Scofield Graduate School & Seminary

Was looking at the site and noticed that Mal Couch has surfaced as Vice President of the Seminary. Mal was President of Tyndale, which the Texas Stae Gov't went after and heavily fined for using the word "seminary" and for issuing degrees. Are either of Dr Dr Couch's doctoral degrees accredited? Are they from legit unaccredited schools?

Not sure about Scofield. No one seems to have an answer about "International Council for Accrediting Alternate and Theological Studies ( ICAATS)" and what the Indian Government's recognition of them means.

Kenny is a candidate for a degree from Trinity (Indian Trinity mentioned here) and as I recall Trinity is also accredited by this group.

Very confusing situation.

North

 

Quite a bit of this was discussed with Dr. Johnson C. Philip on another thread along with Calvin School of Apologetics with little success.

 

couch taters

Couch, Mal, President and Professor of Theology and Language
BA, John Brown University
Th.M., Dallas Theological Seminary
MA, Wheaton Graduate School
Ph.D., Arkansas Biblical Graduate School
Th.D., Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary
D.D., The North Tennessee Bible Institute

 

The Arkansas, etc., entity does not have a googlable website.
Either it's defunct or they didn't pay the lectric.

 

Re: Re: Scofield Graduate School & Seminary

First, unk....you crack me up man.

Second, it is too bad about the Calvin discussion. If proof of the validity and use of the Indian accreditation were available, I do not see why they would not have posted it. This leads to the conclusion that one should be skeptical. Too bad. Until it clears up I hope consumers are not mislead.

Third, I hope Texas does not weaken their tough laws that lead to Tyndale's fine. I think Steve Levicoff took Tyndale of Texas (not to be confused with the legit Canadian Tyndale) to task as did the Texas State Gov't. Texas gave Tyndale a spanking.

Mal does have a legit degree from Dallas Theological Seminary. Someone on http://www.baptistboard.com noted that Mal got his clock cleaned in a debate. This may or may not be a function of two unaccredited doctorates. I recall seeing that an independent group scored some of James White's debates (2 unaccredited doctorates from Columbia Evangelical). He beat Father James Pacwa (a scholar of middle eastern langauges and theology) with a PhD from Vanderbilt. I have alot of respect for Father Pacwa and was rather surprised but James White is a professional debater.

On another note, I have no idea why White chose to earn another unaccredited degree from CES when he could have done a research based doctorate from South Africa as did his friend (Ric Walston). This would have ended some of the frequent attacks made by Catholics and Mormons on his academic credentials.

North

 

Disappointing about Malcolm Couch. If he ditched everything on the resume after the Wheaton MA and the Dallas ThM, he would look both legitimate and impressive. The one book of his I have read was solid and well-written.

Unfortunately, some people succumb to terminal doctoral desire. Mal has recently added the D.R.S. from Scofield Graduate School & Theological Seminary. (sigh)
http://ananswer.org/school/faculty.html

 

Maybe they'll rename it Baudelaire Seminary--or maybe not.

Talk about Fleurs du Mal!

 

High-Speed connection

Of further note: in its exceptionally short history, Scofield has already graduated at least two scholars from their Th.D. program. One of the two even had time to make it through their master's program first.
http://www.tyndale.edu/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=5&page=1

Janko, I hope your doctoral studies are progressing well, though perhaps not as speedily as the fellow referenced above.

 

Does anyone know the nature of the relationship between Scofield Graduate School and Tyndale Theological Seminary?

Tyndale's name appears on the sample diploma at Scofied's website.

 

Okay unk.....I know there is a temptation to switch over to Scofield (you are surely wrestling with it my friend).....I can see a dissertation involving the study of apostate slavic minorities who left the WISC Synod and their subsequent resettlment in the LCMS with corresponding merging of linguist tendencies.

Seriously though, Scofield will not be adding to their reputation by involving themselves with Tyndale (Texas not the Canadian one) that got spanked by the Texas regulatory authorities.

North

 

Pretty quick

Unless I somehow missed it, the page with the diploma has already been taken down.

Good to have you back, Ed.

 

Re: Pretty quick

Thanks, Dave.

Try this link to see the diploma:

http://ananswer.org/school/degrees.html

 

Got it, thanks. Couldn't navigate there from Scofield's links.

That is indeed bizarre. Now my curiosity is piqued.

 

With all respect to my most greatly esteemed colleague Ed Komoszewski: he is a Slav, I am not, and neither of us is apostate, and all this, FWIW, by the grace of God.

Janko Preotul

P.S.: The work proceeds apace, Dave, while the Lord tarries.

 

My impression is that this 'accreditor' was created by the same people that operates Calvin/Trinity in south India, in order to self-accredit themselves.

Not very much, I'd wager.

The recognized higher education accreditor in India is the NAAC, a spin-off of the UGC.

In most of the religions prevalent in India, religious education doesn't occur in a university higher-education context and it doesn't result in academic degrees. I suppose that the Indian government does extend recognition of some sort to religious education received in Hindu ashrams or Buddhist monasteries, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are declaring it university equivalent. Besides, the Indian government is resolutely secular and takes a hand's-off policy towards religion, so I doubt if they would want to put themselves in the position of regulating or even assessing that kind of stuff.

The one exception to this pattern seems to be Christianity. For reasons deriving from European history, Christian religious education often takes place in university-equivalent institutions and often results in university-equivalent degrees.

In the Indian state of Kerala, where I believe that Calvin/Trinity says they are located, there are four NAAC accredited universities. In addition, there are more than 100 separate accredited colleges with degree programs, each one associated with a university in Kerala or elsewhere. Judging from the NAAC list, Christian schools seem to be disproportionally represented:

http://www.naac-india.com/Colleges.asp?state=0

So it looks to me like this NAAC/UGC route is the typical path to Indian government recognition for degree-granting Christian higher education institutions.

 

Re: Re: Scofield Graduate School & Seminary

Hi Gang!

Actually, in India there are two kinds of legitimate accreditation for Christian <i>theological</i> institutions. The oldest, and the only one recognised by the Indian government as equivalent to a secular degree, is the "Senate of Serampore College", Serampore College having been established by William Carey in the early 19th century. Most of the older institutions and seminaries are accredited by the Serampore Senate, although many (though by no means all) of these tend to be more liberal. The second is accreditation by the Asia Theological Association (ATA), which is decidedly Evangelical and accredits institutions all over Asia. While not government recognised in the formal sense, ATA degrees are recognised by seminaries in other countries; e.g., the holder of an MDiv from an ATA accredited seminary would be accepted by most ATS-accredited seminaries in the US (assuming his/her grades were good enough) for a ThM or Doctoral programme. There are also a number of seminaries which are both Serampore and ATA accredited, such as SAIACS, Union Biblical Seminary, and South Asia Bible College in Bangalore. There are institutions under Serampore as well as under ATA which have distance education programmes, although in India these always include usually one week-long visit for live classes per semester.

There is a third accrediting body being developed in India for theological institutions, particularly those which train in the vernacular languages, and this is the Indian Institute of Missiology. I don't know much about this one, though.

Matt

There is another