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WHATEVER
HAPPENED TO OUR BIBLE COLLEGES? -
Philip P. Eapen |
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Author's webpage:
http://philip.eapen.googlepages.com
Unscrupulous business-minded people have taken
to running Bible Colleges for reasons best known
to them. These colleges are centres of
mediocrity that breed workers who are
ill-trained for the work to which God has called
them.
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A friend of mine told me that an
influential group of Christians are about to open a new
Bible school in central Kerala. It's no ordinary Bible
school. It is going to be a Hindi-medium Bible school.
Before you start praising God for the vision of our
leaders for “north” India (as if that were another
country!), take a closer look. They have no teachers yet
who can teach fluently in Hindi! They have managed to
enrol some young men for their program. Still, they are
dissatisfied. And the reason? They haven't succeeded in
finding any woman student for their program in Hindi.
Why are they on the look out for women students? Only a
handful of women from Kerala go for serious theological
studies. How then did they assume that they could find
enough women students for their program? They just want
their brochure to sport an attractive “student
profile”attractive enough to move the hands of a
potential sponsor! Which is why they go to such lengths
as make arrangements to “import” women students from the
distant states of Punjab or Jammu & Kashmir? Yes, these
great visionaries are about to bring in several young
women to their school from as far as the northernmost
parts of India. Are these women students so deprived of
a theological training? Are there no Bible schools in
Punjab or J&K to take care of such needs of the church
there?
The fact is, the women students who will soon join the
new “Hindi-medium” Bible school in Kerala have already
done a year's Bible School training. Most of them have
not finished school and are from very poor families.
After they “graduate” from their current Bible school,
they do not know where they will fit in on the mission
scene. Obviously! If someone should invite them to study
in another Bible school, their poverty will force them
to accept such an offer. Another year or couple of years
in a different Bible school will take care of their
temporal needs such as food and housing. It will also
suit the interests of our “new” Bible school in Kerala.
What fate do you think awaits these women students in
Kerala? They will certainly be made “mallu”
Pentecostals. They will be asked to choose a “holy” life
by renouncing their jewellery. They will be taught how
to wear white garmentsas mourners and widows do in their
land. And worst of all, they will be fed rice or
rice-based foods for the next year or two! “Chapathi?
What chapathi? Servants of God should learn to adjust to
live in any situation!” Our visionaries who have never
tasted a bakhar or vadapav will be quick to pass
Pharisaical orders. I have heard many “holy”
Pentecostals of Kerala say, “These girls from the north
.. they should be watched over carefully lest they
should stray.” Little do they know about the reputation
that Keralites enjoy in the north.
Apart from these smaller considerations, why should a
Hindi-medium Bible school be located in Kerala? This is
like starting a Malayalam-medium Bible school in
Leh-Ladhak. Should men and women be brought from
northern India to Kerala to be trained to work in their
own land? But who is there to do such serious reflection
and soul-searching? Serious missiological, cultural, or
Kingdom concerns take a back seat. Who is bothered about
what is best for these poor women who will be used as a
bait to raise funds abroad? Who cares for what is best
for the cause of the gospel in this land? Or about what
is best for the Church in India? Running a
small-scale-industry called “Bible school” has become a
business where money is the only factor that affects
decisions.
All over India, theological seminaries and Bible schools
are faced with one common problem: lack of sufficient
number of applicants or students. The well established
seminaries too are beginning to face the heat.
“Why is the student intake poor this year? Why haven't
you teachers worked hard to bring in the students?”
yells a CEO at his staff in a prominent seminary in the
Bible belt of Kerala. What do these poor teachers know
about the pressures that are on a principal of any
seminary or Bible college. It is he/she that has to
raise funds for the upkeep of the institute. In order to
create a good impression in the minds of sponsors, the
Principal has to show that all indicators of the
seminary's health are on the rise. Student-strength,
number of teachers, number of graduates ... all these
indicators should be represented by rising curves on a
graph. How then can a Principal endure to see a downward
trend in student intake? It will affect the student
strength as well as the number of graduates in the
coming years.
Therefore the teachers chalk a program. During summer
vacation, every teacher has to go to a state of his
choice and bring in as many students for the next
academic year. The following year, the teachers travel
far and wide. As a result, a large contingent of
students arrive from various states seeking admission.
But to the teachers' surprise, most students who came
seeking admission, cannot not write a sentence in
English. Yet, they all wish to enrol for an
English-medium degree course!
The compulsion to keep up student-strength is eroding
the quality of student-intake in many seminaries and
Bible schools. This is a well-kept secret! Why would
anyone let the sponsors know of all these “internal”
matters? All that the sponsor needs to know is that the
concerned seminary or college has a “Senate” affiliation
or “ATA” accreditation.
In most seminaries, foundational courses on the Bible
are taught during the initial couple of years. However,
most students who come in from “north” India do not
benefit from these foundational courses because they
hardly can follow anything that is said in class. Many
of them can hardly write a sentence in English, let
alone speak proper English. Junior lecturers are the
ones who struggle most with the problem of teaching
students who cannot follow the medium of instruction. It
would be an understatement to say that many students in
Bible colleges fail in their examinations regularly.
Most fail terribly.
That is good for the college in at least one way. Those
who fail have to pay a penalty fee and reappear for
examinations. Will any student fail in the second
attempt? Of course, many will. But our colleges and
seminaries are institutes that are founded on the
'gospel of grace.' Why would they let a student fail
more than once?
“Don't you think we need workers in the field? Let these
guys graduate. Don't fail them. Why should we prevent
Gods work?” Some teachers are of this opinion. And yet,
we wonder, if academic standards did not matter at all,
why did we take these people in? They could have been in
some mission field instead of wasting four years in a
seminary!
“Let them pass! Why should we hold them up here and feed
them for another year? Moreover, we need to present a
good number of our students for graduation. Otherwise,
what will our sponsors think?” No one can oppose the
wisdom of this argument! Who has benefited from this
3-year or 4-year program? The student clearly hasn't,
for he/she was unable to comprehend most of the
instruction or lecture. Then who did benefit from the 3
or 4 years spent on these students? The management and
the teachers did! The teachers got their salaries and
the management, a name for running a 'prestigious'
program.
After all, the seminary or the college is bigger than
the student! Many seminaries no longer exist for
students. They unashamedly exist for their own sake and
for the sake of those who live by it. Long live our
theological colleges and seminaries! (To be continued in
the next issue).
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This page
is updated on April 20, 2009 |
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PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY
10 YEARS CELEBRATION
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