One of the most hilarious facts about DTS is the dire warnings of students who go off the deep end in their theological studies and leave seminary—perhaps as graduates—with no love left for Christ.
This sounds like it would not happen very frequently—especially in a culture that is adamantly opposed to any teaching that gets close to articulating modern apostasy among Christians—but apparently it does. In every class, and at every juncture, you will be bombarded with the sad narrative of So-And-So, whose name has been withheld in order to spare his family and friends the eternal shame. So-And-So came to seminary on fire for God, and couldn’t wait to study the deeper principles of the Word. But somehow, somewhere (probably from skipping too many chapels, you), So-And-So gave up on his passionate conviction. He became a purely intellectual automaton—a robot of theological knowledge. Too much theology killed off his faith.
[EDITORIAL NOTE: OF COURSE HE DIDN’T LOSE HIS SALVATION. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A TEMPORAL STATE OF MISERY IN WHICH HE EXISTS ON THE PERIPHERY OF GOD’S GRACE, BUT IS STILL TECHNICALLY IN IT. YOU MAY PUT DOWN YOUR STONES NOW.]
This tale of woe is ubiquitously repeated. It is such a grave danger that the current Spiritual Formation program was started, in part, as a countermeasure to this inexorable slide into spiritual irrelevance for the budding young Bible Scholar. It is the most consistently issued jeremiad on campus: there is a danger in gaining all this knowledge, so approach it fearfully, trembling at its greatness, wary of its danger, and with one foot still firmly planted in the Dobsonite-Young-Earth-Let’s-Ban-Halloween camp.
If all the oft-repeated stories are to be believed, we must conclude that there is a veritable hotbed of spiritually shallow young people matriculating into graduate theological study without much experience thinking outside their own church culture. Perhaps the young seminarian in question grew up in a house of believers, attended a reasonably well-populated middle-class, mostly white megachurch, and faithfully went to youth group every Wednesday night instead of doing bong hits. He went to outings at Six Flags, saw David Crowder live 624 times, knows every Chris Tomlin song by heart, and attended every one of the candle-lit, frank discussions on sex that he thought were edgy (but which all youth pastors for 40 years have done). He dutifully went off to Bible College, where he studied Greek for the first time but avoided any dangerous literature or art or paper-writing. He had late-night discussions with his roommate about the inherent fineness of the girls on the other side of campus. He dreamed of marrying a nice blond Christian girl who could sing and play piano and had a heart for missions. He felt God’s call to seminary. He applied. Of course he was accepted (his youth pastor was an alum), and now he’s here. And by his second year, much of the theological framework in which he had happily existed has been challenged. The world is not as he thought it was—and he’s about to have to enter it for the first time.
Of course this kid is disillusioned. The study of God’s Word is a bit more complex than Bob Jones University made it out to be, and all this exciting new knowledge is giving that Abeka culture a run for its money, in his mind. But the real, unspoken danger in this story is the fact that So-And-So is now thinking, instead of simply obeying. Up until this point, his spirituality was purely a function of his acquiescence to authority. Now that he’s thinking for himself, he’s kind of dangerous.
The stories are repeated, apparently, as a warning to not think too much. Or attend chapel more. Or be a functioning part of a Spiritual Formation group. But it would ultimately serve the Greater Purpose of Hilarity for So-And-So to come back to campus one day. Would he appear disoriented, wandering aimlessly around campus muttering entire phrases he memorized from Dr. Campbell’s dissertation? Would he remain seated in front of the foot-washing statue, staring into space? Would he try to attend class? Would he confusedly try to open his old mailbox? Would security be required to escort him from the campus? How would DTS change if So-And-So happened to amble onto the pristine Calvinist scenery from his sojourn out in the world? This, I suspect, would be a Hilarious Fact to itself.
