John Terrill

Welcome to the With Faith in Mind podcast. I'm John Terrell, today's host, and I also serve as executive director of Upper House. Today we explore the topic of seminary education. It's part of our series on Christian education at the crossroads. In this episode, we welcome Dr. Garwood Anderson to the show. Gar, welcome to With Faith in Mind.

Garwood Anderson

Hey, it's great to be with you. Thanks for the invite.

John Terrill

It is great to see you. Let me share with our guests. A bit about Garwood Anderson. Gar serves as the Dean of Neshota House and Professor of New Testament. He's been a member of the faculty at Neshota House since 2007 and Dean since 2017. Before coming to Neshota House, Garwood was on the faculty of Asbury Theological Seminary. He has also taught as a visiting professor at Bethel Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Reform Theological Seminary, African Theological Seminary in Lagos, Nigeria. Before his academic career, Dr. Anderson served for 17 years on the campus staff of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He's married to Dawn. They have three adult children, two sons-in-laws, and a grandson. And I think most of your kids are pretty close by, aren't they?

Garwood Anderson

Not bad, one in Chicago and one in Dallas, maybe not permanently, and hopefully in the Midwest sometime in the future. And then we have our grandson and their family just down the road in Wabatosa, west of Milwaukee.

John Terrill

Okay, so that Dallas one I didn't know about, but.

Garwood Anderson

Well, you know, that is a fun story because my daughter married one of our seminarians.

John Terrill

Okay.

Garwood Anderson

And

John Terrill

So.

Garwood Anderson

he was ordained a priest this fall and is serving in a curacy in the Diocese of Dallas.

John Terrill

Okay, so this is new.

Garwood Anderson

So, yeah.

John Terrill

Okay, very good. Well, it is, it is.

Garwood Anderson

Occupational hazard, that one.

John Terrill

Gar is also a lover of music, especially classical English choral music and jazz. I know... You did a BA in music at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and then went on to do your MA in New Testament at Trinity and then your PhD in New Testament at Marquette University. But I didn't know that part of your bio that takes you back to your undergraduate years where you studied music.

Garwood Anderson

Yes, yep, that was what I found out as an undergrad was that I loved music and that it had to be avocational.

John Terrill

Okay.

Garwood Anderson

It wasn't what I was about professionally. And so somewhere in the middle of all of that I thought I might like to study theology someday.

John Terrill

Okay.

Garwood Anderson

And someday I did, but not right away. But you know, I'll tell you a quick side point to that. One of my best friends as an undergrad student was Janine Brown, who is a New Testament scholar. And we were in the music department together. She was my piano accompanist. And we've had this fun parallel scholarly journey into New Testament studies. And we were just both members of the University chapter and developed a love for Scripture. And we've been friends ever since.

John Terrill

That's a great story. Well, I do want to go back a little bit before we get into the meat of our conversation, Gar. And I'd love to hear a bit from you about where your passion for Christian education began. Where did it begin and when did it begin? I mean, you've spent your whole professional career, really, around Christian education, intervarsity, then seminary education. So how did that start for you? And then a bit of how it has evolved over the years know, through the trajectory of your career.

Garwood Anderson

I think it has to have something to do with my own Christian testimony formation. It really is a fairly simple story. I was brought up, raised in a really wonderful, large Christian family with almost ideal role models of my parents and among my siblings. I came to the Christian faith sort of easily. It was sort of handed to me on a platter. At the same time, as a late adolescent, early young adult, I had sort of intellectual questions about it. And you know, I wondered, do I believe this? And if I do believe it, is it just because I happen to be raised a certain way? Is the Christian faith coherent? And so I became interested in apologetics and theology and just trying to make sense of the Christian faith. And then I came to realize and... This was really a hallmark of Interparcity when I was a college student that, you know, the Christian faith and the lordship of Jesus Christ had to do with every single endeavor, including our thinking and our academics and so forth. So I just became a voracious reader at that time. And this is partly why music became avocational, is that I was just more interested in other things. And so in the process then, trying to think Christianly about everything. became a passion. And then I think the way that that ended up developing is through my ministry with undergraduate and graduate students within a varsity. I retained that passion, but I came to see that perhaps some of my gifts were more in the area of teaching, maybe even scholarship. And I kept sort of doing that on my time. And it wasn't quite in the center of the job that I had. So I was urged on by my seminary professors that I might pursue a PhD and I did. And I was just very blessed then to have a faculty job full time. And my passion at that point really became the church and the difference that well-trained, winsome, articulate, people of integrity make in a local parish, in a local church. And so that just became a kind of a consuming passion. train them to study the Bible well, to teach well, to preach well, to live out the Christian faith, and it has a transformative effect in local churches. And so that really became sort of what gets me out of bed in the morning.

John Terrill

Yeah, that's really been a calling that's been consistent throughout your life. I know a little bit about your story. For our listeners, many of you know Cam Anderson is a colleague here, our associate director. Cam and Garwood are brothers. I don't remember, was it a dairy farm you grew up on or kind of a general?

Garwood Anderson

Yeah, we were all born in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

John Terrill

Yes.

Garwood Anderson

And there was farming in the family on both sides.

John Terrill

Right.

Garwood Anderson

And Cam sort of grew up being eight years older than I am. He sort of grew up in that environment until we moved to the southern Milwaukee in the early 60s.

John Terrill

Okay.

Garwood Anderson

I had three years up there and virtually no memories. But

John Terrill

Okay.

Garwood Anderson

yeah, that's our roots as a rural. rural upper Michigan.

John Terrill

Yeah, so you have kind of a deep sort of wellspring of local church, rural church, but that would have been a bit more of Cam's story having been an older brother.

Garwood Anderson

That's right.

John Terrill

That's news to me. I thought Cam was eight years younger than you.

Garwood Anderson

Ahahaha!

John Terrill

No, I can't. We'll cut that out of the... No, that's great. That's really helpful. So, let's transition to the... The Seminary you lead is really unique. For the benefit of our listeners, would you share a bit about Nishoda House? In what ways does it follow a path that is... or sort of stake out a path that's different than many of the more traditional seminaries or seminaries that follow a bit of a different model. What's unique about Nishoda? If I were to visit, what would I experience?

Garwood Anderson

Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, great question. So, I mean, let's just start with a name, right? It's called Nishoda House Theological Seminary. And one of our branding issues is like, what's a house? Upper house maybe has the same issue.

John Terrill

We do.

Garwood Anderson

Cam and I think it's just hilarious that we both work for organizations with the last name house. That's just kind of crazy to us. But we're a house because, you know, we're Although we're a seminary and it's in our name, we're also founded on really highly communal principles. So when Nishtara House was established in 1842, so we're 180 years old, the original impetus was missional. Before they used that word missional, we were a missional seminary because at that time we're a seminary in the Anglican tradition established in the Episcopal Church going that far back. And at that time, the challenge facing the Episcopal Church was planting churches on the Western frontier and trying to train up and raise people that could do that when the frontier was really a hard place to live. So you're in the middle of the 19th century, your seminaries are on the East Coast, they're urban in general, especially in New York City, and folks didn't necessarily do that well on the frontier because they hadn't trained under those conditions. So Nishoto House was founded back then to be on the frontier in order to serve the frontier and extend the Anglican tradition out to the western United States. And so we trained people under the conditions in which they would eventually live in and that sort of missional identity established who we are from the beginning. But then there's sort of a secondary factor there which is we were also... under the influence of more sort of high church, high Anglican Catholic, Oxford movement, Anglican principles. So that meant that this was a more sacramental, more liturgically high church, more Catholic in ethos sort of an institution. And if you take that missional and that sort of Catholic high church sensibilities, that's really who we are and what we've been for 180 years. But then if you add to that the fact that we really have a kind of a Benedictine or kind of quasi monastic ideal that we follow. So we live in a very close community that a lot of seminaries have done away with. Right? So these days, you said traditional, we're the traditional seminary and what has become the standard seminary now model has been uh... people have maximized i would say accessibility uh... for all kinds of good reasons that maximize the accessibility of theological formation but they minimize sort of the communal uh... interpersonal uh... and liturgical worship elements of formation and we maximize those things so uh... i don't disparage any other seminary. I was thrilled to work, when I worked at Asbury Seminary, we were a commuter seminary. I went to seminary as a commuter. I don't disparage that at all, but there really isn't anything like a community of people that live cheeks to jowl and learn how to lead communities by being formed in community.

John Terrill

That Yeah, that's so important. I'm glad that you sort of corrected my language on that because I

Garwood Anderson

Oh, I didn't really mean it as a

John Terrill

know I it it's right on. It's right on. I think you really are in some ways. You're really focused

Garwood Anderson

correction, but it is kind of funny.

John Terrill

on a traditional model of formation that is that does stand in contrast to accessibility and in some ways kind of the hybrid models and all the ways that seminaries have tried to innovate to broaden potential student communities and things like that.

Garwood Anderson

And you know, we're not against that, nor do we fail to understand that. And in fact, we do our own version of that. We also have a hybrid distance program, and we have low residency programs. But we don't have any no residency programs. So even compared to other sort of hybrid distance programs, we say even though we know we could have more students by taking more things online and remote. We say, no, we just think that being here, worshiping in our chapel twice a day, sharing meals together, sitting with your professors, so much of our learning happens outside of the classroom and the assignments. We just don't see any way that you can replicate that in any other way. And so much of the interpersonal and personal formation just happens that way. We just believe in it. and kind of against the grain, we've hung on to that because we think it's too important. And sort of the success rate for ministerial formation isn't really that good. And I don't think it's going to get better to the extent that theological education becomes increasingly commodified and sort of turns into, and I don't disparage anybody here, but it's kind of a drive-through experience.

John Terrill

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Garwood Anderson

And we're at a banquet table here.

John Terrill

And I, you know, I'd been through seminary and I did it as a, you know, in a part-time model while working, being able to do courses in residence but also from a distance. was helpful for me but it you know it it it isn't the full experience it's it's a different kind of experience than then you have when you're in community cheek to jowl i think was that the term you used

Garwood Anderson

Yeah.

John Terrill

it's a very different experience yeah

Garwood Anderson

Yeah. And I did mine that way, John. So I don't say it was great for me academically. It was great for formation, spiritual formation that happened in other places. And that can that can work. But what we're doing here is I'm a convert.

John Terrill

Yeah, well, there's something very unique. I've been on the Neshota House Theological Seminary Campus. It's beautiful. You come in. For the benefit of our listeners, what would be unique about the experience there? I imagine people have perceptions of what seminary is like. Many have probably been through that. Others have had friends that have been through it. But if someone were to visit Noshoda House, what would they see in the life of the place that would stand out?

Garwood Anderson

I mean, we would have to start with the fact that we've got blessed us with just a sort of a naturally beautiful environment. We're on a lake. It's woodsy. It's remote. Like you can get anything you need within eight minutes of the place, but you don't feel like that when you're here. So that's just a blessing from God. But then apart from that, I think what you would notice is that our chapel really sort of functions as the... the ethos and ideological and almost literal center of our campus. And I say that because we start every day at 745 with a morning prayer service followed by a daily celebration of the Holy Eucharist. And every day of the week, every day of the year, save for Easter morning, that happens here. So, that's pretty unusual. And then we end our day formally with normally a song, even song service again in the Anglican tradition. And that sort of is the beginning and end of our day. All of our students, all of our faculty participate in those required services every day. And so one of the reasons that we can kind of live together with one another, despite and within differences that we have is that we're sort of founded on praying together. So then in between that, you know, we have meals that we share with one another. And of course we have classes and like one of the ways that I like to say it is we start our day in the praise of God. Um, and then we kind of go on to our classes to understand a little better what we said and what we said to God that morning. And we returned into the chapel at the end of the day, which sort of more reasons, uh, to exalt, um, the triune God. And that rinse, repeat, recycle, that has a formative effect on

John Terrill

It does, 365 days a year.

Garwood Anderson

you. Yeah.

John Terrill

That's a really formative experience, as you've noted.

Garwood Anderson

If I might interrupt just in the mean, in between all of that, then our students also, like they have to work, maybe besides studying, they actually do physical labor as a part of their formation. We all do each other's dishes in our refectory. The faculty put aprons on and clear tables and wash dishes just like our students do. And so we enjoy a kind of a common life. together that you don't see very much out there anymore. And for us, none of these things are a bug. It's a feature, right? Like we wouldn't change it if we had an endless amount of money available to us. We would still be doing that.

John Terrill

You know, it's interesting, I'm even reflecting on my own experience, and again, I had a great seminary experience. But it struck me that I could essentially matriculate all the way through seminary and never really have to work with another fellow seminarian. It was very different than my MBA, which was a high percentage of group and teamwork.

Garwood Anderson

Mmm.

John Terrill

And of course you learn how to deal with conflict and people who don't have English as a first language and you're responsible for different gifts and skills, strengths, weaknesses, you've got to put together. and work on projects together, meet deadlines and so forth. And there's a working out of that that's really helpful. And I could imagine a communal life where you're maybe not working alongside someone in the classroom interdependent on a project or a paper, but working alongside someone on the grounds of the seminary eating in chapel 365 days a year in that common rule of life, common rhythm of life. to think about conflict and conflict resolution and forgiveness and other things that are really formative for the life of a pastor.

Garwood Anderson

That's right, exactly. So I think another element of that for us is we, our faculty are probably almost to a fault for the sake of their lives, quite accessible to our students. And we eat our meals with the students. Often the topic of a faculty or a classroom conversation ends up as a dinner or a lunch conversation, right? Which is just wonderful. The seminary that I went to used to run an ad in like Christianity Today and those sorts of magazines that they had a big stack of books because they were very prolific scholars and outstanding and say study with the people who write the books Right and my tagline for us. I don't think it'll ever play as an ad is Study with the people who haven't written all of these books because they're eating lunch with you

John Terrill

There you go. There are trade-offs.

Garwood Anderson

Not that we don't write books right but maybe like half or fewer than we would if we were just sort of teachers that went to be recluses.

John Terrill

Yeah, I'm not sure that'll get by your communication marketing department, but you should try.

Garwood Anderson

I always think of kind of crazy things like that and you know that none of them have gotten by.

John Terrill

Okay, well, in my book, you're innovative and entrepreneurial. Not stale.

Garwood Anderson

There you go. That's the help. That's right.

John Terrill

I want to turn to seminary education a little bit more broadly. You touched on this at the very beginning, but it might seem like an obvious question, it probably is an obvious question, but why is seminary education so vital to the life of the church?

Garwood Anderson

Hmm. Right. You know, I want to say, I want to start an answer to that question by saying, I don't think that that is as obvious as maybe some of us who do this think it should be. And what I want to say in that vein is, there are persons that have sort of gifts and charisma and talents and so forth, that actually turn out to be pretty effective leaders of churches. who haven't had the theological seminary experience or not much of it. And that always is sort of a datum that I think theological seminaries need to account for. In other words, is it actually the case that there are certain kinds of people that just can do this sort of leadership or maybe they're good communicators, maybe they sort of learn their craft by means of apprenticing and so forth. And there are a lot of people that are pointing out these days that some of the ministerial formation that we should be doing maybe doesn't need seminaries. And I think we should start with that critique, that sort of datum, and then step back and say, but why doesn't that actually work in the long run? And I think the key phrase there is the long run,

John Terrill

Mm-hmm.

Garwood Anderson

which is to say there is a degenerative effect. when people are not well trained, theologically, biblically, are not rooted in Christian spiritual practices in a deep way. And what ends up happening is the church sort of runs on charisma or sort of like, I would say, leadership carbohydrates, you know, which is one of the things that we're watching, I think, happening in the megachurch phenomenon. And those things run dry, they run flat. And they run a skew. Whereas I would say the theological seminary here is to teach people not only the rudiments and the deeper things of the faith, but also teach them how to be a lifelong learner in scripture, in the Christian tradition, theology, all of that sort of thing, so that their roots run so deep that they can be nourished for a lifetime, rather than just depending on the sort of the short-term and Sorry, I'm trying

John Terrill

Yeah.

Garwood Anderson

to... ephemeral, ephemeral skills of the leader.

John Terrill

Yeah.

Garwood Anderson

And so what I think we are watching is that the move away from theological seminaries in, especially in the evangelical tradition, is creating a tendency toward a thoughtless faith. Let's just... endlessly trying to keep people, sorry to say this, but entertained or some sort of trying to pique their interest, sort of gimmick after gimmick, but there isn't anything that doesn't sustain, it won't sustain the Christian faith. And then I would say in the mainline traditions, the Protestant mainline traditions, the theological seminaries have been so theologically progressive and adventuresome that they're training people that are not deeply rooted. in the Christian faith and they are leading churches that have become about other things than salvation through Christ and the worship of the triune God. Just good humanitarianism and that is also not going to sustain. So I feel like theological seminaries have an answer that they need to give to the evangelical world that's running on charisma. We have an answer for them. We also need to answer to the fact that in some ways, in the decline of the church, we've been part of the problem rather than part of the answer.

John Terrill

Yeah, so that's really helpful. From your perspective, Gar, if you're sitting in front of a prospective student, what would you tell them or how would you respond to them, I guess maybe is a better way to frame this, if they asked you about your sort of philosophy of the purpose of seminary education? How would you articulate that, given where we've been in this conversation? and some of the values that I think have emerged in your own your own sort of philosophy of formation, including your time at Nishoda House.

Garwood Anderson

First of all, I love to say I love having a prospective student sitting with me.

John Terrill

Mm-hmm.

Garwood Anderson

That's one of the things I really love about the job because they're exploring how God is gifted and how God is calling and often how seminary fits in that is just the missing piece. And it's really fun to talk about how it actually is a missing piece for their vocational their sense of call. You probably can skip that, it wasn't very well said.

John Terrill

That's good.

Garwood Anderson

Back to your question. So, one of the ways that we talk about it here is our curricular objectives are described under three categories. So, we are looking for forming a faithful intellect. So, of course we say these things in Latin because it has more gravitas, right? But, intellectus fide, a faithful intellect, deep understanding and knowledge of the Christian faith and tradition, scripture. So again, what I said earlier, deeply rooted in a way that we're not washed to and fro by every wind of doctrine and so forth. Secondly, actually this is number one for us, is a hobbitus fide. which is to say a faithful character.

John Terrill

Mm-hmm.

Garwood Anderson

Use the word hobbitus for that. So you see the word habit, you see the word, the idea of discipline, you see the word of, you see the idea of character. And all Christian leadership that is not founded on the integrity of the character of the leader is eventually gonna come up short and fail. So forming people in character. I think is supremely important. And then we say the third thing is Praxis Fide, so faithful practice. So like knowing how to do perform the tasks and responsibilities of ministry in a thoughtful and faithful way. So again, to review, Habitus Fide, character, most important, Intellectus Fide, faithful in knowledge and understanding, and then proxies fide, faithful in practice. So for us, I think a lot of seminaries would just say, not say, but maybe convey by the way that they form people that it's the intellectus that is the thing that matters. Well, we believe that. We just think the hobbitus and the proxies also matter. And these days, I think there's even a turn away from the intellectus just to the proxies. And again, the three together really are a chord not easily broken. So, John, I feel like I could have done all of that better. I'll let Jesse think about that. I wouldn't mind giving that another try.

John Terrill

Yeah, I'd welcome it. So I think all of that was usable. So please don't feel like it was a waste or we'd throw it out. Cause I did like everything that you just said. But I bet having a second chance that you could condense it a lot more and it'd be easier for people to grasp when it's shorter.

Garwood Anderson

Right.

John Terrill

So if you wanna try to do that same thing

Garwood Anderson

Right.

John Terrill

in 30 seconds or a minute, I think that'd be ideal.

Garwood Anderson

Yeah, yeah, yeah, good. So my mind was, I was losing it because I put it out of order and that started to confuse things right off the bat. So.

John Terrill

So you're good. Let me just ask the question again and then I think again it felt very usable and very fine from our perspective but

Garwood Anderson

Yeah. Okay.

John Terrill

let's just give it another shot. Garth, let me hear a little bit about how you would describe, in what ways, in what way would you describe the purpose of seminary education?

Garwood Anderson

Right, so John, to answer that question, I have to talk about it in terms of how we tried to do it here and the way that we see it, which is going to have some in common with other seminaries and maybe some different emphases. But the way that we describe this is in terms of sort of three areas of formation that we think are essential for the Christian leader and ordained person. So when we talk about our curriculum, it's all under three headings. We say them in Latin because it has a little bit of gravitas to it, but the first is a faithful character or we say hobbitus vide. So the habits of life, the ethos, the character is sort of fundamental, we think. And then the second thing is a faithful intellect, faithful thinking, theology, competency with scripture, in thinking through ethical and theological questions. So we say intellectus vide. a faithful intellect. And then thirdly, it's a proxies vitae, which is to say a faithful practice. So ministers, ordained people, Christian leaders need to be able to do things effectively and seminary is about that also. But we don't think seminary is about any one of those things alone apart from the others. And we think that the faithfulness of one's character and the integrity of one's life... is really the supremely important thing upon which the other things would be built.

John Terrill

Yeah, and we often in more vernacular, we talk about head, hands, and heart.

Garwood Anderson

Yeah, and that actually fits with that, doesn't it?

John Terrill

You know, that, yeah, or, you know, I'll sort of, you know, my own take, I've thought about orthodoxy, orthopraxy, and orthopathy. Right, the right affections,

Garwood Anderson

Mm-hmm.

John Terrill

right knowledge, and right practice.

Garwood Anderson

Yeah, it almost seems like there's something just right about those three things, because

John Terrill

Yeah.

Garwood Anderson

in different language, if we're thinking rightly, we're thinking those are the three things we're thinking about.

John Terrill

Well, and it's three. You never can go wrong with number three.

Garwood Anderson

Can't really go wrong, right? Yeah. Yeah.

John Terrill

That's what we can remember.

Garwood Anderson

Ha ha.

John Terrill

Well, that's really helpful. And I do think having been to Nishota House for extended periods of time and just seeing it, I think that those three commitments are really visible and a real part of the life there. I'd like to explore, historically, the relationship between seminaries and the church and how that's evolved over time. And I know you are in an interesting place. in this relationship because you serve the Episcopal Church, you train and equip leaders within the Episcopal Church and also the Anglican Church of North America, I think other denominations as well. Maybe you have students, many students or some students who are outside of those two traditions. the unique relationship that Noshoda House has had with the church or denominations, and then how seminary education has, how it started, and then from your perspective, how it has evolved with respect to its relationship with particular traditions or denominations within the Christian church.

Garwood Anderson

Yeah, that's a big set of questions and a historian could do better with them than I can.

John Terrill

Yep.

Garwood Anderson

But I would say that just sort of speaking from within our current circle, what mainline Protestantism had in terms of seminaries was a sort of geographical distribution of seminaries for each denomination. each with their own distinctive character to some extent. And somehow between geography and small differences of ethos, they would serve that church. And there was a pretty strong mutual regard between the seminaries and the denomination that probably made them stable and productive. And I think things have evolved over time into a much more of a sort of marketplace mentality in which seminaries sort of have to fight for their niche. They have to put themselves out there. They have to make the case why even within their own denomination people ought to attend it, which is a pretty big change. And I think, John, did you go to Fuller? Or in Conwell?

John Terrill

Gordon Conwell.

Garwood Anderson

Okay, right. So I was. So you can probably skip that bit, but I'm thinking of like the way that Fuller Seminary became a very big servant of the Presbyterian Church, especially PCUSA, right? Not only, of course. Or I think of the way that like Asbury Seminary, where I taught, was never a seminary of the United Methodist Church, but just had a very large number of United What happened and has developed over time is unaffiliated seminaries started to make the case and maybe by virtue of their performance or maybe by virtue of some other qualities of why they should vie for students that were once exclusive to mainline seminaries. And that's happened within the Anglican and Episcopal world as well. I think, for example, one of our best options in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Churches, the Anglican Episcopal House of Studies at Duke. But Duke's a Methodist seminary, right? And, you know, Gordon Conwell has an Anglican Studies program. Regent College has an Anglican Studies program. So, there's a lot of vying for the same sort of pool of people. And that sort of loyalty between the nomination and their seminaries doesn't exist the way that it once did. And I don't... necessarily blame anybody for that. That has to do with practical matters. It also may have something to do with seminaries, the sense that people feel that maybe they failed their nomination. So all of that to say, now for us, we have to make the case that the Nishota House ethos, what we do, the way that we do it, what we sort of stand for and produce, is valuable enough that... we should be serving the traditions that we were created to serve. But that's a real change. And, yeah, so I'm not sure how I want to say that. That's a change. So there was a time when, say, at our seminary, there were dioceses in the Episcopal Church that were known either to be conservative, theologically, or sort of liturgically high church. They used to call it the Beretta belt. Beretta is an Anglo-Catholic hat

John Terrill

Mm-hmm.

Garwood Anderson

worn as an alternative to the Canterbury hat,

John Terrill

Okay.

Garwood Anderson

the more sort of Protestant reform. Though the Beretta belt, Nishorda was just their seminary. Nishorda didn't have to recruit those students. The bishops from those dioceses said, well, of course you're going to Nishorda house. That doesn't exist anymore for many of our seminaries. The student has a much greater role in making the decision. The bishops are open to sending people a variety of places. And they're very open to the accessibility of theological training. So it just means that seminaries have to become more entrepreneurial. They have to work harder to sort of make their case. And in the case of Episcopal and Anglican seminaries, we're seeing fewer of them. than we had 10, 15, 20 years ago. We have mergers going on, seminaries that embed in larger institutions, and seminaries that are probably gonna go out of business. So we're all sort of fighting for our life in a way. And a number of ways to do that, one is to make yourself maximally accessible, go to the fully sort of online remote approach. That's not a bad model. That's a possibility. Another way to do it is to prove yourself to be the best, the most esteemed faculty, and so forth. And I think for us, we've chosen to try to be the most distinctive. Unique, you said the word unique. We try to make ourselves the most peculiar in ways that we think the church needs today.

John Terrill

Yeah. You've hinted and maybe you've been even more explicit about all the pressures that are not new but maybe intensified. And I wonder if you could speak to some of the forces, I'm thinking more sort of external forces, demographic forces, changes in the broader landscape that are changing. the formula, so to speak, at seminaries and schools of divinity. Because it may not be obvious, but I know there are economic, demographic, and other kinds of broad cultural trends and demographic trends that really are having an impact on what's happening on the ground.

Garwood Anderson

Mm-hmm. Yeah, so an obvious place to start is what the colleges, undergrad especially, are feeling, which is there's a smaller pool of even possible students. And so they're fighting over a smaller pool. That's not directly related to us, but it's not related, because that means that pool, as it moves through the demographics, is going to affect us also. But then the more particular challenge for seminaries is that church attendance, church membership is declining.

John Terrill

Mm-hmm.

Garwood Anderson

It's declining precipitously in mainline Protestantism, and it's declining some or maybe not so much among evangelicals. So evangelicals have a sort of a practically lower view of the seminary than they did a generation ago. And the mainline churches are producing fewer persons for ordained ministry and in a lot of cases actually need fewer, right? So where that pool is shrinking. Now, one of the things I would say about us is we feel like, well, that's an issue, but we're not so large that major demographic shifts have to mean the world to us. And in fact, we think that there's a hunger, especially among younger Christians, for the sort of formation and training, really the sort of rich and deeply rooted Christianity. There's a deep hunger among younger Christians, especially people pursuing ordination of the sort of thing that we offer here. So I worry a little bit about the demographics, and I think you can see them. across the board among theological seminaries, but for our own institution, I think the answer there is to be more distinctive and not more generic. Or another way I might say that, excuse me, is I think McDonald's has to worry a lot about people eating less meat and gluten intolerance. But if you're like a... if your thing is sort of the gourmet burger, right, at a brew pub, you're not as worried about that. What you want to do is like have really great beers and a really great burger

John Terrill

Mm-hmm.

Garwood Anderson

that people want to go out of their way to have. Right. So that's kind of where I see us is we're not McDonald's. We're the brew pub with a gourmet burger.

John Terrill

Yeah. I wonder if you could speak a bit more about the economic challenges you see. This maybe doesn't apply as much to Nishota House because I know your student numbers have been on the incline so you've been I think moving in the opposite direction of a lot of seminary education. I think I've got that right. and so you're growing, but I'm thinking about all the seminaries that are selling property or trying to sell property to sort of reconfigure their balance sheets and you just see these sort of massive changes taking place. And I wonder if you could speak to that from your perspective.

Garwood Anderson

Right, well, before we exalt ourselves too much, we just have to say Nishoda House only exists today because it owns so much highly prized property. So we've been selling property like other seminaries are today for decades. And we're neither proud nor ashamed of that, but it is the case. So we also aren't financially viable yet. to the way that we need to be. And one of the ways this institution made it through hard times is it owned property on a lake and good farm property and so forth. So a lot of seminaries are finding themselves in that position and we're not unique in that way. On the other hand, as you pointed out, our enrollment numbers grew essentially doubled from 2017 to... our 2021 census, which is not something many seminaries can say. So we do think that growth is possible. We are experiencing that. But even so, if we took in every possible student that we could fit into every classroom and housing space that we have, it still wouldn't be enough financially to sustain the institution. And I think that's pretty much true for every seminary. And at this point, only the seminaries with really large endowments find themselves in a comfortable position and even they are challenged. So you can grow by enrollment and close the financial gap that way, but we also have to close it with endowment, money, and with a very assertive fundraising. So all of this has a lot to do with how expensive it is to run small educational institutions where you need a substantial, though small, well-equipped faculty that deserve to be properly compensated, and then you need all of the staff you need to do all the functions that an institution has. And if you're like we are, you know, in the 100 to 150 student range, there's not enough tuition or fees to fund all of that. So we really need people that believe in it and that will come alongside and say, yeah, this is long-term strategic for the health and well-being of the church. And we're willing to buy into that and be a part of it.

John Terrill

Yeah, yeah, and there, I'm assuming you've, seminaries have explored fee for service options and other kinds of models of revenue generation and there just aren't, probably aren't enough ideas out there to balance the budget. It really does have to come from generous benefactors, foundations, philanthropic initiatives

Garwood Anderson

Yeah, I think largely, you know, with probably some exceptions, that's pretty much true across

John Terrill

to really make it work.

Garwood Anderson

the board. The one thing that you're watching now is that it just turns out that historically, seminaries were able to locate in places, urban and otherwise, that have become very valuable properties. And so there is a trend of selling a high-priced property. putting the proceeds into an endowment and then moving to a place that's less expensive and using that endowment to fund future endeavors. So that's a model that we're seeing quite a bit of. And you know, it's one because of the treasure that we think we sit on, we hope not to exercise.

John Terrill

Yeah, yeah. And for the benefit of our listeners, Noshoda House is located in Noshoda, Wisconsin, which is about midway, about midway between Madison and Milwaukee, close to Ocana, Milwaukee, but just a beautiful setting. So I think, I wanted to get this in earlier, it's the oldest educational institution, is this right, in the state of Wisconsin?

Garwood Anderson

Right.

John Terrill

So it predates, Beloit College, which I think is quite old, University of Wisconsin. I don't know.

Garwood Anderson

Carroll College is our closest competitor. There's a little competition between the two of us. It's sort of like, what do you mean by higher education institution?

John Terrill

Yeah.

Garwood Anderson

But this is our podcast, so Nishota's the oldest.

John Terrill

We'll claim Nishota House today. It's great. It's like Wisconsin and Minnesota claiming the most lakes in the country.

Garwood Anderson

Right.

John Terrill

So let me take a little bit of a different angle. I want to explore some of the challenges and hurdles that different stakeholders within the seminary ecosystem face. And I'd like to first have you reflect on challenges that students face. When they show up at Nishoda House and matriculate through the program, what are some of the typical challenges that you have to help them overcome and build capacity to help them overcome.

Garwood Anderson

Wow. Yeah. Great question. So, I mean, I think a starting place is, especially the way that we do formation, and especially for our residential students, they like literally, well, almost literally leave their nets and follow Jesus. Right? So they're typically often selling homes, leaving vocations in order to do this. And they're doing it in a church that has no matter what they're affiliated with, they're doing it in a church that has an uncertain future. So they sense that God has called them and so they're doing this training at great personal expanse, literal and psychic, for a future that is a little bit uncertain. So that's probably that kind of overriding anxiety is a great starting place. It's also kind of a great starting place for formation, right? Trusting God. And it's one of the reasons we think our students come out with a kind of commitment and resilience that maybe isn't typical everywhere. So that would be kind of a starting point. I think a sort of second challenge is all graduate education is stressful. You're being tested with your peers. You want to keep up. You want to do well. But for most of our students that means They have a family. They're trying to do right by their family, be good parents, in a lot of cases, being good spouses and so forth. So just kind of fitting the demands of a very demanding formation together with family life. Our approach is not so different than a boot camp or a med school or a law school in terms of the demands. But of course, Those places are sort of known for often destroying families, and we want to strengthen families. So that's another thing that we really have to work hard to shepherd people through that experience. And I don't say we always succeed 100%, but many of our students, alumni, look back and say, yeah, that was hard, and they were some of the happiest years of our life because of what we experienced. I think a third thing is, again, this has to do with the way we're doing formation, is the best thing about us is our community life. And it's absolutely the worst thing about us. Like, it's the hardest part of the experience, is you go from how wonderful it is to make all these new friends and to have fun together to realize somebody who's, my neighbor never picks up his dog's poop, right? My kids stepped in it and I can't get them to do the right thing or they make too much noise or they're obnoxious in class, you know, and right. So all of those things which we talked about earlier are another, you know, I think really big challenge. But if you add all of those things up, like taking the risk, managing a very challenging set of demands and schedule, living in community, it's also just like a, it's a crucible for formation if it's handled well and done well.

John Terrill

Garbatt, I wonder if you could speak to challenges that faculty face.

Garwood Anderson

Right. So, yeah, I think the first thing I would say is faculty that are in theological seminaries, they want to be there. Some of them had options to do other things, and forming people for ministry within the context of a discipline that they care about and think is important. They want it. And so, you know, sometimes we'll complain about our lives and the demands and so forth, but it's good to step back and say, yeah, but if I were independently wealthy, I would probably choose something like what I do and maybe bargain for a few things.

John Terrill

Mm-hmm.

Garwood Anderson

But it's a great life. And that's true of our faculty, even as it concerns sort of the communal and pastoral and mentoring. overload that they experience given the way that we do things. They're here because they want to be here and they believe in this way of doing seminary formation. That said, it can be sort of never ending, you know, not unlike a parish priest or a church minister, the needs and demands of people around you can be overwhelming and finding that space and balance in life. can be difficult. A particular challenge for, I think, our faculty is because they don't just teach and leave the campus to their personal studies, they would like to be active and make an important contribution in their disciplines, but time is short for that. There's not a lot of extra time available to it and so sometimes they feel pressure. as they compare themselves to peers that they knew from grad school who are publishing more or maybe making a bigger name for themselves, are they making the right choice?

John Terrill

Garbott, I want to also give some air time for administrators and staff. I'm sympathetic to this category, but what's particularly challenging?

Garwood Anderson

Hehehe

John Terrill

Do you find particularly challenging in the role you play and some of your colleagues there that are serving in an administrative capacity?

Garwood Anderson

Right, so you know an expression we use around here is because we're small and we have a fairly skeletal staff and administration compared to what we might wish for, that we punch above our weight, we hustle because the other option is not existing. So our administrators, our staff, they go that extra mile. They're very, very hardworking, dedicated people. And at a certain point, of course, if that sort of work-life balance goes too far askew for too long, other things develop like kind of healthy patterns and resentments and internal tensions one with another. So I would say that living under... the shadow of a financial and enrollment perpetual challenge can be very wearing on people. And so we make a lot of the progress that we make, but even as we make progress, we're sometimes reminded there's still a ways to go for us to entirely fulfill the vocation we think we have.

John Terrill

Yeah, I wanted to highlight this because I do think it's important all institutions have unique demands and challenges and those who are called to lead institutions. face those challenges in very sort of unique and personal ways.

Garwood Anderson

Mm-hmm.

John Terrill

And I think seminaries are a particular kind of institution and the pressures mount and they're challenging. And so I wanted to give you an opportunity to give some voice to that because it's not always obvious that these challenges are in place. My guess is that you have a lot that you're thankful for, that you see a lot of hopefulness, that you have a lot of hope, that you see real signs of resilience and new things happening in graduate theological education. What brings you hope and just sort of, you know, animates you these days as you look around beyond Nishota House but also with respect in Nishota House?

Garwood Anderson

Right, thank you. John, I'm going to say something about the last question, and if you or Jesse think it should be included, by all means do it. I just want to say one other stress that I think theological seminaries are facing is we know that our whole American public has become more polarized. Our social discourse tends to be more vitriolic than ever. or at least in our lifetimes, and that has afflicted the church. And so one of the challenges that we face in the seminaries, and this is across the board, is that a very opinionated and confident, onlooking public always has opinions about decisions, theological, ethical business, that the seminaries are making, and every decision you make is wrong to somebody. and realizing that although you enjoy a certain rapprochement among your community and within your borders, that's harder to achieve out there. Just knowing that every choice will be subject to somebody's second guessing and judgment can wear on a person in a divided and broken church.

John Terrill

Yeah.

Garwood Anderson

If that's helpful, you may use that. Back to your other question. Look, the thing that I'm thankful for that just gives me hope and gets me out of bed every day, it's pretty simple and it's almost singular. And that is I get to watch people change, grow, be transformed over a period of time in the formation that they're doing in seminary. And then I get to go out and visit them in the churches and the places where they serve and see that... We made a great investment of our time and efforts because they are much beloved, they're appreciated, they're transforming congregations. And if I could just multiply that effect with more students, more graduates, more transformation happening out there, I think the theological seminary is not the answer for a declining church. But it's been part of the problem for too long. And it can be one important part of what transforms, you know, a Christian church in America today that is struggling. And it's struggling partly because of the sort of leaders that the seminaries have been producing. I don't wanna say that, John. I don't take that off. It seems like people suck. I'm not trying to say that.

John Terrill

We'll leave this in.

Garwood Anderson

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah.

John Terrill

It'll be one of the outtakes. It's okay, tell me more about how people suck. People will buy into that, we'll get extra hits for that.

Garwood Anderson

Well, what that sounded like is I'm laying on ministers the failure of the church.

John Terrill

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Garwood Anderson

The truth is, in some ways, not to be blamed, but looking at it more hopefully, optimistically, I just sincerely believe that well-formed persons of high integrity, knowledge and skills will make a big impact on the church.

John Terrill

Well, this is great. I want to move toward closing our conversation, but I did have a final question for you, Gar, and I wondered if you could speak a little bit. to the role of hospitality in seminary education. And I'm looking here at something that when I was at Nishoda House was placed before me, and that is a prayer for Nishoda House,

Garwood Anderson

Mm.

John Terrill

which I think is in some ways, you know, it's a prayer of blessing,

Garwood Anderson

No.

John Terrill

but it's really maybe in the Benedictine tradition, you know, really a statement about hospitality. And I wonder if you could speak to this document, and we'll post this in the show notes

Garwood Anderson

Hmm.

John Terrill

or a link to this in the show notes. so our listeners can find it. But what is the role of, what is the prayer for Nishoda House and what is the role of seminary, hospitality in seminary education?

Garwood Anderson

Right, thank you. Well, that prayer you're referring to, and it'd be great if you wish to link it. It's a prayer we pray literally every day at our evening prayer service. Bless, O Lord, this house, set apart to the glory of thy great name and for the benefit of thy holy church. I could say the whole thing, because I do say it every day. And you're right, it is an invocation of God to bless this place that through it, the church and the world might be blessed. And you're right also that it has a Benedictine flavor and that hospitality is sort of a key idea within that framework. So what we believe about that is that God has spaces in the world and we happen to have inherited one of them where persons can come together who might in other spaces never know one another or worse be at enmity with one another and be welcomed and received and know the love of Christ concretized in an actual human community, right? So that's what hospitality means and we think that we've been gifted, I won't say uniquely, but especially in this space and especially for this time. to exercise that kind of hospitality. And we think that it's transformative when people experience it as those who receive it, and even more so as they exercise that kind of hospitality.

John Terrill

Yeah. Well, I have enjoyed this conversation. Garwood Anderson, thank you very much. I think that's a good note and word to end on. We will share more about Nishota House and Garwood in our show notes. I'm... more encouraged and hopeful as a result of this conversation. We appreciate all that you're doing at Nishoda House and the way that you're really advocating and really working on behalf of graduate theological education more broadly. So thank you for your work and thanks to our listeners and we really appreciate this time with you.

Garwood Anderson

Well, it's been exceedingly kind of you to give me a chance to talk about these things with you. I know we share all of these passions in common, and sharing this last name house, working in collaboration with you all toward similar ends with different vocations is just one of our real delights.

John Terrill

ours as well. So thank you Garwood, so good to spend this time with you.

Garwood Anderson

Thank you. Great. Thank you.