This from Charisma Online News Brief: Seminary Must Pay Fine for Issuing Degrees http://www.charismanews.com/online/articledisplay.pl?ArticleID=7912 Is this a Bang or a Boom? Roscoe
Smells like a Holy Ghost fart to me. This idiotic hysteria about the state taking over the seminaries in Texas is no credit to these folks. If they are in any way substantial, why not apply to ATS or TRACS? If they're not, they have no business issuing "degrees." Besides, haven't they read what Paul says in Romans about honoring and accepting secular government authority?
I am not sure this is a good thing. I honestly don't believe that the state should dictate to a church what is a proper education for the ministry. Many denominations do not rely on accredited institutions including, I believe, Unk's. Whatever happened to the precedent set by the Universal Life Church. Mind you, that was a tax case.
the non-degree granting school I went to for theological training was looking into giving BMin degrees (unaccredited of course) about the time I went there. They had to back off because of Texas' strict laws in this area. As I remember, there would have to be a board of directors (or some such group) that wouldn't necessarily be composed of members of our denomination. I don't know how it was all supposed to be organized, etc. But I do know that Sunset International Bible Institute does not offer degrees to this day. clint
Time for an interested party to set up Tyndale Theological University, under a Wyoming religious exemption, and grant full credit for Tyndale of Texas courses. They could run their DL out of Wyoming with Texas instructors as adjuncts. I've seen it done before.
Hi Dennis: Correct. Our seminary is not accredited. What would we do if for some reason we had to move it to Texas? Almost certainly this: the same program would be offered, upon whose completion the sem grads would be assigned their first parish. Everything in the program of study would be the same except the issuing of a degree. If we still had another institution elsewhere which could legally issue degrees, it would almost certainly issue a degree upon a transfer of credits from the technically non-degree program in Texas. It is the completion of the program, together with doctrinal and psychological certification, which makes a man eligible for entry into our ministry--not the degree as such. We don't admit students from other denominations, so there would be no chance (in the Texas scenario) of a student getting sucker-punched by doing all the work and not receiving a degree at the end. We would neither roll over and play dead in the face of such a law, nor would we break it. This is only my guess. I am certain that we wouldn't ever move the sem to Texas or open a branch campus there.
I remember a few years back when Christ For the Nations Institute in Dallas offered the Associate in Practical Theology. Something happened with the state, in the 80s I believe and the associate degree disappeared. Roscoe
