Association of Independent Christian Colleges and Seminaries

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Garp, Aug 3, 2022.

Loading...
  1. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    Luckily DI has "nofollow" enabled for all links by default, so Google and other major search engines will not index them here.
     
    Johann likes this.
  2. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    I am a minister, dually ordained within the Southern Baptist Convention, and what you have asserted is quite the opposite of my experience. While it is true that some have become ordained and occupy a pastorate without a formal education, that is unusual within evangelicalism and almost unheard of in mainline Protestantism, RCC, or EO. Most evangelical churches, esp. the SBC, expect a pastoral candidate to have a legitimate undergraduate degree as well as a graduate degree, usually an M.Div. The caveat here is non-denominational charismaticism which sometimes includes an anti-intellectual and anti-formal education bent and thus does not generally require ministers to have a formal theological education. However, even among charismatics, this isn't universally true and seems to be changing over the last decade. If the pastorate is charged with expertise in handling the Bible and the Christian faith, and it is, education (whether formal or not) is highly important--not merely one's attitude.
     
    Rachel83az, nosborne48 and Garp like this.
  3. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    That article is gold. Thanks.
     
  4. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I remember in "Elmer Gantry" that the protagonist was always hoping to complete his B.Div. degree. Even in the '20s it mattered.
     
  5. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Who was it that called America as "The land of 365 religions and just one sauce"?:D
     
  6. cacoleman1983

    cacoleman1983 Well-Known Member

    I came from a Black Southern Baptist background prior to my deconstruction 8 years ago and mentioned in another forum about how my former pastor has a degree from Andersonville Theological Seminary. After about a year, his online profile stated he had a Bachelors degree but he ended up removing the university's name. You are correct about it being more dependent on the denomination. In general though, Black Southern Baptists tend to be anti-intellectual and my former pastor falls into that category which is why it was not a big deal for him to get an accredited degree although he no longer promotes his non-accredited degree.
     
    Rachel83az, Michael Burgos and Garp like this.
  7. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    That is interesting. I'd love to sit down with you over a root beer and discuss your deconstruction.
     
    cacoleman1983 likes this.
  8. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Just to be clear, I am in no way comparing Rev. Burgos with Elmer Gantry!:eek:
     
    Michael Burgos likes this.
  9. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Google doesn't know - and neither do I. Amerigo Vespucci, maybe? If that one sauce is barbecue sauce, maybe this is the man:

    (Google again) "The first (barbecue) sauce they made was very simple. In 1698, a Dominican missionary named Père Labat visited the French West Indies and witnessed cooks using lime juice and hot peppers to season barbecued meat. This sauce probably had its roots in Africa where cooks traditionally used both lemon and lime juice."

    And If the one sauce was not BBQ but Louisiana Hot Sauce, then here's your man, maybe:

    (Google x 3) "The diet of the Reconstruction South was bland and monotonous, especially by Louisiana standards. So Edmund McIlhenny decided to create a pepper sauce to give the food some flavor and excitement."

    Research at DI is a great job - but the pay still stinks. :(
     
  10. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    BTW - old article on the accreditation guy "DB" we were talking about, here - 2009. Quite a read. :) The incident was posted here years ago from another newspaper.
    https://www.theledger.com/story/news/2009/04/26/man-arrested-in-impersonation/26012442007/

    I forget how this ended - I think in a caution and dropped charges - not sure at all.

    Old thread of some related interest here: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/first-accredited-phd-program-in-clinical-hypnotherapy-in-the-united-states.49998/#post-493394
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2022
    Michael Burgos likes this.
  11. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Until this moment I'd never heard of "deconstruction" in a religious sense but now I gather that there's even a Movement of "Exvangelicals". Amazing. It happens rather often in the Jewish communities, most visible in the shape of departures from ultra orthodox communities, but judging by the numbers of "Jewnitarians" and "Jew-Buds" in my acquaintance being Liberal is no guarantee!
     
  12. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    For a long time, I think I've known more ex-Catholics than those who remained in the faith. Maybe it's because I live in a place that now has more second-third-and-subsequent generations of people, in families where the first immigrant generation was from an almost exclusively Catholic country - e.g. Italy, Portugal and Poland, primarily. Maybe subsequent generations feel more free to make choices than their forebears, who had closer ties to the ancestral land.

    Or maybe not. Perhaps the same thing is occurring in the land of their ancestors. But not to the same degree, maybe.
     
  13. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    And there are those who "stick with it," and love is a factor. (It always is - in everything.) I know one young man, still Catholic, third generation here - grandparents emigrated from Italy. He recently married a young Sikh lady. Nobody gave up their faith. They were married twice - once in Punjab, once here.
    I have no idea what they plan in the way of religious exploration for their kids. Not my place to ask. I just wish them both well. They're good people and that's all they need to be, as I see it. What labels people wear are their own choice.
     
  14. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    About half of the parishioners at my church are former Catholics. It's pretty striking.
     
  15. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Even Catholic priests "deconstruct." I know of one, locally - held in high regard by his parishioners - left the church because he and a young widow, around his own age, fell in love. He also loved God and his work as a priest. The Anglican Church (on US turf - Episcopalian) welcomed him aboard and assigned him a congregation. They're married, and he's a great Dad - to her kids and one of theirs, last I heard. His congregation loves him, too.

    Another object lesson for Rome. One they'll likely never learn.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2022
  16. Dustin

    Dustin Well-Known Member

    My wife also left the Catholic Church because she got a secular divorce and the Church refused to grant her one, telling her plainly that she was living in sin by being with me. We got married at a Methodist Church and are welcomed happily by a UCC church that we now attend.
     
  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I confess that I chuckled (quietly) when Pope Francis said that people who have pets instead of raising children are behaving "selfishly." Um...Holiness? Do you have any children?
     
    Rachel83az likes this.
  18. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    I do think that I understand some of the frustration people have with modern liberal theology. If you say, on the one hand, that the Bible is (at least) divinely inspired if not actually the word of G-d, what possible authority can you have for disregarding its moral teachings? Where did G-d err and how do you know?
     
    Michael Burgos likes this.
  19. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    The trouble started, and rests with the priestly class - since times of old, they've been making it up as they go along. Most of religion is man-made - and a pretty lousy product, as I see it. In no way divine - or inspired thereby. That's a part of the reason - not the whole - for which I abandoned mainstream religion for Atheism. A glaring example is the Catholic insistence on celibate priesthood. G*d never decreed that - man did. About 1,000 years ago. With terrible, terrible consequences. And then there's the misogyny and subjugation inherent in various religions and sects thereof. No divine inspiration there. Just unrepentant smugness. Don't get me started on that... or religious gay-bashing... etc. etc.
     
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2022
  20. Michael Burgos

    Michael Burgos Active Member

    To be fair, the RCC never claimed that priestly celibacy was something God decreed. Rather, theological arguments were raised in the medieval era (approx. AD 10-11) that won the day. While I am no fan of the RCC, they have a sophisticated rationale for their distinctive views in most cases and are not flippantly "making it up as they go along."
     

Share This Page