What They Do Not Teach You at Harvard Divinity School

Introduction

I remember opening my acceptance letter from Harvard Divinity School and yelling out the college dorm window, “I got accepted at Harvard! I got accepted at Harvard! I got accepted at Harvard!” I was so excited and surprised to be accepted at one of the most prestigious schools in the world. I felt like a little kid opening a gift on Christmas morning. What an honor and rare privilege! I was one of the few African American ministers to pursue a master of divinity degree at Harvard.

It's hard to believe that more than thirty-five years have passed since I received my acceptance letter, and retirement is right around the corner. Time really flies, and the swift passage of time has made me more reflective.

I can remember walking through Harvard Yard, going to Memorial Church, and hearing the late, great Plummer Professor Peter Gomes. He was a short, stout African American man wearing round-rim glasses, a clerical collar, a doctoral hood, and a crimson robe. He spoke with an English accent, captivating an all-White congregation of professors and students with his erudition and illustrations.

I recall going to Divinity Hall and listening to prolific professors such as Harvey Cox, Richard Niebuhr, Krister Stendhal, Preston Williams, and many others. I was in awe of these theological giants.

The classrooms were filled with Christians, Muslims, Jews, Universalists, Buddhists, humanists, agnostics, and social prophets, who boldly and uncompromisingly expressed their faith and feelings, which challenged and broadened my narrow, sectarian, and fundamentalist perspective.

Harvard taught us cultural and religious diversity and that we must learn to appreciate our differences. We can listen nonjudgmentally, maintain our core beliefs, and respect the beliefs of others. Despite our differences, we are unified in our humanity and divinity. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin is right. “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” It is our innate divinity that binds us.

I learned a lot about diversity at Harvard; however, there were some things they didn’t teach. I learned how to think theologically but not how to do practical theology. I knew who Karl Barth, St. Augustine, Rudolph Bultmann, and Thomas Aquinas were, but I didn’t know the homeless men who slept on the streets of Harvard Square.

I read most of the books by liberation theologians like James Cone, Gutierrez, Cornell West, and others but didn’t know how to do justice, love, and mercy—and how to walk humbly with thy God.
I received a diploma from one of the most prestigious seminaries in the country, but I still didn’t know how to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give water to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, comfort the dying, minister to troubled youth, or visit the sick and incarcerated.

I was totally unprepared to do pastoral ministry, especially for the least, lost, and left out. I was educated in church history, theology, soteriology, and ecclesiology but not trained in the how-tos of the ministry.
Consequently, I have been in pastoral ministry since 1984, and it has been a real learning process. Part of the problem was that I had to learn how to do ministry the hard way, through trial and error. The school of hard knocks, seasoned pastors, faithful members, and especially the marginalized taught me the how-tos of ministry.

When I served as an academic dean, I discovered that many seminaries and divinity schools were struggling to recruit new students. Student enrollment is down significantly at most mainline seminaries.
Unfortunately, many seminaries are out of touch with the local church and the disadvantaged, and they don’t offer enough practical ministry courses for their students and self-help workshops for the community.

Outdated curriculum, esoteric teaching, a lack of a viable relationship with the surrounding community, and the astronomically high cost of a theological degree are emptying many American seminaries.

Seminaries offer classes in church history, the New Testament, the Old Testament, ecclesiology, liberation theology, homiletics, Greek, Hebrew, Christology, pastoral care, epistemology, and soteriology, but they don’t offer enough classes or workshops that will equip pastors to care for the underprivileged. Much of what is taught on a seminary level is completely out of touch with the destitute and downtrodden.

Additionally, graduate theological degrees are so expensive that they aren’t affordable for most people. Consequently, there has been a major decrease in enrollment for the master of divinity degree, which is the mainline denominations’ ordination requirement. The master of divinity degree has become an expensive, elitist degree and an onerous ecclesiastical requirement that has very little relevance for today’s pastor and minister.

I think it is a sin and a scandal that some seminaries are ripping off struggling students; indoctrinating them with an archaic, racially insensitive curriculum; and not equipping them to do ministry, especially to the poor and needy. Men and women graduate with degrees that look good but aren’t any good for the people they serve, especially the less fortunate.

It's no wonder that there is so much religious hypocrisy in America. Too many seminaries are producing what one wise Harvard Divinity School professor called “Contemporary Scribes and Pharisees.” Like the scribes and Pharisees of Jesus’s day, we know the law; however, we don’t know how to do justice, preach good news to the poor, and set the captives free.

Many graduates are steeped in theological knowledge but shallow in their passion for justice. We can speak fluent Greek but are unable to communicate the gospel to the homeless and troubled youth. We can do exegesis and discover the hermeneutics of a pericope, but we are unable to discern the spiritual, emotional needs and meaning of the sick, aging, and dying. We can articulate deep theological and philosophical ideas but are appallingly silent when it comes to speaking truth to power.