12.02.04

Rural seminary's New York site draws city dwellers

Classes are now being offered to about 20 students in three classes at Erskine Theological Seminary's new extension site in New York City, according to the Rev. H. Neely Gaston, vice president of the seminary.

Erskine Seminary's most distant satellite is hundreds of miles from tiny Due West, but closer to the school's origins than most people might imagine. Two hundred years ago, in 1804, Scottish Presbyterian immigrants established the second seminary in the United States in New York City. As many Scots moved to the South, that seminary eventually followed its constituency, and has been located in Due West since 1837.

Dr. Douglas Culver, director of the site, has most recently taught on the rural Due West campus, but his current ministry in New York is not his first. He served as a pastor in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s and returned there as an urban missionary in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Culver is delighted with the diversity of the students now enrolled. "The students are from a broad spectrum of communities, genuinely representing the 'steaming pot of goulash' that makes New York City the greatest, most significant city on the planet," he said.

According to Culver, the students are united by "a common commitment to the authority of scripture" and a keen interest in "the struggle for the minds and souls of men and women, boys and girls."

Noting that every student at the New York site is taking the Greek course offered this fall, Culver said, "The passion to get into the biblical text in the original languages is remarkable, if not astonishing."

Erskine's New York venture taps into a trend examined by Christianity Today in the magazine's December 2004 cover story, "New York's New Hope," by senior writer Tony Carnes. Citing examples of growing evangelical influence in New York, Carnes claims there are now more than 100 Christian schools and 100 Bible institutes in the city.

"God's Word is the source of our power — Jesus said we could not live without it," Culver said. "These born and bred urbanites have seen the enormous decline that has taken place in their churches and city when it is neglected."

Erskine classes meet at the Metropolitan United Methodist Church on Madison Avenue, where former Erskine Seminary faculty member Dr. Luonne Rouse is pastor. "It's a beautiful old church," said Julie Nelson, director of admissions and financial aid, who has visited the site.

Little more than a year ago, when Rouse, then teaching at Erskine Seminary, announced he was resigning to take a pastorate in New York City, Erskine College and Seminary President Dr. John Carson accepted what he viewed as sad news.

"I was thinking, from my limited human perspective, that Erskine Seminary would be losing the services of one of its most valuable professors," he said.

"But you never know what God has in mind," Carson mused. "My mind was not big enough to comprehend that Dr. Rouse was not leaving Erskine Seminary — he was bringing Erskine Seminary to New York."

A number of the New York students are entering seminary to prepare for a second career, and they represent a variety of denominations, including Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal traditions.

"Most of the students are in second career mode, several with M.B.A. degrees," Culver said. The New York students are all serving in some capacity in neighborhood churches, though none is yet a pastor. But Culver, who is active as a church planter as well as a teacher, looks toward the future.

"Already I have identified two solid candidates to plant churches in New York City as soon as their education is completed," he said.

Culver said Rouse is not teaching courses now, but will probably teach Methodist polity, among other subjects, in the future.

News of Erskine Seminary's New York site is spreading, and during a recent week Culver received eight applications. "Inquiries are coming in, prompted by word of mouth, modest advertising, and use of the network of contacts developed when I served in the Big Apple," he said.

The red tape associated with administering the site is complicated, Culver admits, and he describes his own schedule, which still includes teaching one day a week in Due West and involvement in church planting, as "grueling."

Firm in his belief that "it is time to … 'run toward the giant' as David did," Culver is committed to the New York site. And he believes his dream of planting churches in New York City can be realized.

"I am convinced the resources to make it happen will come forward in rather precise proportion to the courage, resolve and 'let’s get after it' action seen in those of us who are commissioned to lead," he said.

"Will we make mistakes? Yes. Might there be some losses? Yes. Will there be criticism? Of course. Might we simply fail? Yes," he said.

"Shall we wait until there is more money available, we are better equipped, are certain of results and recognition? A thousand times no."

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