Ladies be made free!

Thanks for the positive take on your experience at Drew ….
I was looking for the costs of the DMin program …. but couldn’t seem to find anywhere on their website. Do you have a recollection for how much the full 3 year program cost?

thanks
Wayne in Toronto

Of course, you hit the nail on the head. I know many “ministers” who need to try on the “Joe Member” shoes for a few weeks….

I challenge you to live up to this statement…

“Since you will do theology whether you want to or not, why not choose to do it well?”

by considering N.T. Wright’s take on the meaning of justification in contrast to what Martin Luther THOUGHT it meant. It will rock your theological world brother.

Be blessed.

Thanks for the awesome post!

Getting out into the ‘real’ world would change the lives of many, many ‘professional ministers!’

A little while back, I made this statement: “I’ve just about come to the conclusion that the phrase “Protestant theology” is an oxymoron. Protestants don’t have theology; they have doctrine. They teach it, they make it a litmus test for acceptance and, if they’re really on their game, they live it. But the word “theology” implies that one has to think out the “why”–the mechanics, to use an engineering term–behind something, and Protestants in general and Evangelicals in particular seem to be afraid of that. Too many people have the idea that such a quest will end up with an unBiblical result. That’s why I say that Roman Catholic theology, for all of its problems (the biggest of which is the institution of the Roman Catholic Church itself,) is the premier intellectual tradition in Christianity. It also makes me glad that I spent my undergraduate years as an engineering student while ploughing through St. Thomas Aquinas on the side rather than sit in a seminary listening to “doctrine” be pompously exposited.”

Honestly, I haven’t seen anything since that would change my thinking. And no one has challenged me on this either.

Evangelical churches have for so long run on populism and anti-intellectualism that, although they tell people not to check their brains at the door, what they set forth just about requires it for credibility. And I’m not talking about doing a leftward drift to fix this either; the left is, if anything, worse. Recently I attempted to engage a well-known anti-fundamentalist in dialogue, and he responded by booting me off of his own blog and refusing to answer.

If we really believe what we say is true, then we should have a well thought out rationale for it. Having such makes it easier to think through challenges better and come up with workable solutions rather than fighting battles we can’t or shouldn’t win.

But, if you haven’t afforded yourself the opportunity to think something out up front, then chances are you won’t be able to think it through down the road when it matters. And that’s where too many of our people are today.