It’s time to rethink our assumptions about where theological education happens
Until 1565, the local church was also the seminary.
Under the pressure of declining enrollment and diminishing budgets, many mainline Protestant seminaries have come to rethink almost every aspect of what it means to do theological education. They have opened new degree programs and developed more flexible curricula. They’ve implemented “competency based” systems of evaluation and increased their online offerings.
But in the midst of this massive makeover, one aspect of theological education has remained unchanged: the site where most of it happens. It’s still generally assumed that theological education takes place at academic institutions—seminaries and divinity schools.
From a historical perspective, this assumption is a rather late development. The first seminary was not founded until 1563, when it was commissioned by the Council of Trent to serve as a seminarium, or “seed bed,” for clerical training in the Catholic Church. Before the 16th century, theological education was already happening in and through local churches. This was true in the pre-Constantinian period, when churches offered a rigorous, three-year education process called the catechumenate which all converts had to go through before being baptized.
