity in America, and doesn't even want to try.