A former classmate told me recently that the seminary we attended is once again offering tuition-free Master of Divinity studies. We had a discussion about whether or not I would recommend attending. Here are some of the points I made.
In Favor:
1. Going to seminary was one of the most *personally* fulfilling experiences of my life. I learned a lot and enjoyed my time at the seminary. I love history, but also enjoy philosophy and theology. Being surrounded by people who also love these things produced countless opportunities to discuss, argue, and explore.
2. My seminary studies gave me tools to better study scriptures. Greek and Hebrew studies were amazing and I still read my New Testament in Greek often. I was well-equipped to critically evaluate sermons and Bible studies, and I am still an avid student of the scriptures (not just the Christian Bible).
3. Academically, Concordia Seminary in St. Louis was challenging in the best way possible. I remember taking a class on the "Radical Reformation" in which I had to read an entire book between *each* class session. I also remember this being the case in my Life of Athanasius class. Later, I got my Master of Science in Counseling and, compared to the rigor of seminary, it was an absolute cakewalk. The seminary took a person with a lot of interest and turned me into a dedicated academic. I still read tons of history, philosophy, and religion texts, and as a therapist I am unabashedly a reader of research.
Okay, now that we have those positives out of the way, let's get to the points against attending the seminary...
Against:
1. You can't trust the seminary to honor its agreement.
Ask anybody who attended from 2002-2006: the seminary promised us a "tuition guarantee." What this meant was, if memory serves accurately, they would ask each year for $1200 from our home congregation and also for $1200 from our home District, but if either or both could not or would not pay, we would not be asked to pay what they did not. In the 2004-2005 academic year, they went back on this (while I was on vicarage). I had to pay a few thousand dollars to make up the difference in the 2005-2006 academic year. While *almost* tuition-free, it was still not what we had been promised repeatedly. My advice? If you plan to attend the seminary "tuition-free," be sure you have the money to pay up if they suddenly decide to change their mind part-way through your education.
2. Professionally, it was a stupid decision.
As someone who has since left the Synod's roster, I look back at seminary this way: It is like going to school for eight years to be employable by ONE COMPANY. When I left the roster, do you know how much portability my M.Div had? If you guessed 'none,' you guessed correctly.
3. There are back-doors. Use one.
Sure, I did it the "right way." I went to seminary and got a call to a congregation. However, in the decade since my graduation, I've seen GADS of non-seminary-trained pastors in parishes all over the country. Deacons became "Specific Ministry Pastors," and while they weren't supposed to be able to take calls outside their "specific ministry context," it happens all the time. Going to the seminary is a huge investment, but it is simply not worth it given the many many ways to become a pastor without seminary.
4. Opportunity Cost
Even if it is tuition-free, there is still the opportunity cost to consider. Opportunity cost is what you give up to attend the seminary beside the tuition. For me, that was four years of full-time work in a profession. If that would be, say, $40k per year, it means that the opportunity cost of seminary was about $150k. Also, the opportunity cost was a less professionally restrictive Master's degree. In other words, for the same time investment, I could have gone to graduate school and gotten a degree with greater portability and opportunity for salary, professional respect, etc.
5. Churches don't want or need theologically competent pastors.
Okay, this one kinda hurts, but here it is. Because of anticlericalism and antihierarchicalism in America, both strong components of the Enlightenment that so influenced the founding of this nation, most congregations actually RESENT competent, authoritative pastors. (I'm not talking about authoritarian pastors who like to have their way. I'm talking about pastors who can speak with authority based on professional training. Yes, I learned about these elements of the Enlightenment at seminary, so I can only say what I'm saying thanks to my seminary education, but that doesn't change the reality that pastors face congregations that are hostile to them precisely because they have that seminary education.)
6. The Synod has no real power.
This point also isn't going to win friends or influence people, but it is the truth. The Synod, as an institution, can't stop you from starting a mission congregation, being ordained as a pastor by that congregation, and acting as a pastor in that context. If that is your plan, just do it. Trust me - if you successfully plant a viable congregation, they'll gladly roster you in order to add your independent Lutheran congregation to their fold as a new "giving unit." The same goes for pretty much any denomination you want your fledgling congregation to join; they all love "free churches." Simony is alive and well, and the purchase price is a ready-made congregation. Let me take this a step farther... the Synod can't even keep a local LC-MS congregation from calling you as their pastor, whether you are seminary trained or rostered or not. That isn't the way LC-MS polity works. They can bluster and *convince* people that they have power to keep it from happening, but do a little research and you'll see that the District Presidents only have the power they can convince congregations to willingly give them. The LC-MS is functionally congregational in polity and that is just the way it is.
7. You may not get a call.
When I graduated from the seminary, there were plenty of graduates who simply did not get calls to congregations, and plenty of the calls that *were* issued were terrible and should never have been sent a pastor (that is, they had no real long-term plan for supporting a pastor, uninhabitable parsonages, etc.). Plenty of guys ended up directly or indirectly called to plant missions (see numbers 3 and 6). You can do that without seminary. In fact, if you have to support yourself partially or in full while doing this missionary work, you'd have been better served spending your four years getting a useful secular master's degree instead of an MDiv.
Part of the reality of the Synod's situation today is also that so many small congregations who would have called seminarians 20 years ago are now being served by the absolute glut of retired pastors around the country. These guys are still working in their 70s, God love them, and often for much less than the cost of fully supporting even a brand new pastor from the seminary. Good or bad, what that means is that there just aren't as many "calling congregations" in reality as there ought to be if you look at it on paper.
Now, my classmates and I had many, MANY discussions about why the seminary would have spoken so loudly about the so-called "pastor shortage" when we encountered no such thing upon graduation. My personal opinion was that the seminary was hoping people would just send money and were shocked when faithful men actually answered the call and showed up ready to be trained. In other words, I suspect it was a fund-raising ploy that backfired, hence the evaporation so quickly of our "tuition guarantee."
There are plenty more reasons against going to the seminary, but this is at least a starting point in your consideration.
I want to be clear: If I had it to do over again, I'd probably still have gone to seminary, but only for personal enrichment. Professionally, it was a disastrously stupid choice since I am not independently wealthy and I did not have a high-demand, good-paying Bachelor's Degree (I was stupid enough to get my undergraduate degree in theology, as well). After the debacle of my church "career," it was almost ten years before I had an actual, paying profession to fall back on.
Just some things to consider before you make your decision.
