John Frame stirred the pot about how a seminary should train church leaders in “The Academic Captivity of Theology,” John Frame’s Selected Shorter Writings: Volume Two (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2015), 59–76. He follows up with a new essay: “What Seminaries Can Do Without,” in John Frame’s Selected Shorter Writings: Volume Three (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2016), 145–56. He provocatively elaborates on seven items he thinks seminaries can do without:
- as much Hebrew and Greek
- term papers
- exams
- academic degrees
- doctored faculty
- the culture of assessment
- accreditation itself
Here’s what he says about academic research papers (pp. 147–49):
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Term Papers
It is generally assumed that seminary students will be required to write a number of academic research papers in partial fulfillment of their degree requirements. When I was a student at Westminster Theological Seminary (1961–64), almost every course required at least one paper. Cornelius Van Til’s courses were the most demanding. He taught two apologetics courses to first-year students, and each of those courses required two academic research papers. [Note 4: When a student asked him how long each paper should be, he replied, “Oh, longer than anything you’ve ever written before.” The student consensus was that you could not hope for an “A” unless your paper was thirty-five pages or more.] So in the apologetics program alone, we wrote four term papers that first year. Other courses also required term papers in that year and following years, so that we probably wrote as many as fifteen for the whole curriculum.
I have the impression that fewer term papers are required today at Westminster and at other seminaries, such as Reformed Theological Seminary where I teach today. I have tended to require fewer papers than my own teachers did, but students still complain that there are too many. Evidently it is hard for academics to give up this practice. When I arrived at RTS, I determined to teach my first-year systematic theology course without any paper requirement at all. But a few years ago I got the word that the seminary was introducing a greater emphasis on the study of Islam, somewhat under pressure from our accreditation organizations. Part of that pressure was a requirement on me to ask the students in my first-year theology course not only to put up with two hours of lectures by me on Islam, but also to write a term paper on the subject. The term paper was necessary as what the accreditors called an artifact. That is, the students would have to write a paper to prove to the accreditors that we had actually taught them something about Islam.
As I have mentioned in other essays, the accreditation process tends to influence seminaries to assign more and more standard assessment devices, such as term papers, whereby the academic model is reinforced.
So my first suggestion in this article is that seminaries move in the opposite direction: having fewer term papers rather than more, so that the academic model can be weakened, not strengthened.
When seminary students scurry through the stacks of the library looking up sources to footnote in papers, they certainly make the seminary appear more respectable in the traditional academic way. But the real question is: does this activity do any good for the ministry of the church?
The Christian ministry requires knowledge, skills, and character, as Scripture describes in passages such as 1 Timothy 3:1–7. How does the writing of term papers contribute to these qualifications? I would not claim that it contributes nothing. Certainly the experience of writing a term paper can lead a student to some useful bits of knowledge and insight. And the sheer pursuit of a deadline can help the student to develop discipline.
But the main purpose of term papers is to prepare students for academic careers, not ministerial ones. Term papers prepare students to write publishable research projects, which will add to their value as university or college professors. This kind of research is the dwelling place of academics, but it is only an occasional stop for ministers. Preaching pastors must, of course, research the texts on which they preach, together with historical backgrounds and illustrations. But that need not be done in the style of formal research, and many church workers without regular preaching assignments have no need to do this sort of research at all. So of all the pastors whom I have known well in my more than seventy years in the church, I cannot remember one who, after he graduated from seminary, even wrote an academic research paper, unless, of course, he entered a postseminary degree program.
I do think it is good for a seminarian to have one or two experiences of researching and writing a paper. Seminary graduates need to understand how academic knowledge today is developed among professional scholars—if only so that they will be less in awe of the claims of the academic establishment. And I think it is good for students to learn how to research information in less formal ways, to facilitate their communication in sermons, counseling, and evangelism. But I do not think that every student needs to write a term paper—or two!—in every seminary course.
Drop paper assignments, then, and replace them with training in other skills—such as evangelism—that have a legitimate purpose in ministry.
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I typically require one academic research paper for the exegesis and theology courses I teach graduate students. What I require is relatively short—usually only 3,500–5,000 words.
I shared Frame’s opinion with a few of my classes this past semester and asked them if they would prefer I give students the option writing either an academic research paper or, say, two sermons. A few were sympathetic with Frame, but most disagreed because they value how they benefit by researching and writing a paper. It trains them to think deeply, develop a personal position on controversial topics (e.g., divorce and remarriage), engage arguments fairly, and communicate concisely and clearly.
Frame hasn’t convinced me to stop assigning academic research papers, but I’ll keep thinking about it. I appreciate his desire for seminaries to equip church leaders as effectively as possible.
Related:
Strange advice. Partly because Frame assumes that the value of writing term papers is preparing you to publish one day–talk about thinking like an academic!–but mostly because writing an academic paper encourages students to learn skills that are absolutely essential to being a practical theologian in the church. To mention just a few such, writing a paper requires the student to assemble pertinent sources representing the major points of view on a topic. Then the student must digest the sources well enough to offer detailed analysis that triangulates the best features of each point of view while staking out their own position on the topic. In the act of writing those thoughts down, the student learns how to clearly and convincingly make an argument to a non-captive audience.
From my own experience, I expect between one in ten and one in five students to both cognitively process and write at a high level by the time they finish their undergraduate degree. (Higher rates among liberal art degree holders, of course. They get more practice at it.) If seminary students don’t learn those skills before assuming a pastorate, they likely never will.
So what? Who needs fancy book learning? Every pastor should aspire to the skills I’ve mentioned. Otherwise the Church will end up with ministers who unthinkingly parrot in their sermons whatever their favorite commentary series says, who rely purely on the wisdom of the herd when it comes to the theological questions of the day, who preach to the choir rather than the unconvinced, and so on and so forth. Not every minister needs to be an academic, but every good minister needs to develop their own life of the mind.
Andy,
Reading Frame is never stale. He frequently challenges the reader to view things from a different perspective. Nevertheless, I am convinced writing solidifies thought. In fact, the problem of research papers I see is different than the one Frame addresses. I would actually encourage more research papers.
In my seminary education, I wrote a number of long research papers (15-20 pages) on very specific issues. In the following years I recognized a wide landscape of topics that I never had opportunity to solidify my thoughts on through writing. In other words, the long research topic allowed me to wade deeply in a particular topic, but it took all of my time away from other worthy topics of consideration.
My attempt at a solution has been to require more papers. But these papers are not the same as “research” papers, though they do require research. Instead of devoting 12,000 words to a topic, I ask the students to write 8 papers of ~1,000 words each. I select the potential topics, and the students select from among those topics. I also require three resources for each topic, but I provide the best resources for that particular topic (though the student is free to use others if he desires).
Perhaps this approach swings things too much toward the other extreme (shallowness in all topics), but I doubt it. In my estimation, a longer research paper requiring eight sources will deeply engage only three of the sources. And while short papers might seem “easy,” my students have reported the opposite. Short papers require the student to condense and solidify his thoughts to prove his thesis. As Pascal once said, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”
This approach is not best for every class, but I have found it useful in classes with a wide scope of content. And if student responses are any measure of value, I have found it a success.
I also disagree with what Dr. Frame is saying. I still remember many of the topics I wrote on far better than things I learned for tests or in lectures. For example, the skills learned in the exegetical papers I wrote have helped me every day of my ministry. I literally felt that certain papers stretched me and changed me, helping me become a better interpreter of Scripture.
Perhaps the problem is with some of the arcane topics that people write on in seminary. Professors should encourage students to write on topics that have lasting value, not just on the latest academic topic of interest to certain specialists in a field far-removed from the church.
I’d say that term papers were probably the most helpful assignments that I had in seminary. I think Paul and Jonathan hit on the reasons. Writing sermons were the least helpful assignments because they were artificial. Sermons written for class were not sermons that could be preached. It would have been better to require the student to preach a sermon on a topic related to the class and turn in a recording.
I also had some non-term paper writing assignments that I found helpful. For instance, Dr. Minnick had us do a project where we noted an interpretive problem, listed and described the proposed solutions in the literature, and then rendered our verdict on the best solution(s) with an explanation of why. We had to fit this on a single page. That’s the kind of exercise that a pastor should probably do when he hits a difficult text.
Bell’s exposition classes would have a variety of projects that hit all the key portions of a book. The variety of projects were developing different skills. I was initially disappointed with lack of lectures (much of the class time involved project management), but those projects were gold because at the end of class I felt as though I had grasped the content of the book and developed new skills.
This excerpt from Shorter Writings makes me wonder, if Westminster’s academic requirements had been less rigorous, would we even be reading anything from John Frame?
I think Frame is correct about too many papers. At DBTS we eliminated all first-year research papers except the one in a class I taught: Research and Writing. Then students picked up more papers in the following years.
This is certainly thought-provoking, so thanks!
I’m inclined to disagree with Frame here, although I do need to think about his argument for a little longer.
I too found my research assignments to be the most valuable experiences and artifacts from my seminary education. I am still not an academic, nor have I published a single thing in a formal academic setting. Even if I never get a PhD or ever write anything that is peer-reviewed, my ability to think, speak, and write is almost entirely due to those research assignments that I had to produce.
The most helpful seminary class I took basically involved two things: reading Isaiah (six times that semester) and writing papers (there were six or eight I think). Every week a reading or a paper was due. It was hard for me, but it was also one of the most useful classes ever since. I can look back and see not only exactly what I learned, but also exactly what I didn’t know. I may not ever go back and improve those papers in light of the deficiencies that I can see now, but at least I have a way to see where I was at that point in my life. I was in the middle of being shaped as a thinker, writer, and exegete. I still haven’t arrived, but the papers helped me move forward by giving my professor the chance to tell me where I was wrong or headed down the wrong path.
Perhaps the two could be merged to complement each other. For example, in (many) classes, the student prepares a well researched, formal academic paper which shows solid exegesis, logic, and content. Then the student prepares a sermon from the paper. This ensures the content is excellent but gets us out of our ivory towers and down to people in the pews. It would help the pastor to be the theologian he is supposed to be. This is how many DMin studies are done. It may not work well for all classes, but I am convinced the Hebrew, Greek, Systematic Theology, Historical Theology papers could be the basis for excellent sermons. It would help the seminarians to see the work they are regularly doing in class will impact the church.
Thank you for posting this, it shows why I love John Frame, he’s never boring! While I agree with the above commenters, that research papers have value in helping one form their thought, develop argument and critical thinking skills, as well as engage in the task of theology, I think Frame has a point that we ought not overlook – the pastoral calling is not equivalent to an academic one!
I’d suggest that Frame’s suggestion may be applied by changing the task of the research paper to a defensible position paper. One of the things we do in the internship in our church is have the young men write position papers on the topic under study – I think the benefit would only be amplified if they had to publicly defend it to their peers.
In my mind, this is closer to the pastoral calling and would help seminaries better equip their students for their actual roles – just because a man can write a 5,000 word, adequately foot-noted paper does not mean he’s able to publicly defend a biblical position succinctly, winsomely, and accurately. That is exactly what he’ll be asked to do regularly. And if you think that your congregation will read your footnoted research papers, well I think that proves Frame’s point!
Hi Steve, that’s an interesting idea about position papers as a class assignment. Thanks for sharing it!
I’m currently a student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and have noticed that many classes have multiple tracks for written assignments. The scholar track might require a formal paper, the pastor track might require a sermon outline or manuscript, and the teacher track might require a lesson plan on the subject matter. Students can switch between tracks on any given assignment. I think this is a wise approach. If someone is in seminary, they should have already demonstrated the academic competence to write a paper, so that requirement in and of itself should not be burdensome. At the same time, some papers can be so much busywork (for the sake of creating artifacts?), and I love the idea that a student could pick the track that works best for them, whether it’s for time considerations or (hopefully) usefulness in their own ministry context. I appreciate the research that goes into a paper and have often learned most in the classes where I got to choose an area to research (I trace my love for Tyndale and Spurgeon to papers researched in British history as an undergrad), but I think those training for pastoral ministry might be better served by thinking outside the academic box. Those training specifically for careers in scholarship, of course, could benefit from the option to do a paper for most every class. The triple track options are a good way to serve multiple backgrounds of students for the ministries where they are called.
I have found lots of value in having written academic research papers. So I am in favor of some of them. However, being out of seminary for a bit, and looking back on how it prepared me, especially in relation to being an author, here are some of my thoughts.
I think professors should assign their students more white papers, sermons, and church newsletter-type things rather than research papers.
The difference is that these are things are things you can literally use in your ministry. You can literally give them to people as a statement of your view, post it on your church website if your church would like to have a resource on the topic from its staff, and so forth. To enter into ministry with a bunch of these ready to go is a huge asset.
White papers, sermons, and newsletter-type things are also the type of things you will have to keep producing throughout your ministry. So by having to do more of those in seminary, you will be learning this important skill that you will likely need much more than the skill of writing academic papers.
I think sometimes it might be assumed that if you can write a research paper, then you can write these seemingly less intensive resources.
But that is not necessarily true. Writing for a general Christian audience is a very different skill than writing for an academic audience. You need to know how to connect with the reader and establish common ground in a non-academic way. You also need to have to include more stories, and you need to know how to do that without being cliche or turning them into fluff.
I didn’t learn anything about that in seminary. It is almost assumed that it comes automatically to people if they have the content down. But it doesn’t. This is a specific skill that needs to be taught just as much as the content.
So having more writing assignments that actually consist of doing this–that is, writing for a church or general audience that will actually use the resource, rather than assignments that mostly consist of showing mastery of the content–would put students miles ahead when they do get to their churches and other ministries.
They would be able to work faster and with more joy (at least in my opinion), and if they know how to use their time well (something that would also be good to teach in seminary), they could return some of that extra time to their families.