A Seminary Without Walls
Diocesan Press Service. August 10, 1972 [72113]
Robert M. Andrews, Editor for United Press International
(Special report for Washington Diocese).
If all goes well, a new seminary unlike any ever seen in the United States will open this fall. It is a seminary without walls whose "campus " is in churches stretching from the bustle and grime of Baltimore to the bucolic chic of Reston, Va. Its first class of 20 students will be open to Protestants, Jews and Roman Catholics, whites and blacks, women as well as men. And its approach to the training of pastoral ministers turns traditional seminary concepts literally upside-down.
"The educational philosophy of a seminary is that you build a pastoral experience on top of an academic foundation, " said the Rev. Dr. John Fletcher, himself a former professor at Virginia Theological Seminary. "What we are trying to do is to build an academic competence on top of a foundation of experience in the congregation."
Dr. Fletcher, 40, is director of the new seminary called Inter-Met (short for Interfaith Associates in Metropolitan Theological Education, Inc.), which operates with a small staff out of rented headquarters at 1419 V St., N.W. in the Washington ghetto.
Others on Inter-Met' s staff include Dr. Emma Lou Bernignus, formerly professor of pastoral theology at Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass., and the Rev. William A. Hayes, formerly administrative director of St. Mark's Ecumenical Church, Kansas City, Mo. St. Mark's congregation includes Episcopal, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic communicants.
Inter-Met began on the premise that although the parish congregation is still the heart of religious life, the seminaries have great difficulty to prepare clergy to deal with the real strains, pressures and social issues raised out of the life of the congregation they are asked to lead.
The evidence is not hard to find. Many persons leave the ordained ministry, said Dr. Fletcher, because of the "psychic shock" they suffer almost immediately after entering a parish, stemming from the sudden clash between what their seminary teachers had expected of them and the expectations of strange new authorities.
The congregation, too, often feels confused and disappointed. In asking various churches to list what they regarded as the most serious problems of clergymen they have known, Dr. Fletcher said two complaints led the lists with remarkable frequency. " First," he said, "was piousness, hypocrisy, religious inauthenticity -- the feeling that what they preach on Sundays is not what they really believe inside their hearts. The second complaint was lack of organization and ineffectiveness as leaders, little experience in administration, followed by personal problems such as alcoholism, family problems, financial problems."
Dr. Fletcher stresses his recognition that the seminaries at long last are trying hard to improve their practical training to equip students for a parish ministry. Nonetheless, he says," Even though a lot of reform is going on in the seminaries, there is almost no basic innovation -- Inter-Met is a fundamental change in the way clergy are educated."
The dream, first formed in 1969, was to start students with on-the-job training in an urban congregation as a prelude to his own development as a working clergyman. The dream is about ready to become a reality, after a year of experimentation with a pilot group of ten students.
Inter-Met, putting together long discussed innovations in seminary training in a form regarded as unique in theological education, has been eagerly financed to the tune of $425, 000, mostly by foundations but including close to $40,000 in individual gifts. The largest grant, for a little more than half the total, comes from the Irwin-Sweeney- Miller Foundation. The Missionary Development Fund of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington chipped in $8,500.
Inter-Met acts essentially as a "broker," counselor and evaluator to help a college graduate interested in the ministry to contract for his first year to serve a congregation with a set of problems and goals he might be able to help solve or meet. During this year, "Phase I, " the student discovers from experience what working in a congregation means. Some students may drop out at this stage.
Part of his earnings are placed in a fund to finance studies he and the staff later decide -- based on his work experience -- that he should pursue. The courses might range from Scriptures and experimental liturgy to a history of racism in America.
At this point, with Inter-Met's help, he negotiates contracts with teachers who are interested, a bargaining process common between students and teachers in Medieval times. Dozens of teachers -- from two dozen area seminaries, area universities, the clergy and qualified laymen -- have expressed willingness to bargain with Inter-Met students. Then, combining congregation work with study for about two years -- more or less depending on the individual -- the student progresses toward the end of Phase II, completing his examinations in academic courses and meeting his denomination's requirements for ordination.
Then, the candidates are ready to enter Phase III, the final preparations for ordination into the active ministry. In the last year or two, "he will be less eager to interpret holy writings and more eager to let the Scripture interpret his life and the lives of the people with whom he works," to develop in humility those inner strengths he has discovered in the crucible of congregational life.
For the past season, the pilot group, including a Jew, a Catholic and eight Protestants (three blacks, two women), have served "guinea pig" apprenticeships in local congregations and helped Inter-Met prepare for the first full year starting next fall.
Some valuable lessons already have been learned, among them the importance of the student's negotiations in revealing mutual responsibilities and expectations between the clergy and his congregation.
The interfaith and interracial aspects of Inter-Met teach students an additional lesson -- gained in difficulty but of major importance -- that no one race or denomination is superior in worth. The same lesson seems to have emerged about the worth of women in the ministry.
The Rev. Macie Tillman, one of the 10 who is student pastor of three small Methodist churches in the Huntingtown, Md., area, put his finger on one of the major problems Inter-Met is trying to overcome. "Many seminary students go out of seminary and can't function because they have memorized more about Tillich than they know about the people in the average congregation, " he told one interviewer.
Dr. Fletcher admits to having "heartbreaking" experiences working with young clergy who come to their work with mainly academic preparation. To him, perhaps, the moment of truth comes when an apprentice clergyman uses trouble "creatively" in a congregation, rather than resorting to "rising up in arms and shouting people down, or simply withdrawing in hurt silence. "
It is this creative response in dealing with parishioners -- "the clergy's No. 1 problem" -- that Dr. Fletcher regards as one of Inter-Met's great promises. But only time will tell.
Michael C. Thomas, a University of Maryland sociology professor who is evaluating Inter-Met on contract in behalf of the research arm of the National Council of Churches, believes it may not be until 1975-76, when Inter-Met's first class is "graduated" and enters the active ministry, that the new seminary's success can be judged by comparison with the performance of traditional seminary graduates. Meantime, Inter-Met is working with the American Association of Theological Schools for eventual accreditation, based on a substitute for grading as a judge of academic performance and job skills.
Thomas, whose report is to be published July 1, believes Inter-Met has sorted out many of the problems that became apparent in the past year of planning, and that its chances for success are encouraging.
Said Dr. Fletcher: "A lot of people are surprised that we've survived this long. We still have a very long way to go. "