5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Go To Seminary
And reasons why you might anyways.
Many attend seminary for three years to become a pastor or to otherwise grow in their faith and theological knowledge. But this might be a costly mistake.
Here are five reasons why you shouldn’t go to seminary:
1. You could just become a (nondenominational) pastor
You don’t need a degree to become a pastor of a nondenominational church, which is now the largest segment of American Protestantism. Plus, non-denominational churches are plausibly among the more innovative churches today, especially here in D.C. as a recent Christianity Today post discusses.
Take a moment to consider that many massively influential pastors and preachers did not have a seminary education. This includes Billy Graham and C.S. Lewis (arguably the most influential protestants of the 20th century), John Bunyan the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, and Charles Spurgeon. Perhaps seminary would have helped their ministries, but most likely they would have been successful without it.
2. Your faith might weaken.
Many say they wish to go to seminary to increase their faith. But seminary might actually hurt your faith. Seminaries teeter between the one extreme of taking the Bible too literally and the other of treating the Bible as a historical document without supernatural power. Both extremes are bad. Seminaries aren’t faith retreat centers; they are training and formation programs for ordained ministry and academic institutions for theological study.
Many people actually lose faith in seminary. This is because seminary exposes people to the reality that hundreds of reasonable bible scholars throughout history have had different (often contradictory) views about the Bible’s teaching regarding important Christian concepts. These concepts include the nature and historicity of Jesus, the resurrection, the atonement, the nature of the Trinity, the virgin birth, the inspiration and authority of scripture, the occurrence of miracles, etc.
If you want to increase your faith, here are four things you can do instead of going to seminary:
Start or join a bible study. Preferably one that meets regularly where you meditate on scripture and pray together. Some ideas include a themed bible study, a lectio-divina study, or a specific book of the Bible.
Deepen a habit of prayer, whether in the mornings, evenings, or throughout the day with specific triggers so that you don’t forget (I’ve taken to carrying a prayer notebook with me so that I can remember the things I’m praying for in my downtime). If talking to God is scary or you feel you need more resources to help you pray, try Our Daily Bread, or the Anglican daily office. Both appeal to Christians of many stripes.
Listen worshipful music or observe beautiful art. Anyone can connect with God through a form of art that brings them to remember the beauty, power, and presence of God in our world. This will look different for everyone. Some might engage with paintings or walk in nature. The possibilities are endless.
Connect with Christian communities. There are many, many communities that exist outside the institutional church structure where you can meet fellow followers of Jesus and explore faith in new and refreshing ways. I’m thinking of prayer and meditation communities like Taize or other monastic communities, charity and discernment communities like EACH, and professional communities like Christians in Government in the UK.
Taize, France is a great center for ecumenical Christian retreats.
3. (Most) seminaries aren’t savy about missions.
Seminary doesn’t teach you to become internet famous.
Discussions about God, the Bible, and Jesus in the West are happening on Youtube and Reddit. This is the battleground for the souls of millions. And atheists have become very good at sound-bites and debates that make Christians look foolish. Christians are trailing in these discussions. Too few seminaries train their students to build a powerful youtube presence. But there are many promising new startups aimed at building innovative Christian enterprises for the digital age.
Atheist Alex O’Connor has reached millions with his criticism of theism and the Bible. A comparably witty and internet-savvy Christian apologist could also reach millions. Seminaries neglect global church planting
Most seminaries are training students to become pastors and priests who support church growth in the US. But where will the theologically educated have the greatest impact for God’s kingdom? If the ITN framework is correct, this is probably going to be in places where there are:
(1) the greatest number of people who haven’t heard the Gospel
(2) the greatest receptivity to the Gospel
(3) the fewest pastors working
A strong candidate for this is South Asia.
Take India. The population of Christians in India is a single-digit percentage. Many Indians are very open to spirituality in general and Christianity in particular. Christianity is now spreading like wildfire in many rural communities, largely as a result of church-planting movements, as happened in China several decades before. The average church planter in South Asia plausibly produces several dozen new Christians. But instead of going to seminary and then going yourself as a pastor, why not send an indigenous pastor who’s already there? There are thousands of Bible-believing, Indian seminary-educated church planters who wish to spread the Gospel, but don’t have the resources to drop their day jobs and do so full-time.
One charity, The 500k, helps these church planters do this by providing a $ 1,000-a-year stipend for a 3-5 year interval. To date, it funds about 800 church planters, who have collectively planted about 3,000 churches with an average Sunday attendance of 32,000 people. If we want to spread the gospel, why aren’t more people funding church-planting efforts like that? Sure, we could double down on US evangelism. But a seminary education can cost the institution upwards of $100,000/year. For the same cost of funding 1 person’s MDiv studies, you could fund 100 church planters.
4. Three years is too long. The world needs you now.
The poor, the vulnerable, and the lost are suffering now. They pray for someone in your position to help them today from their disease, their poverty, their injustice, their spiritual hopelessness. If you avoid them and seclude yourself in seminary, you are saying “No, not today.” Would they understand your reasons for waiting?
Many do not realize just how many meaningful, impactful careers exist that advance God’s kingdom in radical ways.
For saving lives, you could work for or give to a GiveWell charity. We have good evidence that the best charities can save a person’s life from an easily preventable disease for just about $4,000 - $5,000. You could work almost any job and give enough money to save someone’s life, every year.
For improving life, consider working for or giving to a GiveWell charity that helps the sick in reliable ways. $4,000 can purchase about 3,800 deworming tablets, which will protect thousands of children from parasitic stomach worms.
For saving souls, work any meaningful job and give generously to church planting projects. If you do decide to become a pastor, focus your ministry heavily on fundraising for foreign church planters. You might be able to raise more money for missions through your role as a pastor-fundraiser than you could working a normal job and donating 10%.
For empowering the poor, consider working for or giving to GiveDirectly, which lends ultra-poor families cash and the dignity to make their own decisions. Around $500-$1000 will double the income of an ultra-poor family for one year.
For helping creation, consider working for or giving to an Animal Charity Evaluators charity, which recommends charities that reliably improve the welfare of factory-farmed animals.
For affecting systemic change, consider moving to Washington DC and working in politics or policy, such as for a think tank, member of Congress, or NGO.
5. To save money for yourself and your family.
At many seminaries, the median age is somewhere between 30 and 40 years old. This is around the age that people are starting to have families, save up to purchase a first home, etc. But this is much harder to do if you take off time from your work in order to go to seminary!
Plus there’s the added financial burden of paying for seminary. According to Good Faith Media, in 2019, 40% of graduating seminary students still had an average of $33,000 debt from previous academic programs while 45% reported taking on an average of $34,000 in additional debt to fund their seminary education.
That’s an ungodly amount of money!
Appendix: 10 reasons to go to Seminary
There are plenty of reasons not to go to seminary, and there are many meaningful, impactful careers that advance God’s kingdom that do not involve going to seminary. But maybe you’ll go anyways for a hodgepodge of reasons, only some of which you mentioned in your admissions essay.
Disclaimer: I don’t endorse all these reasons, nor are they all reasons I would go for, but I think some are respectable.
You desire accountability in your study.
Sure, you could the Bible, ethics, and theology on your own. But in the age of Netflix, you are more focused with the accountability of a cohort of other learners, under the tutorship of an academic expert. Plus, you can share any biblical criticism or doubts you have. Your local church might not be as accommodating.
You think being a priest would be fulfilling.
You like the cassocks, stoles, and incense involved in liturgical church life. You love cathedrals and feel a deep sense of God’s presence in the midst of beautiful iconography and blasting organ pipes. How best to surround yourself with this environment all the time? Go to seminary to become an ordained priest.
You want to be around other Christians.
We are called to be a light in a world full of non-believers. But perhaps you’ve been over-yoked to atheist and agnostic neighborhoods. You feel the need to be immersed in a Christian community. Look no further than seminary! If you attend a residential seminary, you will be completely surrounded by Christian seminarians every day of the week, and many evenings of the week, too.
You’re unsure what to do with your life
You recently graduated or hit a dead-end job. You don’t know what’s next, but you can buy time by doing something respectable like going to graduate school.
Seminary perks
You want the perks. Many seminaries have cool perks, including:
Free housing
Free food
Discounted city services for students / discounted entry to events and conferences.
You want to network with pastors and theologians.
You’re keen to work in the Christian sector, and you know it’s professionally valuable to have a network of Christian pastors and theologians. You seek their advice to provide feedback on your project or offer a pitch or initiative to their congregation. In many Christian denominations, there’s no better place to network than at seminary.
You want to “change” your church.
From formal church teaching to informal rules of church potlucks, you might just want to flip tables. You judged that the change you wish to make in your church is so noble, so worthwhile, that a mere chance at it justifies the massive cost of attending seminary.
Your denomination has a real shortage.
Most denominations don’t but if you’re catholic or otherwise exceptionally orthodox, charismatic, and well-suited for the pastorate, you might fill a strategic hole in your church leadership.
You can do seminary bi-vocationally
Most seminaries are online or otherwise flexible and so allow students to work while at seminary. This might mean the sacrifices with regard to time, money and impact are much less than points 4 and 5 suggest.
You heard a direct calling from God.
It may have been a sign or a vision. You think that God has called you one way or another to go to seminary to fulfill a divine-ordained purpose that could not be fulfilled any other way.
Thank you to Thomas and Chris for your input on this post.