Seminary?

[James Gibbons]

I have a lot of cousins and respected friends who are seminary graduates. I also know more than a couple Bible scholars, teachers, and preachers, whom I respect a lot, who are not. My observation is that seminary can be valuable in providing a foundation in the historical lines of thought regarding issues springing from 2000 years of practical application of the Bible. But I also detect, among seminarians, a bit of head over heart bias (a natural side effect of the academic nature of the thing, I guess), as well as a “we have the inside knowledge” kind of elitism, that comes from, well, knowing things other people don’t. To keep this from being a black and white issue, I want to be clear that I am not questioning whether seminary is good; but my questions are:

A) is seminary necessary?
B) what is the appropriate role of seminary/seminarians in the everyday conduct of the local assembly and its work in the world?

I will be out for the next few days, starting in about two minutes. So, I will look forward to replaying the brawl that ensues (kidding, y’all) next week, when I return. Nothin’ but love. Mahalo. Aloha.

[Rey Reynoso]

I had a long reply. In it I basically said some of the same things I said earlier but added some information like this:

• There is nothing necessary to do God's work. If someone says X (be it a pulpit, a chapel, a program, legs or a seminary) I'd say burn it, trash it, end it, cut it, ignore it.
• The Universal Church needs seminary-like teaching to equip the Saints by equipping the New Teachers gifted to the Church. This occurs at the local level but not every local gathering needs to be doing it itself.
• The Body of Christ is a community that goes back 2000 years.

But I lost my response.