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The growing success of the conservative seminaries directly reflects broader shifts in U.S. Protestantism. While liberal mainstream denominations have been shrinking, conservative evangelical churches report rising membership (and bank) rolls. Many liberals have become disillusioned with the church as an instrument of social reform and have redirected their money to secular organizations. Moderates have become disenchanted for other reasons. Union, for example, lost some longtime donors as it became increasingly involved in radical causes.
"Liberal seminaries are suffering," says Fuller President David A. Hubbard, "because of the failure of the congregations they are closest to in motivating men for the ministry." Indeed, candidates who do enter the more liberal seminaries sometimes find it the final test of their faith. A recent survey of 32 U.S. divinity schools by the Lilly Endowment showed that many students encountered a "steady barrage of debunking and skepticism" rather than a bolstering of their beliefs.
Several secondary factors have also contributed to the decline of the liberal schools. They have come to the end of the era of such theological stars as Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich. They are no longer deluged with draft dodgers and dissidents—or even the great numbers of social activists—who swelled their enrollments in the late '60s, while the evangelical schools have begun to reap a rich harvest from the Jesus movement. Union and Chicago are also losing out on new students because of their crime-ridden urban locations.
Evangelical Advice. Some of the liberal schools are trying to tap the potential in the evangelical renascence by making overtures to conservative students. At Union, for instance, a committee charged with re-examining the school's constituency invited Conservative Scholar Carl F.H. Henry in for some evangelical advice. (His suggestion—hire qualified conservative scholars—was firmly vetoed by the students on the committee.)
The Chicago Divinity School has opted to emphasize its illustrious graduate theology program rather than shore up its dwindling ministry course. Union's problems will be more difficult to solve. The seminary's board of directors recently voted to establish quotas for women and minority groups; the move is bound to complicate recruitment efforts. President Mosley is also in the process of cutting the faculty by about a third. In addition, the seminary is phasing out its School of Sacred Music and overhauling its Master of Divinity program—which, like the rest of Union's curriculum, President Mosley concedes, has "lacked a clear focus."