A Facebook conversation about the recent story noting where new UMC elders and deacons go to seminary caught me by surprise.
The original poster on Facebook, who I will not name here because Facebook is only quasi-public, took note of the statement in the story that 78% of new elders and deacons who are minorities chose to attend one of the 13 UM seminaries. Overall, 59% of new elders and deacons attended one of the 13 seminaries, which means minorities were disproportionately more likely to attend a UM seminary than the population as a whole.
Some basic data from the study:
- Racial minority elders and deacons: 69, 54 (78%) of whom attended a UM seminary.
- Non-minority elders and deacons: 389, 221 (57%) of whom attended a UM seminary.
The comments in reply were rather interesting. I won’t quote them here since the people posting probably did not consider the communications for public consumption. But they raise a question that seems rather important to me.
The tenor of some of the comments was that white, male seminary students are disadvantaged at UM seminaries. Scholarship dollars are not as available to them. Campus culture may even make them feel unwelcome. This has not been my experience. I applied to and was accepted by a UM seminary. I was offered a generous scholarship. I have not enrolled because of personal and work issues, but at no time did being a middle-aged white guy make me feel anything other than I have always felt.
But some of the commenters insisted that they were given subtle and not-so-subtle messages that white guys would be more welcome and comfortable somewhere else.
This is so at odds with my experiences that I wanted to share it here. Has anyone else out there ever heard of anything like this?
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
John. I spent 3 years at Drew and wouldn’t trade it for the world. I was welcomed, challenged and educated. I left ready for pastoral ministry. There was plenty of racial, gender and generational diversity. All of it was beneficial to me and has been valuable as a working pastor. There were times when I felt the reality of my privilege as a white male, but I can’t go through life NOT feeling those things and I certainly can’t be an effective pastor unaware of the implications of my gender and race. I fully believe that this kind of education can only occur in an environment where diversity is valued and promoted. As a reference, my undergrad setting was a very white Christian campus where minorities were tokenized and paid lip service. If only I knew then what I know now…
I know of what you speak
Let me state this more clearly: While there are scholarships available to any and all applicants, just like everywhere there were more scholarships offered to minorities at the UM seminaries. I have looked at the different web sites for the UM seminaries and many of them offer scholarships for minorities. Further, as everywhere, I have NEVER seen a scholarship for just whites, just males or just white males. I am not complaining, nor do I think that others were complaining in that facebook thread.
I went to a UM seminary and I appreciate my experience there.
Yet I think this is a good conversation to consider (even if it was an unexpected turn to that story).
Chris,
Thank you for commenting. I appreciate your perspective.
I suppose any conversation about these facts needs to include some dicussion of why such things came to be in the first place.
I think the other interesting fact in that story was that Asbury has a 4-1 male/female ratio of graduates in the year of the study. I did not realize Asbury was so dominated by male students.