Theology Graduation Quotes

I no longer follow the voices of the sane. I follow the ill because they see farther, feel much more and change what the sane will not. This is the paradox of philosophers---trying to understand mass delusion among great people that have faith and knowledge, yet they can’t graduate from their institutions of religious theology to apply the knowledge they have gained for the shifting of Zion---- from words to action; from comfort to uncomfortable; from self serving to self giving; from competition to supporting; to tradition to unity; from bias to acceptance; from me to us.

I used to think that the simple good news of Christianity was just for non-Christians. Jesus came to save sinners, but once someone became saved, I figured they’d move on to the advanced material. I saw the gospel as Christianity 101 and the rest of the Christian life as graduate-level courses. But I’ve come to realize that the gospel isn’t the first step in a stairway of truths but more like the hub in a wheel of truth. Once God rescues sinners, He doesn’t give them something else to think about or do, He simply gives them more gospel, grace upon grace. All good theology is an exposition of the gospel.

Students are welcome at such schools to study historical and contemporary theology, and to relate these to auxiliary disciplines such as philosophy and literary criticism. But they are not taught to seek ways of applying Scripture for the edification of God’s people. Rather, professors encourage each student to be “up to date” with the current academic discussion and to make “original contributions” to that discussion, out of his autonomous reasoning. So when the theologian finishes his graduate work and moves to a teaching position, even if he is personally evangelical in his convictions, he often writes and teaches as he was encouraged to do in graduate school: academic comparisons and contrasts between this thinker and that, minimal interaction with Scripture itself.

He graduated from Morehouse at nineteen, and by the time he was twenty-three years old he held a doctorate in divinity from Boston College and a degree in divinity from Crozer Theological Seminary. He never forgot his purpose or his people in his work, and he used the mandates of graduate research to begin developing his own brand of social gospel. In his quest, he made it a point to study the work of all the major theologians and philosophers who might have had any bearing on his thesis. He also branched out beyond his comfort zone, as any credible scholar would, to study influential ideas of the time that were antithetical to his beliefs, like the work of Marx, Lenin, and Nietzsche. He examined every possible angle to find the theological answers to the questions he was asking, and he emerged in his study as a notable student and a compelling scholar.

The church has lost its ability to lament!” This heartfelt cry came from a seminary student as she prayed with other graduate students, faculty and staff who gathered together to seek God for racial justice and reconciliation throughout our nation. As we cried and prayed together we realized that our theology and spiritual formation hadn’t given us sufficient permission, language or tools to adequately sit with the despair and sadness of recent racial injustices, senseless acts of gun violence and social unrest taking place in the world around us. We even saw this on social media where people also seemed paralyzed and helpless to know what to do and how to respond. Sincere, well-meaning Christian people asked, “What should we do?” while people who were fed up with the seeming indifference of those around them expressed their outrage through a hashtag that proclaimed “Silence is Violence!

English is so past,’ she said. ‘Sure, we need people who can write about what we do, but they don’t have to be English graduates. Theology graduates who don’t believe any of it – that would be useful.

Between 50 and 75% of entering freshmen at large Catholic universities typically identify themselves as believing and practicing Catholics. Only 25-50% of graduating seniors do the same.

Since seminary tends to academize the faith, making it a world of ideas to be mastered (I will write about this at length later in this book), it is quite easy for students to buy into the belief that biblical maturity is about the precision of theological knowledge and the completeness of their biblical literacy. So seminary graduates, who are Bible and theology experts, tend to think of themselves as being mature. But it must be said that maturity is not merely something you do with your mind (although that is an important element of spiritual maturity). No, maturity is about how you live your life. It is possible to be theologically astute and be very immature. It is possible to be biblically literate and be in need of significant spiritual growth.

Niebuhr [Oden's Doctoral adviser at Yale and leading 20th century Christian theological ethicist] wanted all of his graduate students to have some serious interdisciplinary competence beyond theology, so I chose to be responsible for the area of psychology of religion. I hoped to correlate aspects of contemporary psychotherapies with a philosophy of universal history. The psychology that prevailed in my college years was predominately Freudian psychoanalysis, but my clinical beginning point in the late 1950's had turned to Rogerian client-centered therapy. The psychology that prevailed in my Yale years was predominantly the empirical social psychologists like Kurt Lewin and Musafer Sherif. I gradually assimilated those views in order to work on a critique of therapies and assess them all in relation to my major interest in the meaning of history.

Theologically Christmas Day is the greatest occasion for rejoicing offered to sinful mankind; but this aspect of it is so august and so great that the human mind refuses to contemplate it steadily, perhaps because of its own littleness, for which of course it is in no way to blame. It prefers to concentrate its attention on ceremonial observances, expressive generally of good will and festivity, such, for instance, as giving presents and eating plum-puddings. It may be said at once here that from that conventional point of view the spirit of Christmas Day at sea appears distinctly weak. The opportunities, the materials too, are lacking. Of course, the ship’s company get a plum-pudding of some sort, and when the captain appears on deck for the first time the officer of the morning watch greets him with a “Merry Christmas, sir,” in a tone only moderately effusive. Anything more would be, owing to the difference in station, not correct. Normally he may expect a return for this in the shape of a “The same to you” of a nicely graduated heartiness. He does not get it always, however.

Theologians should study in a seminary and before graduating they should make a visit to heaven and hell after which they should submit their thesis and graduate.

Why should anyone care about [esoteric wisdom]? Because it challenges our understanding of God, and dares us to transform ourselves. It shatters childish theological images, and discovers a God called Infinity-God as infinity, transforms Gender and Personality."- Daniel Matt, a scholar of Kabbalah and Professor at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley

Arthur W. Pink rightly warns: "The fact that a preacher has graduated with honors from some theological center is no proof that he is a man taught of the Holy Spirit. No dependence can be placed on human learning."' The