Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 06:19 (Dec 2002)
Article: Experiential Training vs. Seminary Training: Who is Right?
Author: Ron J. Bigalke, Jr.

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CTJ 6:19 (December 2002) p. 314

Experiential Training vs. Seminary Training:
Who is Right?

Ron J. Bigalke, Jr.

Director
Eternal Ministries, Inc.

According to a July 2001 article in The Washington Times there is a “new breed” of pastors emerging that are rejecting seminary training and resorting to experience due to the dissatisfaction of the education these men received in seminary. The idea is that on the job training is just as effective as going to an evangelical seminary. Washington Times writer, Julia Duin, writes, “the trend seems to be anything on how to connect deeply to the living God.” Today’s new pastors are “full of advice on prayer, seeking God, contemplation, revival, spiritual passion, prophecy and ‘bridal love’ for God.”

Seminary is viewed as being irrelevant to the culture because it is too academic. The learning of the biblical languages and systematic theology is understood to avoid “real-life needs.” Those who are critical of seminary training oftentimes speak of seminarians as possessing a cold intellect that is devoid of the Spirit of God. However, church history demonstrates that learning and spirituality are not to be devoid of one another. Theology and application are not mutually exclusive. The divorce of strong theology from application is reminiscent of the Pietist movement that moved away from objectivity of God’s revelation and became devoted to making the Christian faith a psychological element. Objectivity was eclipsed by experience. Men become more authoritative than the inerrant Word of God.

Modernity gave emphasis to the self and pastors who appeal to that self in the name of “spirituality” are forsaking theological richness for the cure of souls. Yet these same pastors never face

CTJ 6:19 (December 2002) p. 315

the fact that in forfeiting the battle for the mind through a focus on emotions and passion alone, they are actually losing the soul. The issue is not whether pastors should expend time and energy in either the theoretical or practical. It is that seminary training needs to be both. Doctrine and theology can be theoretical, yet because it is the revelation of God it is also practical. One can never say that knowledge of God is not practical. To reduce Christianity to all that is practical is to forsake biblical truths that are grounded in a narrowly defined theology.

A significant number of pastors today feel that seminary training is the least important factor in preparing for the pastorate. Experience is equated with spirituality and seminary is equated with dead orthodoxy. This attitude is by no means new. There are those who have always believed that Christianity is best recognized as a spiritual structu...

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