So You Want to Go to School...

    If you want to studying the Bible, the first question to ask is whether you should enroll in a school, and if so, what school. There is no simple answer to this question. It all depends on who you are and what you want from an education.

HIGH SCHOOL DEGREES

    There have always been a lot of people in our country who have not completed a High School degree. People who have not finished High School may be just as intelligent as people who have finished a doctorate. Life has just led them down different paths. There are many good reasons why people do not finish High School. That's OK. People are not worth any more or less because of the degree that they have finished. God values everyone the same way regardless of their academic career, and God can often use people with less degrees more than he can use people with more degrees. People who have finished a degree tend to make more money than people who haven't finished one, but that isn't always true. Some people who did not finish High School earn more money than a lot of people with doctorates. Thousands of people today have expensive degrees hanging on their walls that have never brought them employment. Whether or not someone finishes a degree also does not determine how happy they are or how much God uses them. Neither money nor degrees make people happy. Actually, people with a lot of money commit suicide more often than people who have few financial resources. You would not expect that to be true, but it is. It happens partly because money isolates people, and isolation leads to suicide.

    Having said that though, our culture tends to evaluate people partly on the basis of their education. People who have not finished a High School degree often have to deal with unfair and inaccurate perceptions of their lives. They also tire of applying for jobs that almost require a degree. They tire of working at low paying positions that may be the only work available for them (although that is certainly not always true). For those with reasonably normal abilities, there is a lot to be said for picking up a GED. It may improve people's self-concept, and it may (no guarantees though) open new job prospects.

    There are good programs available for completing a High School degree. Some of these are free while others charge a fee.  Often the librarian at a town or country library can be a great source for information about that kind of program as well as other social services. A call to the High School office may also be a useful source of information. They should know the programs that are available in town. Another option though is just to purchase or borrow from a library a GED study book and work through it. One example would be Ronald and Seffi Kaprov's book Master the GED (Lawrenceville, NJ: Arco, 2009).

    Read the GED study book. Think through what it says. Then take the test. Don't expect to pass the test the first time. Take it as a learning experience to see the areas where you still need to study. Then when you identify areas that you have to learn to pass the test, go out on the net to home schooling web sites, and buy high school texts in those areas. Read through the text books. If there are assignments in the books, do the assignments. Don't expect anyone to grade them. Just do them for yourself. Then try taking the test again. If you don't pass it the second time, view that as another learning experience, and identify the areas that you still have to study. If you want the degree, just stay with it.

    Remember though that some people just are not wired in a way that they can succeed at any academic level. If God has not given you the ability to accomplish that kind of thing, accept yourself for who you are. God can use you whatever your ability may be. Just trust Him, love Him, and try to share His love with other people. Happiness in life comes from accepting what God has given you. If you are not satisfied with the life that God has given you, any number of degrees and any amount of money may not make you happy either. The key is always to grow into the best person that you can be with the skills and opportunities that God provides for you. No matter where you are in life, God calls you to learn and grow in Him. He may or may not call you to do that in an academic setting.

COLLEGE DEGREES

    I was born a couple of years after the end of World War II. Back then, the average person had a High School degree. If someone was able to go to college, they were almost guaranteed a reasonably good job no matter what they studied. When I was in High School, the Viet Nam war started. My generation went to college to stay out of Viet Nam. Suddenly, everyone had a college degree, and the degree was no longer a guarantee of a good job. Today, well over half of the people here in the Twin Cities either have a college degree or have at least some hours of college credit. At the same time, the number of colleges and college programs have exploded. Almost anyone can get into college today. If one school turns you down, another school will be happy to take your money. Some schools have an open enrollment policy. To find students in a highly competitive environment, they let almost anyone into the program and give them a chance to try. However, look before you leap into an educational program. Degrees from some schools are worth much more on the job market than degrees from others, and some schools teach far more useful courses than others.

    When thinking about attending college, it is important to think about the costs of different programs. Finances should not be the the only factor when choosing a school, but it is an important issue. College costs have been rising much faster than inflation, and there is not a good reason for that cost increase. Here in the Twin Cities, the local university has doubled its tuition in the last ten years. While doing so, it has put up a succession of new buildings including a new football stadium. The new buildings and programs add costs while faculty salaries have been rising sharply for the high status professors (although not necessarily for faculty at the low end of the status scale). Tuition inflation is certainly not limited to state schools. One Christian college in the metro decided to become a laptop university. It decided that every student would have a networked laptop to take to class. Their notes would be taken on the laptop, and their assignments would be submitted through it. The school raised the students' tuition by $1,000 per year to pay for the laptops. Then they decided to cancel the program without lowering the tuition. Student costs just continue to escalate. It is not at all unusual for private colleges and Christian colleges to cost students between $25.000 and $30,000 a year, Some schools cost much more than that.

    As college costs escalate, students and their families are having a harder time paying the school bills. Some students borrow from $10,000 to $15,000 a year in school loans. While school loans may sometimes be easy to get, they are hard to pay off. Some students graduate from college with college loans between $40,000 and $60,000. The jobs that they eventually find with their degrees can not begin to pay off loans like that, and school loans can not be included in bankruptcy proceedings. It is not uncommon for graduates to have repayment amounts between $500 and $1000 a month when they graduate. That is hard to pay on an entrance level salary (if graduates are even able to find a job).  Students often get themselves in serious financial trouble without anticipating the consequences of their choices. Two internet sites can be helpful in planning college finances. They are www.collegeadmissionspartner.com and www.salliemae.com/howamericapays. There often may be cheaper options. It is less expensive to attend a two year junior college before transferring to a four year program for the last two years. It is also less expensive to live at home and attend a local college. High School graduates often want to get away from home so that they can establish some kind of independence. However, if they borrow too much money in school loans, they often end up living with their parents after they graduate because they can not pay both school loans and their living expenses on their salaries. It is far wiser to borrow as little money as possible in school loans so that they don't cripple your economic life when you graduate.

    If you want a college degree today, it is really important to know what you want to do when you get out. Then find a school with a strong reputation for finding graduates work in that field. Many students just enroll in college with no clear idea of why they want to study. Then they change their programs three or four times during their college years. They finally graduate, and they are surprised to learn that they can't find a job. It is wise not to start college until you have some idea what you want to do with the degree. Instead of jumping right into school, jump into a career search. Talk to a lot of people about the kinds of jobs that are really available and what they pay. Then talk to people in the field about what the best schools are for that career. Then find some way to be involved in that field while you are in college. Today, it is hard to get a job fresh out of college because you don't have any experience in the field. You usually find that you are competing for the job with ten other candidates, and half of them do have experience in the field. It helps a great deal to tell a potential employer about the work experiences or volunteer experiences that you gained in the field while working on your degree.

       Watch out for technical schools that promises you a great career. You may eventually learn either that there are no jobs available for someone with your degree or that you could have gotten the same job without the degree. You may also learn that the career will never pay enough money to repay the school loans that you took to get the degree. Not all technical schools are like that. Some give a great education and can open the doors for a fine career. Sometimes a technical school degree may be wiser and more practical than a liberal arts degree from a four year college. Research any school before you enroll in it. Have a good reason why you choose the school. Your choice of a school is one of the most important investments that you will make in your life. Every choice that you make limits further choices. When you go to a school, that school will be on your resume forever. Be sure that the school is the kind of place that you can make you proud and that you will want on your resume. Always talk to several people who have a degree from the school and who are working in the field. Ask them how helpful the program was for them and whether they would still recommend going there. No matter where you choose to go to school, learn as much about the program as you can before you invest your time, money, and future in a school. The internet is a great source of information about schools. One approach is to type in the name of the school as a search term and see what comes up. Another approach is to go to web sites like degree.com or AllOnlineSchools. There are several online sites like that. Check their archives to see what others have said about the school in the past. That can be a real eye opener. Remember though that if a site allows people to comment on schools, negative comments are often made by people who are angry at the school. So you may or may not get a balanced view of a school's program.

    Increasingly, the country is moving toward distance education programs. Around 20% of the students in the country are working on alternative education degrees like distance education programs. They may be cheaper than traditional schools although there is no guarantee of that. You can do all or most of the work at home. You can work at a full time job to support yourself while you study at night. While a distance education program may serve you well, there are a few facts that you should understand before giving them your money. The first is that the quality of education varies greatly from program to program. One reason that they may be easier than a traditional program is that they may not require as much work. However, then you may not learn as much either. Depending on the school, you may get three hours of academic credit for reading one or two books, but then what have you learned? You might receive a degree without receiving an education.

    Another important issue to face is the whole question of graduation rate. It takes a lot of self-discipline to study at home on your own. The simple truth is that most people don't have it and can't get the work done. You get busy, or you turn on the television. The course work gets put off, and it never gets done. When you give your money to a distance education program, it is important to learn what their graduation rate is. However, figures can be deceiving. Distance education programs tend to calculate graduation rates in an odd way. They begin by removing from their figures students who are non-starters. They are the students who either never send in an assignment or who send in a couple of assignments and quit. The non-starters may be from a third to half of the students. The graduation rate that a school gives you probably only takes into account the students who start to make significant progress working on the degree. Yet only a third of those may graduate. Depending on the school, you may have less than one chance in five of actually finishing the degree. So before you begin any distance education program, find out what their policy is for refunds. Also, ask if you are allowed to sign up for only one course to see if you can fit it into your life. If you are required to sign up for several courses at the same time, think carefully before writing a check. To find out if distance education may be useful to you, it would be a good idea to read at least a half dozen books from the Evangelical Virtual Seminary programs or the Resource Center. Set a goal of how many books that you want to read. Then see if you have the time and energy in your life to finish that many books.  If you can't actually find the time to read them, think carefully before investing tuition money in a program that you may not be able to finish either.

    Of course, another issue with distance education programs can be business ethics. I'm familiar with one distance education program that has an history of appalling behavior. That kind of thing can happen because the school is responsible only to its own board, and the board may not know what is happening. Before you pay tuition to any school (but especially a distance education program), check the archives of online sites like www.degrees.com. Never take at face value the claims that any admissions counselor tells you about a school. Always remember that they are hired to talk you into giving them money. Always check out a school by doing an internet search about the school and by talking to current students. Talk especially to graduates of the school to see how helpful they found the degree to be on the job market. Ask them also about how much help the school gave them in finding a job. If the school gives a degree but no placement assistance, the degree may be of less value. Remember that all programs look good on the internet, but not all programs look as good to the human services department of a potential employer.

    Another kind of alternative education program is the degree completion phenomenon. Many schools today run a degree completion program because it is a great money raiser for the school. In this kind of program, students who finished part of their college degree can take courses one night a week toward their degree. The course requirements are often easier than they would be for traditional day students, and the degree can be finished rather rapidly. These programs generate so much money that some schools have built a whole four year program on this model. I taught Anthropology and Sociology in this kind of program for six years. I found the students to be bright and hard working people. They took their education a lot more seriously than the kids in the day program, and the classes were a lot of fun. If you enroll in a degree completion program offered by an accredited school, you have an accredited degree when you graduate. That makes a lot of difference. Of course, any time that you take an easier program, you may also not get as strong an education. You often get the education that you work for.

    It is also important to think about whether or not you really need a degree. A lot of students who do finish a college degree never end up using it. While any education is a good thing, a degree may or may not be necessary. Typically, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and similar union professionals may not need college degrees (although there may be both practical and personal benefits for them if they do have a degree). People in these professions often make more money than people with degrees. While our culture often suggests that such positions are of less value, that is not a reality based judgment. Professional positions like that are honorable and as important to the culture as teaching at a state university (if not more important in the long run). If the Lord calls you to be a pastor, you also may not need a degree. It all depends on the denomination. Usually denominations that require a degree insist on a masters degree. However, not all denominations require any kind of degree for the pastorate. I've read that 15,000 Southern Baptist pastors do not have a seminary degree and 11,000 of those do not have a college degree. I don't know how current those figures are. I assume that people who do have a degree tend to get larger churches than people who do not have a degree, but that may not always be true. People skills and a close walk with the Lord may be more important for the pastorate than the skills learned in some seminaries.

    Many internet sites can help in choosing educational programs including www.collegeadmissionsparners.com, www.educationdegreesource.com, and www.degrees.com.

MASTERS DEGREES

    When my generation went to college to stay out of Viet Nam, the country became full of people with degrees. As jobs became harder to find, the next decade saw lots of people going on for a masters degree. Like any other degree, it is very important to ask why you want a degree. Then ask whether the degree that you seek from the school that you choose to attend will actually lead to employment in the career of your choice. Depending on the school that grants a degree, the nature of the degree, and the way that your life plays out, a Masters degree might lead to a very responsible and financially rewarding position. On the other hand, it may lead to no job and no income (or anywhere between those extremes). There are no guarantees of employment with any form of education. When looking at potential academic programs, it is very important to check into how successfully the school helps its graduates find employment with their degrees. Some schools work hard at helping their graduates. Some schools do not have anything of that nature incorporated into their programs. Know what a school will offer you before you give them tuition money. Remember that education is a buyers market. Don't jump into the first program that you see.

    In biblical studies, there are at least four options. The first is to attend a seminary associated with your denomination. The second is to attend a seminary that is not associated with your denomination. The third is to enroll in a distance education program. The fourth is simply to study on your own. There are strengths and weaknesses for each kind of education.

    There is a great deal to be said for attending a seminary associated with your denomination. Some denominations require that seminary students attend their schools for at least part of their program. For example, the Christian Reformed denomination used to require that students attend Calvin Seminary for a year. That was later reduced to ten weeks. That kind of thing can be seen in a number of denominations. Generally, the more "high church" that a denomination is, the more seminary education is required (and the more a degree from a denominational school is required). Denominations that typically require seminary degrees include Roman Catholic (obviously), Eastern Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Lutheran. The more Baptist or charismatic a denomination is, the less likely it is that a seminary degree will be required. There are important benefits that come from attending a denomination's seminary. First, graduates of a denomination's seminary have access to placement information from schools in that denomination, and they can often preach pulpit supply in the denomination's churches while in seminary. Most of the time, graduates of denominational seminaries can find a church in that denomination when they graduate. Second, attending a denominational school provides students with a network of other pastors in the same denomination. That network is very important later in life. As a pastor's career progresses, the pastor will usually move on from congregation to congregation. Unless the denomination has a bishop system that assigns pastors to congregations, pastors can only move to a new congregation if a congregation extends the pastor a call. Such calls often grow from the influence of the network of pastors that was developed in seminary. A pastor who attended a denominational school will be seen as part of the denomination while pastors who attended other schools may be seen as outsiders who may never really belong. Of course, that may or may not be true depending on the denomination.

    There are also benefits for attending schools that are either independent or associated with a different denomination. One is that students may seek a school that is more conservative than the schools of their own denomination. That problem can be illustrated by describing two seminaries that I visited when deciding where to study. It would be unfair to give their names here because both schools are very different institutions today than they were in 1970. The first school  had almost no graded courses. Instead, the focus of their program was on working at social action projects like following around a social worker or living in the ghetto. I used to visit college friends at that school. On one visit, a dozen students claimed that conservatives like me studied Hodge and Warfield while they studied authors like Tillich. Paul Tillich was one of the most popular liberal theologians of his generation, and students at that seminary claimed that Tillich was their theological hero. I'd just written a 40 page paper about Tillich at Westminster Seminary. To write the paper, I'd read a dozen books either by or about Tillich. So I started to talk to the students about the radical mystics of the Middle Ages and how that tradition developed into liberal authors like Tillich. None of the students entered the discussion. They all eventually admitted that they had never actually read anything by Tillich, but they intended to do so because he was their theological hero.

    Before choosing a seminary, a group of us also visited another seminary. We asked the President of the school about the school's theological position. The President explained that they took a vote of the incoming class and taught the students what the majority wanted to study. So they had one class studying the liberal theologians like Paul Tillich. They had another class studying the Neo-Orthodox theologians like Karl Barth. Then they had a third class studying the conservative theologians. The President said that he would teach us whatever we wanted to learn. The offer suggested to me that the school did not believe any of these positions and did not think that theology was very important. So I chose a different school. Students who live and work in a left wing denomination may want to choose a more conservative school for their studies. Remember that students will usually end up adopting the theological world view of the school that they attend. That doesn't always happen, but it usually does. However, if you choose to attend a non-denominational school, be sure to communicate frequently with the local leadership of the denomination that you want to serve. You may have a hard time being accepted into a left wing denomination with a degree from a really conservative school. In the real world, they may just not let you in the door.

    Another reason to attend a non-denominational school is practical convenience. If the denomination's schools are half way across the country, and if there is a solid seminary in town for a different denomination, it is a lot easier to go to the local seminary. If you do that, be sure to join a congregation in the denomination where you hope to find a church. Try to get the congregation to appoint you as a non-paid assistant pastor. Be as active as possible in the congregation. Be sure to communicate often with the local leadership of the denomination. To have career success, you have to network a lot more than students who attend a seminary of that denomination.

    Another important topic to consider when choosing a school is whether it is an academic school or a practical school. Practical schools may require less work, and they emphasize things that are useful to a busy pastor. They often do not require Greek and Hebrew. At a M.Div. level, academic schools almost always require that students be able to work comfortably in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. Some require that students study both languages in college before beginning their seminary work. At a Th.M. level, academic seminaries will also require that students pass a language qualifier in German since so much important academic material is written in German. In an academic seminary, a course in any Biblical book begins with the assignment to translate the whole book from the original language. Then a lot of the course work involves analyzing and comparing translations of passages in the book. The central focus in an academic program tends to be scholarship and the academic world.

    While there is value in understanding the arcane world of Biblical scholarship, rather little of that stuff directly affects the life of the congregation. An academic degree may or may not make someone a better pastor, while a practical degree may or may not help a pastor understand very well the books that he reads. Unfortunately, the country is full of pastors who really don't have a clue what Neo-orthodoxy is. They just use uncritically any books that they find, and they don't understand some of the implications of the positions that they take. That can be dangerous to the life of the church, and it certainly does not help their young people survive when they entered the university. If the pastor had an academic degree, the pastor may have been able to prepare the young people better for life in an academic arena. On the other hand, if the pastor does not have strong professional skills, the young people may not care very much about what the pastor has to teach. So the choice of schools is not a simple question.

    The third alternative for a seminary degree is a distance education program. There are several such programs available. One of the largest today is run by Liberty University. There are several things to consider with a distance education program. First, the course work may or may not be as difficult. Some distance education programs to not require the original languages because Greek and Hebrew are frankly difficult to learn in a distance education setting. Think about the tax implications and financial costs of different programs. Remember that you can not take tuition from a non-accredited school as a tax credit. Think about the kinds of courses that the school teaches. Are they practical or academic? Do they help a pastor do the job better, or are the courses theoretical and abstract? Are they aimed at the congregation's life or the academic arena? Think also about the amount of help a distance education program will give graduates in finding a job. The available programs run from fairly good to no help at all. Also, think very carefully about whether you are the kind of person who can study successfully by yourself. Remember that the large majority of students who begin a distance education program never complete it. Finally remember that a distance education degree may not be the best degree to present for acceptance into doctoral work at a different school. Of course, some doctoral programs are easier to get into than others.

    The fourth alternative is independent study. One benefit of independent study is that it is free (other than the need to come up with desired books somewhere). It is less stressful since no one is grading your papers or evaluating your work. With the guidance of a program like the Evangelical Virtual Seminary, you can select books that are actually useful. Half of the books assigned in a school will sit on your shelves and never be used again. It is also infinitely  adaptable. If you study on your own, you are the boss. You can fit your studies into your schedule in any way that works for you.

    There are also serious down sides of independent study. The first is that it offers no academic credit or degrees. If you want to preach, or if you want to find a larger church that pays a better salary, a seminary degree might open those doors for you (or might not. Never assume that any degree will actually land you a job.) The only way to get academic credit for independent study is to convince a school to give you at least a few hours of credit for life experience when you enroll in the school. Some schools will do that, and others will not. It may also be possible to test out of courses in a school that you would otherwise have to take (although schools make those tests pretty hard because they want the tuition money). Another down side is that you do not interact with a faculty. Much can be learned from knowing faculty members that is beyond the content of their courses. They can help you understand how scholars act. They can also help you understand the walls of a discipline and help you avoid crackpot positions. Finally, a school might make you part of a network of contacts that can help you find work in the future. When you do independent study, you are on your own. Finally, when you study on your own, you may not have access to a theological library, and books are good things. Lots of books are better.

DOCTORAL DEGREES

    If you are interested in a doctoral degree from a seminary, the most important question to ask is, "Why do you want the degree?" Think about that very seriously. If you want to leave the pastorate and teach in a Christian college or state university, forget about it! In the real world, it is almost impossible to find a teaching position. Every job that becomes available has a hundred people applying for it. Many of them will have better credentials than yours. Admissions counselors like to claim that the Baby Boomer generation is leaving the field, and there will be many openings to teach in the future. Well, it's hard to say what might happen in the future. We can only talk about what we see today. It isn't happening yet, and it doesn't really look like it ever will happen. While the Baby Boomer generation is approaching retirement age, the number of students attending seminary is rapidly declining. Fewer teachers will be needed in the future. A number of seminaries today are being forced to close their doors for lack of students. As schools close their doors, their faculty are forced onto the job market. They are men and women with good degrees, multiple books and articles in  print, and many years of teaching experience. People like that get the job interviews, not recent graduates. I studied for twenty years in three of the leading conservative academic seminaries in the country. Yet I never found a full time position in the field. I've talked to many people with earned doctorates from good schools who have never even had a job interview. The only kind of teaching position that you are likely to find is an adjunct position that does not pay a living wage. Of course, there are always exceptions to that rule. The Lord might provide you with a good position while so many other graduates don't find one. Trust the Lord for His guidance, but be careful about making teaching your main life plan.

    If you want to have a chance of finding a teaching position with a doctoral degree, you have to do it in the right way. First, you have to think very carefully about where you want to study. Interviews for teaching positions usually go to people with degrees from high status schools. All things being equal, someone with a degree from an Ivy League school is far more likely to get an interview than someone with a degree from a distance education program. Second, it is very important to have a record of publication in the field. Begin by presenting papers at theological conferences like meetings of the Evangelical Theological Society or the Society of Biblical Literature. Then, read a lot of journals. Look at the kinds of papers that they publish. Talk to the editors of the journals and ask them about the kinds of topics that they would like to see. Check the format used by each journal for things like footnotes because the editors of a journal will not read an article that isn't formatted with the specific format method used by that journal. This is important because there are a surprising number of formats in use at the same time. Then write and submit articles to a number of journals. Remember that each article has to be "state of the art" research. It has to grow from the current academic debate, and it has to interact with that debate.

    Then think about the kind of book that is really needed in the field and research it. Look especially at practical topics. It is far easier to publish a book on 50 ways to use the Bible to control your kids than it is to publish a book on the exegetical implications of a superlapsarian view for interpreting Ephesians. When you have the topic well in hand, send a query letter to a publisher about it. Be sure to include a return addressed envelope with enough postage attached. Do not ask a publisher to pay the costs to mail it back to you. The query letter should include an outline of the book and one or two sample chapters. Do not send the whole book to a publisher. He doesn't have the time to read it all, and he will just bounce it back to you. The query letter should discuss why the book is needed and what its potential market may be. Expect your proposal to be turned down. You may have to send query letters to half a dozen publishers, but don't send a letter to more than one publisher at a time. You may also find that a publisher will ask you to pay the publication costs so that any books he sells are profit. That is a common requirement. It is not uncommon for teachers to pay $4000 to get a book in print, and little of that money is usually recovered in royalty payments.  Remember though that you may have to have a good publication record to have a chance at a job interview.

    It is also vital to look for any chance you can find to teach in a classroom situation before you finish your degree. Few job interviews go to people who lack classroom experience. The more teaching experience you have, the more likely you are to find a teaching position. Another important thing is to network as widely as possible. People are often hired not solely because of their academic credentials.  Friends hire friends, and friends hire people recommended by friends. More often than not, it is your network of peer relationships that will gain you an interview for a position.

    Even if you find a position, it may not pay enough to repay your school loans.  In general, teaching doesn't pay very well unless you are a full professor at a state university. For twelve years, I taught students in about a dozen seminars each year. In all of those years, I only had one or two students who earned less money as a pastor than I earned as their teacher. Preaching generally pays more than teaching. Ten years ago, I applied for a position in a Christian school in Missouri. The position required teaching five courses at a time when the normal teaching load in most schools was two or three courses. It also required a lot of committee work and student advising. That is a 70 to 80 hour work week. The position only paid $15,000 a year. The school received 35 applications from people with earned doctorates. When you add up the time required to do that much work, you would earn more money working in a gas station at minimum wage. Don't take a doctoral degree in the hope of changing your career to earn more money. Doctoral degrees in biblical studies provide a greater income for graduates when they lead to pastorates in a larger churches. About the only exception to that rule would be full professors either at state universities or very high status private universities. They tend to earn a lot of money. Your chances of getting an interview for a position like that are almost nil.

    If the Lord leads you to do so, there are good reasons to seek a doctoral degree.  If you feel strongly that God wants you to go in that direction, He may have something that He wants you to contribute either to the field or to the church. The first thing to think about is what you want to do with the degree when you finish it. That has to drive your choice of a school. Otherwise, you will end up frustrated and disappointed. The biggest question is whether you want to seek a life within the academic arena or within the daily life of the church. These are completely different worlds and they require different kinds of degrees. If you want to work within the academic orbit, you have to prepare from the beginning for that world. When you choose a school, look for one with a strong academic reputation. Avoid easy schools, but look for programs with strong language requirements. In the arena of Biblical Studies, the usual expectation is that students know Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and German in order to get into a doctoral program. Then students are expected to learn two other languages while working on the degree. If you take classes in a distance education program that doesn't require that many languages, be sure that you develop good language skills on your own. Look also for a program that provides good library resources. Typically, seminaries that support a doctoral program will have a library with around a quarter million volumes. If you sign up for a distance education program that doesn't have a library, make sure that you have access to a research level library where you live. To work on any subject, you have to read almost everything that was ever written on the subject. While not impossible, that's hard to do without a really good library. The bare bones minimum for doctoral level work is access to the online databases like ATLAS. Look also for a program whose teachers have a strong academic reputation. That is the kind of network that you will need to succeed. Then  become strongly involved in the Evangelical Theological Society and the Society of Biblical Literature. Read student papers and begin to publish in the field.

    If your ministry is to the church as a whole, you need a different kind of background. Much of what you learn in an academic program will be of limited value. Few people in the church are likely to ask you to read something in German much less Ugaritic. No one is likely to be interested in the evidence against Redaction Criticism. Their needs involve life instead of theory. Look for a program that stresses real life. In that kind of school, languages are less important. The size of a library is less important. In a distance education setting, a practical school can get by reasonably well with a number of online databases like the ATLA-Religion/Atlas database. It gives students full text articles from over 200 of the leading journals in the field. The school must also have a real librarian with a Masters in Library Science who can help you find academic resources in your regions. If the school doesn't have both a real librarian and the databases, pray carefully about whether it is the right doctoral program for you. You can't do credible doctoral level work using only the internet as a library. With the ATLA-Religion database, you have at least the minimum and most basic requirement for graduate and doctoral level work in a practical program.

    There is, however, a third issue to consider. Christianity in the United States is in decline. Every year, 70% of the young people who claim to be Christians when they enter college no longer claim to be Christians when they graduate. The future is slowly being lost. There are a number of reasons why this happens. One is that the church has not made Christianity academically credible for its own children. If we want to stand in the gap and turn the tide, we need a combination of practical and academic elements in our ministries. We need to prepare especially our young people to understand the culture in which they live. We need to introduce them to the major ideas that they will face in an academic setting, and show them how to evaluate those ideas from a conservative Christian orientation. It does little good to tell young people not to believe something. We need to show them the evidence used to defend different positions, and what the weaknesses are in different perspectives. God's Word is true. Consequently, it can be defended from the evidence if both the evidence and the Bible are understood correctly. The church has a crying need for people who can interest young people in studying the thought world of the age and show them how to defend conservative Christianity in the context of that thought world.

ACCREDITATION

    When you decide to study the Bible, one of the important questions is whether to go to an accredited school or a school that is not accredited. What is accreditation? There are several organizations that evaluate academic programs. If they approve the program, it is accredited. Not all forms of accreditation are of equal value. If a school claims to be accredited by Uncle Bob's Surf Shop and Accreditation Bureau, that claim will be of little value to the students. In the United States, the important question is whether the accreditation bureau is recognized by the United States Department of Education. To find out if a school's program is recognized as being accredited by the Department of Education, check the Database of Accredited Postsecondary Institutions and Programs on the internet. The site can be found at http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation. Accreditation is an important thing. If you attend an accredited school, you can take out federally guaranteed student loans to pay for your education. You may also be able to deduct either 20% or 40% of your education costs from your taxes as a direct tax credit. When you try to use your degree to find a job, accreditation may matter quite a bit to your potential employer. If you want your current employer to pay part of your education costs, your employer may not be willing to fund courses in a school that is not accredited. If you want to transfer to another program, your course work in a non-accredited school may not be accepted by an accredited institution. If you want to go back to school and get a higher degree, your next school may not accept your previous degree from a non-accredited school as the basis for your application. If you want to teach in the field, a degree from a non-accredited school may not get you very far in the application process. The key term in much of this is may. Some schools and some employers will recognize the validity of degree work in non-accredited schools while others may not. Remember to that every academic choice that you make will affect the rest of your life. If you choose to attend a school that is not accredited, that school will be on your resume for the rest of your life. Anyone who reads your resume may wonder why you would study at a non-accredited school. That becomes especially problematic if the school has a poor reputation in the field.

    There is also another side to that question. Some schools have always  chosen not to seek accreditation for theological reasons, but they may be outstanding programs. For example, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago used to reject the idea of accreditation but it always had a solid program. Another reason that students may choose to study in a non-accredited school is that they may be a lot cheaper than accredited schools. Even accredited distance education programs like Liberty University may charge between $1,000 and $1,500 a course. In contrast, some non-accredited programs may charge as little as $200 a course (although you might just get the education that you pay for). That more than makes up for the lack of an income tax credit, and it may make the lack of student loans unimportant. So the choice of accredited versus non-accredited programs may come down to why you want the degree. If you are retired and simply want to earn a degree, or if you are a pastor who just wants to compete for a bigger church, it may be more practical to enroll in a program that is not accredited.

Copyright © 2009 Dr. Rodger Dalman
Last modified: 08/11/09