SATS Principal has degrees from "degree mill"?

Re: Re: SATS Principal has degrees from "degree mill"?

While I would agree with you in general, I would hesitate to agree with you in this specific case. As you stated, utility is a central issue in the choice of schools. However, since John has not said how he hopes to use this degree it would seem to be a bit premature to say that a SATS degree would not be as useful as a degree from a US school. You have offered an opinion but you have stated it as if it were a fact. You might want to holster your own gun. In any case, welcome to the forum.
Jack

 

Re: Re: Re: SATS Principal has degrees from "degree mill"?

See "http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21772 where he stated:

"My fear is that SATS could come back to "bite" me in a resume situation. I am a minister in a Southern Baptist Church and as you well know, SB are some of the most close-minded individuals when it comes to schooling. I'm just fearful that a committee would see that and pass on me out of speculation."

So, I still firmly believe, that in his situation, an accredited degree from a U. S. school would have much more utility. Perhaps a good Southern Baptist seminary is in order...

JArminius
gun slinger

 

Thanks. Actually I wasn't going to post at all anymore due to some issues I cannot discuss in public.

True, very true. But how many times does one have to post the central message "I am a scholar; let me show you what I know"?

If you read Dr. Grover's posts during the past several weeks, there is not much new in what he says. They're basically the same posts and content using different words.

They say the same things and the messages are quite clear: "I am smart, let me show you what I know and how inadequate you are."

How many clergy across America, because they don't know what Dr. Grover knows, have been told in effect by his postings, "You are a substandard and inadequate pastor."

Would some of the great clergy of the past--George Fox, Elias Hicks, William Booth, Hosea Ballou, Barton Warren Stone, Finis Ewing, Aimee Semple McPherson, et. al., qualify to serve congregations under Dr. Grover's standards? Is Charles Stanley, with his unaccredited Luther Rice Th.D., fit to pastor?

Dr. Grover, to my knowledge, was never critical of SATS until he earned his Th.D. Now, it seems no one else is fit to walk in his shoes and no other school is quite the crème de la crème that UNIZUL is, or for that matter, Oregon Theological Seminary.

The imminent SATS Th.D. program will be blasted by Dr. Grover once it gets underway, I predict. How many of us will even want to discuss our enrollment into that program knowing it will not meet the "Grover standard" and we will probably be told we have a substandard education?

I like Bill, I really do, and count him a friend. But even friends can become obnoxious, obsessive, and compulsive.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: SATS Principal has degrees from "degree mill"?

As a Southern Baptist myself I think I know what you mean. With the current political climate in the SBC one has to be very careful. If you attend Truitt Seminary you will be branded a moderate. If you attend an SBC seminary, a fundamentalist. I encouraged our youth pastor to choose a non-Baptist institution like Gordon Conwell. I think it is noteworthy, however, that Dorothy Patterson at Southwestern Seminary has a SA DTh degree. Maybe the SBC will come around to SA degrees. IMO the SA programs are delivering some quality degree programs.

Tom

 

Bill Grover is talking about advanced degree programs in theology Jimmy, particularly in Biblical theology, that don't include graduate level treatments of the languages, textual issues and other fundamental problems arising in the discipline.

I can easily imagine being a fine and effective clergyman without advanced training in those areas, but could one truly claim to be a Biblical scholar?

 

With few exceptions--James Kennedy, Lloyd Ogilvie, and several others--most biblical scholars don't pastor churches, they teach in seminaries and bible colleges.

And, most bible scholars that do pastor, do so in college and university towns with their churches on or near the campuses.

 

Interesting choice of word for a man who is a biblical purist, using a pagan magical word and one that is Latin and not Greek at that!

Perhaps the Aramaic Aha cumi would be more appropriate. It's not Greek but it's not pagan either.

 

JImmy, you use strawmen: I HAVE repeatedly elsewhere and even in this very this thread said that SATS is credible. BUt may I not make ANY positive critique at all? TOm observed deficits about SATS and so did Cory. Why not jump on them too IF one is faulted for saying any thing but the positive ? So again, to be very clear: IN general I like SATS much. I do wish they would require a BA major in Bible to start a MTh by research, also IF a Dth is in Bible a prereq should be to have a working knowledge of the languages, also, IMO the theology curriculum needs beefing up in the doctrines of Scripture, God, and Christ.

Wowie look I just wrote a whole paragraph and did not crow about me at all...BUT if some one says ,eg, it is not necessary to do Christology in Theology do I have your permission, JImmy, to respond??

 

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You find more fault yet , huh?

Aramaic ??? You posture yourself to blow your own horn, eh?

 

Guess now you won't have to find the ancient city of Boeotia and look into the reed bed of Donacan.

 

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You are expressing what you know, SHAME,SHAME on you!!!

Let's all be critical of you for that.

 

Okay, enough of the sardonicisms from me.

On a very serious note, Bill, I just get the impression SATS would never be beyond your criticism regardless how much they improve.

I also get the feeling you have anointed yourself the final authority and quality-control Eminence of theological studies.

Have you listened to yourself? Have you reread your posts? Don't you see how you come across?

And with this post, my comments regarding this thread have ended. Thanks for the lively discussion!

 

Unk:

If you endorse Dr. C .........then thats good enough for me.

 

People often state on the DL boards what their intentions were for pursuing studies at XYZ, and what their opinion of the work at XYZ is/was, and their judgment is (often/sometimes/never -- pick one) questioned, or they are (sometimes/rarely -- pick another) labeled with the L tongue brand, or they are told (in effect) that they're not (qualified/ethical -- pick) enough to make such proclamations of opinion, because the accreditation imprimatur is what qualifies the opinion.

Now, Bill, I know you don't draw the line at the accreditation label, but at the work done -- that's how I read your posts anyway (correct me if I am wrong).

You want to be taken at face value as pertains to your intentions, and that is only natural (and I am sure most if not all do take you at face value as regards your intentions).

And ultimately that is what Dr. X attempted: to be taken at face value regarding his interpretation of the quality of the schools in question, his intentions in doing the work there, et cetera.

And this ultimately goes to the whole "half-empty, half-full" thing I mentioned earlier. I tend to take people at face value. When they say they did something because of X, I take that to mean, they did something because of X. If they say they feel Y about having done such, then I take that to mean that they feel Y about it. Jack Tracy called such trust "dangerous".

This whole darned thing is just too complex! Do our yeses mean yes and our nos mean no, or is that always to be left to the interpretation of the crowd? Surely not. If we wish to have our yeses be taken to mean yes, and our nos taken to mean no -- then besides actually meaning yes and no respectively, perhaps we ought to trust others to have the ethical, spiritual, and mental maturity to have the same entitlement. Or we'll all end up splitting hairs until the Rogaine people cash in on us.

 

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Quinn

1) I was referencing my opinion on SATS , Jimmy was supposing that I NEVER would approve of SATS regardless ,BUT he was assuming things just not in evidence in my words!!!



2) my motive for arguing that Greek is useful in NT research is based on my experience and is intended to assure quality NT learning , but JImmy was saying my purpose rather was to show off.


3) AS for the quality of ITS that is IMO easily measured by its curriculum, excuses for being UA and its reputation and utility in Christian academe.I think a school should be judged by the rigor IT requires and not by the rigor a student is willing to expend.

Bill

 

Bill -- I appreciate your intentions and your interpretations.

Yes, likely that is the case. If a student wishes to run the gauntlet, as it were, and does not expect a particular school will do that, then that student's need for the gauntlet likely won't happen there. (For any particular value of "there".)

I knew when I received my dissertation guidlines in the post that I was up against The Iron Maiden itself, and since that's what I wanted, it seemed a good fit. How many others see that, though? How many who didn't spend 2 weeks on one theorem alone, or N years on one §-grammar, or the time it took to review those guidelines, or the prayer it took not to quit before reaching the halfway mark, or the angst I felt when my advisor encouraged me to tackled a Catalan number §-grammar that terrified me, will be able to judge a school as to rigor?

Will they look at the finished work and say, "The school made him sweat"? Will they look at it and say, "The school XYZ"? I suppose some will do just that very thing. Others will say "He was just particularly hard on himself." The only ones who will truly know that, ultimately, are the advisor, the administrators, the one's who write the guidelines, the examiners, and the families of those who ran the particular gauntlet. The outside world will never really know where the inspiration for the rigor originated.

It originates in a variety of places. Some amorphous, intangible admixture of "all of the above, some of the above" but certainly not "none of the above."

The final result may be greatly improved under certain external conditions, but ultimately the standard is largely internal. Do accreditors ask "How many of your doctoral candidates cry in their emails to the administration about the Iron Maiden they've elected to place themselves in?"

In some small sense my Dissertation Diary has been an attempt to capture that for posterity (my own, mostly), but I'm not sure it meets the mark there. I sing of triumphs, whine of my fears. But not everyone writes one of those things -- so the triumphs and fears and failures aren't always public record -- and remain a case of "from my cries to God's ears."

And that's where much of the rigor meets the metal. In the soul. No matter the discipline, religion, science, or whatever. From the candidates' cries to God's ears.

 

As someone studying in a rigorous DMin program, I really enjoy hearing about the experiences of others in their doctoral programs. I also appreciate the view of Bill and others that Christian higher education should not be a joke. Thank you, Bill and thanks to others who are willing to ask the hard questions. IMO if schools are offering quality programs and have nothing to hide, they can handle all the questions. I think it is infantilizing to give some institutions a pass because we don't want others to mix them up with the degree mills. A school's quality should be clearly visible by the educational product they deliver.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: SATS Principal has degrees from "degree mill"?

Oh yes, I see. I don't have his postings cataloged and so I must have missed/forgotten that one. As to the biases of the Southern Baptist Church, I will stipulate that you know more than I on that subject.
Jack