Federal Intervention in Higher Education
The federal government is changing its policy toward higher education, and the changes could affect every Christian college and seminary in the nation. The net effect of these changes is a significant federal takeover of the educational process. The vehicle through which the changes are being pursued is accreditation, but non-accredited institutions are likely to feel the bite of federal regulation. In order to understand the changes, you have to understand how accreditation works.
Until now, accreditation has been essentially an activity of the private sector. Of course, anyone can establish an accrediting agency, and there are accreditation mills just as there are diploma mills. Consequently, it has been necessary to create an organization to accredit the accreditors.
That organization is the Council on Higher Education in America (CHEA). CHEA was established in the 1990s to fend off a federal takeover of accreditation at that time. It represents the attempt by American institutions of higher education to regulate themselves through a process of peer review. CHEA does, however, get its force from federal involvement. It is the only agency that the United States Department of Education recognizes to accredit the accreditors.
In other words, a school that wants to be accredited works with a regional or national accrediting agency. That agency in turn works with CHEA, and when a school gains accreditation it also becomes a member of CHEA. Consequently, CHEA is the conduit through which the Department of Education recognizes accredited schools. The Department of Education publishes an annual directory that is the Holy Grail of accreditation: if a school is listed there, its accreditation is recognized (in theory) by other institutions.
The cooperative relationship between accreditation and the Department of Education was authorized in the Higher Education Act of 1965, part of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” reforms. The act must be reauthorized periodically, and reauthorization provides the federal government with an opportunity to review and influence the educational process. Reauthorization is generally a stormy time in the relationship between accreditation and the government.
Once the Higher Education Act has been reauthorized, the Department of Education drafts new rules and policies to implement whatever provisions have changed. The last reauthorization occurred in 2008, but its repercussions are only beginning to be felt as the new rules fall into place. The net result is a significant federal takeover of the educational process.
The takeover is driven by two concerns. The first is a public perception that American education is slipping in quality. The second concern is money. The feds pour billions of dollars into higher education, and the government is naturally eager to curtail the waste of federal funds. The federal answer to both problems is identical, namely, increased regulation.
The government now defines what a credit hour is. The government has begun to regulate transfer of credits among institutions. The government is also regulating the burgeoning field of distance education. Finally, the government has begun to regulate the monitoring of student enrollment.
The impact upon higher education is decidedly negative. Educational institutions are supposed to ask what is best for their students. They are now asking what will best please the feds. In order to comply with recent federal regulations, schools must confront a mountain of new paperwork. The byproduct of federal regulation has been—and will be—to drive up costs while distracting institutions from their focus upon education. In accreditation as in many other areas, federal involvement creates far more problems than it solves.
The largest problem, however, is simply the presence of federal intervention in an area that was previously private. In effect, the government is in the process of taking over a huge segment of American society. As this takeover progresses, it will be the federal government that determines who can teach and what will be taught at every college and seminary in America. The federal government will ultimately determine which institutions have the right to grant degrees and which will simply be shut down.
For Christian institutions, the implications of such a takeover are obvious. Christians have had to work doubly hard to gain a foothold in the private accreditation system. Once the feds are in control, accreditation is likely to become the wedge by which the government forces Christian colleges and seminaries to adopt policies that reflect prevailing notions on subjects like evolution and homosexuality. The potential for damage is both real and alarming.
The government is also going after unaccredited institutions. At the moment, the individual states recognize the right of colleges and seminaries to grant degrees. In many states (Minnesota is one of them), religious institutions are completely exempt from the state’s oversight in this area. The Department of Education, however, is using its new leverage to pressure the states to force all degree-granting institutions to gain accreditation. In other words, if the federal government has its way, no unaccredited schools will be allowed to grant degrees.
The hour may already be too late to thwart the federal takeover. The only way that it could be reversed is through a significant public reaction against the increased federal regulation, coupled with a change in those elected officials who want to use the accreditation process as a way of increasing the federal headlock on higher education.
In the meanwhile, Christians need to begin thinking about other models of teaching and learning. Up to now, we have adopted a model borrowed from the medieval universities. We have coupled our educational process with the granting of degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s levels. That is just what we may not be able to do in the future.
If that happens, we may need to rethink the process of ministry preparation. Future pastors and missionaries do need to be taught, but they do not really need degrees. We might well ask, What will ministry preparation look like in a world in which we are no longer permitted to operate colleges and seminaries? Unless something can be done to reverse the federal juggernaut, that day is almost certain to come.
Wisdom
(Prov. viii, 22-31)
William Cowper (1731-1800)
Ere God had built the mountains,
Or raised the fruitful hills;
Before He filled the fountains
That feed the running rills;
In me from everlasting,
The wonderful I Am,
Found pleasures never wasting,
And Wisdom is my name.
When, like a tent to dwell in,
He spread the skies abroad,
And swathed about the swelling
Of Ocean’s mighty flood;
He wrought by weight and measure,
And I was with Him then:
Myself the Father’s pleasure,
And mine, the sons of men.
Thus Wisdom’s words discover
Thy glory and Thy grace,
Thou everlasting Lover
Of our unworthy race!
Thy gracious eye surveyed us
Ere stars were seen above;
In wisdom Thou hast made us,
And died for us in love.
And couldst Thou be delighted
With creatures such as we,
Who, when we saw Thee, slighted,
And nailed Thee to a tree?
Unfathomable wonder,
And mystery divine!
The voice that speaks in thunder,
Says, “Sinner, I am thine!”
Kevin T. Bauder Bio
This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, who serves as Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
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I have no problem with the local church taking lead in training pastors. But your post seems to be the other extreme. Maybe I am misreading it. But training men just in “ministry” usually leads to men that are not trained in languages, hermenutics and theology. Anyone remember Steve Anderson?? If not, do a search on youtube. A local church can train their men and I agree with others that it could be done. I think Rachel’s caution is good as well. So maybe several area pastors and churches could team up if the need arises? But service only ministry training will lead to many ill-equipped pastors.
Roger Carlson, Pastor Berean Baptist Church
What about outside the Bible faculty? How many of those teachers have terminal degrees from BJU and how many from elsewhere. Any idea?In the College of Business there are 26 faculty members listed on BJU’s website. Of those, only 5 have doctorates, but 2 of those are EDUCATION doctorates from BJU. One is a Juris Doctorate, and the remaining two are PhDs from other institutions.
Thirteen faculty members only have a master’s degree (two of which were earned at BJU), and the remaining eight hold only a Bachelor’s or Associate’s degree.
I just went and looked after I wrote that. Of the 13 master’s, I counted 11 MBA’s only two of which are from BJU. And one of the EdD’s has an MBA from elsewhere (not counted in the 11).
Furthermore, you have a couple of aviation people in there which is not exactly a field where you go get a PhD in flight. Terminal has a whole different meaning when you are flying. And don’t forget the culinary arts people. Can you get a terminal degree in cooking somewhere?
So, I don’t know a lot about the specifics, but I am not overly persuaded that total picture is as bleak as “2 PhDs from other institutions” might make it sound. It looks like about half of them have terminal degrees from outside BJU, and few teach in a fields that probably don’t have terminal degrees.
Did I defend Jim Berg somewhere (although according to SACS a Master’s degree is apparently acceptable for teaching undergraduate classes)? I didn’t even comment on Dr. Mazak. The only thing I did was point out that the article does not appear to be about BJU or Central, say that I think BJU should hire outside Bible degrees, raised the question if anyone knew the status of terminal degrees at BJU, and then went and counted the MBAs on the business faculty. I am not sure how that indicates that there are facts I am not facing.
Now, with respect to Jim Berg, he was the dean of students for many years and taught one or two classes I believe then. He is a very knowledgeable man in the Scriptures, and you could do worse if you want to learn from someone. And he has about 30 years of experience. But he is hardly the leading teacher at the seminary and Bible faculty. According to the current website, he teaches two classes in the Division of Practical Theology.
With respect to Dr. Mazak and the psychology department, you have to keep in mind that BJU takes a biblical counseling approach in which secular psychology plays a very small (and often misleading) role. People who go there for counseling know that up front, so I hardly think there is misleading going on. Having a PhD in psychology is not helpful for the kind of training that they are offering.
With respect to the Bible faculty in general, I have already said that I think they should hire outside professors.
So what facts am I not facing? And how is getting the government involved in it going to change any of this? Everything you have said here is public information without government involvement.
Back to your original point, your claim was that accreditation is needed because of substandard education. Yet you have not provided any information that BJU offers a substandard education have you?
I just did a quick check of Furman’s Business and Accounting department: There are 11 people that appear to be faculty, of the eight people whose credentials were listed, all but one professor has a PhD. The one who only has an MBA is listed as an “adjunct” professor and she has 25 years experience working with major corporations in her field.
Mark Driscoll (I know, I know. Just pretend its a different name) and Mars Hill have re:train which seems to be one of the most viable options going forward. It offers some distance training as well classroom and practical training, and instead of having a full time staff of PhDs and DMins they contract them for a week or two to come teach. The model is very appealing for a number of reasons:
Time and Distance: There is no reason you have to commit 9 months of the year to schooling. You can learn greek and hebrew in an online classroom. Then you can spend 2 months at the campus for other types of training. The rest of the time the students are plugged into “real life” ministry.
Overhead: They don’t have to hire a rock star staff. They can use regular teachers for regular coursework (because let’s face it, andy grad student can teach basic greek or hebrew). Then they hire the big guns when they need them to teach for a week or two.
This also keeps higher education in its useful place. There is a place for advanced degrees. We need the Kevin Bauders, Wayne Grudems, Alfred Edersheims, etc. Keep them in seminary. Keep our best minds working diligently in the schools and let’s contract them out.
Forrest Berry
Overall, I think the higher education is going to be changing greatly. My gut is that we are going to see a trend away from liberal arts and towards vocational training (which I think will be worse overall). I think we are going to see increasing amounts of online education (which I think will be worse than classroom training for a lot of reasons). To me, module training or cohort training such as re:train is probably a better model that is sustainable for a while, especially for ministry. But you can’t really learn Greek or Hebrew in a one or two week module.
I think pastoral training needs to be a combination of classroom and practical experience or mentorship.
But I would encourage any student to know what they want to do before you get too far down, and keep your options open as much as possible. You need to know up front if you can do what you want to do with the degree you are getting. Take for instance, a BJU degree. You can get into a lot of grad schools with it. But you can’t get into all grad schools. So you have to know that up front as much as possible.
But a lot of it depends on what you want to do. If you want to pastor, you do things differently than if you want to be a research professor in chemistry which you do differently than if you want to be a pilot which you do differently than if you want to be an accountant, etc.
But I don’t think the feds will be particularly helpful, especially in training Christian worldviews. So far, the feds don’t have a great track record in much except spending a lot of money, and higher education certainly doesn’t need help spending more money. So I doubt the usefulness of federal intervention in the overall quality.
Nor is this a question of accredited versus non-accredited schools. The Feds are aiming to take over the entire field of higher ed. They will use the accreditation process to do this, but their ultimate goal is to eliminate all non-accredited colleges.
As for Bob Jones University, I’m astonished at some of what I’m reading here. My brother attended BJ, where he received excellent preparation for his field of work. Two of our faculty at Central Seminary have their baccalaureate degrees from Bob Jones. They were well prepared for graduate study and thrived in regionally-accredited doctoral programs.
I know many of the BJU professors personally, as well as others whose doctorates are from Bob Jones. Some of the most thought-provoking conversations I’ve had in recent years have been with these men. The university has some bright guys who know their stuff, and in many instances they have exported bright guys into other institutions.
People like Chris Barney, Mike Barrett, and Jerry Priest all have their terminal degrees from Bob Jones. They all function at a high level of academic excellence. They have all made or are making contributions to their disciplines. I would have no hesitation about using any of these men to teach in his area of expertise. And Stephen Jones is one of the brightest rising leaders in Fundamentalism. I look for nothing but continued progress on his watch.
Does BJU have room for improvement? Sure! And so do Harvard and Yale. Accreditation has been good for Bob Jones in that it has accelerated the pace of improvement. Whatever weaknesses exist have been acknowledged and are being addressed. The Bob Jones University of today is the most excellent version of the school that has ever existed.
Both of my children attended a non-Christian university that was close to home. They lived in my house and attended their home church. If they had chosen to go away to school, however, Bob Jones University would have been a live option. In the trade-off of considerations it is as good an alternative as any Christian college and better than most.
Incidentally, when it comes to theological education, the gold standard is NOT regional accreditation. The gold standard is national, specifically the Association of Theological Schools. When Stephen Crow was the head of the Higher Learning Commission (North Central Region), Central Seminary was weighing the choice between national and regional accreditation. Dr. Crow informed us that if we went with the HLC, then they would simply assign people from national agencies to evaluate us. The regionals really don’t know what to do with seminaries—which explains how some regionally accredited seminaries are able to get away with the things they do.
Imagine how that vision would change youth ministry!
As has been noted, however, most churches are not equipped to instruct people in the intricacies and technicalities of biblical languages, hermeneutical theory, systematic theology, and church history. That is why seminaries came into existence—as service organizations to assist local churches in these areas.
In case there is any doubt, let me state this plainly:
SEMINARIES CANNOT ADEQUATELY PREPARE MEN FOR MINISTRY. ONLY CHURCHES CAN DO THAT.
Seminaries exist only to assist local churches. When they cease to do that, then they ought to go out of existence.
For that reason, the best seminary education will include the following components.
(1) The seminary will have a close relationship with a local church or specific group of churches. It will be accountable to that church (or those churches) in tangible ways.
(2) The seminary will employ professors who have serious ministry experience. Ideally, every professor should have been a pastor, missionary, or some other vocational Christian servant (such as a military chaplain). Every professor should bring years of non-academic experience into the classroom with him.
(3) In its training of ministers, the seminary will actually partner with local churches and pastors. Mentoring students and training them in the hands-on aspects of ministry must be done in the church, by pastors. It cannot be done effectively in the seminary classroom.
While I applaud programs like Dever’s, they are only part of the solution. An internship cannot take the place of seminary. But seminary cannot take the place of local churches. What a good seminary can do is to provide the graduate with a full box of exegetical, theological, and spiritual tools. Learning to use those tools wisely in the lives of real people is something that requires actual church experience, preferably under the firm but gentle hand of a seasoned pastor.
I did/do not intend any of my observations about the degrees held by BJU faculty to be an indictment or insult to any of them personally. I have no doubt that they each desire to do right by the students they teach and that they are serving faithfully. I commend them for their service to their students. But while commending them, I can observe that the degree requirements for faculty at other (regionally-accredited) universities are higher.
While you ended your piece discussing the preparation of men for ministry, this issue has much broader scope since many Christian schools also have non-ministry degrees. I believe we have two discussions in this thread; both are worthy of comment. And, since I have little to offer the “training men for Christian service” discussion, I joined in on the “why is this happening?” discussion.
Thanks for your “extras” on this post, Dr. Bauder, in addition to your article. AMEN
For the Shepherd and His sheep, Kevin Grateful husband of a Proverbs 31 wife, and the father of 15 blessings. http://captive-thinker.blogspot.com
You stated
(2) The seminary will employ professors who have serious ministry experience. Ideally, every professor should have been a pastor, missionary, or some other vocational Christian servant (such as a military chaplain). Every professor should bring years of non-academic experience into the classroom with him.My question is, “Is there room for the “professional” scholar in this paradigm?” In other words where does the Ancient Near East History professor or the language expert fit in? I understand the extreme usefulness and practicality of having every staff member be a veteran in the field. But what of the Christian scholar? Should a student seeking to be a scholar in Church history or Bible languages or any other Bible-related topic seek seminary or would it be best for him to look at secular options which can offer perhaps a greater expertise in the field?
One of the problems in my opinion is the conflation of training for scholarship with training for the ministry. Yes our pastors need to be trained well, but the needs of a pastor and a scholar are much different and require different types of training. Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Forrest
Forrest Berry
The problem is this: Anyone who has the money can go to a Bible College or Seminary. Anyone who can pass the courses can get a degree. Anyone who gets the degree can get ordained. Anyone who can get ordained can get a church. And I Timothy 3 is nowhere in sight.
Dr. Bauder is absolutely correct in characterizing the nature of the problem, of course. Local church training is vital for ministry, but because we have such linguistic and cultural distance from the text of Scripture, it is usually not enough. I suppose I’m barely capable of training our guys in N.T. Greek, but I sure don’t have the time, unless I drop my pastorate.
Modern technology is beginning to craft an escape from this trap. On-line classes by specialists in the various difficult fields can fill in very well, whether or not any degree is conferred. In just a few short years, who you studied with will be more important than where you studied. So, “I studied hermeneutics in an on-line course from Vanhoozer, and Greek with Dr. …” will be the kind of thing we hear, rather than “I went to BJU.”
Some are already beginning to build this brave new world of ministerial training. For instance, Evangelist Tom Pryde and Dr. Bob Snyder are working on such a program at www.logcollegenetwork.org. Their program is designed to work alongside the church’s work in the candidate’s life. We have several about to start their program. Dr. Paul Henebury (SI Member!) has a somewhat less radical and more traditional approach at www.inquiroveritas.com. These stand alongside the many excellent on-line programs from the many “storefront” colleges and seminaries still based in brick and mortar.
In short, a well managed church is far better qualified to judge the fitness of someone’s life than a Bible College or Seminary. The profs will always have their roles, but it needs to mutate a bit.
I have gradually come to a point where I believe that under-graduate Christian education is highly overrated. I have this opinion as one who has graduated and currently attends seminary at one of (possibly the) only schools that is regionally accredited. That quality of undergraduate education is not what I take issue with. I believe that the school I attended provided sufficient preparation. However, the idea of creating a sheltered environment for college really bothers me. There has to come a point in time where young people learn to stand on their own two feet. That point will eventually come. Hopefully that stage happens early enough that they are able to bounce back from mistakes that are made. Yes, young people need to be grounded in their faith before being faced with a worldview that is completely contrary to Christianity, but maybe secular college wouldn’t be such a big deal if parents and churches were doing a good job of this for the 18 years before college. In so many fundamentalist churches Christianity is nothing more than a set of rules to follow. There is little theology and no concept of grace. When an 18 year old raised in this type of church and home is first faced with a secular worldview they crumble because there is no foundation to their faith. They see that there are other ways of behaving that are more enjoyable than how they were raised and the moral standards have no theological grounds; therefore, they leave the faith (I would contend they were never in the faith). The answer isn’t Christian colleges; it’s good parenting and faithful churches.
(added after posting)
I also take issue with pulling kids away from their local church and sending them to school in a place where local churches are flooded with students and do not provide them a church body that they desperately need at an important life stage.
In summary, I think the ideal path for a preacher would be a secular undergraduate education (in a field that will provide options for supporting a family outside of the ministry) followed by a hybrid local church/seminary education. I think that this solution would solve many of the problems that accreditation may bring.
Discussion