I remember a particular point being made to me about why a Bible College wasn’t a relgious organization or a theological training ground: “We let people tell us that Jesus didn’t exist. We just make sure they present a solid academic reasoning for it, to us.”

So I think this is funny for a lot of reasons.

To me, that is the hallmark of why the college was a theology school.

The truth of life is, in the real world, if you don’t agree with my faith, I am not allowed to (or even going have the gaul to demand of you to) respond by saying that you must present a solid argument for it. And I would furthermore say it is unreasonable to allow the person asking you for the argument to be the judge of if it reasoning is “solid”.

I’ll make a sweeping claim – that’s the systemic injustice of police systems, too. Let me express this in a detail of their systemic injustice to then make a direct comparison to how theology programs fail clinicians. It will be a ride for the ages, I assure you.

Police departments ask the people who they disrespect and mistreat to submit complaints to their internal system. The police then are internally investigating themselves for malpractice. This often results in systemic abuses of power being made more allowed because the practices aren’t internally seen as issues.

The beauty of having a complaint system – or even a body who can promote change without being steamrolled over – is that it should be externally evaluated. A decent system to handle complaints is handled by a third party. The consulting party can have a broad array of expertise/practice and areas of academic study under their belt.

A firm specialized in conducting investigations on internalized complaints (namely a third-party organization who has no company affiliation) is much more ethically indicated to get proper results and solutions than any internal complaint department could do. Now, sometimes the internal complaint department works with a third party. But that’s unique.

To me, the argument that asking people to present a solid argument that Jesus doesn’t exist disproves being a theology program seems silly. Because, honestly, a majority of pastors and ministry leaders are faced with presenting all the counter arguments to this to allow for this to be an “acceptable” stance to have. See, by saying this, the only thing proven is that the school has a more open theology department. Simply allowing more views than maybe people expect from a theology program doesn’t prove it’s not one.

Because, in earnest, they are comfortable with the argument Jesus doesn’t exist because it not only doesn’t bother them, but it is exactly the nonsensical argument a theology program allows students to make to prove they aren’t discriminatory. It actually is a feature of theology programs. Many theologians argue plausibility of deities existing.

In fact, the only reason this even seemed a reasonable viewpoint is by not asking the counterpoint to the claim. Which is really to ask, So does that mean that in allowing people to disagree with Jesus’ existence, you allow them to talk about who they do believe in? Because if that is a “yes” answer, then of course it’s not theological, it’s more philosophical.

But why is distinguishing theology from philosophy imperative? What are the ultimate benefits to the student? Why would being able to re-define the program as philosophy perhaps allow for a more comprehensive training atmosphere, clinically?

I can assure you that someone like me has taken enough courses across enough different disciplines to have foundational understandings of how domains differ. I can assure you that I am not a theologian. I’m more a philosopher, if needing to be anything even close.

Philosophy is the study of presenting differing arguments and viewpoints and presenting them as true based on the logical viability of the argument. The field is often tangential to psychology, as it helps teach us how to respect views we disagree with. It is geared toward allowing for differing people of varied ideas to discuss their logical arguments.

I will not lie here. I was an agent of chaos in those, too. You try being an economics major reading Marx. It was impossible not to speak up. The professor was in awe of me, and I was enjoying getting to be an agent of chaos in the class. I may just have been the first person he met who was bold enough to say, “Marx’s economic theory is just wrong.”

Sure, I could tell this was not news to him. He took the argument with such splendor and amusement that I knew he was ready to inquire. Because philosophy is the study of how to think about hard ideas, and how to handle discussions of conflict. I explained, very easily, that Marx proved himself politically oriented and more predictive, but that his theory wouldn’t even have been rooted in economic principles of his day. So he is wrong.

My professor looked at me, noticed no one knew how to respond to that, and he let me have my miniature win of telling the class my expertise. See, what I have learned about philosophy coursework is the course is a lot more exciting when you use their principles of logical argumentation to show how your stances and perspectives are accurate.

See, when a theologian tries to tell me they can’t be something because of what they are not, I know they are not the academic domain I want. It’s not simply a good enough argument to prove that you are different. It is a much better and sound argument to prove how you are not the commonly held features of a description, as well as evidencing why the description is definitionally another. Just the first half is insufficient.

Because utlimately, the question was an academic asking a theology school why they failed to market the theology nature of the program. I didn’t need them to tell me why they didn’t think they were what they were. I could figure out in a lot of ways why a Bible College can’t see the functional similarities in an MDiv and theology training.

See, what they were saying was actually something much bigger. They aren’t an MDiv, which actually was not the win they thought. Because it was then that I realized they grossly misunderstood what it means to have a dad who is an MDiv holder.

I have great respect for an MDiv. The pastors I’ve had who are MDiv holders have led some of the best and most amazing churches. They often are full of understanding that faith and spirituality is bigger than one viewpoint out there. Pastors who are MDiv holders have frequently been less anti-semetic. They tend to address that interpretations of the Bible differing by translation or language are not the same as not believing properly.

I realized that CCU didn’t do anything like that. They were bothered I called them a glorified MDiv. I was saying it because they actually had students who could have been the most amazing MDiv holders I’ve met. And they were women. There’s not too many MDiv programs who take in women. Even some who do actively refuse to ordain them.

They are actually admitting to being a ministry training school, which shows there is systemic internal discrimination. It also shows they know it. Even the most open ministry program has failures in allowing diversity to include all features of diverse students. Ministry is discriminatory. It’s a known thing. They are allowed to, all the time.

So they have a more open theology school, and they’re still discriminatory. Like I said, even a ministry program that is open to ideas still is beholden to the theology department and the school’s doctrine. It isn’t something they don’t want to admit to students.

People hear that a theology school accepts all religions as if that discounts them from being internally discriminatory. They will cry at you that they can’t ask for comprehensive data to better suggest program applicability to you because that’s discriminatory.

To be completely clear here: the only reason doing so would be discriminatory is if the data shows discriminatory practices. I’ve been at many colleges that collect comprehensive demographics, and there are plenty of ways to collect data without making a student feel as if they are being called out. It’s actually a systemic failure to say your organization refuses to accept their discriminatory practices by collecting reasonable data to prevent students who are internally discriminated against from being let down.

I present some academic arguments that having internal discrimination does not mean you should stop collecting accurate program and university student data:

Wouldn’t it be better to be able to be honest with applicants? You think the average applicant doesn’t know what a Bible College is? You think the average applicant wants to deal with useless data and evidence cited in response to questions that are asking what students succeed? You think a data scientist can’t tell the difference?

And besides, the inability to discriminate your students out beforehand is a systemic failure of an education board who insisted they weren’t allowed to deny acceptance to students who would be harmed and dismayed by attending there. The response to “stop discriminating” can’t be met with “we will just stop asking for data to do that”.

And this happens because education credentialling boards are not data scientists or experts in addressing systemic academic, espcially in religious communities, injustices.

The education board is full of administrative experts. They often don’t really understand how to address complaints about systemic failures being perpetuated. Telling a board that half of the students are dissatisfied is clear. Telling a board that a school misrepresents itself and still finds it appropriate to put responsibility on students is not.

But honestly, the school presents useless data to address how they aren’t discriminatory and have done their job to prevent internal failures from being translated. Unfortunately, the data presented to me actually bolsters my point that they aren’t a clinical program.

The first issue of dissatisfaction is simple, no? It’s a clear-cut statistic.

The second issue of misrepresentation is complex, yes? It’s forcing a program to collect and present data on discrimination. I want to address the data Bible Colleges can give.

A program who presents a response of data on if their students are discriminatory is missing the argument being presented. A response of student behavior in professions is not addressing the dynamics of internalized systemic injustices and failures.

Where’s the data on demographics of the incoming classes? Where’s the demographics of students who complete the program? Where’s the acknowledgment that some professors are non disability affirming and that the school does nothing to rectify this issue? What about data on your disability resource office and how they are assisting students?

How come those aren’t presented in reply?

For starters, they have poor data science. They see similar words and produce data that is circumventing the issue while also protecting themselves from a lawsuit. They are a good administrative department, and their data science is abysmal and detrimental.

See, data science is the study of assessing when which data is appropriate.

I don’t expect the average program complaint consultant to have any knowledge of data science or how to read data presented in a ruse. I don’t expect them to know any better when they get data in response, and the data is as useless as the school says you are.

Bible Colleges present statistics on what they want to be. They don’t present statistics on how the internal policies and procedures impact the student body demographics.

Telling me the students aren’t discriminatory in a professional context isn’t a winning comeback to a student being institutionally discriminated out. I figured the students were not going to be professionally discriminatory. I also can assure you the data is useless because the average student there wasn’t engaging with clients unfit to their training.

It’s easy to not discriminate against the population you know how to talk to. It’s easy when these are people working in private practice sites or sites where practices around disabled communities are either non-existent or don’t get addressed. It’s also the job of a clinical assessor to determine if a client is a good match. It would be difficult to discriminate against clients in a field where there are many people who can prevent an intern from professionally interacting with someone they could discriminate against.

To me, the response to what data does the university have to show non-discriminatory practices in admissions and coursework is not about the students. It should be and needs to be about how the administrative staff are handling admissions dilemmas. The data needs to show non-discriminatory practices in the student body not only who are accepted and admitted, and only not in the ones who start, but longitudinally needs to be compared to those who complete the degree or course of study. We have to do a time series analysis.

I don’t want to hear a response to The program was marketed as being different than the school it was in, both in major and minor ways that’s data on students being more clinically prepared than students from other schools and clinical counseling programs.

First of all, what even is that data? What clinical program asks supervisors to rate interns in terms of their competency as compared to students from other programs? That’s not even a thing that has any meaning beyond a ministry training school. If you want to know if I’m clinically prepared, we should be looking at how I react to various clientele and how I am professionally communicating my clinical needs and dilemmas with supervisors.

We need to consider if I’m able to teach a clinical intervention. We need to consider if I am able to make the intervention more than a one-off moment. I interned at a location that taught me an effective clinical method to integrate a DBT skill into every session. The site helped teach me that insurance companies are way more lenient on your style of counseling when your notes and data represent an ability to teach a clincial intervention.

Data on me being more clinically prepared than other students is useless. First of all, that’s kind of a useless metric. As well, as a data scientist, I can assure you that when nearly all supervisors rate students that way, the data is flawed. See, I don’t need you as my intern to be better than everyone else. I need you to be teachable and a mentee.

As well, there is no reasonable clinical need for an intern to be rated that way. As a clinical intern, you are not supposed to know what you’re doing or what to do, and not all the time, and this especially is not a linear process that can be compared to other interns. Some interns learn quickly, and some don’t. An ability to learn quickly isn’t better skills.

You want to give me data on if a school is clinical and not theological?

Show me the data on populations served and sites interviewed at. Show me that there’s data demonstrating students are able to interview with supervisors, present themselves competently, and have a decent resume. Show me data on students placements after internships, the relevance of the job site to the internship, as well as data on how supervisors talk about interns in a recommendation capacity. Show me useful metrics.

Give me data showing that you offer scholarships to non-ministry leaders. Give me data showing that you perform a hollistic review of applications. Give me data explaining that the students are able to see clients of varied backgrounds and illness severity. Data on clinical skills is meaningless when the clients are all general mental health, or when the clients are all severely mentally ill. You need clients who are a variety to properly assess.

I want to know that a clinical program encourages students not to select a site that has a limited population. I want to know that they provide a list of sites that people have used in the past, either approved by professional organizations or kept internally from students who have found success at those. I want to know that the program maintains a thorough list and doesn’t just have one or two ideas for students. That’s not appropriate. Asking students to try their best luck at a web search for a clinical experience is inappropriate.

See, I actually love and respect theology programs and seminary programs.

When you say you are not biblical, you are clinical, your job is to present data and metrics provided by a clinical program. Not the ones allowed to discount traditional and normal features of a program that you actually are. Presenting useless data is dumb.

Most clinical programs aren’t that intense about presenting useless data.

The ones that are? That’s a red flag. Run, run, run away.

XOXO,

Dorothy B