Training Pastors to Think

Kevin Bauder argues in “Liberal Education” that colleges and seminaries should train pastors to think precisely, namely, to deploy “the skills of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.” Why?

A pastor’s main task is to do the work of the mind. His calling requires him to interpret texts and bring them to bear upon the issues of life. In other words, a pastor is constantly confronting ideas. He stands as a bridge between the ideas in the world of the Bible and the ideas with which his congregation is, or ought to be, wrestling. In short, a pastor’s main work is to think.

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