Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep971: The State of Christian Education: Dr. Mark Young

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

We live in a transitional era. Events like the development of the internet, 9/11, ongoing globalization, the rise and proliferation of social media, the election of Obama and then Trump, and now the global pandemic have all had a profound impact on culture including the church and education. What does all of this mean for the future of Christian education? Dr. Mark Young helps guide us this this important topic.  Dr. Mark Young is the president of Denver Seminary, a theological educator and pastoral leader with over 40 years of global ministry experience. Mark holds a PhD in Educational Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and a ThM in New Testament Literature and Exegesis from Dallas Theological Seminary. He serves as the board chair for the Association of Theological Schools and is a member of the International Council for Evangelical Theological Education, Evangelical Theological Society, OMSC Missions Leaders Forum, and several other organizations. Mark has authored several publications, including The Hope of the Gospel: Theological Education and the Next Evangelicalism (Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2022), One True Story, One True God: What the Bible Is All About(Our Daily Bread Publishing, 2021), “Marriage and the Mission of God,” published in Marriage: Its Foundation, Theology and Mission in a Changing World (Moody Press, 2018), and “Recapturing Evangelical Identity and Mission” published in Still Evangelical? Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning (InterVarsity Press, 2018).  https://denverseminary.edu/directory/young-phd-mark/ –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/titr or use code TITR at faithfulcounseling.com –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. My guest today is Dr. Mark Young, president of Denver Seminary. This guy has a huge track record. He's been a theological educator and a pastoral leader for the last 40 years with global experience. You'll hear a little bit about that in the podcast. He has a THM from Dallas Theological Seminary and a PhD in educational studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's a THM from Dallas Theological Seminary and a PhD in educational studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He's the author of several books. His most recent one is The Hope of the Gospel, Theological Education, and the Next Evangelicalism. Mark's been a friend over the last few years. I love his humble posture. As you will hear,

both of us share a very similar vision for what curious conversations look like and the role that humility needs to play in theological dialogue, especially theological dialogue across different contentious issues. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only Gokto Markian. Dr. Mark Young. All right. Hey, friends, I'm here with my friend, Dr. Mark Young, president of Denver Seminary. Mark, thanks so much for being on the show. You're the first seminary president I've ever had on. So we're breaking new ground here. I can barely stand the honor of it all. Thanks, Preston, for inviting me. Tell us your background in academia, education, and how long you've been at Denver Seminary. And

then I would love to hear more specifically about Denver Seminary. My best friend teaches there. I've spoken there. Love the seminary. Love to promote it. So I would love to get just from your perspective, what is Denver Seminary all about? But let's start with you as a person. Who are you and where you been and where are you going? Sure. Well, you know, in some ways, I think it would have been unlikely to imagine me in an academic world. My dad was the first person in our entire family to go to high school. We were raised in Appalachia, and education was just not a higher value. But he finished high school, and as I was growing, there never was a question about me going to school. He encouraged that, as did my mom. And I went to the University of Marshall University, which is about 20 miles away from where I grew up. And it was there that I think both my calling as a minister of the gospel and as an educator

were really formed and enlivened. So after that, I went to seminary. And then my wife and I served in Eastern Europe with a non-formal theological education program. So in the early 80s, we were doing theological training throughout the Soviet bloc. We lived in Europe then until 1995. The last seven years we lived in Poland through the transitions that took place there and started Health Start at theological school there. Came back, went on faculty at another seminary, served on church staff, then came here in 2009 as the president. So that's kind of a brief bio of my journey in

theological education. But my primary calling has always been as an educator. Okay, okay. So you've been at, yeah, so Denver Seminary over 10 years, about 12-ish years. How would you describe Denver Seminary? For those who don't know, I mean, I know quite a bit about it, but is it a denominational seminary? Where on the evangelical spectrum does it lie? What's the DNA of the school? Why would somebody... And you guys aren't paying me to do this. I'm not bringing it on to promote, but let me promote because I love your school. So why... I do want to ask. It sounds so sales pitchy, but why would someone consider Denver Seminary opposed to other schools?

Yeah. So we do have a denominational history. We were started by a Baptist group, but it became pretty clear early on that we were going to be broader than one denominational focus. I'd say Denver Seminary finds itself squarely in the center of evangelicalism. We definitely would not be a part of that harder core right wing of the movement where everything is zipped up and buttoned down really nicely. And we wouldn't necessarily be on the far left-hand side of the movement where nothing is zipped up and buttoned down. So I think, honestly, what characterizes Denver Seminary and has for many decades is a concept we call charitable orthodoxy,

meaning that we have a core set of beliefs fashioned around what's been held by Christians around the world for centuries. And then we resolve to charitably engage others around those topics that are not a part of that core. So you'll find at the seminary different points of view theologically, different points of view in terms of how the church lives out its mission, but we foster that environment where we listen first, ask questions so that we can learn, and charitably encourage one another to grow in our understanding. We're a typical seminary. All graduate programs have been strong in the end of the ministerial preparation program been strong in the MDiv, the Ministerial Preparation Program, and strong in counseling programs, particularly professional counseling and school counseling now. Okay.

About how many students do you have? And again, that's a broad question because I know you have on-campus, part-time, off-campus, counseling, MDiv, and all that. Yeah. So our headcount is just over 900 students in our degree programs. Okay. And we also have about 125 students in Spanish language programs that are specifically oriented toward those who may not yet have the academic backgrounds to enter into degree programs. Okay. Yeah, that's great. My impression, you know, and I've spoken to different seminaries and, you that teach, so I get a feel for what's the DNA?

On paper, a lot of them look kind of the same. My impression of Denver is that it is – it's very focused on the church. It's very – you're preparing people for the church, not necessarily the academy. And yet it's a very, I've been in some schools where the focus is so much on the church. Sometimes the academic side gets a little lazy. You seem to combine like really thoughtful and engagement. Like you're not going to, you can't write a sloppy paper that's not footnoted well and has good research, you know, like, so the academic quality seems to be really high. And people do go, I know several people have gone on and been professors and,

you know, but, but the heart really is a very, it's a very church oriented school. Would that be accurate to describe? It is. And I think what we would add to that is that we see the church as God's presence in the world for the sake of the world, for the sake of the gospel, right? So it's not just creating churches that are great in understanding the Bible. It's creating churches, helping people create churches that are meaningful in their communities around the truth of the gospel. On the scholarship side, there's never really been a question about the quality of education we offer here. We actually use a phrase called

not rigorous, but vigorous scholarship. And what we mean by that is it goes deep, but it also goes deep into the matters that really matter, right? So we're really asking people to say, what are the questions the world is asking the church? What are the questions the world is asking the believing community? And help our students and our scholarship focus on those questions. And you said you're kind of in the center of evangelicalism. And again, my impression is, and I've talked to Joey about this, and so there's a little bit of a, you know, I kind of know somewhat of the answer you're probably going to give.

But like on matters that aren't, on theological matters that aren't central to the Christian faith, matters of orthodoxy, your school would represent diverse opinions on quotequote secondary issues. Even really important ones, let's just say egalitarian versus complementarian or women in ministry. You have faculty on different sides of that. You have students. But my sense is that as important as that issue is, people on different sides actually do get along well at your school, which isn't the case of every place. Would that be accurate that you

have cultivated an atmosphere of relational engagement even across differences? Yes, certainly in the faculty level, that's true. And the faculty model that among the student body. I think sometimes we have encounters with students who may hold those positions more rigidly. And so managing that kind of conversation in the classroom is always important. But yeah, we believe that it is the gospel, right, that binds us together. So as we hold to that gospel, we're going to disagree about those kinds of issues because we come from different traditions or we've had different inputs in the way that we read scripture. So let's go ahead and have those conversations and learn from one another. I don't know that I've ever had a conversation with someone with whom I disagree where I'm

truly interested in learning, where I don't walk away with a better understanding of my own view and that of that person's view. So that's the way we view that engagement within the church. You know, Leslie Newbigin was pretty clear that if the church isn't a unified testimony of the gospel, then really our testimony is stripped of its meaningfulness. So that unity around those core issues is really important to us. Okay, that's awesome. core issues is really important to us. Okay, that's awesome. Well, let's move now to just the broader field of Christian education. And let's just, we could stick to America just to keep our parameters. But you wrote a book recently, The Hope of the Gospel, Theological Education,

and the Next Evangelicalism, which is a treatment kind of like, what does the future look like? Can you give us maybe an overview of what your book's about? Not just to summarize the book, but I think that really is an inroad into what I'm interested in understanding. Like, what does the next 5, 10, 15 years look like in Christian education? Yeah. Well, let's talk about institutional matters really first, and that starts with demographics. So all colleges and universities are recognizing that there is a lower number of people entering college age than we've experienced in the last several decades, to be honest. And so in that literature in higher ed, you talk about the enrollment cliff. And so in that literature in higher ed, you talk about the enrollment cliff.

We're downstream from undergraduate education, but we can anticipate within the next decade that we're going to see fewer people in that age bracket that would typically be choosing graduate level education, theological education. And Christian schools are not immune to that. We're already seeing pressure on enrollments in Christian colleges and universities. And so, again, we're typically downstream from there. So we understand that we're in an industry that's under pressure to be able to have the enrollments that we need to fulfill our mission, but also to sustain ourselves financially. And I would say, you know, the pandemic really was a bit of a winnowing process for theological schools. Those of us who had made strong investments in making theological education more accessible in the online format were able to weather the pandemic and come out of it with a measure of strength that some other schools perhaps weren't able to and we frankly anticipate that we'll continue

to see stronger growth in the online side of education than in the in-person side of education we're committed to on-campus programs and in classes but I honestly think most of our growth will be in that online space, or in that virtual space. So we've made big investments there. So the enrollment side of the equation, I think, is one that we have to always keep our eyes on. What I think really is as important, if not more important, is that we have a church full of people who are asking really good questions. And sometimes, in some quarters of evangelicalism, those threatens are deemed to be threatening. And we kind of lash back at people who are asking really hard questions and expressing a measure of doubt about what they're believing. I think a challenge for evangelical schools is

to embrace that questioning. I mean, truth is, we don't ever learn anything if we're not asking good, hard questions, right? All learning, really transformative learning, involves some measure of deconstruction. So I think those schools who are willing to step into those gray spaces, or what I call the white space between the lines of the Bible, and ask those questions that we don't have nailed down, buttoned down answers, and be honest about that. Those are the schools that are going to be able, I think, to speak to the students that we're getting now who are born around 2000 or in the late 90s. I think that's a critical thing, Preston, that willingness to embrace that process of questioning and the doubts that are being stimulated by the social, economic, theological,

cultural, philosophical trends that we're all living in here in North America. That's good. trends that we're all living in here in North America. That's good. Going back to the growth of online, would you say that's pretty typical of almost all, if not all, schools? Like if they have an online component or virtual component, that has grown and the on-campus has gone down for the most part or will start going down?

That's a general trend. Yeah. There is, I tend to compare Denver Seminary and other like-minded schools, right? In other words, schools that students would consider when they're thinking about Denver Seminary. And in that group of 10, schools that have been aggressive in the online space are the schools that are seeing strength in enrollment that some of the other schools are not. It's not true for all, but most. So part of that is, it's just, it is what it is, right? But what are some of the pros and cons of that?

Let's just say that rather than online being kind of the fringe, you know, we also had this component over here, like maybe five years ago, you know, but, and that whole thing possibly being inverted in the near future where the on-campus is really the minority experience where most people are attending virtually. What are the pros and cons to that? Um, if it does go that route. Yeah. Let's just, yeah, let's just start with the basics, right? Most of our students in the online space would prefer to be in person. But when you think about it, the average age of our students is 35. Oh, really?

Almost all of our students, right, almost all of our students are engaged in ministry, they have families, All of our students are engaged in ministry. They have families. And for them to blow up their lives, relocate, is too much of a cost. Right? So although they might prefer to be in a classroom, most of them do, this is the only way they can access theological education. So from that perspective, theological education for them is a must, or online education for them is a must.

They're just not going to be able to take advantage. Now, what we can do is create what we call synchronous online experiences. So, if you were to teach for us, we could set you up in a classroom where you have physical students they're physically present with you and then students present with you online and you can interact with both and they can interact with one another so for some students that's a much better option than an ox synchronous online course but for some work distance time all all those factors make the asynchronous experience the only one they can access. More and more students are choosing that virtual environment because instead of us saying, you fit your life into Denver Seminary, they are saying, you fit Denver Seminary into my life. I mean, I could just think about that. Yeah. Go ahead.

Part of me wonders, and I don't know if this is sociologically or psychologically true, but I wonder if a younger generation, that virtual and online life is way more normal than it is for anybody, I'm a Gen X or even older millennials where, where we've, this is an ad, this is something that came way later. Like our, our, our primary mode of life has been embodied and verbal and, but I wonder if the younger generation, the hurdles that some people might have with an online experience, they may not experience that because that is more their normal. Again, for good or for ill. I mean, I think theologically, you can make a good case for embodied relationships as being the best way in which we've been created. But I just wonder if the online environment may be more normal and natural for

younger people coming in so that some of the, the cons of an online education that exists for people my age or our age may, may not be as prevalent for a younger generation. Is that, is that, is your hunch that that's true? Has that been shown through studies or anything or? Yeah, you see two, you see two different trends, right? Again, remember, most of our students would prefer in person. They clearly articulate that.

So on the other hand, that comfort level with technology and relating to one another in a mediated technological way is not an issue for a lot of our students who have been doing that for a long time now there are some schools making big bets that there will be a reaction to the technologically driven relationships and there will be more students who want to come back into the on-campus environment we certainly are ready to receive those students as well. But at the same time, we have our eye firmly on that student who just can't relocate. And frankly, even students who live closer by, who have to make commutes, we can't always fit classes into their work lives. So online is their only option. I noticed,

I taught at another seminary online. Well, it was Liberty Seminary. This was probably 14 years ago, maybe. Yeah. Right when it was really starting to take off. And then I helped start, when I was teaching at Eternity Bible College, helped start the online component there. And we were constantly wrestling with the pros and cons,

especially at Eternity Bible College, because we were so big on embodiment. But two big questions, well, several questions came up. Number one, it's what you said. Like if we have some pastor in Kansas who's leaving his ministry to come to Eternity Bible College, are we helping the church then? Pulling people out of

their ministry context? Like, wow, okay, that could be a big pro for online where he's staying in ministry, he or she is staying in ministry and we're going to them. But also I've noticed just practically there are some personalities, more introverted people, more verbal, they take time to process that. In my teaching experience online, I got some awesome interaction with people that I don't think they would have wrote that, said that out loud in a classroom. They'd probably be quiet in the back, listening, processing. Maybe that night they would have a thought, but there's certain online platforms that you can actually allow or enable certain other kinds of people to participate that might have not done as well in an embodied setting. Have you found that to be true too? Yes. Yes, we have. And I think one of the big differences in online education now versus when we were first getting ramped up here at Denver Seminary 15

years ago we have intentional instructional design for a synchronous online education okay so we design our courses it's not just that old model where you have a bad recording of a professor standing in front of a classroom we design our online courses with shorter, intense, direct-to-the-camera content broken up by interactive engagement as well, discussion or other types of involvement. So I think, in all honesty, yes, we have students who are more engaged in the online space than they would be in the classroom. And yes, our faculty are creating more active learning in the online space than they often do in a classroom. Now, again, for some learners, that just doesn't fit the bill, and they're not going to thrive there. But for a lot of learners, it actually is a better learning experience for them.

Another question along these lines, and this is very relevant to me because I exist in a space where this is a relevant question. Is there an issue? I don't know how to frame the question. There's a lot of really, really good free online Bible information training, whatever. I mean, you think like the Bible Project. Man, that's so high quality. You think Bill Mounts has this whole – you can get basically almost a seminar education

for free online. You've got a lot of free – I mean, you have to wait. You have to spend some time and not all of it is the best produced. Are you facing any kind of – this mean you have to wait. You have to spend some time and not all it's the best produced. Are you facing any kind of – this isn't the right word. Yeah, I'll just say competition. Not that you're trying to be competitive, but is all that free stuff out there hindering people wanting to go and pay for accredited actual content? you know, accredited actual content? Or do you still feel like there's still always going to be a great hunger for something more guided and, you know, accredited and so on?

Yeah. Well, first of all, let me say anyone who's in ministry and seeks any kind of organized theological training, I'm all for it. The truth is in the broader evangelical movement, historically, more pastors and more Bible teachers don't have any type of organized theological training. They do. And that's been the devil of our movement.

Clearly, that has led into pathways of doctrinal thinking and abuse of religious authority, all kinds of things that's damaged us and our credibility in the broader society. So I'm all for folks seeking that training. And for those for whom non-degree-oriented types of training works better for them, have at it. Praise God, I'm glad you're taking those intentional steps. I do think that one of the questions we have to ask as a movement is, does an uneducated clergy, and by that I mean a degreed clergy, does that enhance the credibility of our gospel in some sectors of American society? I think the answer would be no, right? I mean, the reality is, as a society, in certain sectors of our society, we're looking for people who have

demonstrated a reasoned, measured, systematic exploration of the truths of the lives that they're encouraging us to live. And so I think credibility is certainly an ongoing challenge for evangelicalism. And certainly credibility comes from a genuine lifestyle, from true holiness and righteousness and not being hypocrites. But there's also that ability to speak in an informed and intelligent way to our congregation and to the world that I think is a critical part of what it means for us to give up who we are and our mission in North America in this time. Yeah. Yeah.

This is what, when I was at Eternity Bible College, you know, we were toying with, should we pursue accreditation? And for years we didn't. But then it was exactly what you said. We had a lot of people, I think a good maybe third

went on to be missionaries, you know, from the school. And in other cultures, as you know, it means something. I went to an accredited school from America. That opens up opportunities overseas that really value education probably more than the Americans do. That was one reason. But also that, I don't know, that critical assessment too.

that critical assessment too, like as, as, as much as it was really, the accreditation process is grueling and some of it's like, why does this matter? Whatever. Like, yeah, just to have experts screen everything you're doing and, and who have gone, they've been in education for a long time. And for them to say, here's how you can improve. And here's what you need to do to improve. I think that's really beneficial. Yeah. It's interesting. In our society, we are seeing a backlash against expertise.

Think about all of the messaging around pandemic and COVID. But generally speaking, I would say we still seek out those who have demonstrated that they're willing to go through rigorous, systematic instruction to be able to provide the services that they claim they can provide. I use this illustration, say you have a friend who says, hey, listen, I just went to this great dentist. He's really cool, and I loved what he did. And you say, great, I need a dentist. I'm going to go.

You got this, let's say you have a, you need a crown or you have a root canal you need. So you go in. The office is really cool, decorated. The music is great. Everybody's super friendly. You go back and get in the dental chair, and you're looking around. You don't see any diplomas on the wall. And you say, hey, you know, I'm interested. Where'd you go to dental school? You know,

I really didn't go to dental school, but like my whole life I've been interested in teeth and I've read a bunch of stuff on teeth and you know, twice a year I go to a conference about teeth. So open up. Yeah. We wouldn't do that. I've got years of lived experience of having teeth. So I, you know. Right. So, you know, I guess the question is, do we care more about our teeth than we do our souls? I've used a similar list. I still don't know how.

Yeah, that's good. And for me, you know, people ask me, do I need a degree to be an effective pastor? And I say, you know what? I'm not going to say every single pastor, if you don't have a degree, there's financial and socioeconomic situations. There's FF Bruce never had a PhD. I mean, yeah. There's always going to be exceptions and all these things. But I mean, if you have the opportunity, like just simply sitting in your room and reading a bunch of books, still, no matter how many books you read, that still is different than being in an environment where somebody smarter than you is saying, turn in this 25 page paper arguing for your point. And when it's written poorly, argued poorly, he's going to shred it. When you're in a classroom conversation and there's different viewpoints,

and if you say something stupid, somebody is going to challenge you, that communal setting. So the assessment piece and the communal environment, those are two significant parts of education that typically a degree program is going to give you that. And no matter how awesome the free online stuff is there, and again, I'm just blown away at how amazing those opportunities are. Typically, they can't provide that kind of rigorous assessment piece from somebody who's smarter than you

and the communal environment. Would you agree with those kind of two, the assessment and community? I would. And to be honest, generally speaking, in free online education, there's a very high dropout rate. Really? So you may have, yes, significant. I don't know about Dr. Mounce's courses.

But the point is, a lot of us need the accountability of having invested and then being taken through with that investment and seeing through on that investment in order to gain the most that we can from a course. It's pretty easy if you're doing a free course or auditing a course to say, I don't feel like going today. Yeah. But if you're invested in it and you understand that not going today is going to have negative consequences on your experience and then on your assessments, then you're more likely to finish and gain the most from it. At least a lot of people are that way. understanding why we wouldn't constantly be seeking out new understandings, new learnings.

I grew up, like my dad didn't, my dad's dad, for example, he didn't go to school because he couldn't get to a school. So with school available, with learning available, as a believing community, we ought to be eagerly pursuing whatever options are out there for us. And you mentioned something kind of a passing that in the wake of the pandemic, with the whole issue of fake facts and fake news, and this isn't a real expert. This is the expert. I think there is. Do you think like a more renewed interest in who is the actual expert and having a degree does – just because you have the degree doesn't mean you're an expert. But if somebody claimed to be an expert without the degree, it does more in the last few years raise a level of suspicion it seems like or so that in the Christian... Yeah. Have you seen that increase more recently? Yeah, I mean, I think the challenge, Preston, is like in most of our society and in evangelicalism, we have this

very stark divide among those who look at experts and say, they're untrustworthy. They have an agenda, so I'm going to pick up something from an unreliable, un pick up something from an unreliable uneducated source or an unreliable source and that makes sense to me so i'm going to latch onto that and then those who are saying i'm going to listen to what the experts say i don't

understand everything about this virus and i'm not an epidemiologist i don't know how this is so i'm going to follow those who have given their lives to the study of viruses and how viruses spread. I'm surprised and intrigued and disappointed all at the same time that evangelicals remain one of the largest blocks of people with one of the highest percentages of people who don't trust expertise in an area like the pandemic. Yeah. You should have, you should have, what if you created a degree several years ago in pastoral epidemiology? You guys would have been, because every pastor was, was forced to be an armchair epidemiologist,

you know, and yeah, missed the boat on that one. All right. I'm not sure we can make that degree program financially sustainable. Let's just start with that. Okay, so. We don't have to be epidemiologists. We do live in a society with amazingly advanced understanding of all of the factors that went into the medical response to the pandemic and the social response. So I just, I think as a movement, we need to kind of step back, take a good hard look at how we divided around our response to that expertise and ask those deeper questions.

What's undergirding that? What's driving that suspicion related to expertise? The same would be true with climate change, right? We divide around, can we trust those climate scientists? Are they telling the truth? And my way of understanding it is because when a matter is politicized, right, when it gets aligned in a partisan political way, then after it's politicized, it's trivialized, tribalized, and weaponized. And as a result, it's impossible almost to see people

move out of that tribe that they've been put in or that they've chosen to be a part of and then weaponizing their position against those who take a different view. And that's not the way we're called to live as the people of God. community is just as divided, just as polarized, just as engaged in that tribal function of division and suspicion as the broader society. Breaks my heart. That's why there's so much value in what you said early on about, as a faculty, if you can model collegiality across important convictions, you know, that modeling that, and that's just almost like a sub, it's just, that creates an environmental air that people are going to breathe for two,

three, four, five years, however long, you know, and that the value on that it's just, it's so much higher than I think you could even realize. Cause I've been in environments where it's not that, where the kind of toxic partisan tribalistic, they're the enemy kind of, you breathe that air for a while and you just, it just seeps into your bones, you know? And it's, you end up destroying lives and families and churches and... That's pretty true. That's why fundamentalism is as much a value set as it is a set of beliefs.

That's why fundamentalism is as much a value set as it is a set of beliefs. And the high values in fundamentalism are that sense of control, right? So I want to make sure everything's certain. Everything's buttoned down. Everybody's thinking the same way. I want to conserve and control. up that value system, then you're really not interested in learning how other people outside that controlled environment think. Boy, that creates significant division in the body. All right. So if you're going to look ahead, let's just say 10 years with so many changes and differences, and you were just kind of coming up from there from the pandemic. And

in 10 years, your humble prediction, what are going to be some maybe differences in education that you foresee? Do you think Christian education, both online and on campus, will both be going down? Do you see a renewed interest? Do you see different models of education that are kind of being explored right now that will be kind of really blossoming in 10 years from now? Yeah. You know, I think that from an internal perspective, I would say those programs that are understanding what are the learning needs, what are the true relevancies that we have to pursue in our programming and then creating programming

around those relevancies. So let me give you an example. In my own theological training, I had a semester that included theological anthropology. Not once did we talk about racism. Wow. Not once, right? So if we're going to teach theological anthropology and not talk about the reality of racism and the reality of power structures and the way we live out power and distance, then I don't think we're going to be providing a theological education that's relevant to the questions that are being asked. Same would be true with sexuality. Sure. In theological anthropology, what role does sexuality play in our instruction? You know, back in some schools, we're still fighting over the tripartite versus the bipartite model of humanity. Right? How trivial is that?

So creating those relevancies, understanding them, and creating programming that answers the questions that the world is asking us. Yeah. It's critical for programs moving forward. And then I would say that the second thing that has to be a part of those schools that are going to continue to thrive is back to that accessibility question. Okay. Can we make programming available? Okay. either being taken into a merger or schools simply closing their doors. So I think we'll continue to see some of the schools reach those thresholds where they can't thrive,

and they'll eventually close. So I'm not going to say there are going to be fewer schools, because what really interests me is I think we had 11 schools close of an evangelical nature in the last couple years, and 15 new schools got started. So there are a lot of folks who are out there saying, you guys aren't doing it right, so we're going to do it right. So I see dynamism. We'll see new schools, new models emerge, while schools that really haven't made the changes they need to make will fall away. really haven't made the changes they need to make will fall away. What I think is more important, however, is will evangelicalism as a movement say we need better educated clergy?

Yeah. The answer to that question is no, then none of us will be able to truly fulfill that broader mission that we have in mind. So, yeah, I didn't think I was going to ask this because this has been, well, a little background. I mean, I've been on the accreditation side. I know curriculum is you have to meet certain criteria. And there's so much that goes on behind the scenes to even come up with. Here's a curriculum for you to get your MDiv, MA, whatever. But I, yeah, along the lines of what you said,

let's just say an MDiv is 98 credit hours. Is it still something like that? Or it depends on the, I think mine is 98. Yeah. Ours is 78. Oh, 70. Okay. Well, let's just say 78. In this day and age, you know, they're probably taking languages, Old Testament survey, New Testament survey, how to interpret the Bible, all obviously foundational and important. What's preventing, and I guess I can just ask you directly, you can make a really good case that of 78 credit hours, six of those should be devoted to mandatory training on sexuality and gender. Another six on race, racism. Not as a month-long portion of one optional ethics class. Like, I mean, every pastor is, these are front and center on their desk. Nobody's asking about tripartite stuff. Nobody's really,

few people are asking about eschological systems or all that. I don't want to, to me, I'm a theologian. All of it's important. I think it should be a 200 credit hour degree, you know, but man, it just, why aren't schools making this just as essential as something like an Old Testament survey, that you're not going to leave this school unless you've had a semester and a half of Greek, or a year and a half of Greek, and a year and a half in ethical theological training in sexual and gender, because these are the emails you're going to get Monday through Friday the second you leave this place. And I know it's kind of idealistic, and I know it's the world I live in, but I'm like, what are your thoughts on

you know, I'll say it this way. Academic institutions are famous for moving at glacial speed. So, and, and part of the, part of the challenge Preston is that, uh, the curricular content tends to be driven by the disciplines, the academic disciplines. And so historically, what we just discussed hasn't been a part of that arena of topics in an academic discipline. So at the institutional level, then each school and with administration and faculty working together can begin to bring about a broadening of what is the content then that's truly relevant. Faculty control the curricula. So we work with them. It takes nudging.

It takes urging. It takes a lot of conversations to bring about that change. And, again, it's not a matter of what's important and what's not important. It's a matter of what's important and what's not important. It's a matter of what's important, what's really important. It's elevating those questions where folks are actually living. So I do think we're making progress. I don't think you can always measure progress about the way a school addresses a topic by the number of credit hours devoted to you know whatever is in the timeline I think what we're asking for is do the learning outcomes in a number of classes address these kinds of questions so I would add

climate to that list I think that right also has to be a part and let's just say stewardship of creation so when we think about how we create nomenclature around courses, that's where the traditions kick in really strong. And for some students, they need to see those traditional markers. But when we ask about learning outcomes, content, reading lists, what are students actually engaged in, we are seeing breadth and movement in those rooms that we talked about. I know, and I've been part of two curricula changes. I came into Cedarville University right after they had made significant changes. So I got kind of the aftermath and they talked about the hundreds of hours it took to, you know, and then at Eternity Bible

College, actually same thing, kind of in the middle of moving from a more traditional, like take theology one, theology two, theology three, theology four, to more of a biblical theology model to where students would basically spend the first three years combing through the scriptures twice. First year survey, second year combing through the Old Testament, third year combing through the New Testament. And we've put all our theology at the end in a more historical framework saying, here's historically how the church is reflected on that. I thought it was great. It was just very exegetically driven.

But those changes take, oh, it's to just say, hey, we should do a bunch of these classes on sexuality. I know that that on the outside looks like, let's just do that. And I know internally it's just not that simple, but, um, I would love to see, cause I mean, yeah, I mean, I, I want to run myself out of business. There's, you know, I do pastoral training on LGBT stuff and I can't, we can't meet the demands. And I'm like, well, you know, pastors sometimes they're asking some real basic questions. Like, well, you know, pastors sometimes are asking some real basic questions like, wait, you didn't learn that in seminary, you know? So I do long for the day when, you know, I can come alongside and, you know, obviously help the church, but to where there's training

kind of somehow built in here. But I mean, you guys do it through other avenues, you know, like you said, just because it may not be part of the curricula, there's other ways in which the seminary can help educate the students. Somebody asked me one time why is curriculum revision so difficult in higher ed? And my answer was

it's like telling people their kids are ugly. Nobody wants to do that. And the curricula is what the faculty have given birth to. So they own it. And that's great. We want that. And I would say here at Denver Seminary,

we completely revised our MDiv, chopped 20%, 25% out of it, and we did that in an academic year. It was a tough process. Everybody had to give something up. Everybody had to sacrifice in some way, had to admit that what we were doing wasn't going to work moving forward. And I want to applaud our faculty.

I see in them unusual collegiality and commitment to the whole, which I haven't seen in some other schools. Yeah and commitment to the whole, which I haven't seen in some other schools. Yeah, just to be frank, Joey teaches for you. He's my best friend. I'll ask him, it seems like you guys get along well,

but do you really? Give me the gossip. He would tell me. If he did say something negative, I obviously wouldn't bring it up. But I can say in all good faith, he's like, no, it really is. This environment is really remarkable. So that's a huge, that's not easy to accomplish.

Before I leave you, if somebody's, can you help disciple somebody who's trying to decide whether or which educational path they want to pursue? There's a lot of people listening that maybe pastors who want another degree or a degree or even just lay people that want actual quality. They want theological education. What are the questions they should be asking as they pick a path, a degree path, an institution? Help disciple us through that. Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks.

So I would begin by asking the person to do that self-assessment of their ministry and the way they approach ministry. Where are those felt needs that you have? And quite frankly, a lot of times in the midst of ministry, we can't even do that. We need another voice to help us say, here's where perhaps you need a little help, or here's where perhaps you could grow in certain arenas. So doing that assessment either individually or asking folks around you whom you trust to say, what do you think would be beneficial for me in learning and then i would look for that type of that type of program that type of environment that matches your values so for example if you

are hardcore you want everything to be absolutely definite everything down to the last minor doctrine we are not the place for you but if you're willing to enter into asking good hard questions and you're willing to hear from people who may disagree with you, then find a school that fits your values profile in the way you learn and in the way you do ministry. And then you get down to those basic questions of, is it accessible to me in terms of my lifestyle, in terms of my finances? In terms of my lifestyle, in terms of my finances, can I fit it into my busy life? Yeah. And then I would say, the last thing I would say is take a course or two.

Audit a course. It's very low commitment. You get a feel for the quality of education, get a feel for the culture, and see if this is what you would pursue. That's good. I am so energized by learning. I was just talking to my wife recently, and we're not that far away from perhaps pursuing a different path maybe. And I said, what I'd really like to do is go back and get a physics degree.

Right? She looked at the cross-eyed like that's not really where we are right so but that's i just am terminally curious there's hardly anything out there academically that i wouldn't say oh oh, I'd love to do that, or I'd love to do that. So I want to encourage folks who are listening, develop that curiosity gene, develop that impulse to say, I don't know all that I would like to know. Where can I step into the next learning experience? And if it's a degree program, if you want that environment that is not hard and buttoned down, then check us out. I think we'd be a good place for you. Terminally curious. Did you coin that phrase? I love that phrase. I don't know. You know how phrases go. You may have read it and you don't know where you're

reading it. So I don't know where I got it'm gonna i'm gonna use it and it never made sense to me well i guess it used to but doesn't anymore and people are like no i want to go to a school that agrees with everything i i already believe in it's like wait wait so you're gonna pay money to have people tell you what you already know why that doesn't make sense to me. Like, no, I need them to line up with where I'm at, assumes that I already have the truth. It's like, why would you pay money to just say people tell you what you already are saying? Like that just doesn't, but people think that way. That's, I used to think that way. I mean, it's a safe environment and they have the truth. That's right. I do think there is a fragility to our faith that we're not often willing to admit.

And so we're afraid if somebody asks us or we're asked to delve into questions that we can't see an answer right away, that our faith isn't strong enough to endure that. So I think there is an insecurity or perhaps a fragility of faith that we just need to be honest about. or perhaps a fragility of faith that we just need to be honest about. And then as we step into learning, recognize that true transformative learning for a time is disorienting. It requires us to step into questions that we don't want to ask and hear answers that we may not have wanted to hear and then help in a community of other learners and a professor to come to some understandings that you wouldn't have gotten to unless you were willing to step into that uncertainty. That's a good word. That's a good word. Well, Mark, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Talked to you for hours, but I'm going to get to talk to you at least at the time of this recording in a couple of weeks when I'm out at Denver Seminary. So, yeah.

Appreciate what you do, Preston, very much. Your voice matters a lot to the broader church and to us specifically. So thank you for staying in that role and what you're doing, because you're doing it beautifully. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Mark.

Take care. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm