This is the concluding part of an article (beginning in the July issue) by Dr. Monsma, former missionary in Nigeria, who is to teach at the new school at Orange City, Iowa when it begins classes in September.

The Seminary’s Program

Now we must proceed to the second question that I posed at the beginning. That question once again is this: WHAT WILL BE THE POSITIVE EMPHASIS AT MID-AMERICA REFORMED SEMINARY? In answering the first question, I attempted to present a viable rationale for an alternative seminary. In answering the second question, I hope to say something about the program that this seminary will follow. There are at least five items for which we stand. I will mention them and then comment on each one of them in order:

1. The authority of the Bible
2. Expository sermons
3. On–the-job training
4. Ministry to the world
5. Unity in the Church

   

1. The Authority of the Bible

Let us begin with the authority of the Bible. In the days of the Protestant Reformation there was a crisis of authority. Who had the final authority, the Church or the Scriptures? The Reformers responded with the slogan: sola scriptura, the Bible only.

Today too we have a crisis of authority. The so-called hermeneutical circle can be set up in such a way that the message of the Spirit no longer penetrates. We then get a human message out of the Bible rather than God’s message.

Christian Reformed leaders have many questions about the meaning of Biblical infallibility. There are those who point to the fact that the Bible is a very human book with apparent discrepancies in it. Our response must be that as Jesus came clothed in human flesh but was nonetheless God the Son, so the Bible, for all its human qualities, is nonetheless God’s voice to us. What we need in this area first of all is not more study, but more faith. If all the problems of Christianity would be solved there would be no need for faith, for then faith would become sight. Just as we accept the doctrine of the Trinity by faith, and just as we accept the contrast of divine sovereignty and human responsibility by faith, so too we must accept the Scriptures by faith. For, as Calvin says, it is in the final analysis the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit that convinces us that the Bible is the Word of God, and not all kinds of external proofs.

Calvin also taught us to study general revelation with the eye glasses of special revelation before our eyes, not the other way around, as some would have us believe. The first item we want to promote at MARS is, the authority of an infallible Bible.

2. Expository Preaching

The second item we wish to promote is Expository Preaching, that is, preaching that explains the Bible and applies it to life. Why are so many people bored with the sermon? Why are some churches half empty on Sunday evening? What’s wrong?

Many pastors are working hard at their sermons, writing them out word for word. They are taking into the pulpit overhead projectors, and demonstrations, and dialogues, and every novel approach they can think of in order to entertain and instruct their audience. Yet the interest lags. What’s wrong?

Part of the problem is this: there are too many pastors who have nothing to say but they say it with great eloquence. They just haven’t spent enough time in their study really digging into the Scriptures. They come to their pulpits on Sunday morning loaded with facts that everybody already knows, and they avoid like the plague any text that appears to be a bit difficult. A parishioner once asked his pastor to preach one or more sermons from the book of Revelation. The pastor didn’t do it. Why not? It takes time to dig into Revelation and review the various interpretations, and the pastor either didn’t have the inclination or the time to do it.

Some pastors are so loaded down with other work that they don’t have time adequately to prepare meaningful sermons. Their study has become an office to which many come for counseling. Thus a vicious circle is set up. People come for counseling because they haven’t been properly instructed on Sunday. The more they come for counseling the less time the pastor has to give them the public instruction they need. He resorts to telling them in private what he should have told them in public, and everyone is the loser.

At Mid-America we hope to teach that the Bible is a gold mine. There are treasures galore in that sacred book, but you have to dig to get them out. Any pastor that refuses to dig is neglecting his duty. The second item we wish to promote in Iowa is expository preaching.

3. On-the-Job Training

The third thing we wish to promote is on-the-job training. Lester De Koster is right when he says that the first task of a seminary is not to converse with the theologians of Europe or the philosophers of North America. Its first task is to remember that it is a vocational training school and it must equip its students with certain specific vocational or professional skills.

As I see it, good seminary training rests upon three legs, or a tripod. One leg is academic book learning. The second leg is spirituality. The third leg is practice. There is so much to learn from the books that there is always the danger of neglecting the other two legs.

In regard to spirituality, it must be consciously stressed that he who studies the Bible is not studying just another book. He is studying to know God’s will first for his life and then for others. A seminarian should advance in his prayer life and grow in his Christian faith during the time he is in seminary. If we assume that daily chapel exercises are going to cover this growth, we are mistaken. It must be nurtured in every class we teach.

The third important leg of seminary training is the practical work, which at Mid-America will begin with the first month of training. Every student will be placed under the supervision of a local cooperating pastor in order to assist this pastor in his weekly work. During his first year of schooling this will involve leading, teaching, or calling. Later on, exhorting will be added. People who are out in the work will quickly learn the value of what they are taught in class. They will demand that their teachers provide answers to the problems they are facing in their practical work, or they will at least want to discuss these problems with other students as well as their teachers.

There will be provision for the study of Greek and Hebrew. Students will become acquainted with the old masters of Reformed theology as well as more recent writers. But the academic preparation will be directed to the practical goal of ministry to God’s children.

Benjamin B. Warfield of old Princeton Seminary summed it up very well when he wrote: “What we need in our pulpits is scholar-saints become preachers.” And it is the one business of the theological seminaries to make them.” (Selected Shorter Writings, J. E. Meeter, ed., p. 378) I agree with Warfield and that is why I applaud the decision of the Board of MARS to provide from the start on-the-job training.

4. Ministry to the World

The fourth item that we hope to promote at Mid-America Seminary is Ministry to the World. Mid-America does not wish to flee the world but to minister to a world in need. I think that Mid–America would like to take up the challenge thrown out to conservatives by Theodore Plantinga in the November, 1981 issue of the OUTLOOK. Plantinga said:

I would like to issue an appeal and challenge to the conservatives in the CRC. I would like to see them broaden their horizons culturally and become more adventuresome intellectually, by reading more widely and paying attention to a wider range of issues. One way to do so is to become more involved in—and supportive of—Christian efforts in higher education, where the issues not just of the CRC but of our society generally and of the whole world have to be faced (p. 2).

In Mid–America Seminary conservatives have a community of scholars who will stimulate one another by their mutual interaction. Students will be drawn into this interaction as they are prepared for ministry to God’s people and to the world. New approaches to contemporary problems in both church and society will be developed.

Some institutions in the Christian Reformed Church are so concerned with reforming the structures of society that they have neglected an evangelistic witness to this society. I trust that we shall not make that mistake. Mid-America has a deep interest in and commitment to missions and evangelism. Two of her first four professors have had overseas experience and continuing interest in the spread of the gospel around the world as well as within the United States and Canada. Our initial student body as it can now be known also expresses this interest. It now appears that we will have among our first students one or more who have entered the church as adults by way of evangelism, a black American, and also a student from overseas. On-the-job training will include personal witnessing as well as preparation for work.in other cultures. Our fourth focus, as I understand it, is ministry to the world.

5. Unity in the Church

Now for the fifth and final focus: Unity in the Church. This may come as a surprise to some of you, for you have heard that MARS is a divisive force in the Church, possibly leading to a split in the Church. And you are concerned for the unity of the Church. SO AM I. I pray that the unity of the Christian Reformed Church will be preserved—a unity in the truth.

Those who have put a great deal of time and money into the founding of MARS are saying to the world, We have not given up on the Christian Reformed Church. We see the possibility of renewal within this Church. It has happened before in the history of the Church that a group within the Church has become the catalyst for Church renewal. We pray that it will happen again.

There is today a great deal of unhappiness in the Christian Reformed Church. While there is a surface calm, below the surface the waters are seething. People feel that the power structures are no longer responsive to them and they are being, so to speak, taxed without representation.

One evidence of this unhappiness is the exodus to other conservative churches. Another is the eagerness of people to contribute to causes not part of the Christian Reformed establishment. Now if you want an explosion, all you have to do is take a pressure cooker, stop up the safety valve, and start boiling water in it. Sooner or later you will have an explosion.

Mid-America Seminary is a safety valve not simply because people now have a place in which they can confidently invest their contributions, but more especially because MARS will promote a community of scholars committed to a dynamic but conservative point of view. This community can engage in dialogue with other church leaders not as vassals to their lord, but as equals. People whose feelings have been strong but have not been sure just how to express these feelings, will hopefully have a group of scholars who can speak up on their behalf. And they will not find it necessary to resort to the extremism that leads to alienation and disintegration.

It is my hope and prayer that the existence of Mid-America Reformed Seminary will promote dialogue among the various factions that presently exist within the Christian Reformed Church. I pray that we will be a mutually correcting influence on one another. And I hope that thereby the entire Christian Reformed Church will be strengthened both inwardly and in her witness to the world.