Columbia Theological Seminary Course Catalog 1991-1992

COL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY Decatur, Georgia 1991-1992 Catalog COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMI NARY 701 Columbia Drive Box 520 Decatur, Georgia 30031 Nonprofit Organization U.S. postage paid at Decatur, Georgia 30031-0520 Columbia Theological Seminary is a seminary of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) controlled through a Board of Directors. It is an accredited member of the Association of Theological Schools and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. TABLE OF CONTENTS Welcome 1 Columbia Seminary - Purpose, Role, History, and Location 2 Admissions Information 7 Academic Information 10 Basic Degrees 10 Advanced Degrees 16 Continuing Education 22 Lay Institute of Faith and Life 22 Asian Ministries Center 23 Related Academic Programs 23 Special Emphases 25 Support Facilities 28 Curriculum and Courses 30 Academic Notes 70 Awards and Scholarships 75 Student Information 79 Student Organizations and Activities 84 Support of Columbia 86 Board of Directors 87 Administration 90 Faculty 92 Students 101 Calendar 141 Index 143 WELCOME TO COLUMBIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY A Seminary of Uncommon Quality That's Columbia. - a quality faculty with superb scholarly competence, a passion for teaching, a strong commitment to the church, and a pastoral concern for students. - a quality student body with an eagerness to learn and a desire to become faithful and effective leaders in the church. - a quality curriculum combining basic traditional disciplines with exciting and creative innovations - all designed to prepare men and women for ministry. - a quality program of continuing education designed to help ministers and laity keep growing in their understanding of the faith and in- crease their competence in ministry. - a quality administrative team dedicated to high standards of ex- cellence in providing support for the teaching ministry of the seminary. I'm sure you'll find that reflected in the pages of this catalog, but even more, you'll find it when you visit our campus and talk with members of the Columbia community. A warm welcome and a stimulating challenge await you. Douglas W. Oldenburg President COLUMBIA SEMINARY PURPOSE The purpose of Columbia Seminary is to educate qualified men and women for the ordained ministry and for other forms of ministry, assist in continuing personal and professional growth and development, serve as a theological resource for clergy and laity. The seminary seeks to prepare the people of God to bear witness to the creative power, redemptive promises, reconciling love, and transforming justice of God. This purpose will be fulfilled as the faculty and administration of the seminary are faithful and obedient to Jesus Christ, the living Lord, as he is known from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and witnessed to in the confessions of the Reformed tradition. In regard to race, ethnic and national origin, age, gender, and physical impairment, Columbia Seminary seeks to be intentionally inclusive in its student body, faculty, staff, language, books and other educational mate- rials, as well as in the community and worship life of the seminary. We understand this to be a proper response to the justice commanded by Jesus Christ. ROLE The task of the seminary is to enable ministers and lay leaders thankfully and obediently to recognize— and help the church to recognize— the pres- ence of the living God who continues to work in and through changing circumstances and to proclaim God's kingdom of love and justice. The seminary will fulfill this task in the following ways: 1. In ministering to the church in our nation by helping ministers to understand compassionately the feelings of loss and threat with which many church members face the changing world and by equipping ministers to enable church members to see how the work of God's love and justice in other parts of the world benefits them, too, and how they may face both the dangers and the possibilities of a changing world with openness and hope. 2. In training for discipleship in a changing world ministers equipped to help the church become a community of faithful and obedient disciples, who, grounded in an understanding of the Scriptures, have the courage and hope — and realistic and effective programs and strategies — to join the world-transforming work of God. 3. In preparing ministers and lay leaders to be models of faithful, obedient Christian life in the context of all the problems and possibilities of our changing world. 4. In providing increased resources for dialogue with secular disciplines, since ministers increasingly need to be conversant with secular disciplines to deal with the theological and ethical questions they raise; dialogue with other Christian traditions since ministers need to understand and learn from other Christian traditions as well as from the unique contribution their own tradition offers to the ecumenical church; dialogue with other religions since ministers need to understand what their non-Christian neighbors believe and be able, without compromising their Christian faith, to enter into open conversation with them. 5. In implementing a structured program of continuing education that provides a solid base for equipping ministers and lay people to bring the abiding truth of Christian tradition to bear on new times, places, and situations. 6. In identifying, in partnership with the governing bodies and other church agencies, areas where there is need for specialized education to equip ministers and lay people for particular forms of ministry. Some of these may be the traditional forms of youth work, music, evangelism, stewardship, or overseas mission; other needs may arise from particular issues, such as economic justice, peacemaking, or medical ethics. 7. In cooperating with the church's governing bodies by supplement- ing the work of the congregations training lay leaders for their re- sponsibilities in their particular congregations and assisting individuals who wish to grow in faith. 8. In developing research and resource facilities that use the latest forms of media. 9. In using joint ecumenical resources, such as the Atlanta Theological Association, the University Center of Georgia, and overseas churches and institutions, to provide students with ecumenical dialogue and experiences. HISTORY The first permanent location of the seminary was in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1828, a principal cultural, intellectual, and population center of the Southeast. The first idea of a theological school for the South was planted by the Presbytery of Hopewell (Georgia) as early as 1817, but it was not until 1824 that a constitution for "The Classical, Scientific, and Theological Institution of the South" was adopted by the Presbytery of South Carolina, and the members of the presbytery were authorized to act as the Board of Trustees for that institution. In 1827 the Board recommended to the Synod that the constitution be altered to make the institution solely a theological seminary. (There had been great opposition to the proposed literary department being in com- petition with the College of South Carolina.) The official name of the seminary became The Theological Seminary of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia; it soon became known as Columbia Theological Seminary — a name which was accepted as permanent in 1925. The revised constitution was adopted by the synod in 1828, and it was resolved to get the seminary into operation immediately. The Reverend Thomas Goulding, pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Georgia, was elected the first Professor of Theology in December of 1828, and he gathered five students for instruction in the manse. Follow- ing completion of arrangements in Columbia, South Carolina, they moved to a campus there in January of 1830. That same year, the Reverend George Howe, a New Englander, was elected by the synod as instructor in languages. The following year he became Professor of Biblical Literature, and, shortly, librarian, overseeing the growth of the seminary's library from the original 300 books collected by the presbyteries in 1829 to more than 3,000 by 1836. Dr. Howe also organized the first curriculum for the seminary, apparently modeling it after those of Princeton Seminary and Andover Theological Seminary. He served nearly 50 years until his death in 1883. In 1857 the Synod of Alabama adopted the seminary as "our own, plac- ing its name among those of the institutions which we call 'ours/ and which we are to cherish and care for, support, help, and encourage as our own." Florida (as part of the Synod of South Georgia and Florida) joined in 1884, with Mississippi completing the five-synod structure in 1925. Among the buildings on the Columbia campus was the little chapel — formerly a carriage house — where Woodrow Wilson was to be "reborn for eternity," and where the Book of Church Order (Presbyterian Church U.S.) was written. By the 1920s, the population of the Southeast — and of Presbyterians in the area — was shifting, and the centers of influence were moving with it. Atlanta had been a transportation center since the 1880s, and was developing as a commercial, industrial, and also an educational and cultural center. Certain Atlanta Presbyterians and leaders of the seminary were convinced of the city's leadership of the New South and its advantages for the seminary — and of the seminary for the city. In 1924, the Board of Directors agreed (after two previous refusals in 1887 and 1904), and the decision was made to move to Atlanta, if a campaign for the new facilities and endowment could be successfully completed in the Synod of Georgia. Launched in 1925, the campaign had a goal of $500,000 which was promptly subscribed. In that success the cooperation of the city's 14,193 Presbyterians in the 74 churches played the determining part. The move of the seminary from Columbia, South Carolina, to Decatur, Georgia, was guided by Richard T.

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