Yale Divinity School

[jmugele]

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So, I was looking through MSAR and I saw that Yale offers a joint degree from its medical school and its divinity school. Does anyone know anything about this? Anyone been through it? Have the website explaining it?

 

[deuist]

I do know that Yale Divinity School is top-notch.

By what standard? There are no rankings for divinity schools and seminaries because satisfaction is purely subjective. Yale is ultra liberal and promotes post modernism --- all religions are equally valid. If you have no convictions about your faith, Yale might be a great place to study. For my money, however, I'd rather take a school with a little more spine.

 

[bbaek]

By what standard? There are no rankings for divinity schools and seminaries because satisfaction is purely subjective. Yale is ultra liberal and promotes post modernism --- all religions are equally valid. If you have no convictions about your faith, Yale might be a great place to study. For my money, however, I'd rather take a school with a little more spine.

i heard that yale is ultra-liberal, but i am still not understanding the complete description of a liberal-divinity school. does it deviate widely issues such as gay marriage and abortion? cause i definitely understand a liberal point of view would discredit christianity, or Christ in fact, as the only way to heaven. i think i just need more information on what makes a liberal school.

 

[Larsitron]

Being involved in my local religious community, I know plenty of people who are graduates of the Yale School of Divinity and who come out with a full belief in their faith. Divinity school is about learning the tools needed to do theology work on your own and being able to back up your point. Its not a place for indoctrination in any particular mode of thinking. Moreover, divinity school towards an M.Div. dedicated towards ministry is usually done in conjunction with your particular denomination, so you'll likely be able to learn the specifics of your particular faith view.

And if you think gay marriage or abortion are the biggest theological issues in the church, then you're probably not ready to head into Yale Divinity given that those are doctrinal issues and not theological ones. Plus, there are plenty of bigger fish to fry in the world of spirituality.

 

[beep]

when i was there last week, the director of admissions said only 1 person had done the md-mdiv program in the last 5 years. basically it is somewhat overlapped with the md program schedulewise, and i think you add an extra year.

 

[SoulRFlare]

Plus, there are plenty of bigger fish to fry in the world of spirituality.

are you catholic?

 

[jmugele]

when i was there last week, the director of admissions said only 1 person had done the md-mdiv program in the last 5 years. basically it is somewhat overlapped with the md program schedulewise, and i think you add an extra year.

Thanks for the information, beep. The rest of this post has degraded far past the point I wanted to take it. But thanks for the reply.

 

[deuist]

i heard that yale is ultra-liberal, but i am still not understanding the complete description of a liberal-divinity school. does it deviate widely issues such as gay marriage and abortion? cause i definitely understand a liberal point of view would discredit christianity, or Christ in fact, as the only way to heaven. i think i just need more information on what makes a liberal school.

I'm not talking about political issues such as abortion and gay marriage, I'm talking about convictions. True, Yale is not a seminary and is not out to train ministers. However, by teaching that all religions are equally valid makes it a liberal school. Also, given that several members of the Jesus Seminar went to Yale,* I would question what the school is teaching.


*I'll the first to admit that there are a few fellows from the Jesus Seminar that attended conservative institutes such as Bob Jones and Furman.

 

[liverotcod]

teaching that all religions are equally valid makes it a liberal school

Aren't they?

 

[atsai3]

i heard that yale is ultra-liberal, but i am still not understanding the complete description of a liberal-divinity school. does it deviate widely issues such as gay marriage and abortion? cause i definitely understand a liberal point of view would discredit christianity, or Christ in fact, as the only way to heaven. i think i just need more information on what makes a liberal school.

Yale would be an excellent place to obtain a divinity school degree. Miroslav Volf is my hero.

-AT.

 

[Medikit]

Aren't they?

Well, they definitely are if you are an atheist

 

[Graat]

By what standard? There are no rankings for divinity schools and seminaries because satisfaction is purely subjective.

Sure, there are no "rankings" published anywhere, but they are surely ranked in terms of the success of PhD graduates in securing academic positions. I would admit that for M.Div students satisfaction is subjective.

 

[Graat]

Thanks for the information, beep. The rest of this post has degraded far past the point I wanted to take it. But thanks for the reply.

Yes, it takes one more year, and as with all the other Yale dual-degree masters-MD programs you are pretty much assured admission into the masters once admitted as an MD student. I don't understand how it would overlap with the MD schedule since I'm pretty sure you take a year off med school to do the masters.

 

[GuitarRob5]

I am a current MDiv Student at Yale Divinity School. Yes, YDS is liberal. They affirm Gay Marriage, feminist theology, and the like--but are overwhelmingly Christo-centric.

There are plenty of MDiv students at yale (about half of each graduating class of 100) and this is precisely the problem.

YDS bills itself as a school that can prepare students for doctoral study and for Pastoral Ministry.

Unfortunately, the latter of these is untrue. I came to YDS because they told me that they would "delight in supporting my ministry, prepare me to be the best minster that I could be, and encourage me to pursue ministerial work while attending school." None of these has actually happened or will happen.

YDS is unwilling to adequately prepare students for ministry (I recognize what ministry is, and what it takes. As well as what would be useful for ministry-- because I am a minister).

They offer no classes on how to teach students how to do weddings, funerals, give pastoral care (they have classes about why pastoral care is important, but not how to do it) or perform daily tasks that ministers face.

Any criticism about these facts yields the same response from YDS: "we are a divinity school and not a seminary."

My response is simple: Do not lie to perspective students about preparing them for ministry if you are unwilling to do so. Do not say you perform the same goals as a seminary when students are applying and not when they are actually students.

I am sad for the future pastors of YDS and their congregations. These pastors will be wholly unprepared and those they serve will suffer.

If you want to be a minister, DO NOT ATTEND YDS!

 

[Jufarius87]

I am a current MDiv Student at Yale Divinity School. Yes, YDS is liberal. They affirm Gay Marriage, feminist theology, and the like--but are overwhelmingly Christo-centric.

There are plenty of MDiv students at yale (about half of each graduating class of 100) and this is precisely the problem.

YDS bills itself as a school that can prepare students for doctoral study and for Pastoral Ministry.

Unfortunately, the latter of these is untrue. I came to YDS because they told me that they would "delight in supporting my ministry, prepare me to be the best minster that I could be, and encourage me to pursue ministerial work while attending school." None of these has actually happened or will happen.

YDS is unwilling to adequately prepare students for ministry (I recognize what ministry is, and what it takes. As well as what would be useful for ministry-- because I am a minister).

They offer no classes on how to teach students how to do weddings, funerals, give pastoral care (they have classes about why pastoral care is important, but not how to do it) or perform daily tasks that ministers face.

Any criticism about these facts yields the same response from YDS: "we are a divinity school and not a seminary."

My response is simple: Do not lie to perspective students about preparing them for ministry if you are unwilling to do so. Do not say you perform the same goals as a seminary when students are applying and not when they are actually students.

I am sad for the future pastors of YDS and their congregations. These pastors will be wholly unprepared and those they serve will suffer.

If you want to be a minister, DO NOT ATTEND YDS!

Given my interest in becoming a pastor this will probably be my only post on these forums, however, as a YDS hopeful I felt the need to respond to this post when I came across it.

It is not the job of a divinity school OR seminary to teach people how to do weddings, funerals, etc. The ritual of each branch of christianity is different, so such a class would make no sense in having anyways. For example some branches of the Baptist church forbid the presence of alcohol at weddings, whereas Presbyterians say it is a matter of individual choice. Even such a simple difference would make teaching courses on the ritual of specific events non-sensical, how would a non-sectarian school deal with these differences? Such a class, in attempting to be relevant to all denominations, would end up being useless to everyone because it would be too general to satisfy any denominational standards of ritual. It is your denominational supervisors job to instruct you on these types of things, not your academic institution... the only exception is a school such as notre dame, whereby if you are in the M.Div program, you are by very definition going into the Roman Catholic Priesthood.

Your objection about pastoral care could be relevant, however, most div students already have a background in the humanities and psychology academically, and in ministry professionally, i.e most people already have some understanding of pastoral care and counseling by the time they enter divinity school. That said, if there are truely no courses on the subject at YDS, then that is a valid complaint.

More importantly though. I would like to encourage the future doctors on these boards to consider a theological education alongside your medical training. most likely, it would add about two years to your education, but our field is by virture a paralell to years, you tend to the body, we tend to the soul. There is an intersection in the pastor-congregation and doctor-patient modes of interaction that you would probably benefit from or at the very least could find interesting to study. Your presence would also be very beneficial to us theologians who have to deal with the supposed conflict between science and religion. In addition to Yale, I believe that Harvard and Duke Divinity have similar programs in place.

God Bless.

 

[copperfrog09]

Curious if Yale still offers this program? As far as I knew Vanderbilt was the only med school with an MDiv option?

 

[Mishka17]

they still do. the dean of admissions mentioned it when i was there friday. i think they have one student enrolled in the joint program right now.

 

[deleted393700]

Graat above seems to think the MDiv is a one year masters program, but just for the record, it's actually a three year degree. Just putting that out there!

 

[NickNaylor]

Graat above seems to think the MDiv is a one year masters program, but just for the record, it's actually a three year degree. Just putting that out there!

He may have been interested 5 years ago.



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[ajcxnejx]

I know plenty of people who are graduates of the Yale School of Divinity and who come out with a full belief in their faith.

 

[Jba51]

By what standard? There are no rankings for divinity schools and seminaries because satisfaction is purely subjective. Yale is ultra liberal and promotes post modernism --- all religions are equally valid. If you have no convictions about your faith, Yale might be a great place to study. For my money, however, I'd rather take a school with a little more spine.

I'm having a hard time finding one unproblematic sentence here, whether logical or theological, other than perhaps the opening question. Satisfaction is not subjective but, in a survey context, public and communal. "Subjectivity" implies individuality. "Ultra liberal" is just name calling non-sense, and postmodernism is an era not a philosophy, and certainly not one that would make the impossible claim that all religions are equally valid, first because there are a diversity of cultural constructs which move between the category of "religion" over time, making the inclusion of whatever "all" religions are already problematic, but second and most important, if there were an identifiable philosophy in postmodern thinking, it would be that no religion, again, if we could even agree on what a religion is, has more than a perspectival view on questions of validity or truth. It doesn't mean everything's the same--to the contrary, the humility of human perspective seems to me to be one of the great themes of many biblical books and other religious texts. I dare not even try to talk about what your theology of money is so I won't assume what you think "your" money is in a clearly inequitable late capitalist system vs. what say Jesus might say about "your" money, but if you did go to a seminary or Divinity School unafraid to talk about how to use metaphors and avoid cliches, you might find some interesting characteristics to invertebrates...

 

[Cigar]

I'm having a hard time finding one unproblematic sentence here, whether logical or theological, other than perhaps the opening question. Satisfaction is not subjective but, in a survey context, public and communal. "Subjectivity" implies individuality. "Ultra liberal" is just name calling non-sense, and postmodernism is an era not a philosophy, and certainly not one that would make the impossible claim that all religions are equally valid, first because there are a diversity of cultural constructs which move between the category of "religion" over time, making the inclusion of whatever "all" religions are already problematic, but second and most important, if there were an identifiable philosophy in postmodern thinking, it would be that no religion, again, if we could even agree on what a religion is, has more than a perspectival view on questions of validity or truth. It doesn't mean everything's the same--to the contrary, the humility of human perspective seems to me to be one of the great themes of many biblical books and other religious texts. I dare not even try to talk about what your theology of money is so I won't assume what you think "your" money is in a clearly inequitable late capitalist system vs. what say Jesus might say about "your" money, but if you did go to a seminary or Divinity School unafraid to talk about how to use metaphors and avoid cliches, you might find some interesting characteristics to invertebrates...

Dude, you just replied to a 12 year old post.

But despite the fact that OP is probably an attending by now, if anyone is wondering, yes, Yale still offers a combined degree MD/MDiv. In fact, you can take whatever classes you want at any Yale school while you work on your MD and can take an additional year tuition-free to do it.

Degree Programs | Yale School of Medicine


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