The Seminary has, for years, had courses in human relationships and pastoral counseling. On occasion Youth Guidance has been offered. Within the last two years, however, the faculty and administration have made it possible for a candidate for the Master's degree to obtain a major in the field of pastoral counseling and guidance, and for the B.D. candidate to include in his curriculum more courses in this area.
There is a significant reason for this latest development. In recent years surveys have been made among ministers of several denominations with the object of finding out whether they considered their seminary training adequate to meet the demands of the ministry. The reports indicated that Protestant ministers, on graduation from the seminaries, found themselves to be satisfactorily equipped in doctrine, in liturgy, in church history—in fact, in practically all the traditional departments of the schools. In one category, however, they uniformly reported a serious deficiency. Right from the start of their ministry they felt themselves to be inadequately prepared to help parishioners in the problems that the latter brought to them. Very little of their seminary curriculum, they stated, had been designed to give training in dealing with the variety and complexity of difficulties arising out of failure or partial failure in achieving normal personality development and maintaining wholesome interpersonal relations.
The ministers recommended that more opportunity be provided for the theological student to obtain a better understanding of the dynamics of personality and of human relationships. There was no suggestion that this should be done at the expense of the fields of study that for generations have furnished the indispensable content of B.D. curriculums. Their importance was taken for granted. The impression conveyed by their reports could, in the words of Jesus, be stated this way: "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."
While no surveys of this sort have been conducted among Seventh-day Adventist ministers, it is inevitable in the nature of their calling that they face the same responsibilities as do ministers of other denominations. They meet an equal number and variety of problems. If my contacts with workers and their wives represent a fair sampling of opinion in the field, it is reasonable to conclude that many want more education and training in the elements of pastoral psychology, mental hygiene, sociology, psychosomatic medicine, and the dynamics of personality.
A Training Program to Meet the Need
Because of the foregoing considerations, the Seminary is offering courses that will provide at least one opportunity under denominational auspices of meeting the expressed need. Human Relationships is a basic course in Christian psychology and ethics, dealing with the development of personality. Introduction to Pastoral Counseling is the next course in the sequence. In this the student enters the field of pastoral counseling. He evaluates the importance and scope of this phase of the ministry. He studies the dynamics of interpersonal relationships as they concern the pastor and the significance of the psychosomatic element in illness (a field of study in which we, from the leads given us in the writings of the Spirit of prophecy, should long since have been the leaders).
The training program includes attendance at staff conferences, direction of religious services for patients, reading of case histories, participation in individual and group sessions with supervisors, and related activities. The essential core of the program is the interview with patients. These interviews are written up and later analyzed in individual sessions with the Seminary instructor.
It is difficult to describe Clinical Pastoral Training to one who is not familiar with the history and objectives of this relatively new addition to the Seminary curriculum. It is a dynamic process in which the student not only studies his subject, but lives it. The process is similar to that of basic training for the soldier. The trainee learns to fire live ammunition and to go into action against live ammunition. He sees men in the raw, and finds ways of ministering to them in their condition. He meets all shades of religious thinking, and seeks a way to talk to each man in his own language. This forces a re-examination of the vocabulary of theology.
In all this the student must confront himself and examine himself critically. He finds a new and rather startling way of testing his motivations for the ministry. The probing is likely to be close and deep; weaknesses and artificiality are exposed by the impact of the experience.
Self-examination that can be put off or evaded for long periods in ordinary seminary courses cannot be postponed or evaded in this one. Here it is possible for a man to find a new and powerful proof of his calling, or to raise insistent questions about its validity.
Another course is offered in this major that does not come at any particular point in the sequence of courses. While called Sociology for the sake of brevity, it could fittingly be entitled Practical Sociology for Seventh-day Adventist Workers. In this the student deals with such subjects as: adoption, marriage laws, divorce, problems of working wives, juvenile delinquency, alcoholism, physical and mental health, welfare, the aging, the disabled and handicapped, and mental illness. In addition, the class visits a number of community agencies and institutions.
Ministers, nurses, Bible instructors, missionaries, and workers from overseas divisions, have expressed appreciation for the course. They state that it has widened their horizons, given new meaning to many aspects of their work, and equipped them for further self-directed study.
In concluding the description of this new major, perhaps an observation should be made:
The Seminary has no intention of taking in religious workers and turning them out as pseudo-psychiatrists, amateur psychologists, and semi-professional sociologists. And this is not meant to be even slightly an implication of a lack of respect or appreciation for men in our ranks who have chosen to serve in these specialties. It is based rather on the conviction that the ministry is a calling in itself and that a wise minister will draw from these disciplines whatever will make him a more competent shepherd of souls.
