American Institute of Holistic Theology (AIHT)

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by AAD, Aug 12, 2011.

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  1. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    Even non-theistic traditions that don't have a monotheistic 'God'? Maybe there is some idea of seeking transcendence implicit in religions in general, but that's pretty vague.

    That's what worries me in the current context. Being trained in western and eastern spirituality and in comparative religion increases the size of the task tremendously, at least if one is being careful not to oversimplify things by reducing them to stereotypes. It makes the task more difficult, not easier, since it multiples the competencies that a student must have. One would have to study very different doctrines, deep and difficult philosophies, master unfamiliar languages, become familiar with complex textual traditions, observe countless forms of personal and group practice, and contextualize everything in Western academic terms and in the terms of very different cultures that might conceive of what they are doing in very different ways.

    It's such a large task that it usually has to be narrowed down by specialization.

    I like it, that's how I prefer to approach religion, although I think that I would rather save the word 'metaphysics' for the philosophical specialty (especially in its 'analytic' form).

    That's just the thing, it's impossible to say what Plato and Aristotle really thought (to say nothing of Pythagoras, who left no writings and may have taught orally, like Socrates and the Buddha), without studying the ancient sources, whether these individuals' own surviving writings or the doxographical tradition. I guess that my point here is that introducing the ancient authors' ideas of 'the soul' (or any other complex topic) increases the difficulties. One would need to add sufficient background in ancient philosophy to everything else.

    In my opinion, the biggest weakness with schools like Sedona is that they don't seem to treat the material that they purport to teach with the respect that the material deserves.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 19, 2016
  2. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Sedona also states that your degree is only valid as long as maintain fellowship with their denomination. Break off your affiliation and your PhD becomes void. So, just throwing that out there.

    But to your statement earlier I think that's a fine position to take. The thing is that everyone has the freedom, in this country, to treat materials as irreverently as they choose. I'm sure that the approach to the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) differs greatly as they are taught at Hebrew Union College, Moody and Brigham Young.

    I know for a fact that not treating the material with the respect it deserves was one of the earliest criticisms by Orthodox yeshivas against the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. As I look around the web for modern opinions there are more than a handful of Orthodox Jews who view JTSA (a conservative school) as mislabeling people Rabbis while only imparting the same level of education as the typical Orthodox high school.

    Yet, I don't think we'd call JTSA (which has joint programs with Columbia) a mill even if their Orthodox counterparts basically hold that to be the case.

    Mills don't tend to build communities. They are in the business of selling degrees. Sedona could just sell doctorates like ULC. But they don't. Is their ongoing affiliation nothing more than a scam to bring in more money? Maybe. Or, perhaps they are just building a religious community and want degrees that are only to be used within the context of their faith practice. The Salvation Army hands out ranks. Places like Sedona hand out the title of "Doctor." Unless you are, in fact, practicing psychology without a license or otherwise engaged in some fraudulent activity I fail to see why this should make people as upset as it does.
     
  3. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Not long ago I spoke to a Philosophy Professor (a PhD sorta guy) and I asked him why, when reading philosophical dissertations, research/essays, etc. you hardly ever see references to Eastern works/Philosophers. His answer (he seemed a little embarrassed) was simply, "It's too much to know."
     
  4. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Not so easy to explain in this thread, we are getting into philosophical matters that are not subject of distance learning discussions. You might not agree with interfaith as you might feel it is impossible to learn so much and be compatible with so many different visions.

    Interfaith is really about spirituality and not about organized religions, most followers of this movements are either people that do not agree with organized religions or people that want to keep their faith but need something extra to complement it with a more holistic view of the human spirituality.

    Any particular degree offered by a University program is not a good fit. Interfaith programs normally cover spirituality, comparative religions, psychic phenomena, psychology, consciousness studies and religious services.

    I am OK with no degree for an interfaith program, some programs offer them as MDivs or Doctoral programs but in reality is not the degree that matters but the acceptability of the training in the interfaith community.

    In few words, there is no point to have a PhD in comparative religion from a RA accredited school if you are not recognized as an ordained minister. Normally the latter requires many years of training and experience and not just a paper qualification.

    People confuse in this thread the ministerial profession with an secular accredited degree. Non secular education leads to ministerial ordination in a particular faith that normally does not require a degree, some faiths need a secular accredited degree but most don't (e.g. Buddhism, JW, Catholic, etc).
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    Some schools, unaccredited-religious-exemption schools, magnify this confusion by offering academic degrees (typically in business). To me this is a warning sign that their real motivation is the money.
     
  6. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Yes, but these degrees are kind of useless. Try to use a Sedona degree and ordination certificate with any serious denomination and see how it goes. Try to list it in a business resume and see if anyone takes you seriously. The problem with Sedona and schools alike is that anyone can go on the internet and figure out that are 3 to 6 month online programs that cost under 1K.
    Most of these degrees are money making. Real ministerial schools have real churches with temples, followers, faculty and recognition in the community. This means that you cannot really do it 100% online but actually need to go to church and do some face to face work.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 19, 2016
  7. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Catholic? No degree? Well, here's what study.com says: "Step 1: Earn a Bachelor's Degree. Catholic priests are typically required to have a bachelor's degree."
    It's here: Become a Catholic Priest: Step-by-Step Career Guide

    Wikihow says: " Attend college (recommended). A bachelor degree typically makes it easier to enter seminary, and reduces the length of seminary studies by a couple years..."
    That's here: 3 Ways to Become a Catholic Priest - wikiHow

    Chron.com says "To become a Catholic priest, you must have at least a bachelor's degree, preferably in a field such as religious studies or philosophy, and pursue a graduate degree from a Catholic seminary."
    Here it is: Catholic Priest Requirements | Chron.com

    And finally, from Friar David of the Carmelite Order. He oughta know, I guess:
    His comments are from here: http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=539825

    "According to the Program for Priestly Formation, 5th edition, which is what the United States uses you are required to have a bachelors degree with at least 30 credit hours of philosophy and 12 credit hours of theology. You can get this with a bachelors of philosohy.

    The graduate degree a priest gets is a 4 year professional degree known as the Masters of Divinity.

    Some dioceses pay for the MDiv degree, most require you to take care of the bachelors which would include student loans. Some dioceses will pay for the MDiv but then after ordination they make you contribute part of your pay in paying the diocese back for the education.

    So not only is a degree required, but at the minimum 8 years (unless you do some intentsive summer programs and the diocese lets you rather than giving you a summer assignment as most do) to of college to get to a place where you can be ordained. Dioceses will through in other things like a pastoral year and such other formation things that must be done.

    Hope this helps."


    J.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 20, 2016
  8. b4cz28

    b4cz28 Active Member

    Doesn't matter, that situation does not even come close to justifying not calling a school mill. I doubt the most ultra Orthodox would ever call them a mill.

    People need a disclaimer if they hold a mill degree in this thread....just saying.
     
  9. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    So you think that the Orthodox saying that the Masters programs at JTSA being equivalent to what they teach by the end of high school isn't a comparable statement?

    If I said that LBU's learning outcomes were surpassed by what was taught in a high school that wouldn't be relevant?

    An unnecessary personal dig.

    I have stated before that I previously earned an unaccredited STL which was intertwined with an ordination program for a faith group I no longer associate with. That STL is not an academic degree and is one I do not claim either on my professional resume or in personal life (the same with the accompanying ordination). it was absolutely not a "mill." It was a part-time, hybrid program. It required, among other things, for me to earn two units of ACPE accredited CPE, earn 6 credits of Greek, Hebrew and Latin (total of 18 credits) from an accredited institution (RA or NA was acceptable, I chose RA due to availability) and work in ministry under supervision for two years.

    I'm not sure why schools like Sedona make you so angry but, for someone who constantly professes the Christian faith on these boards, I think you should probably take a step back and reflect before you respond.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 20, 2016
  10. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Now I can`t stop trying to guess the school or at least the faith group. This sound Independent Catholic or Continuing Anglican...
     
  11. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Independent Catholic. I don't want to name the group specifically but it falls into that category.
     
  12. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Thanks! Many of these groups would present a perfectly reasonable need for an unaccredited seminary: they are far too small to support an accredited one. These programs are similar to St. Sophia in purpose and even in overall structure (since we're both in Apostolic, Liturgical traditions); of course, St. Sophia has the big guys to compare itself to, and a degree of recognition in the larger communion. Still, same general idea.
     
  13. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    The statement was - "In my opinion, the biggest weakness with schools like Sedona is that they don't seem to treat the material that they purport to teach with the respect that the material deserves."

    My point there was that if "interfaith ministers need to be trained in western and eastern spirituality and in comparative religions", and if that minister is posing as a Ph.D. and hence an expert on the material, that training needs to be something more than a simple community college world-religions survey.

    To argue that because the topic is religion serious standards need not apply, is to implicitly introduce the "new atheist"-style assumption that since religion is bullshit, there's really no need to study it.

    I'm not a Christian and I most emphatically don't treat the Bible 'reverently'. (I don't believe most of its contents.) Reverence isn't really the issue. The point is that if somebody is going to present him/herself as an expert on something, then he or she needs to have studied it and really know something about it.

    Nobody is suggesting that the law shut Sedona down or that religious-exemptions it shelters under be eliminated. I'm just suggesting that those of us who take religious traditions seriously (if not always reverently) need to be a little skeptical when educational institutions that purport to teach those traditions seemingly don't.

    I'm most definitely not up to speed on Judaism, but my impression is that the Orthodox complaint isn't that JTSA is a "mill", but that it takes a different approach to the role of Jewish law in Jewish life than the more traditional one they favor. That extends to matters of rabbinical exegesis and so on. So it's more of a theological dispute, like Catholics not being hugely impressed with some of the evangelical seminaries which in turn can't stand BYU. But that being said, each one does whatever it does to a reasonably high standard.

    What I want to argue against here are 'slippery-slope' arguments where if Columbia looks down on UCLA (a mere 'state school') that means that anything goes (since everyone looks down on somebody) and mills somehow become justified.

    I'm not upset, I'm just not convinced that their academic doctoral degrees are credible academic qualifications. They can ordain anyone they like in their online denomination, but I'm not convinced that the education they provide means that those clergy possess any deep understanding of the multiple religious traditions that are ostensibly encompassed by the word "interfaith".
     
  14. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    I'll agree with that idea.
     
  15. RAM PhD

    RAM PhD Member

    I'm not b4cz28, but I can tell you why unaccredited religious entities (especially those that purport to offer the PhD) frustrate me. And yes, I am a Christian.

    Most all unaccredited entities that I have encountered/researched (and there have been many over the past 20 years) have been academically substandard, more than a few were blatant mills.
     
  16. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    I was not trying to say that being angry about mills is incompatible with being a Christian.

    I was simply questioning why someone who is incredibly vocal about being a Christian would couch that mill rant with a personal attack.

    Then don't give them your money. And if someone attempts to use a degree from one of them fraudulently then take issue. But I see no sense in getting all worked up over the graduates of these schools, substandard as their education may be, who "use" their degree only in the context of an affiliated faith community.
     
  17. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Religion isn't bullshit. But religion can be bullshit. I'm not saying there is no reason to study it. But I am saying that it is the only study that can be made up on the fly without any serious consequence.

    Set aside new age traditions. Look at religions with real buildings and academic accreditation. Many centuries of learning and study around Christianity and then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints comes on the scene and drastically transforms theology. Anyone can come onto the religious scene and say "Oh, divine revelation, Jesus was actually Chinese and Mary was an allegory." There we have it. New religion. New theology. New theologians.


    I've given this example before. If I go out and come up with an entirely new religion called Neuhausianism and I write many, many volumes on my new theology. I create congregations. I start schools to train my clergy. Who knows better about Neuhausianism than I?

    Actually I believe RAM Phd and b4cz28 have called for exactly that.


    The Orthodox complaint isn't that JTSA has a different interpretation. It's that the different interpretation is a severely watered down version of Judaism. One needn't look far to see many references to Conservative Judaism being nothing more than "Judaism-light" and, again, holding that the Talmudic scholarship expected of a JTSA grad doesn't even meet the standards of an Orthodox high school graduate. They don't consider it a "mill" because they don't use that language. But saying that you feel that the learning is watered down and high school level brings us to the same result.

    Well, I never said that. So mission accomplished?


    Why must they be? Why can't a religious denomination have a degree that serves purposes only within the denomination? Why must it be a credible academic qualification? Even if we take accreditation out of the mix this gets weird when it comes to religious degrees. A Masters from the Angelicum in Rome is absolutely a legitimate degree. But outside of Catholic or possibly Anglican circles it offers very little utility. One with a degree from George Fox or Moody has a legitimate degree. But said degrees would be utterly useless were they to approach a Catholic or Orthodox seminary to teach (unless they were teaching a course on Protestantism).

    I've rearranged your statements a bit for ease of commenting. I hope you don't mind.

    For starters, let me just say again that I think the PhD has no business in religious exempt schools. If a school truly only offers "religious" degrees then I think they should be limited to a ThD or a DD or something similar.

    Next, I think it is a bit misguided to think that "interfaith" implies that one must be an expert, trained at the doctoral level, in all western and eastern spirituality. There is no singular definition, as far as I can tell, of what constitutes an "interfaith minister."

    In the military chaplains serve all faiths. What that means in that context is that if a Muslim goes to a Catholic chaplain for pastoral counseling they will receive it. The Catholic chaplain is not, however, going to get down on the floor and pray in the direction of Mecca with the Muslim. Nor can a devil worshipper approach said chaplain and request a consecrated host for use in a black mass (they can request but it will be denied). So a military chaplain is, in a sense, an "interfaith minister" in the sense that they minister to all regardless of faith and don't try to convert people to their faith. One might also look to someone like Wayne Teasdale as an interfaith minister. Trained as a Catholic monastic he later took on vows from a combined Hindu/Catholic monastic community in India. Multiple paths to the divine, that sort of thing.

    I, personally, have a deep fascination with a number of non-Eastern religions. I could very well cobble together that interest and still be an "interfaith minister" by ministering to all even without any training in Eastern religions. Interfaith Minister just doesn't necessarily imply "expert in comparative religion" or "clergy person trained to serve as clergy in multiple religious paths."

    In that sense I'd say that an interfaith minister can absolutely be well versed in the business of being a minister (i.e. chaplaincy, life cycle officiation, pastoral counseling) with only a broad overview of various religious traditions. Of course, that's a very small market and one that no school would be able to cater to while making accreditation financially feasible. Hence we end up with unaccredited schools, for better or worse. This side of RA there are no other options particularly if they are non-DL in focus.

    So if there becomes an accreditation option for interfaith and non-traditional religious schools (i.e. faith groups not represented by current faith based accreditors) that is financially feasible then I'd agree that they could all disappear. Barring that, however, I think it is necessary for them to thrive in the unaccredited world.
     
  18. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    because humans are not perfect?
     
  19. Helpful2013

    Helpful2013 Active Member

    I'm sorry to have to disagree so bluntly with people I generally respect, but much of this thread seems like special pleading for a particular category of mills.
     
  20. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    An incisive analysis.
     

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