Arizona Theological Seminary (520) 303-7261

 Arizona Theological Seminary is designed around the "Academy Model". The Academy Model of seminary consists of smaller classes, discipleship teaching and lower tuition in higher education.

Many "Old School" seminaries recently came under the influence of modernism. The result was the decline of mainline biblical teaching (for example, they teach - heaven and hell are allegorical, there is no such entity as "the devil", etc.). However, Arizona Theological Seminary is planted upon the inerrant Bible, the only infallible rule of faith and practice. Believing that the kind of Christianity that the Bible teaches is that of the Reformation and especially the Remonstrant movement. To us it is vitally important that our seminary be committed to the biblical faith. Holding this to be the consistent position for ministers and elders in the church, the Seminary seeks to inculcate a commitment of discipleship in the hearts and minds of its students.

The importance of having a Seminary that stands firmly on biblical matters is obvious. In order to revitalize the theological education of those who study at Arizona Theological Seminary it was determined to seek to make the education process itself more dynamic and less costly than that which is found in the typical theological seminary of today which is based on the University Model rather than the Academy Model found at Arizona Theological Seminary.

The Academy Model will not necessarily prevent all of problems from occurring, but it tends to avoid some of the set-backs inherent in the "institutional" or "university" model of theological education. For one thing, the Academy Model makes use of the student's local church or ministry for continued experiential learning. This means that the theological academy will ordinarily not provide housing for students outside of the regular community. Students thus continue to live in ordinary society, and do not have the tendency to lose touch with the world as quickly as those living in institutional dormitories. Also the smaller classrooms will promote a more personal instructional environment, which tends to be more effective than the large, impersonal classroom.

The Academy Model tends to keep the school in touch with its supporters. Being small, and not having great physical assets the school must prove its usefulness to keep the confidence of those who support it. There is less of a tendency to preserve the institution for the institution's sake, since the financial investments are essentially in the faculty, the curriculum and the students, not in buildings and the namesake. This allows us to be in a position to not have to compromise the faith in exchange for contributed dollars.

Another advantage of this model is that the major proportion of the funds given to the Seminary are actually used to support "theological education." An examination of the expenditures of most institutions that own and operate large facilities will show that more than half of the funds received, including tuition, is used for utilities, building operation and maintenance, upkeep of the property, and general administration of the school. The major expenditures of the Academy Model seminary will be to pay the faculty and to develop the curriculum. This means that this type of seminary will cost less to operate, and will be a better use of the Lord's money for the training of the Gospel ministry.

The establishment of modern seminaries resulted from Roman Catholic reforms of the Counter-Reformation after the Council of Trent (1545–1563) - the Tridentine Model. Seminaries became live-in institutions under the direct control of senior clergy. This later led to the creation of minor seminaries to educate boys for the priesthood at a time when literacy was not widespread. The Tridentine model of a seminary was similar to that of a monastery. These seminaries stood in contrast to the freer intellectual atmosphere of the universities. The Tridentine seminaries placed great emphasis on personal discipline as well as the teaching of philosophy as a preparation for theology; this was an approach that was explicitly rejected by Protestant reformers such as John Calvin. However, the Tridentine model of a seminary has now been adopted and adapted by most Christian denominations as a mode of instruction, as well as by modern American Judaism.

Throughout time, the training of ministers in a church-like academy setting has generally been abandoned with the model of secular universities. In America we have developed theological seminaries as separate institutions from the church. These seminaries tend to operate on the "university model" with full campuses, including student housing - along with the high tuition and the restricted government accreditation courses required to be taught. (That is why every seminary is teaching the exact same courses.) For example, Princeton was originally designed for the purpose of training ministers. As it became recognized as a reputable academic institution, it shifted in its emphasis from training of ministers to a general secular education. 

As typical seminaries grew, they added faculty and built buildings, thus taking on the character of the modern theological seminary/university. During the 1840's a very interesting essay was published by the Rev. Gardiner Spring, raising the question of why the new seminaries were not producing as good a minister as had been done earlier under the Academy Model. As one considers this question, one cannot but wonder whether the larger class size of the seminaries was not a contributing factor in this declining quality of education. The Academy Model provides the individual and personal contact with faculty that is all too often lost with larger student enrollments. Another problem with the institutional/university seminary is the fact that students are taken out of society to live on the campus of the seminary. Thus the seminary experience tends to be something of a "monastic" environment in which the student is isolated from normal contact with everyday life in the world. They learn a new "vocabulary" which becomes common place in contact with other students, but which is not understood by the average person once leaving. All too often seminary graduates find themselves unable to communicate with the people in their congregation or ministry, having not remained in a practical, everyday environment.

And a final note, did you know that government sponsored accreditation narrowly defines what courses a seminary can teach and what kind of faculty can teach them? That is why you will only find the same courses being taught by accredited seminaries. We believe that as Christians, we should have the freedom to teach our student's a wide variety of courses and not be controlled by government stipulations. We choose to associate with Christian agencies and feel that they deserve respect for making a difficult stance outside of government accreditation controls, which unfairly labels these Christian agencies as "mills". We do believe in being state licensed, as any responsible business would be and support government regulations that do not infringe on Christian curriculum.