acceptability of a tracs Mdiv

===


35 years of school teaching does that to me--makes me 'picky.'

But by any fair grading you always deserve A's for content!

 

---

To spell a belief system correctly is important even if the system is not correct.

 

Evangelicals on steroids. What a crack-up!

Yes, I think that North Park Theological Seminary might fit the bill. They have regional and ATS accreditation. You can do a solid MDiv through a combination of online and short-term residency classes. It's in Chicago which means that airfare can be decent from most places. Previous classes from ATS schools would count. Todd Johnson, who teaches liturgics, is a well-respected scholar in that field. You'll find a high regard for the sacraments and scripture.

There are some really good TRACS schools out there. But TRACS is not currently acceptible as normative in many churches (such as ours) so you have to take your church's expectations into account.

 

I concur with Boydston.

Also, I contacted a "gatekeeper" (um Gottes Willen, how the high-class denominational bureaucrats love to call themselves this) in a Midwestern synod (regional judicatory) of the ELCA. This person indicated that the ELCA would not look with favor on a non-ELCA, non-partner-denomination seminary unless it were, say Harvard Div., etc. This person derided TRACS--once I explained what it was. This person indicated that the TEEM program is primarily for women and minorities. In other words, if you are going to go ELCA, perhaps you should bite the bullet and go their route as your area synod's committee on ministry or whatever it's called prescribes it to you.

As to the Episcopal Church, I believe that something similar would apply. As to the smaller groups which have left the Episcopal Church in response to various changes in it over the last 25 years or so, please PM me about a specific group and I will tell you what I know, if anything (based on a fair bit of study of these groups). As to other Lutheran groups, I can also address any questions you have via private messages--here, my knowledge is rather more firsthand.

Please do not assume that theologically liberal denominations are necessarily more institutionally flexible. For good or ill, this is by NO means necessarily the case. The more internal commitment you have to a given denomination's theological heritage and current programs and stances the better you will fare. Liberal denominations can be just as rigorous on conformity as conservative ones, so do not stereotype based on left-right spectrum placement. I say this sine ira et studio, by the way.

IIRC, when you broached a similar set of questions some time ago, I urged you to get your theological ducks in a row and be clear in your own mind as to where you fit theologically. I want to encourage you in your vocation, but "liturgical/sacramental" is a bit long on atmospherics and short on theological specifics. I say this as someone profoundly committed to liturgical/sacramental worship.

If you are simply fishing for a denomination that will "take" you, you are operating from a weak bargaining point vis-a-vis any denomination you approach. Moreover, given your secular experience--and your persistence in this project--I don't think you need to "settle". You need to be clear in your own mind, subject to revision, where you fit theologically, and then be prepared to fight the good fight in order to fulfill your vocation.

All best wishes,
Janko

 

Stop it, Bill... I'm... I'm gettin' a little misty-eyed, here.

 

I concur wholeheartedly, Bill.

This is why I have been intentional in practicing the spelling of Groverian Christology. Once the UZ thesis is published and circulates among the great theological centers of the world, I want to be among the very first to address the matter.

 

thanks uncle janko for your sage re iteration of your advice to insure the spiritual ducks were in a row. I think that I am after a formal discerment process fairly grounded on that point. the real challenge has been to wade thru the new world of both distance learning/non traditional education and to concurrently find a legitimate seminary that would provide a sound theological education and would once again be seen by anyone in the know as a respectable formation.My wanderings to date have led me to the conclusion that the general denominational homes that I would be comfortable ministering in are not breaking there backs to be either creative or supportive of a middle aged career change. My sense is that I will heed the advice that I have recvd, insure proper seminary accreditation in a sacramental/liturgical denominational seminary. and for the really radical part
seek ordination in a smaller denomination and gradually transform my psychology practice into a ministry of Christian/pastoral psychotherapy and healing.I am also intrested in eventually
planting a denominationally afilliated church.--I have by the by investigated the world of the cont Anglican denominations--ouch or oye vey in many cases.I have yet to discover the Lutheran equivalent.
anyhow I know I have a number of very busy and difficult years of study and work ahead.
you good gents have been tremendous in all your kind assistance.
best
John

 

Check out LCMC for a Lutheran equivalent to the continuing Anglican groups -- although structured a bit more creatively. And there is always the LCMS and WELS and a few others.

 

Well... that's not exactly what I said or meant. I meant that your denomination is actually interestingly Lutheran-like (which makes sense, given its heritage), but that the evangelism part of it -- when compared with old Swedish Lutheran types -- is, by comparison, as if on steroids. And I gave the funny property committee example as a way of clarifying; as a way of pointing out how "outreach" to some of those old Swedish Lutheran types means, in effect, bothering to keep standing there and not run away.

That's a far cry from a denomination like yours that incorporates phrases like "church planting" into its daily list of things to do. That's what I was referring to. ELCA Lutheran though I may be, I'm actually rather enamoured of your particular denomination on a number of fronts. I'm no convert, mind you, but your approach to evangelism is a bit more palatable -- at least to me -- than some others. It's more... I dunno... sophisticated than some, by comparison, I guess. Said another way (that is gonna' get me in trouble, you watch): You guys are Evangelicals...

...but without the twang. [flinch]

No surprises, there. But that's an attitude with deep roots that goes way back before the ELCA was formed. ALC seminaries were a bit worse about it than LCA seminaries, but the attitude was pervasive in both. One of both the best (in some ways), and at the same time the worst (in alot of ways) pastors my old church (where I grew up) ever had was a graduate of Yale Divinity School rather than having come up through the normal (at that time) LCA system to which you are referring. I spoke, just the other day, to a Lutheran pastor in the part of my old state where he moved to after he left us, and all these years later he's still pissin' parishoners off. But I digress.

Ha! That, alone, speaks volumes. "Oh, that's very bad... er... what is it again?"

He's mostly right, but "primarily" is the operative word, there. It was created to be precisely the kind of back door that I described, but in fact it's mostly used to turn blacks, hispanics and women into pastors in urban areas so the lilly-white Lutheran presence will not completely lose its foothold in non-white areas. It is an inescapable fact that as whites flee urban areas, denominations like the Lutherans tend to falter. The "parish" construct (whereby failing ELCA churches in urban areas band together, close the weakest of them, and share resources... just to stay alive) is yet another ELCA response to the problem. But the TEEM program, however it's actually used in practice, can, nevertheless, also be used to make a pastor out of a perfectly white, middle-aged, economically-empowered male, too. Note that the TEEM mission statement that I quoted in my earlier post make no mention of race or gender. And, in fact, I know of situations wherein TEEM was used to ordain non-minority candidates. That having been said, it is categorically true that, as a matter of practice, TEEM is primarily for women and minorities.

Agreed... hence the reason I inserted my little "Too bad you can't go off to seminary in the normal way" statement in my earlier post; during which statement I promoted [/B][/QUOTE]this program.

Ugh. Well... no, not really. I shouldn't have ughed. They're fine. ELCA is in full communion with them, after all; and no matter what anyone says, every Lutheran's hat should be off to any Episcopalians who can create and maintain something as amazing and wonderful as Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Nevertheless, those Episcopalians are sure figurin' out how to piss off a whole bunch-o-Lutherans, though, ain't they? And vice versa, now that I think about it.

How 'bout dem Charismatic Episcopalians, eh? Actually, I was speaking with a Methodist chaplain who runs a small-but-impressive pastoral studies program at an RA college and he was telling me that he's a bit more than just half-impressed with at least one of the Charismatic Episcopal off-shoots. Since I didn't press it to figure out precisely which one he was talking about, I won't (even though I'm pretty sure I know which one it is) provide a link here.

So why is it, Janko, that I can find, on the web, the sites of so many more Episcopalian/Anglican off-shoot groups than I can find Lutheran off-shoot groups?

Honesttogod, Janko... I'd just about kill to sit down over some coffee and have precisely that conversation with you. My looking you up next time I'm in the Midwest may come sooner than later! [grin]

And if ever there were an example of that, it's the ELCA.

Amen, preacher. Amen.

Whew! There's a relief.

Agreed. But I understand him. Those of us who grew up in time-honored and stable churches -- like those of old LCA, for example -- never worried very much about the theological specifics... and by that I mean that we just bought-in based on the weight of the LCA imprimatur. That many Lutherans, after all, couldn't be wrong, could they? There's still a modicum of comfort to be derived from that... howsoever irrationally, perhaps.

So that leaves the atmospherics, doesn't it? Atmospherics that have so changed in recent years that church seems to at least some of us almost unrecognizable. Then again, I still miss the old, red, LCA Service Book and Hymnal... so what the heck do I know? One thing is for sure, though: Both the Episcopalians and the Lutherans have a long (ancient, actually), rich, beautiful, liturgical/musical/sacramental heritage that at least a few of us really miss... ne, long for.

It is no surprise, therefore, that one's mid-life crisis might be accompanied by a comfort-seeking wish to return to that which is beautiful and familiar.