The Value of Distance Seminary Education
R. Scott Clark, Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Westminster Seminary California, has written a couple three posts recently about the training of pastors.
They have stirred up some strong objections. In his first post, he argued against the sufficiency of distance seminary education:
The whole business of online/distance seminary education is troubling. . . . Since, by intent and its very nature, online seminary education skirts the usual educational process, the usual faculty interview and appointment process, and of course, the regulatory process, it’s hard to see how the growing trend of online “education” will help us curb the tendency toward wackiness in the conservative . . . world.
It’s also hard to see how an educational institution that relies entirely upon online libraries and tutors will produce a genuinely intelligent ministry. There are a lot of great books online (e.g., via Google books) but most online books are in the public domain which means that they weren’t [sic] published before 1923. Would you trust your health to a doctor or your legal well being to a lawyer who had only read medical or legal texts published before 1923? If you don’t mind not having access to polio treatments (1952), I guess that’s a choice but as a matter of public health it would be best if everyone didn’t see that physician.
He goes on to clarify:
The new technologies cannot and should not replace face-to-face seminary education. What they can do, however, is to extend our ability to help pastors continue their education. Having laid the foundation of life-long learning in the classroom, we can help pastors keep up with theological, intellectual and academic trends email discussion lists, web pages, interactive seminars via the Internet or satellite uplink.
I tend to agree that there are many advantages to face-to-face seminary training, but there are also some disadvantages. (See this post that lists both the pros and cons.) Even if it is ideal for every minister to be trained in a seminary, it may not be possible. Distance learning is a great option for those who could not otherwise go to seminary. It may be true that distance learning functions best as continuing education, but I remain unconvinced that the local church cannot adequately provide the necessary foundation for the minister’s training.
See our related posts:
Update: The just-added third post contains some responses to discussion in the comments of this post.
Last updated on March 8, 2007.
Like this post? Subscribe to our feed
.
Brian
Mr. Clark should do a little more homework before he hinges his argument on the availability of books published post 1923. Services such as EBSCO seminarylibrary.com and others already carry books published this year. In fact, I might dare say that online students have access to more books and publications than campus attending students. An online library never has a book checked out for weeks on end to another student. The binding does not tear and loose pages, I could go on. Also, the opportunity to mix and become close friends with students of many diverse cultures and backgrounds is much more likely in the online environment.
The students he will have in 10 years will expect to be taught online. Either in whole or at least in part. He should try the new wine, before he pours it all out.
Mar 8th, 2007 11:12 pm
Phil Gons
Brian,
Great points. I’m convinced of the value of electronic resources as well. I have a few thousand resources for Libronix, and I make use of Amazon and Google Books as well. Many publishers are now making portions of new books, if not the whole book, available on their websites. Crossway, e.g., allows you to look through the entire book. And it’s only going to get better in the years to come!
Phil
Mar 9th, 2007 12:03 am
R. Scott Clark
Hi,
1. I do know about the online resources mentioned above, but those aren’t the things being proposed by the new sem.
2. No one should think that a free chapter of a book here or there is a substitute for real learning.
3. It is a fact that Google Books cannot legally violate copyright which limits what they can present.
4. I use Libronix all the time. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m not aware that Libronix makes contemporary books available.
5. I notice in my students that they tend to read online resources less carefully than printed resources. They tend not to pay attention closely to online resources because they seem ephemeral.
6. I don’t foresee Amazon or other distributors giving away books anytime soon! They may be available online, but that is likely some time away.
7. Even if all contemporary books become available online and even if everything between now and 1923 becomes available and hard copy books are rendered obsolete it is still necessary for students and teaches to be face to face. I can no more teach a man to be a minister by distance than a med school prof can teach a med student to be a GP or a law school prof can teach one to be a lawyer by distance. It’s not possible.
8. Technology is great but it gives us the illusion that we can transcend time and space, but it’s just an illusion. It’s not real. Even with computer, we’re still just creatures, we still have to live with limits.
9. One of those limits that we’re meant to learn some things in community, not in splendid isolation. Online community is not the same as actual face to face, personal communication.
Mar 9th, 2007 2:04 am
Phil Gons
Dr. Clark,
Thank you for your comments. A few follow-up points corresponding to your numbering:
#2 Agreed. But more and more full books are being made available. Crossway does this with every new book they publish. I’d guess we’ll see this trend continue.
#3 Both Google Books and Amazon allow a user to read the entirety of thousands of recent religious books. To keep the publishers happy they try to limit the number of pages you can view before or after a search result. But one simply needs to perform a new search to get more pages. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. For now, it is a helpful resource.
#4 Libronix has been going gangbusters recently releasing many recently published books. In fact, they have even offered some books electronically prior to their being released in print. I would guess that there are a couple thousands books available (or soon to be available) in Libronix that have a publication date within the last 15 years. Consider the commentary collections alone: BECNT, WBC, NAC, NIGTC, PNTC, and Hermeneia. See here for a complete list of multivolume sets available: http://logos.com/commentaries/multivolume.
#5 I would agree that reading a book at Google Books or Amazon is not ideal and lacks the benefits of reading a physical book, primarily because you cannot mark them up and take notes in them—not to mention the often poor quality of the text. Libronix makes up for these deficiencies with a customizable and readable text and the ability to mark up and take notes right within the book. I’ve gotten to the place now where I prefer a Libronix book to a print book. I can maximize the book and make it even easier to read and interact with than a print book.
#6 Agreed.
#7 True. Face-to-face interaction is irreplaceable, but what about getting the face-to-face interaction within one’s local church and using distance education to supplement that training and instruction?
#9 Agreed. Your warning not to replace face-to-face interaction is a timely one.
Thanks for taking the time to follow up with additional thoughts.
Blessings,
Phil
Mar 9th, 2007 2:46 am
Brian
Dr. Clark,
Have you ever used Word Search? You can download entire books and “mark them up” all you want. In fact you can save searches, relationships between books, etc. I would say this is more valuable to someone like me than a full library. I have over three hundred books with me everywhere I go. And can search through them w/ a few key strokes. I’ll get more use out of these digital books than I ever could out of a bookshelf full of physical books. And I don’t have to dust them ;^) I want to heavily encourage you to give the medium another try.
The tools you mention are lacking, I agree. However, I think you’re missing the real advantage of the digital medium. And it will only get better.
Re: f2f. How would we (You, me, and Phil) ever have this conversation f2f? Would you say that we do not already have some form of community forming here? I think the generation that will be attending Seminary (or any higher education) in five years (or less) will be as comfortable with online community as with face to face. In fact if you don’t provide it, they will create it themselves. Wouldn’t you rather have the opportunity to help shape the online community than let it develop strictly from the learners side?
To make an an analogy: “TV killed the Radio star.” Well, it didn’t. Radio is still alive today. While even it has changed dramatically it didn’t go away when TV came on the scene. Neither will face to face go away now that online community is here. But, f2f will change and evolve.
I hope I have not offended you so much that you cannot read my post w/ open eyes. The only reason I even know about your post is because of Google Alerts. Isn’t technology used for the right purposes great. (Don’t even want to open the can of worms about what is ‘right’.)
Using the inventions of man for the good of God,
Brian
Mar 9th, 2007 5:03 pm
Daniel Foster
Dr. Clark, I have read this conversation with interest since it gets to the core of one of the goals we’ve set for ourselves at Logos Bible Software: to create digital editions of enough books, both old and new, to reach a “critical mass” for biblical studies.
This goal is explained in more detail by Dale Pritchett, vice president of sales and marketing at Logos.
Here is one of the essential sections of Dale’s post:
Every day moves us closer to this goal. Phil Gons points you to some great examples of newer works available electronically from Logos Bible Software. I could multiply examples, but one in particular comes to mind:
Last May Logos signed a contract with Continuum for licenses to 2,000 books, hundreds of them published after 2001, and many of them scholarly works originally published by the likes of T&T Clark and Sheffield Press. We’ve already completed and shipped digital editions of some of these and have others in the pipeline (see www.logos.com/prepub).
Even a quick glance at a list of our academic titles should convince any skeptic that Logos is serious about the whole critical mass thing.
The conversation about whether a theological education can or should be pursued completely at a distance I will leave to educators like yourself.
But when theological institutions decide to make DE a part of their offering, we intend to be the organization they turn to for that “missing link”: an affordable, portable, comprehensive theological library delivered to every student.
Daniel Foster
Logos Bible Software
daniel@logos.com
Mar 10th, 2007 2:42 am
Michael Shanlian
DE is a God send for someone like myself. I have been a bi-vocational pastor/church planter for thirty years. I began pastoring in the middle seventies right out of Bible college. I pastored a small church and worked a full time job. Seminary was not an option. The fundamentalist school I attended called seminaries, cemetaries. If you wanted to lose your fire for ministry go to seminary.
As the years went by I began to realize that I needed further training but circumstances would not allow it. So I bought tapes and books and began to self educate myself along with the practical training. Now I am 54 years old and found a seminary in South Africa that is accredited and the degree is completed by thesis.
For a person like me who is disciplined enough to study on my own I prefer not to be held back by the limitations of class schedules.
I would say that a young man starting out probably needs the structure of a brick and mortar seminary. For us old dogs we have been putting sermons together for years. Most of the classes in the MDiv program except languages we could probably teach. We have learned by doing.
May 7th, 2007 11:06 pm