Seminary scandals

When I served a church with a columbarium, I imagined where I wanted my ashes. It’s morbid, I know. But it’s a professional hazard. It’s the sort of thought that we have when we bury people so often. I want to be spread in nature. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I want to become a part of the life and soil of the pulsing ground. But then I knew there was so much of me that was tied up in institutions, and there might be a time when family would want to go to a place to remember. So I imagined my seminary.

I tell that little story, so you can understand the importance of seminaries in the life of a pastor. Of course, different people have different experiences, but for most of us, it’s a place full of revelation. Our faith was dismantled and put back together. Worlds opened and languages became known to us. We had this book that we had been reading all of our lives, but it suddenly had new heft, depth and meaning. We struggled with our history and understood new resonance in our liturgies. We made friends who would carry us through those days of learning, as well as through the years of professional challenge to come.

So, it’s always devastating to read about seminaries on the verge of collapse or scandal. There is the everyday stuff of seminaries trying to cope with the changing nature of the church, understand their life and mission when many of their students leave with debt, but they might not leave with a pastoral position.