RunMimi said:I do know that Yale Divinity School is top-notch.
deuist said: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.
Larsitron said:Plus, there are plenty of bigger fish to fry in the world of spirituality.
beep said: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.
bbaek said: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.
Aren't they?deuist said:teaching that all religions are equally valid makes it a liberal school
Yale would be an excellent place to obtain a divinity school degree. Miroslav Volf is my hero.bbaek said: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.
liverotcod said:Aren't they?
deuist said:By what standard? There are no rankings for divinity schools and seminaries because satisfaction is purely subjective.
jmugele said: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.
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!
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!
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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...