Reformed Theological Seminary - Charlotte Campus

[panicbird]

What do you know about the Charlotte campus? From what I understand, each of the RTS campuses (campii?) has a different "flavor." My understanding, unfortunately, does not go much deeper than that.

What is the school like? What are some major advantages and disadvantages? What things stand out?

I am living and ministering in North Carolina and am looking for a place to finish my seminary education.

Help!

Lon

 

[dkicklig]

I'm a student at the Charlotte campus and live in Atlanta. Charlotte has really tailored their program to fit commuter students. Their whole premise seems to be to make a seminary education as attainable as possible for fulltime pastors and other working stiffs.

You can contact Rod Culbertson (Director of Student Development) [email protected]. He is very helpful. You might also want to stop by if you can, they have a great library and bookstore.

 

[fredtgreco]

My impression of RTS Charlotte is that it is the least "emphatic" of the campuses. Whereas both Jackson and Orlando have a definite "feel" and "perspective," Charlotte is more middle of the road. For the most part, students and Jackson would not go to Orlando and I think vice versa. But I think students at both campuses would be comfortable at Charlotte.

Does that make sense?

 

[panicbird]

Thanks Fred and David. Let me ask this: would a Baptist be welcomed and feel comfortable at Charlotte? I know that is subjective and depends quite a bit upon me, but answer it as best as you can.

Fred, when you say "middle of the road," what do you mean by that? Moderate theologically? Or, between Orlando and Jackson? If the latter, please explain the different perspectives of Orlando and Jackson so that I might know where the middle is between them.

Again, thanks.

Lon

 

[dkicklig]

There are Baptists in my classes, so I assume they feel comfortable. They probably squirm a bit when we talk about baptism.

 

[panicbird]

What do you know about the MA-Biblical Studies program at Charlotte? Good? No good? The required courses look pretty good to me, and there are quite a few electives. What is RTS' reputation at other schools, particularly secular ones? I would like to eventually go for a Ph.D. and would like to keep my options open in terms of where.

Thanks for all the input so far.

Lon

[Edited on 19-11-2004 by panicbird]

 

[Ravens]

I was wondering if anyone had any further insights on the Charlotte campus.

I lurked on the board for a year and a half or so before joining, and I feel like I have a reasonably good idea and impression of many Reformed schools; but I never hear Charlotte mentioned much.

Are they smaller than the other RTS campuses? Newer?

Are the faculty as "good" as the faculties of the other campuses?

I was just curious because I rarely, if ever, hear it mentioned on these boards, and, at least with respect to location, it would probably be my first choice.

Thanks.

 

[smallbeans]

The coin of the realm for pursuing Ph.D. work in biblical studies or theology is the M.Div., but I'm sure you could probably get by with an M.A. if your GRE scores are high, you have some well-polished papers to submit, etc. I doubt that any secular university is going to make a distinction between the evangelical seminaries - the words "seminary" is bad enough, right, not to mention the word "evangelical"? I do think that some will know about Westminster, but my guess is that the others are just a blur and the applicant will be looked at on the basis of his or her sample paper, GRE, undergraduate work, statement of goals, etc. Catholic Universities (Notre Dame, Saint Louis University, CUA, etc.) will not be as negative toward evangelicals with seminary training - they all understand what an M.Div. means, but my guess is that a tough program like University of Virginia will need to see some excellent stuff from you that goes beyond a degree from an evangelical seminary. Hope that helps somewhat. Most of the time, as a part of the PH.D. work you're going to have to get the equivalent of a Masters' degree anyway because seminary training isn't easily translatable unless you take challenge exams. My work at Covenant on church history didn't transfer at all and I didn't want to take the challenge exams at that point in my life and so I had to take 12 or more hours of "intro to" type courses on the four main periods of church history.

One nice thing, if you go to Covenant in St. Louis there is an "inter-university" program where you can take courses at SLU or Washington University and get Covenant credit. So if you're interested in doing work in historical theology, for instance, you could take an elective at SLU while you're at Covenant and the faculty would get to know you and you would be a known quantity at least when you apply. I availed myself of that program as a Covenant student and took a course on Anselm under Eleanore Stump, probably one of the most well-known American philosophers of religion. And you pay Covenant prices too, which is nice. And it gets your feet wet in Ph.D. level work. It convinced me I didn't want to pursue a philosophy Ph.D., but it did give me a chance to participate in the school and get to know the people.

Seminary is more like professional school - it is way different than Graduate school. Seminary, law school, medical school - they are all about learning a body of knowledge. Graduate school is about getting inculcated into a tradition of scholarship, learning the issues, the methods, the sources, the debates, etc. of a field and then preparing to contribute to that field through teaching and research. You'll be doing a lot more reading and writing in graduate school than seminary and you learn to interact charitably with other scholars because you realize how much there is to know and how impossible it is to do perfect work on any topic. At least that's the effect it had on me - I feel a lot dumber here at the end of my Ph.D. work than I felt at the beginning or end of my seminary training.

Hope this helps somewhat.