It’s a privilege to be the newest contributor to the Parchment and Pen blog.  I’m new to Reclaiming the Mind Ministries as Creative Director and Instructor, but I’m not new to the concept of online seminary.  For five years I worked as the Senior Internet Designer for Dallas Theological Seminary (http://www.dts.edu).  Computer Programming genius (not an overstatement) John Dyer and I developed most of the online education environment at DTS.

Designing and implementing an online education environment was a blast.  We used bleeding-edge technology at the time and developed a system which accommodated multi-language support.  What does this mean?  Many students were from countries other than the U.S. and took classes in languages other than English.  A large number of students were in countries where they could be imprisoned for proclaiming the name of Christ.

Can you picture the scene?  A student is living in a country hostile to the gospel, yet they’re earning a Th.M. from Dallas Seminary by secretly taking classes from Howard Hendricks and many other world-class professors in their own language!  It was a joy to go to work each day to help develop this platform; knowing lives were being changed and church leaders were being trained.

If the only possible way for you to receive a seminary degree comes from taking all your classes online, then I say go for it.  Dallas Seminary and several other prominent seminaries have developed robust accredited online education environments.  It’s better to go through seminary online than not-at-all.

Michael recently wrote a lot about the pros and cons of online seminary from a student’s perspective (link).  I wanted to take a different focus.  Looking at this issue from the eyes of the educational institution.  Here’s my bold claim:  A seminary can not afford to trade in their “brick and mortar” seminary for online education.  Yes, financially it makes better sense in the short-term.  I believe, however, if a seminary continues to grow in their online offerings it will eventually ruin the school.  Here are two reasons:

1. Character – The goal of a seminary is not to fill someone’s head with a bunch of facts so they’ll beat everyone at Bible trivia.  Seminaries must be very serious about graduating people who have grown in both knowledge, maturity, integrity and character.  Someone whom they can point to and say, “This person has our seal of approval, they are worth following.”  If a seminary is not equally concerned with orthodoxy and orthopraxy, they will become a degree-mill full of Pharisees.

Every graduate of a seminary takes with them the ability to either enhance or ruin the ongoing reputation of the school.  Am I saying every person who takes an online class is a creep?  Not at all.  What I’m saying, though, is it is much harder to gauge the character of an individual online.  I know of several people during my time at Dallas Seminary who were kicked out of the school due to character issues which became obvious when students were eyeball-to-eyeball with other students and staff.  I am confident these issues wouldn’t have been discovered if these people were solely online students.

One night in 2002 while sleeping in my seminary dorm room I was awaken in the middle of the night by the guy in the room next to me.  He was swearing so profusely it would make a drunken jerk in a wife beater blush.  After more than 20 minutes of profane monologuing, a friend of mine and I knocked on this guy’s door.  He was writing an exegetical on a portion of the life of Christ and was having footnoting problems with Microsoft Word.  I couldn’t believe it.  This guy was a leader in our spiritual formation department.  The Dean of Students met with him several times helping him walk through this character issue.  None of this would have been brought to the light, to his detriment, if he was an online student.

A seminary must also be  interested in the character of graduates for legal reasons.  I’m aware of a situation where a family sued a seminary because of the actions of a graduate.  Why?  While the student, in the 1980’s, was on campus there was at least one incident where his character came into question.  The seminary believed they handled the situation properly and the student went on to earn a degree.  A church saw this man’s resume and noticed he had a degree from the prestigious school, they hired him as their pastor.  The man, tragically, more than a decade later molested a child.  The family sued the seminary due to the false “seal of approval” they gave the pastor.  The case settled out of court and cost the school a considerable amount of money.

I fear if seminaries continue to move their education online it will fill their coffers in the short-term with cheap tuition but will eventually ruin their reputation on the issue of character alone. More and more graduates will slip through the cracks because their lives are only seen from afar and only as much as the student reveals online.  Let us not forget, postmodern generations must see “Character” and “Authenticity” in anyone stepping into a position of church leadership.  Seminaries need to be more vigilant than ever to help their students foster character in order to reach the next generations for Christ.  A seminary degree earned completely online is a step in the wrong direction.

2. <?php while { ($Seminary_Training == $Binary_Vacuum) $Seminary – - } ; ?> -or- Seminaries need Brick and Mortar.

A seminary is naive to think the best thing about their school is the curriculum.  Don’t get me wrong, the curriculum is a vital character in the story of a seminary.  I loved the curriculum of Dallas Seminary.  The main star, however, are the people.  The students, staff and professors create a holistic training environment inside and outside of class.  The brick and mortar buildings are where we live life eyeball-to-eyeball for a precious season of our lives.  All our stories intersect and we are never the same.

I’ll never forget my wife and I having Dwight Pentecost over to our home, cooking him a steak from my home state of Iowa, and he says, “Wow, this is the best steak I’ve ever had.”  A great compliment from a man in his 90’s.  Then we go on to spend the evening talking about God as he bounces my little daughter on his knee.

I’ll never forget John Hannah losing his eye-sight in one eye during the semester but still pulling my wife and I aside and encouraging us about the goodness of God.  I’ll never forget watching my best friend help John Walvoord stand up by giving him a huge bear hug…a memory that still makes me laugh out loud.  I could go on and on about great, meaningful times inside and outside of class with professors.  I could also talk about the godly staff who serve faithfully at a seminary and encourage us along the way.  I could also talk about the many times where friends, outside of class, helped to give flesh to the concepts I was learning for the first time.

Yes, we can spend millions utilizing all the technology currently available to try to replicate similar outcomes through online education.  I believe it will never replicate the significance of being face-to-face, eyeball-to-eyeball inside and outside the classroom with godly mentors and friends as you study truly great things.  There is certainly a time and a place for online education in the life of a seminary education, but it must be a minor character showing up only occasionally to supplement what is already happening within the brick and mortar training ground.

Seminary degrees earned 100% online will only water down the significance the seminary will have in the life of the graduate.  The institution will only suffer as students and staff have less and less influence in each others lives, therefore less and less value will be given to the seminary.  The seminary will slowly die flying the flag of progress.

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Romans Bible study taught by C. Michael Patton all summer. Join us live online or onsite. created by Reclaiming the Mind Ministries!