TWO Episcopalian seminaries in the United States have
experienced recently a stand-off between the President and Board of
Trustees on one side, and the faculty on the other.
At the General Theological Seminary in New York, eight of the
faculty stopped teaching and threatened to resign unless the Board
listened to their concerns about the hostile working environment,
which, they alleged, had been created by the President's actions.
Rather than grant them an audience with the Board, the President
and Board took their letter as a resignation. Seven of the eight
faculty members were subsequently reinstated - but with only a
year's contract. The President remains.
In 2013, the faculty at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, took a vote of no confidence in their President.
This winter, she resigned.
On the one side, the seminary Presidents and Boards would
probably argue that they had to force through changes for the
institutions to survive. On the other side, the faculty would point
to leaders who were more managerial than theological, and who did
not consult them, or attempt to draw on their wisdom and
experience.
UNLIKE Anglican theological colleges in England, the Episcopal
Church's seminaries in the US are free-standing entities that have
to survive in the marketplace. Ordinands in the Episcopal Church
pay for their own theological education - unlike their counterparts
in the Church of England. The traditional, three-year residential
course - the "bread and butter" of those seminaries - has declined
in recent years. Ordinands with later vocations have not wished to
uproot their families; and the uncertainty of employment in a
Church with no curacy system, when the Protestant mainline Churches
are in decline, has made this more expensive form of ordination
training more risky.
The seminaries that have survived and thrived are those with a
large endowment (Virginia Theological Seminary), or those attached
to a leading university, such as Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.
Others have sought to attract a range of students by multiplying
their degree and course offerings, and offering a mixture of
online, residential, and non-residential education. Some have sold
buildings to create an endowment - most notably Episcopal Divinity
School and General Seminary, both now sitting on desirable
property.
Because the seminaries are individual entities, the Episcopal
Church has never had the central authority to create a master plan
for theological education. Not everyone agreed with
theological-college closures in recent decades in the Church of
England, but central planning and forward thinking were possible in
a way that they were not in the Episcopal Church.
HOW do you lead theological institutions in times of real
uncertainty and change? That is a question for churches as much as
for theological colleges and seminaries. The Church of England has
recently produced a series of reports suggesting some solutions,
but it has done so largely without consultation. The recent
turbulence at Episcopal Divinity School and General Theological
Seminary serves as a warning that the Church needs theologically
trained leaders who, crucially, can carry people with them in
implementing changes for survival and growth.
Canon Jane Shaw is Dean for Religious Life and Professor of
Religious Studies at Stanford University.