Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 65:259 (Jul 1908)
Article: Professor Moore On Ministerial Training
Author: A. A. Berle

BSac 65:259 (July 1908) p. 445

Professor Moore On Ministerial Training

Rev. A. A. Berle

The discussion on ministerial training and education begun over a year ago in the Bibliotheca Sacra has been continued with great zeal and with diversified results in various periodicals in different portions of the country, and the atmosphere is clearing, and there seems to be a definite idea of the modern conditions emerging. The “intemperate” utterances of the original article in this Review seem to have been at least effective enough to make almost everybody aware that the present conditions are impossible and their continuance ridiculous. And on all sides there seems to be a general recognition of the fact. This is a great gain, and it is likewise hopeful that many of the most thoughtful professors and ministers in the country are seeing that the solution of this particular question lies at the base of the whole question of the recovery of pulpit influence and church effectiveness. By far the most notable contribution to the entire discussion is the paper by Professor George Foot Moore of Harvard University read before the National Council of Congregational Churches at Cleveland. This paper, though reprinted in the Hartford Seminary Record, has not received the attention which it deserves, although it is in some respects a final utterance on one phase of the question. Professor Moore practically condemns the present system of ministerial training by showing that the ministry being a practical call-

BSac 65:259 (July 1908) p. 446

ing, the accent which the present system gives on the training of “scholars in miniature “utterly fails to reach the point. It is worth while in this connection to recall that this utterance is from one of the first scholars in the land, considered by many both at home and abroad the greatest scholar now at Cambridge, and therefore, not at all a person likely to underestimate scholarly attainments and qualifications. Professor Moore says:—

“The ministry is a practical calling, like law or medicine; and preparation for it should be directed, unified, and limited by the practical end. Just as it is not the primary end of the law school to produce men learned in the history or philosophy of jurisprudence, but to train men to practice law in their own country and time; as it is not the primary end of the medical school to make men learned in the history or theory of medicine, but to train physicians to practice the healing art in their own generation; so it is not the primary end of a theological school to send out men learned in the history and philosophy of religion, but to train men for the practice of the ministry. The choice of studies, the extent to which they are pursued, the method in which t...