Thursday, September 06, 2007

A Decision Has Been Made

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth my wife and I have decided that it would be best for me to go to Erskine Theological Seminary to pursue a Th.M. Lots of things went into making this decision including:

Theology (Erskine is committed to the Reformed Faith, Presbyterian Polity, and Infallibility)

Location (Wife's educational opportunities and me not wanting to live in a big city)

Education (Erskine is well respected and the Faculty is top-notch)

Chapel
(Erskine requires students to attend chapel and gives them class credit for it)

Th.M Program
(The Program allows me to focus on the area of study I want with ability for Full-Time Ministry)

While one could question any of the above reasons and some have their drawbacks (like work opportunities for me and my wife) and seem contradictory (as I do not attend chapel here at PTS so why I would want it to be mandatory may seem strange) after examing all the options the Th.M program at Erskine offers both the educational and structural integrity I am looking for in a seminary. Any comments, questions, and/or critiques are more than welcome. I will answer anything you want.

4 comments:

Gary said...

What made you choose them over Westminster's? Was it just the urban setting(which I assume it is since its in Philly)? Or is there some other reason?

BTW, we're both working for computer services at PTS.

Benjamin P. Glaser said...

Well Good Gary. I hope to see you around. Erskine's location really turned it to no. 1. Neither of us want to live in Philly and we both want to go south (albeit for differentreasons)...

Drew said...

This part of their statement of beliefs might make it hard for anybody to be a blogger at Erskine:


"II. We believe that the Church universal is the body of Christ, which includes people of both sexes and all races, economic classes, and ethnic groups (Gal. 3:28). We believe further that Christians are called to celebrate the universality and unity of Christ’s body in their relationships with one another (Eph. 4:2-6).

A. Therefore, we expect community members to be active in seeking reconciliation and unity among races, classes, and sexes, both in the Church and in the broader society.

B. We expect members of the community to be willing to value and learn from the positive contributions which Christians of other groups can make to the universal body of Christ. This involves a respect for the insights and customs of other cultures and a desire to bring all cultures (one’s own and others’) under the judgment of Scripture.

C. We expect community members to abstain from discrimination, deliberate divisiveness, malicious humor, and gossip."

As a guy who went to seminary in Philly (Palmer, not Westminster) I can tell you that Philadelphia isn't so bad.

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