Texas Supreme Court to review whether seminaries can be regulated by State

[dhfr]

Supreme Court to review religious freedom case (http://www.christianpost.com/article/education/596/section/supreme_court_to_review_religious_freedom_case/1.htm)

Snippet:... Texas prohibits unaccredited private post-secondary institutions from awarding degrees without state certification. The state also prohibits an institution from using "seminary" in its name if it cannot lawfully award degrees.

Tyndale Seminary, the Southern Bible Institute of Dallas and the Hispanic Bible Institute of San Antonio sued the state claiming that the law allows the government to control the religious training of future clergy members and is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. ...

[J]

I think those seminaries have a point.

Religious matters, including religious instruction, are matters of faith and belief that should be left alone by legislators.

[milotach]

I think those seminaries have a point.

Religious matters, including religious instruction, are matters of faith and belief that should be left alone by legislators.

ABSOLUTLY AGREE with you. Religious means an individual choice made it in a particular way of faith. If you study sociology, you are this in Spain and in Afganistan, no doubts on it. But if you study a MDiv, this is nothing here or less than nothing in a muslim country, or in Asia countries. God is not nothing that belongs to the study areas,(traditional areas I mean) unless that you try to look at this in a sociological study or antropologic, but this is not the matter here. You can not discuss that 2+2=4 mathematics are the same all over the world, but you can deny the God himself existance, so for an atheistic people your degree means less than nothing, RA, NA or whatever you want. So as Jesus said "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to Him". Governments can not put the hands on it due that this belongs to the intimal rights of the human being.

[J]

I find this a powerful argument.

Doctrinal concerns will be paramount for many candidates for degrees at religious schools, over and above other matters. I think it is great that there is such an enormous variety of religious schools in the US.

More than that, I think the religious sector suggests what the whole educational landscape might look like if accreditation were voluntary in most states. It is an interesting model to contemplate.

[Bill Dayson]

I basically agree.

I'm a staunch defender of the separation of church and state. As a non-Christian, that separation protects me.

So if the state is constitutionally bound to keep its hands off the practice of religion, we probably have to recognize that the preparation of religious practitioners and the teaching of religious doctrines is part of the practice of religion.

One thing that people sometimes don't realize is that religious training that results in academic-style degrees granted by a university or degree granting seminary is largely a Western idea. Most other religions train their religious practitioners in different ways, whether that's a Buddhist monastery or a madrasah attached to a mosque.

But we sometimes see the government putting educational requirements on religious practitioners that by their nature discriminate in favor of the Western model and those religions that employ it. An example is military chaplains, who must have suitable accredited degrees. I suspect that a court challenge, should anyone desire to bring one, could overturn this policy as well.

Despite his having a doctoral-level education received in Tibetan monasteries, the Dalai Lama is educationally unqualified to be a US military chaplain.

I believe that's why Naropa University in Colorado has rolled out an RA Buddhist M.Div., the only one of its kind in the world that I know of.

[dr. latin juris]

Why various Americans refuse to act in accordance with the sacrosanct manuscript, The US Constitution? :mad:

It is clear in that magnificent and wonderful manuscript, the disconnection of Religion and State.

[milotach]

I basically agree.

I believe that's why Naropa University in Colorado has rolled out an RA Buddhist M.Div., the only one of its kind in the world that I know of.

Very easy my friend. Now RA are looking for new oportunities to make money, traing to spread their priviligies of being a US acredited university to make a bussiness with a foreing religion and put the hands on. The british was traing to do the same with indian teachings. No univeristy on India are giving religious teachings, the indian authorities let in the indian temples the teaching, but the funny think is that british universities are giving degrees on it, while any of the temples in India are not taking care of any of this degrees but they are making bussines any case. Tray to imagine where can you hang your degree in MDiv on Buddhist if you knock the door of one temple in India and show your degree and say "hey I am the the acredited and genuine buddhist, just look at my RA DEGREE". I have been working in India during the last 15 years, I have a foundation with an school for a 500 childrens there and I am working with the mahatma Gandhi secretary in Orissa state. This RA DEGREE is less than nothing for the pratitioneer of this religious. By the way can anyone to explain me what will be the rule to open a college or university in a Dellaware for a foreign religion like a budhist or hinduism?. No degree on religion can be used for employed purpose due that this are not giving to you any professional qualifications, any case the only that may be an state could say is which is the temple or religious authority that are giving to you the rigths to give such a degree?, may be to protect no one can make an easy bussines inventing an religious degree, with a bogus religion. But according with your constitution there is no discrimination between older and newer religions, the ULC's degrees sentence was very clear on it.

[J]

Opening a degree-granting school in Delaware is tough since the change in the law requiring accreditation for secular schools. A school that offers purely religious programs has an easier path, but still requires state approval as such.

I think the major value of RA degrees in Buddhist studies are for those who want to teach that subject or who desire to study it for its own sake. Then again, I think they are a poor substitute for studying in countries with a major Buddhist tradition and resources.

Most US states require that a religious school be recognised by a recognised religious group, congregation or denomination. The option of starting your own religion is not likely to result in acceptability for starting a school unless you can establish physical premises and a large number of followers.

ULC, although interfaith, was started by a Baptist minister. By that token, its ordained clergy can claim to be in apostolic succession :D

[Jabbezzz]

Why various Americans refuse to act in accordance with the sacrosanct manuscript, The US Constitution? It is clear in that magnificent and wonderful manuscript, the disconnection of Religion and State.

Perhaps the good doctor could elucidate on the US Constitution's supposed disconnection [separation?] of Church/State.

[Robert J.]

Jimmy is probably preaching this Sunday but I must quickly interject that discussions here are about Distance Learning, so if you must debate about Church and State it must be witin that context.

Thanks for being cooperative.

[Jimmy Clifton]

Good call, Robert. Let me state I was not in the habit of checking in here everyday prior to becoming moderator. Thus, I need to get into the habit and will attempt to do so.

[Bill Dayson]

I think the major value of RA degrees in Buddhist studies are for those who want to teach that subject or who desire to study it for its own sake.[/b]
Yeah, I agree.

I think that the distinction here is similar to that between religious studies and theology. The academic approach subjects religion to textual, historical or philosophical analysis and criticism. It isn't required to uphold any articles of faith and it's free to question everything. When applied to Christianity, this kind of approach has given us a great deal of the Biblical criticism of the last couple of centuries. It isn't surprising that when they turned their attention to scrutinizing other religions, Western scholars applied the familiar methods that had already evolved to study Christianity.

In contrast, the religious approach seeks to teach the the doctrines of a religion from within a committed practitioner's perspective.

Of course, there's lots of overlap. I think that it's actually kind of a spectrum. In the Buddhist context, it kind of stacks up this way around here:

At one end you have determinedly academic approaches, such as UC Berkeley's Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies.

http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/phd/index.htm

Then there's the new University of the West. This WASC-candidate offers a rather academic Buddhist Studies Ph.D. as well, but it's a Buddhist institution that's associated with a large Taiwanese Buddhist order and with the largest Buddhist temple in the United States. It's frequented by monastics, some of whom teach there. I suspect that it's less critical, less scholarly and objective perhaps, but perhaps more tuned into Asian thinking.

http://www.uwest.edu/UWEST/Academic/religion/course.htm

Then there's Dharma Realm Buddhist University. This small CA-approved institution is located inside an important Buddhist monastery and exists in part to train the resident monastics. Several of its departments correspond to subjects taught in monasteries in Asia, such as their Vinaya department:

http://www.drba.org/drbu/academics/deptclass.asp?depid=17

While this stuff obviously has academic content (I know of no other university anywhere teaching this material), it is essentially an ordination program analogous to what one finds in a Christian seminary. In the Buddhist context, the innovation is awarding university credit for it. While that certainly isn't traditional in Asia, seminaries are obviously well established in the US, so if Buddhists are going to acculturate here, they probably have to acquire all the qualifications that Americans expect in a clergyman.

Then again, I think they are a poor substitute for studying in countries with a major Buddhist tradition and resources.
If we are talking about the strictly academic end of the spectrum, I think that programs like Berkeley's are probaby world class. They get lots of respect in Asia. After all, to a large extent it was Western influence that stimulated modern scholarly study of Buddhism in Asia.

But if we are talking about developing a personal Buddhist practice in the traditional manner, or even going beyond that to joining the sangha and becoming a monk, then I think that you are probably right.

It's gradually changing though. Asians are becoming increasingly aware of the million or so American Buddhists, and California and Hawaii in particular are actually developing their own critical mass. It's a lively scene and rather fascinating.

[dhfr]

Update from the Associated Press: State's high court to weigh seminary accreditation (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2975252)

[Jimmy Clifton]

Update from the Associated Press: State's high court to weigh seminary accreditation (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2975252)

This will be interesting and could set some precedents. Personally, I don't think the government has any business whatsoever involving itself in matters of church and religion.

Assessing Bible schools, schools of theology, schools of religion, and schools of divinity as to standards of quality and excellence is not the role of government, it is the role of the church.

I have always opposed the government's sanctioning of TRACS and ATS. The role of these associations is to insure quality theological education of which the government doesn't know beans about. It is the government that is trying to strip religious freedoms on a daily basis. Official government sanctioning of theological accrediting agencies is one more step towards complete and total control of our religious freedoms, values, and morals.

Strictly theological degrees should not be any business of the federal or state governments.

[J]

I do not consider that the present administration has shown itself to be an appropriate custodian of religious freedom.

It is time for us to realize that even in a post-9/11 world, the freedom of thought and expression is what we have been fighting for all along. There is a need to ensure that the unsayable and the unthinkable in religious terms can still be said without answering to big brother.

A person's creed or lack of the same is their own business, and no-one else's.

[Jimmy Clifton]

I want to make it quite clear I in no way support theological degree mills. There are numerous shoddy schools of theological education that make a mockery out of Christianity.

Still, however, the church, not the government, is the true and rightful overseer of said education.

[dr. latin juris]

:twisted: :twisted: Theological degree mills :twisted: :twisted:

[RA_Ph.D.]

The World Christianship Ministries gives an honorary D.D. for a small contribution ($ 40 or $ 50). Of course, honoris causa degree titles carry no academic value, but in some religious circles the title "Dr." is equivalent to Father or Pastor in others so it may have religious value in some situations. The entire problem about degree titles is that one must understand that all degrees are not equal in meaning, value or academic standing. In short, it takes an education to know that an Oxford M.A. is not earned by additional course work after the B.A. but is a voting status within the university, to know a that almost all D.D.'s are honorary titles, varying in value by what institution has awared them and why. We need to stop thinking of all degrees as standarized credentials which they are most surely not. Armed with such knowledge, mills of all sorts would be less toxic since low status degrees derive their power from imitating those of higher status and thus confusing the ignorant. Knowledge is the power to discern. :)