Word: welches
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...study of religion is moving beyond the traditional trinity of subjects: the Bible, history and theology. Nor is a doctoral student any longer allowed to be ignorant of Eastern, Near Eastern and African faiths, although Welch believes that far more attention should be paid to religious traditions other than the Jewish and Christian. "He who knows one religion, knows none," says Welch, quoting...
Historian Max Müller. Not that Welch believes in what he calls the "Zoo Theory," according to which representatives of the various species of religion must be on a faculty. The "Insider Theory"-the principle that Catholic studies must be taught by a Catholic, Hinduism by a Hindu-is similarly beguiling and wrong, says Welch. Instead, he says, the qualifications for scholars are the same in religion as in any other discipline, including the ability to perform critical analysis. Welch is convinced that the study of religion must be buttressed with that of the social sciences and the other...
...They Rank. That immediately raises the question of doctorates from church seminaries. The seminaries may be fine for pastors and church workers, Welch thinks; people who want to teach religion should study only at the very strong seminaries, or those tied to universities...
...Welch's list of "First Rank" schools provides no surprises: Chicago, Duke, Harvard, Princeton Seminary, Vanderbilt, Yale, and the Columbia-Union Seminary combine. He downgrades as merely "Marginal" the doctoral programs at eight church seminaries, among them the only Lutheran, Episcopal and United Church of Christ programs and two of the three Presbyterian ones. He also gives a Marginal rating to the programs at Fordham, Temple, U-C Santa Barbara, Saint Louis, Southern Cal, Catholic University and Drew University...
...most notable name on Welch's list of "Inadequate" programs is giant Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Others on the blacklist are Baylor, Case Western Reserve, and Rice universities; New Orleans Baptist Seminary; the fundamentalist Dallas and Grace seminaries; the Catholic Aquinas Institute; and the Jewish Dropsie College. These days, it seems, even mediocrity is ecumenical...