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Mark Jeske taught me,
"Yay! Baby. Change or Die!" |
Are We Entering the End Times for Mainline Seminaries? | Religion Dispatches:
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| End times on steroids, yes! |
"After decades of diminished funding and shrinking churches, why haven’t more mainline seminaries shut down? Diversified degrees and delivery methods have softened enrollment declines slightly, but the short answer for many schools is legacy funding. Led by Princeton Seminary (Presbyterian), with an endowment of $1.1 billion, mainline seminaries tend to have significant investment resources, built through long years of serving well-to-do constituents. Many of these schools also own impressive buildings on coveted plots of land. According to the Association of Theological Schools, denominational (a category roughly equivalent to mainline) Protestant seminaries derived 37 percent of their revenue from investments and depreciation in 2013, a substantially higher percentage than either Roman Catholic or inter- and non-denominational seminaries.
Legacy funding can only go so far, however, with enrollments dropping 24 percent in the past decade. Episcopal Divinity School still held $53 million in investments, plus its campus, at the time of its announced closing, but it was losing $133,000 a month. Andover-Newton’s campus alone was assessed at $43 million, but trustees deemed its future as a free-standing institution unsustainable."
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| "What will I wear for the end times?" |
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Grooming your sons for the End Times
at Michigan Lutheran Seminary. |
'via Blog this'
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| "We have a ministry just for you." |
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Martin Luther College
and its Katies. |
