The Advancement of Theological Education by H. Richard Niebuhr, Daniel Day Williams, James M. Gustafson (review)

BOOK REVIEWS The Advancement of Theological Education. By H. RICHARD NIEBUHR, DANIEL DAY WILLIAMs, JAMES M. GusTAFSON. New York: Harper, 1957. Pp. 239 with index. $4.00. This work forms the second and final part of a study of the Protestant major seminaries of the United States and Canada which, set in motion by the American Association of Theological Schools and financed by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, began intensively on July 1, 1954 and continued over a period of fifteen months. The first part was published in April 1956 under the title The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry, Reflections on the Aims of Theological Education. .The director of the study was H. Richard Niebuhr, of the Divinity School of Yale University; the associate director, Daniel Day Williams, then of the Federated Theological Faculty of the University of Chicago; and the assistant director, James M. Gustafson, then pastor of the Congregational Church of Northford, Connecticut, and graduate student at Yale. These men were assisted by an advisory board consisting of a Methodist bishop, three officers of theological schools, a professor of theology, and three men in the active ministry. Information for the study was gathered first by questionnaires from all the accredited members of the American Association (apparently 75), from almost all the associate members (the statistics show 29), and from a considerable number of seminaries not affiliated with the Association; a supplementary inquiry was conducted by means of visitations to ninety of the schools, where interviews with administrators, teachers, and students made possible a deeper insight into the material already available in the questionnaires. The study is very thorough and is clearly and interestingly presented. It is kept strictly within the limits of the Protestant seminary pattern with no reference, for purposes of comparison, to our Catholic seminaries and, indeed, except for the treatment of general educational problems, in which we could well learn from each other, such as the selection of students, testing procedures, pedagogical methods, and several other points, there is little common ground for comparison. The introduction of women students , for example, and the increase in the number of married seminarians (averaging about 60 per cent of the total present enrollment and running as high as 80 per cent in some schools), along with their concomitant problems, create a situation so far different from our own that comparisons IflO BOOK REVIEWS 121 would be nugatory. Above all, the dogmatic unity and the central teaching authority to preserve that unity, which are of the essence of our seminary training as of every phase of our life, are not only absent from the picture but are considered abhorrent to " the Protestant principle of the freedom of the Christian man." (p. 44) Severe criticism is expressed of the "too many schools (which) are subject to a close guardianship by defenders of a faith once and for all delivered to some special group of saints. Their faculties find themselves under the suspicious scrutiny of groups or parties or, less frequently, whole denominations, that are unimpressed by the wisdom of Gamaliel; certain that they possess not only a truth but the ~hole truth and nothing but the truth." (p. 44) The first two chapters, written by Niebuhr, discuss" Some Recent Trends in Theological Education " and " Trends in the Economics of Theological Education" and are, as might be expected, heavily statistical. We learn that the study classifies 180 institutions as Protestant theological schools, twenty-nine of which are in Canada; Bible colleges and institutes and some other schools which prepare men for the ministry bu.t are less formally theological are not listed. In the twenty-year period under survey considerable improvement has occurred in the previous education of entrants: in recent years most have completed college before entering the major seminary. The major seminary course in most schools comprises three years; some have an extra year of internship or field work; there is a strong feeling in favor of lengthening the course. Problems arise from the disparity of philosophical training received by entrants and, in general, there are the usual difficulties about the selection of candidates. Testing procedures are increasingly used. The enrollment in Protestant theological seminaries is...