Non-ARP students driving
Erskine Seminary’s growth
By Edward Terry, The Layman, August 19, 2009
Even though it is sometimes a source of criticism for Erskine Theological Seminary, its inclusiveness of other denominations has been the key to its growth and will be to its future, according to its leaders. Related Story
Erskine College goes under ARP microscope
Located in Due West, S.C., Erskine College and its seminary are affiliated with the conservative 30,000-member Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP). Yet only a fraction of the seminary’s 450 students will end up leading ARP congregations. That’s why recent criticisms have confounded leadership.
Executive Vice President the Rev. H. Neely Gaston said approximately 30 denominations are represented at Erskine Seminary. The diversity includes various Presbyterian and Baptist denominations, as well as African Methodist Episcopal Church and the Assemblies of God. Erskine Seminary also is attracting students from overseas who seek an alternative to the more liberal seminaries.
Erskine Theological Seminary, located on the campus of Erskine College in Due West, S.C., attributes its growth over the last several decades to the diversity of its student body.
“They don’t want their folks going to mainline seminaries, so they’re coming to us,” Gaston said, adding that New Wineskins and Confessing churches also are looking to Erskine for a more traditional Reformed education.
Gaston said that enrollment has grown over the last decade thanks to that diversity and the seminary now boasts the most Reformed, Orthodox faculty it’s ever had. Yet the seminary has come under fire, along with its parent institution Erskine College, for allegedly not being true to the conservative foundation of the ARP. Officials from the ARP office did not return calls seeking comment on the investigation.
Erskine Board of Trustees member the Rev. David Johnston, in a letter posted online, accuses the college of having an anti-ARP bias. Specifically, he says that the college and seminary mission statements show movement toward separation from the parent denomination and Reformed theology.
“I am troubled by the thought that the language was there because that is really what is in the hearts and minds of some people who work on campus and wrote the document,” Johnston said. “If we don’t repair this problem, the alternative is that Synod de-fund and de-certify Erskine College and Seminary as our official institutions and complete the divorce that began in the mission statement approved last year.”
It hasn’t come to that yet, but the denomination did vote in June to form a commission to investigate complaints by Erskine students and ARP pastors.
Though the college did introduce a new mission statement last year, the seminary continues to use “Christian Commitment and Excellence in Learning,” which was approved for both institutions three years ago. The seminary’s broader mission – “to educate persons for service in the Christian Church” –hasn’t changed either, Gaston said.
“I don’t see us changing right now,” he said, adding that a small minority of ARP members don’t want to see students or faculty from any other denominations at the seminary. “Most people think it’s pretty neat that we have a Kingdom initiative that reaches out to men and women of all denominations.”
The goal of the seminary will continue to be reaching out to anyone who is looking to have a “quality, Biblical, Reformed education,” Gaston said. Considering that less 15 percent (60 out of 450 students) of the seminary student body is affiliated with the ARP, it would have a hard time keeping the doors open with parent denomination exclusivity.
According to its Web site, the ARP has approximately 250 congregations, concentrated mainly in the Southeast but stretching as far as California, New Jersey and Canada. Gaston said that he continues having trouble placing graduates in the ARP denomination as there aren’t enough calls.
“Until the (ARP) Church starts having some positive growth – the need for associate pastors and new church plants – it’s very tough,” Gaston said. “All of our graduates right now aren’t placed because there aren’t positions in the ARP Church for them. A lot of our students we educated are going into other Presbyterian bodies.”
The Presbyterian Church (USA)’s Charleston Atlantic Presbytery is one of the places that Erskine Theological Seminary graduates are finding congregations. Donnie Woods, executive presbyter and stated clerk of Charleston Atlantic Presbytery, has been pleased with the Erskine graduates called into PCUSA ministry.
“I think they are remarkably qualified and ready for ministry,” he said, basing his assessment on candidates’ ordination exams. “I think Erskine is one of the great seminaries.”
Despite concerns by some that Erskine College and Seminary are drifting away from the ARP, the college still is considered conservative when compared with some of its peers. Erskine Theological Seminary instructor Richard Burnett, professor of systematic theology, said that PCUSA seminaries “wouldn’t touch me with a 10-foot pole.”
Before coming to Erskine eight years ago, Burnett considered himself a refugee from the PCUSA. Erskine’s president at the time, John Carson, had heard of Burnett’s work in the Confessing Church Movement and recruited him to join the faculty. Burnett’s still considered too liberal for Erskine by some ARP pastors, he said.
Burnett, who has been one of the targets of recent criticisms, said he values what Erskine has to offer – both for him as a conservative PCUSA pastor and for students wanting what has become a “rare” seminary experience.
“We’re not trying to be simply a catechetical seminary and we’re not trying to be a primarily research-based seminary,” he said. “We’re trying to equip folks for pastoral ministry by forcing them to engage in the Reformed tradition and the classic texts of the Christian Church, not just the latest fads.”
ARP pastor the Rev. Tim Phillips, of Midlane Park ARP Church in Louisville, Ky., said he enjoyed his time at Erskine Theological Seminary and considers it much improved from years earlier.
“I would still recommend pastors … and have done so,” he said.
Counting on continued support – both from within and outside the ARP – in order to continue preparing Christians for service, Gaston is looking forward to what’s to come. Having grown from 100 students in the mid-70s to 450 students today, he doesn’t see major changes as being a part of the strategy ahead.
“We’re moving in the right direction, just not as fast as some would like us to,” Gaston said. “What we’re trying to do, we’re on target.”