Featured Dear Tracs,

I find myself in an awkward position. I not only will agree with Revmitchell, but will defend his statements.

This is very true. The Seminary I attended 40+ years ago was unaccredited (it has since been accredited, both TRACS and ATS. ATS is the "gold standard" of Seminary accreditation) and it was explained very well in a paper written by the President.

Accreditation required some things the school was not willing to do.

1. The school held a conviction that it should be under the authority of the local church, and therefore the President of the Seminary was also the Pastor of the church. At that time the existing accreditation agencies (this was prior to TRACS) demanded the President be full time and available to travel in order to raise funds for the endowment. The school would not agree to that.

2. The school wanted to reserve the right to have pastors teach pastorology and pastoral theology classes even if they lacked an accredited Th.M. (the minimal requirement at that time). (This proved to be prophetic in that in my last year they again were looking at accreditation and hired a man for the pastoral theology position who had a Ph.D. from an accredited University, but no pastoral experience at all. As a teacher he was a disaster. In three years he was gone.)

3. Accreditation requires a significant investment of time and money in the development of a strategic plan, an assessment plan, and written policies and procedures regarding accreditation. Libraries were required to have several books written from the point of view of other religions, which, of course, violates the Seminaries doctrinal position, and diverts resources from the schools mission.

4. Prior to TRACS all accreditation agencies were secular. Even ATS lacked Fundamentalist/Evangelical participation until fairly recently.

Here I can wholeheartedly agree. Why is the student pursuing a degree? What does he intend to use that degree to accomplish? If he is seeking status with the secular world an unaccredited degree will be fairly worthless. But if he is seeking recognition in his own denomination then a non-accredited but denominationally approved school can provide that recognition.

The seminary I attended was considered the "flagship" of the association I was part of. But it was unaccredited. But even while unaccredited it was still approved for student aid grants, Veterans Educational Assistance Program, and the G.I. Bill. It was also approved for educational visas issued by the US Secretary of State.

So, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. People choose their institutions of higher education for a multitude of reasons. And, contrary to popular opinion, one size does not fit all.

 

The problem, as I noted above, is it has taken two almost three generations for the Fundamental Baptist education system to recover from its battles with Modernism and Neo-Evangelicalism. This is especially true for a school like West Coast. California is not exactly part of the Bible Belt. So, we have to pretty much grow our own. TCassidy gave a good picture of the lay of the land.

 

So what, exactly, do you have against TRACS doing their evaluation? If WCBC is not up to the US DoE standard they will be denied accreditation. Are you against that?

Or is it that if they are found to meet the DoE criteria it will prove your bias against them is false?

 

So, if the teachers are not up to the standard they will be denied accreditation. What is wrong with that? And their standards are set by the accrediting agency but they must be approved by the DoE or the agency is not placed on the approved list.

 

What a dumb requirement!

So very true !

 

As I posted earlier you have to make some decisions and establish some goals before you can consider what school to attend and what degree to pursue.

Why are you pursuing a degree? What do you intend to use that degree to accomplish? And what degree will you pursue?

 

In that case I would recommend the first professional degree, the M.Div.

Then as time and finances allow you might consider working toward the second professional degree, the D.Min.

Going over to the research degree (Th.M. - Th.D.) would only be advisable if you plan to teach at the graduate or post graduate level.

However, in the "kill two birds with one stone" category many seminaries (including Dallas Theological Seminary) are offering a combined M.Div./Th.M. program which qualifies as prerequisite for both the D.Min. and Th.D.