PhD from Forge Theological Seminary

On the sister degree forum, I've once corresponded with this guy and I told him the following: "I can't truly recommend a non-accredited school. But in terms of the non-accredited route (assuming that you would be aware of the possible implications of getting such a degree), you could look for options such as this one; https://www.forge.education." My position hasn't really changed since that occurrence.

 

(popcorn)

 

I agree. I think Forge is pretty upfront about what it is and isn't in terms of accreditation.

 

As you note Andersonville Theological Seminary claims accreditation that is unrecognized and sketchy. The school seems to have made improvements to some of its program by adding dissertations and language requirements. On the other hand it has "Biblical Exposition" degrees that as was posted here require ONE textbook from Bachelors through Doctorate (the Life Application Bible). Curriculum is going through each book of the Bible till you finish the last one required for your Doctor of Biblical Exposition. No difficult things like languages and so on. Just your study bible commentary. How they do that with a straight face is beyond me. How graduates think they earned a degree is beyond me.

Forge Theological Seminary doesn't give indications of being like Andersonville.

 

Right. Unlike Andersonville, Forge Theological Seminary clearly does NOT share its name with an infamous Confederate prison.

 

Bizarre they used the name which is tied to an infamous Confederate Prison/Concentration camp where if memory serves correctly the Commandant was charged with war crimes. Who was tone deaf on that one. Was Segregation Seminary already taken?

 

Oh I kinda think there were plenty of schools that followed that practice - but not the name.

Everybody. There is even a MONUMENT in town, dedicated to Henry Wirz, who ran the camp and was later convicted of war crimes.
Some folks felt that his conviction was unfair. Pic of the monument here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andersonville,_Georgia

Excerpt: "The overcrowded Andersonville Prison was notorious for its bad conditions, and nearly 13,000 prisoners died there.[5] After the war, Henry Wirz was convicted for war crimes related to the command of the camp. His trial was later regarded as unfair by several pro-confederacy groups,[6] and a monument in his honor has been erected in Andersonville by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.[7][8

Not something I'd name a religious school after. Good thing the name is taken. Let Andersonville Theological Seminary keep it.

Religious threads always get me in trouble so ... 'bye now.

 

Yes and no. They're up front regarding not being accredited, but the reasons the offer are bogus.

 

(More popcorn)

 

But note that I didn't make it personal, and avoided any effort to do so.

I have the advantage--and burden--of 45 years of experience in this field. On the one hand, I've seen this stuff come and go. But on the other. things have changed over the decades and sometimes my opinions have not.

When I started in this game, accreditation was still monolithic, hard to get, and almost completely hostile to DL. As a result, and because I like the underdog, I developed an affinity for unaccredited, nontraditional schools. But times have changed, both in the U.S. and globally, and earning a properly recognized degree by DL is a snap. (I was just last night looking at a DL doctorate from a properly recognized school--not one of these propio dodges--available completely by research, by DL, and for less that $US10K. Amazing.)

So, while I will never have my way regarding religious exemption, that doesn't mean such schools are as exempt from criticism as they are from licensure.

"It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business." -- Michael Corleone in The Godfather.

 

Well, you weren't joking (looked it up). The statue exists. Henry Wirz was born in Switzerland and the Daughters of the Confederacy erected it as it says on the statue to "rescue his name from the stigma of embittered prejudice". That is one way to look at the horrific conditions that led to thousands of deaths and the Amon Goth like shooting of prisoners trying to escape hell.

Andersonville is not a nice connection for a Seminary to make. If I recall correctly they chose the name for some reason but the Seminary wasn't even located there nor was the founder. Questions do arise.

 

Would I joke about 13,000 lives?

 

Funny thing...no one is trying to "cancel" Wirth.

 

Possibly because the town of Andersonville has 232 people (next to the Prison/Historic Park Site). It is part of Americus metropolitan area which has 36,000 people (relatively small). I imagine if the monument were in Atlanta it would have been targeted.

Very strange in the US. Kind of like if in Germany someone founded Daughters of the Third Reich and fifty or so years after WWII they began erecting Nazi statues all over Germany and memorials to Camp Commandants.

But still equally bizarre that a fundamentalist Baptist "Seminary" (I use the term loosely) decided darn it we have no connection to Andersonville and there was a notorious concentration camp of the same name there but what the heck let's name our institution after it.

One would think someone in the family would have gone wait a minute, perhaps we should choose a name reflecting the values of our founder and scripture. But nope.

 

I doubt it.

 

Wirz never had enough favorable reputation to cancel.

 

Good one LOL! I needed a laugh.

 

I will say that I don't know whether Andersonville Theological Seminary or its founder is racist or at least overtly racist. It could just be that he has that romanticized notion of the lost cause and the Confederacy and its imagined culture of gentile manners and so on. Those people tend to minimize the slavery aspect. However, even the Prager Institute using a historian for one of their videos noted the fact that it is a myth that the civil war was not about slavery. The historian took apart all the various arguments for it being about state's rights and so on. It was about slavery.

But still there is no excuse for having a seminary named for a town that it is not located in but coincidentally happens to be next to a horrible prison / concentration camp of the same name.

 

Well, read this first-hand account and you'll know right away. Racism and religion, hand in hand.

From here, Post #6: https://www.degreeinfo.com/index.php?threads/andersonville-theological-seminary-respected-throughout-the-christian-world.61208/#post-570398