With plans to pay slavery reparations, two seminaries prompt broader debate

From Seattle-

Among elite U.S. universities, Harvard, Yale, Brown, and Georgetown have all admitted in recent years that at one time they benefited financially from the slave trade. 

But two Protestant seminaries have now gone a step further, saying that in recognition of their own connections to racism they have a Christian duty to pay reparations.

Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Va., the flagship institution of the U.S. Episcopal Church, announced in September that it has set aside $1.7 million for a reparations fund, given that enslaved persons once worked on its campus and that the school participated in racial segregation even after slavery ended.

Earlier this month, Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, N.J., followed suit with an announcement of a $27 million endowed fund for reparations, from which $1.1 million would be dispersed annually.

More here-

https://www.kuow.org/stories/with-plans-to-pay-slavery-reparations-two-seminaries-prompt-a-broader-debate

Is Your Pastor Sexist?

From The New York Times-

The fight among Christians over the status and role of women is usually buried out of view. Anger at continuing inequality is not deemed pious or pretty by the faithful. Disputes usually stay private.

But this pattern was broken recently by a very public uproar when a prominent theological college announced its award of a prestigious prize to a high-profile preacher who does not believe that women or L.G.B.T. people should be ordained.

On most grounds, Princeton Theological Seminary’s decision to give the Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Witness to the Rev. Tim Keller would seem a safe one. Dr. Keller is the founding pastor of the flourishing Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, a gifted preacher and a best-selling author of theological works. I attended his church for some years when I lived in New York, largely because of the high caliber of his sermons.

More here-

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/opinion/is-your-pastor-sexist.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

Soul-searching at Princeton Theological Seminary

From RNS-

After news emerged that Princeton Theological Seminary intended to honor Tim Keller, pastor of New York City’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, people were outraged.

How could an institution committed to full inclusion of women and LGBT people in ministry give a prize — and $10,000 — to someone who very publicly wasn’t? Indeed, how could the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s flagship graduate school honor a minister of the Presbyterian Church in America, a denomination founded partly in opposition to the PCUSA’s decision to ordain women?

Then we learned Keller wouldn’t get the prize. Again, people were outraged. How could an institution committed to academic freedom silence Keller? What kind of “Christians” were these, backtracking on honoring a true man of God?

Lost amid these social-media-fueled caricatures was the on-campus reality. Seminary president Craig Barnes constantly heard a refrain: “I wonder if I really belong here.” Initially, it came from women and LGBT students.


More here-

http://religionnews.com/2017/04/12/soul-searching-at-princeton-theological-seminary/

Princeton Theological Seminary reverses decision to honor Redeemer’s Tim Keller

From RNS-

Faced with mounting criticism for its decision to give a major award to the Rev. Tim Keller, founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and one of the country’s best-known conservative Christian thinkers, Princeton Theological Seminary has reversed course and said Keller will not receive the honor.

In an email to faculty and students on Wednesday morning (March 22), the president of the venerable mainline Protestant seminary, the Rev. Craig Barnes, said he remains committed to academic freedom and “the critical inquiry and theological diversity of our community.”

But he said that giving Keller the annual Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Witness – named after a famous Dutch neo-Calvinist theologian – might “imply an endorsement” of Keller’s views against the ordination of women and LGBTQ people.

More here-

http://religionnews.com/2017/03/22/princeton-theological-seminary-reverses-decision-to-honor-redeemers-tim-keller/