Uh the time has come (the Walrus said), to talk of other things.
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings.
And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings.
The time has come to discuss the state of the theological education in the former Soviet Union countries. However popular Russian proverb recommends refraining from the attempts to instruct a scholar. Teaching those who teach how to teach the scholars is even less gratifying labor. The best we can do is to share a couple of stories and analogies.
Once we have purchased a church property. An annex with a leaking roof was a part of it. We decided to turn the annex into the Sunday school classes. So we had to make a new roof. However as soon as we took the old roof off, the walls collapsed - it turned out that the roof was holding the whole structure together. It is obvious that without the good roof the structure has no use, however first of all it has to stand on a firm foundation.
Academic criteria and doctrinal statements are the roof of theological education. It would be impossible without it - we would constantly have to fight the leak of low standards and draughts of false teachings otherwise. However, if the building has no foundation and the roof is the only thing that holds it together, it is most likely to collapse.
For good example of proper education building, let us consider the theological education in Russia before the 'historical materialism'. Let us make a glance of Moscow Theological Academy year 1880-1881 curricular [1]. While the graduates of the seminaries were parochial parsons mostly, the theological academy was preparing the theologians. People who enrolled there were already mature graduates of the seminaries usually. They were already experienced in working in parochial and knew all about the counseling.
The curricular required three years of studying. What did the future theologians study? During all three years they studied the history: Bible history, ancient church history, ancient civil history, modern civil history, modern church history, Byzantium church history, Russian church history, Russian civil history, history of philosophy. Also during all three years they studied the languages: Russian, German, French, English, Hebrew, Greek and Latin.
What comes to theological disciplines, like Dogmatic and Moral Theology, they were taught only senior year. Second year was spent learning General and Comparative Theology. The only theological discipline that was taught, at that almost every day, on the first year was the Natural Science Apologetics. That is how the structure of Theological education was built. The foundation of worldview was laid during the freshman year. During the sophomore year the walls of Biblical concepts application to life were built on the foundation. And only the senior year the roof, the dogmatic expression of our worldview, was set.
Unfortunately, our modern education trains mostly the roofers: so and so is what we believe and whoever does not believe the same - anathema. No foundation. That is why we have problems with construction.
Many have read the wonderful book [2], or at least watched the movie End of The Spear by Steve Saint. It tells about the pilot missionaries who tried to make a contact with Waodani tribes in the depth of Ecuadorian Amazon, but they all were brutally killed. Then the widows of the missionaries took their children and moved into the tribe. Because of the women's heroic act the people of Waodani accepted the Christianity.
The other book by Saint, The Great Omission, is not as well known as the first one. It tells how the author came back to the tribe forty years later and found the church building fall to disrepair. As later appeared, Waodani did not abandon their faith and still worship Christ as their Lord. They simply did not know what to do with the church build for them by foreigners. At first Waodani built their own churches. Later on some well-intended westerners came and build the church building for them. When the guests left, Waodani had no a clue what to do with the building. The people "didn't know who it belonged to and so didn't have "permission" to fix it" [3].
Regretfully, the same thing happened with some our theological schools. The local churches haven't come yet to the understanding of the need for academic theological education. They had taken a part in establishing those schools in various ways, but they don't know neither why the schools were established, nor what they are needed for or where the students will go after graduation. Take a look at the changes in the student body through the past ten-fifteen years. While in the beginning the students were mostly individual enthusiasts who knew why they personally need the theological education and enrolled to study, today they are mostly young people who hardly understand why they enrolled (usually - to meet the expectations of their parent) and what they will do after. There is nothing wrong in both cases. The sad thing is that both then and now the decision is made either by the students themselves or by their parents. Local church has nothing to do with it what so ever. It does not expect the graduates back, and does not plan to support them in the ministry. The local church just does not need them, and without partnership with local churches the theological schools have no future.
Unfortunately the local churches also do not realize that they have no future without theological education. As a result neither our schools view themselves as a part of church, nor the local church sees the need in the schools. At that the absence of worldview foundation in the theological education intensifies the crisis. In the first chapter of Romans the apostle says that the gentiles reject God the Creator and, therefore, have no worldview foundation are "without excuse" (Rom 1:20; Greek - anapologetos - without the consistent ground for one's position). When theological schools provide the churches with graduates who have not received the foundation during their education, the churches become anapologetos, "without excuse". The graduates also are not too eager to bring the Good News to the world, for they are afraid of the questions that they have no answers to, the questions that bother the world. They only know the answers to the questions that the world was interested in a hundred years ago, when society's Christian worldview foundation was not completely destroyed and the work of the roofer was needed the most. Therefore today the church keeps itself busy answering the questions nobody asks.
The church is still concerned with losing its saltiness, however being turned into the 'Christian ghetto' saltshakers it is no longer the salt to the world. That is the reason also for the lack of unity between the churches. "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalms 11:3). Every group of the roofer is ready to sacrifice their life for their type of the roof, while there is still no common foundation.
In this case, what do the theological education in the former Soviet Union becoming? The very word 'education' in Russian (obrazovanie) literally means 'forming the image.' The general idea of the Greek education system was based on the Socrates principle 'to form' is 'to in-form': you know what is right - you do what is right. However Jesus has revealed an absolutely new, supernatural dimension of discipleship, where 'to form' means 'to "trans-form". The image transformation is the quintessence of theological education.
Spiritual education is the transformation, partaking in the administration of God's grace. Paul writes: "we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Corinthians 3:18); "be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). As it has been noticed before [4], the apostle uses a very interesting word, metamorfoso, for that transformation by the renewal of the mind. In ancient Greek literature (Ovid, Apuleus) means abrupt supernatural transformation of one object into other one in the fairytales. As for the real world, it relates to the only one phenomenon - metamorphosis, transformation of the caterpillar into a butterfly.
Most of our students are spiritual caterpillars. They are no longer the earth worms, but the new creations in Christ, however not yet the butterflies. The only goal of the caterpillar is to eat - satiate themselves with the Word of God, prayer, Holy Spirit, the fellowship within the body of believers, etc. This is what the theological education serves for. But unless the caterpillar gets satiated, unless it reaches the 'critical mass' it will not become a butterfly. While we are trying to motivate the caterpillars to fly, we forget to tell them about the supernatural element of the miracle, making it simply technical. While caterpillars hop, trying to take off, we select those who hop the highest and call them 'the leaders'. Then we arrange various leadership trainings for the caterpillars that hop the highest. However as a result we only get the well hopping caterpillars. They neither have enough time to become the butterflies nor can they jump higher anymore. In practice it becomes a catastrophe for them: they get tired, disappointed, the ministry becomes meaningless for them, their faith gets shipwrecked. And we contribute to that not laying the worldview foundation in the theological education.
The primary goal of theological schools is to help the process of building in students the image of Christ. However if the foundation of life in Christ is not laid, there is no transformation, and all we do is 'spiritual Gastarbeiters' advanced training. Gastarbeiter (Germ. - guest worker) is someone who comes from one country to another for earnings. It's either they don't pay well in their own country or there are some problems with employment there. Often people with still worldly mindset come to our schools (not only to study but sometimes to teach). On our side we start to teach them how to serve more effectively. And while still being a part of the world, the graduates gladly go to work for the sake of Kingdom from 8 am to 5 pm with a lunch break. Either because the job is well paid or because not having some skills they can't find the job in the world. Anyway the Gastarbeiters only work for themselves - they do not contribute to the Kingdom that they work for. As a result we deal with lack of enthusiasm: no one is ready to sacrifice their time, money, success, no one is ready to waive anything for the sake of biblical principles. The foundation has not been laid yet. Later on there come the labour discipline problems: if some persons do not know how to work in general, they will not be effective in the ministry either regardless of the 'spiritual' excuses provided.
Thus, speaking of fundamental issues of theological education in the former Soviet Union countries, we have to remember that the academic standards are important but not exclusive. We definitely do need the good roof (academic standards, doctrinal statements), but we also need the strong walls - the partnership with local churches. The local churches should know about the theological schools not only from our commercial prospects, but experience the theological school as a part of the Church. It often happens that the pastors are so preoccupied with their ministry that they don't even have time to think whether they need us or not, while we are so consumes with academic process that we don't even interact with the Church. However theological school with no connection with the local churches is meaningless.
But at this point, the solid worldview foundation is what we need the most. The worldview issues might seem secondary, especially today, when we have catch the train of the Bologna process and every new idea has to be served only with 'Bologna sauce.' Though we should remember that the lack of worldview aspect in the Western theological programs is what makes the western countries Church smaller or even brings it to the fade out. While the roof remains strong the foundation gets eaten down by the worms of humanism, secularism, materialism, individualism, academic pride, etc. The great time is ahead of us. The theological education in the former Soviet Union is only approaching the teen age, its Bar-Mitzvah. We still have the opportunity to lay the worldview foundation and sill fit into the international system of education that has been developing over the hundreds of years at the one hand, and at the other hand take root in the national local churches. At this point our main goal is to form the strong foundation of biblical worldview, which our students could bring to the churches, while churches will pass it on to all the believers for the sake of God's Kingdom.
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