The Rt. Rev. Craig B. Anderson, the Eleventh Dean and President of the general Theological Seminary (GTS), announced Feb. 6 that he will leave GTS to serve as Rector of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.
The Rt. Rev. Craig B. Anderson, Dean and President of The General Theological Seminary, who will leave New York City this summer to serve as Rector of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.
St. Paul’s School was founded in 1856 and has a coeducational enrollment of over 500 students. Situated on 2,000 acres, St. Paul’s has a faculty of 100. Bishop Anderson will move to New Hampshire over the summer.
Can you tell us about your vocation to a ministry of education in the Church? Why go from a prestigious seminary to a boarding school?
CA: The question could be rephrased by some, why go from a seminary to a prestigious boarding school? Prestige has little to do with my decision. It is a vocational decision not a career move. The way I began my ministry was in teaching and education. My first full-time ministry assignment was as a parish priest but even then I was teaching at the University of the South, at the School f theology for eight years. Then I was elected Bishop of South Dakota and felt that the mandate in coming to South Dakota, was to come as a teaching bishop. I think part of the reason I was called and elected was to find a way to more adequately prepare persons for both ordained and lay ministry in understanding the ministry of a bishop as a theologian teacher which characterized my nine years in South Dakota.
General Seminary used to be called a 19th century institution preparing priests to minister in the 1950s. How has it changed?
CA: I think most of the seminaries, in terms of a mind set, continue to prepare persons for a Church that no longer exists. I don’t know if it is the 19th century, but we assume some old realities that, I think, have changed. Like the notion that most graduates will be able to go someplace as an assistant right out of seminary. There are very few such positions left. I think a different set of skills are needed today. We can no longer assume Christendom and something like civil religion as a context for ministry. One has to have sufficient clarity in terms of vocation, priestly identity and pastoral skills to minister today.
What direction do you think General Seminary needs to take to meet these challenges?
CA: First, to see theological education as the birth right of every baptized Christian, to break with the clerical model and prepare all persons for ministry who desire a theological education. Second, getting more involved in the City, taking more and better advantage of being in New York City, that wonderful place that one theologian has called “the boot camp for the New Jerusalem.” I think more courses in the area of the formation of public policy and theology, more courses in the sociology of religion that help us better understand the culture we’re ministering to, liturgical reform that will touch people where they live and being yet true to our tradition. Much of this is being considered in our current strategic planning process. Additionally, a lot of the work that is being done by the Church Development Institute, The Center for Christian Spirituality, the Center for Jewish Christian Studies and Relations, as well as the newly reformed Instituto Pastorale Hispano, are indicative of a new pastoral, spiritual, and cultural sensitivity. I think expanding and opening the place up, inviting seekers to come and take evening courses has helped us. So has our conversations with other Episcopal seminaries, looking at things in a collaborative mode rather than a competitive way, I think, are good indicators of what we need to be doing.
And the future of our seminary “system”?
CA: Clearly, right now, we have too many seminaries, and they aren’t terribly strong. By virtue of the size of the faculty, the staff and the administration, we’re trying to do too much with too little. The quality of education and the quality of scholarships suffers. There is something to be said for “small is good”, I suppose, but I think that if theology is a collaborative enterprise, you need to have people talking to one another and not one person in each discipline. We seem to be seeing more reduction in faculty and in critical scholarly mass. We talk a good bit about the crisis in theological education. Much of it has to do with numbers and money and survival. We need to free ourselves of that mentality and ask the question what is needed, what do the seminaries need to be doing in terms of service to the church?
This will mean fewer institutions?
CA: Fewer formal institutions and more informal institutions. I think what we are doing now, in support of theological education borders on immorality. What we have is a Church that says it wants Episcopal seminaries, or certainly a Church that says Anglican formation is important. But we are the only “mainline” church that I’m aware of that says this is important, and then does nothing nationally to support our seminaries. We have a volunteer one percent giving program for seminaries at the parish or diocesan level that is now three tenths of one percent, in terms of the actual income. It is hardly surprising that you have this sort of survival mentality wherein we feign cooperation and collaboration as a form of rhetoric, but when it really gets right down to it, what we do is compete to stay alive.
What elements of our history do think are responsible?
CA: For so long we have tended to define all ministry as ordination to the priesthood, and so we’ve collapsed all understandings of preparation for ministry to what it is to be a priest. We define being a bishop as a kind of megapriest and a deacon as a minipriest and a lay person as a who knows what. One of the most significant breakthroughs during my time as dean at General has been the establishment of the College for Bishops. For the first time, we have a structure for training the leaders of the Church in terms of what it means to be a theologian, to be a pastor and to be a prophet/apostle. We need the same kind of integrity for the preparation of persons to be deacons, for preparing persons for lay ministry in a way that is challenging and compelling and invites, through education, a responsible way of living out one’s baptismal identity.
And the Church’s greatest need?
CA: There is a growing awareness that our Church is in trouble. There is a need for intellectual and moral leadership, not just at the denominational executive level, read bishops and clergy, but, I think, in the seminaries, colleges, and boarding schools of the Church. One of the wonderful realizations that is beginning to take place with seminary deans and faculties is that we have to provide it ourselves and not wait for others to provide it for us; provide it by working together. We need fewer and better seminaries.
How will the move to rural New Hampshire be received by you and your family after four years in the Big Apple?
CA: I came to New York City because of the vocation, not because of New York City. Having said that, I must say that I’ve grown to love New York City. It is a very complex place that is energizing. I’ve found that I’ve done some creative thinking and writing here. Because of the diversity and complexity, it’s a place like no other; the associations, the possibility for “networking” and cooperation are unparalleled. I will certainly miss the excitement and cultural richness. The good news is I’ll be able to come back on occasion. St. Paul’s has one trustee meeting a year in New York, and I’ll be continuing my work with the National Council of Churches, as president, here in the City.
Having said that, I look forward to the beauty of New Hampshire and the 2000 acres of St. Paul’s campus; the ponds, the fields and the woods. I am drawn to that beauty. So the transition is something I’m looking forward to in some ways, but I will miss the diversity of Chelsea. I do believe that New York City is an acquired taste, and I’ve acquired it. Everyone should live in New York City once. I think that as the most international city, not to have lived in New York City is to miss a part of what it means to be a world citizen. If you want to understand the phenomenon of globalization, come here and live it.
The Episcopal New Yorker – April/May 1997
Interview by Bruce Parker
Parker is Director of Communications at The General Theological Seminary