Seminary Accreditation?

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Again they only offer the discount to those who are affiliated with an SBC church and plan on working in an SBC church. It is not because you sign off on the BF&M.
 
Again they only offer the discount to those who are affiliated with an SBC church and plan on working in an SBC church. It is not because you sign off on the BF&M.

That is not what it says. You do not, presently, have to be affiliated with a SBC. You do have to become a member of a church, just like you do at every other seminary in the world.
 
FYI, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary has been in the application process for ATS and is expected to be received by the end of the school year.

Wow! That would make PRTS an even more attractive deal than now. Reasonable tuition, great scholarship, experiemental Calvinism and fully accredited. Wow!
 
Again they only offer the discount to those who are affiliated with an SBC church and plan on working in an SBC church. It is not because you sign off on the BF&M.

That is not what it says. You do not, presently, have to be affiliated with a SBC. You do have to become a member of a church, just like you do at every other seminary in the world.

Here is the exact quote from the link you provided earlier.

Students from a different denominational background may qualify to receive the Southern Baptist rate for tuition when they affiliate with a SBC church and affirm a call to service within the SBC. The student must commit to and abide by the Covenant Agreement for Southern Baptist Tuition Rates.

Thus I stand by my statement. You can be from a different denomination, but you have to at least affiliate with a SBC church and serve within one.
 
FYI, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary has been in the application process for ATS and is expected to be received by the end of the school year.

Wow! That would make PRTS an even more attractive deal than now. Reasonable tuition, great scholarship, experiemental Calvinism and fully accredited. Wow!

Indeed, especially because of this from the PRTS website:

Degree seeking students are allowed to complete 50% of their course work via our distance learning program.
 
Again they only offer the discount to those who are affiliated with an SBC church and plan on working in an SBC church. It is not because you sign off on the BF&M.

That is not what it says. You do not, presently, have to be affiliated with a SBC. You do have to become a member of a church, just like you do at every other seminary in the world.
Sorry brother but it's not as easy as you make it sound. Yes you do have to be affiliated with a church just like any other seminary however to get the discount you have to be willing to serve in the SBC AFTER you graduate.

There are two ways that students may receive the SBC Tuition Rate:

Entitlement (Prior Church Affiliation): If the original Church Membership Affirmation form comes from an SBC church and indicates active membership for a minimum of one year, that student will automatically qualify for the SBC tuition discount as outlined by SBTS.

Conviction: Students from a different denominational background may qualify to receive the Southern Baptist rate for tuition when they affiliate with a SBC church and affirm a call to service within the SBC. The student must commit to and abide by the Covenant Agreement for Southern Baptist Tuition Rates. The stipulations of this agreement are:

The student must affirm a commitment to pursue ongoing service within the SBC after graduation from Boyce College or Southern Seminary by signing the Covenant Agreement.

Incoming students signing the Covenant Agreement have one semester to become an active member in a local Southern Baptist church. Continuing students must be active members at a local Southern Baptist church before signing the Covenant Agreement.

The student’s former pastor must sign the Covenant Agreement, affirming that the student has discussed the commitment to align with the SBC.

The student’s current local pastor must sign the Church Membership Affirmation form to verify good standing (a complementary form to the Covenant Agreement).

So the 50% discount is at the price of agreeing to ongoing service within the SBC after graduation. There are strings attached to this discount.
 
FYI, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary has been in the application process for ATS and is expected to be received by the end of the school year.

Wow! That would make PRTS an even more attractive deal than now. Reasonable tuition, great scholarship, experiemental Calvinism and fully accredited. Wow!

Indeed, especially because of this from the PRTS website:

Degree seeking students are allowed to complete 50% of their course work via our distance learning program.

Will PRTS change their 50% distance learning requirement once they are ATS accredited? I was under the impression that ATS only allowed 30 hrs as distance learning. I could be wrong on this.
 
FYI, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary has been in the application process for ATS and is expected to be received by the end of the school year.

Wow! That would make PRTS an even more attractive deal than now. Reasonable tuition, great scholarship, experiemental Calvinism and fully accredited. Wow!

Indeed, especially because of this from the PRTS website:

Degree seeking students are allowed to complete 50% of their course work via our distance learning program.

Will PRTS change their 50% distance learning requirement once they are ATS accredited? I was under the impression that ATS only allowed 30 hrs as distance learning. I could be wrong on this.

I think you are confusing the ATS with something else. ATS standards are here:

http://www.ats.edu/Accrediting/Documents/08DegreeStandards.pdf

And only require, for the M.Div., a minimum of 1 year of full time study, or it's equivalent, be done in residence. So presumably, all but 30 hours of a 90 CH M.Div. could be done by distance ed.

Of course, I could be wrong.
 
I would tend to agree with you: however, I have seen, with my own eyes, a church which called it self Presbyterian, and upheld that tradition, with the singular exception of holding to CredoBaptism. It was in Houston: don't know if it is still open. It has been a year since I saw it. I assumed, since the Bethel website indicated they used to at least call themselves "Presbyterian", that they were perhaps the church I had seen. I guess I was wrong.
The church may have claimed it; it is possible that you may have seen it claimed. But that does not make it true.

I can claim to be Mohandas Ghandi. I can also claim to be a tomato. That doesn't make it so.
 
I would tend to agree with you: however, I have seen, with my own eyes, a church which called it self Presbyterian, and upheld that tradition, with the singular exception of holding to CredoBaptism. It was in Houston: don't know if it is still open. It has been a year since I saw it. I assumed, since the Bethel website indicated they used to at least call themselves "Presbyterian", that they were perhaps the church I had seen. I guess I was wrong.
The church may have claimed it; it is possible that you may have seen it claimed. But that does not make it true.

I can claim to be Mohandas Ghandi. I can also claim to be a tomato. That doesn't make it so.

Of course you aren't a tomato. We all know tomatoes are named Bob.
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I would tend to agree with you: however, I have seen, with my own eyes, a church which called it self Presbyterian, and upheld that tradition, with the singular exception of holding to CredoBaptism. It was in Houston: don't know if it is still open. It has been a year since I saw it. I assumed, since the Bethel website indicated they used to at least call themselves "Presbyterian", that they were perhaps the church I had seen. I guess I was wrong.
The church may have claimed it; it is possible that you may have seen it claimed. But that does not make it true.

I can claim to be Mohandas Ghandi. I can also claim to be a tomato. That doesn't make it so.
Which is pretty much what I said in my original post, when I said the idea was "inherently contradictory."
 
FYI, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary has been in the application process for ATS and is expected to be received by the end of the school year.

Thanks for this. Very interesting.

---------- Post added at 09:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:54 PM ----------

FYI, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary has been in the application process for ATS and is expected to be received by the end of the school year.

Wow! That would make PRTS an even more attractive deal than now. Reasonable tuition, great scholarship, experiemental Calvinism and fully accredited. Wow!

Indeed, especially because of this from the PRTS website:

Degree seeking students are allowed to complete 50% of their course work via our distance learning program.

This is what I am doing with the Th.M program at PRTS. I plan on starting attending the on-site modules when I get some money saved up.
 
I would tend to agree with you: however, I have seen, with my own eyes, a church which called it self Presbyterian, and upheld that tradition, with the singular exception of holding to CredoBaptism. It was in Houston: don't know if it is still open. It has been a year since I saw it. I assumed, since the Bethel website indicated they used to at least call themselves "Presbyterian", that they were perhaps the church I had seen. I guess I was wrong.
The church may have claimed it; it is possible that you may have seen it claimed. But that does not make it true.

I can claim to be Mohandas Ghandi. I can also claim to be a tomato. That doesn't make it so.

Off topic here; but the Free Presbyterian Church on Page #2 of its Book of Order says that it embraces both those who adhere to Paedobaptism and Credo Baptism.

Back on topic; one way to judge a seminary is to judge the quality of preachers it produces. Two of the best preachers I have sat under have been graduates of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, but Addison H. Leitch and John H. Gerstner were still on the faculty when they studied there. The other really good preachers I have heard were graduates of Reformed Episcopal, Protestant Reformed, Tyndale House, Westminster Philadelphia [back when it was still unaccredited], Nashotah House, Southern Baptist, Canadian Reformed, Puritan Reformed, and Reformed Theological Seminary. Some are accredited, some are not. I think all have good libraries.
 
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I would tend to agree with you: however, I have seen, with my own eyes, a church which called it self Presbyterian, and upheld that tradition, with the singular exception of holding to CredoBaptism. It was in Houston: don't know if it is still open. It has been a year since I saw it. I assumed, since the Bethel website indicated they used to at least call themselves "Presbyterian", that they were perhaps the church I had seen. I guess I was wrong.
The church may have claimed it; it is possible that you may have seen it claimed. But that does not make it true.

I can claim to be Mohandas Ghandi. I can also claim to be a tomato. That doesn't make it so.

Off topic here; but the Free Presbyterian Church on Page #2 of its Book of Order says that it embraces both those who adhere to Paedobaptism and Credo Baptism.
.

The Free Presbyterian Church was started by the son of a Baptist Pastor whose denomination (the Free Presbyterian Church) was formed out of a split in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. He was never a Presbyterian or paedobaptist by confession.
 
let me just quickly say that Farel Theological Seminary in Montréal is now accredited through a deeal with Concordia and none of their theological commitments are affected in any ways plus you can pay the Farel price for tuition and take some classes at Concordia. Thus it is accreditated by the Québec (and thus Canadian) government.
 
Thanks to all who have helped unravel some of the confusion around accreditation.
We were looking at a seminary education as preparation for serving overseas as an instructor at a Bible college or seminary. Thus, accreditation comes into play.
It seems like the Southern Baptist TS tuition discount has been sorted out. Since my husband is currently a distance student, I may have more current information on that. To receive the discount you must join a SBC church, attend it during seminary, and serve in the SBC denomination after graduation. I believe my husband was told that they (perhaps unofficially?) require at least 3 years of service after graduation, presumably then you could change denominations. We had considered signing this but felt unable to because we weren't sure which missionary organization God might lead us to and the only one open to us would have been the SB (IMB I think?).
On a side note, my husband is applying to transfer to Westminster California for next year. We are looking forward to meeting all the fine people on this board who are there! :D
 
I would also like to add that Haddington House (PEI Canada) offers distence & on-site modular courses @ 250.00 PER COURSE. And all HH classes are accepted at (ATS accredited) Erskine, Acadia, and other schools.
 
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