Seminary (yeah, the one I attended) gives honorary PhD to guy for suing fellow Christians

If you’re interested in making your thoughts known to GTS, you might write a letter (as Sarah Hey suggested in an earlier blog entry) requesting them to take you off all alumni solicitation lists - and telling them precisely why.

Also, you have a diploma (primarily representing their credentialing - and not the effort you put in being equipped for ministry). If you really want to drive home how they damaged their own value, you could paraphrase Max Reger’s famous comment on a scathing review of his music by Rudolph Louis:

“I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your diploma before me. In a moment it will be behind me!”

Before TEO had false shepherds, it had weak shepherds and false teachers.

Peace,
Doug

According to Attorney Allan Haley’s blog, “Over forty months from September 2007 through December 2010, ECUSA has paid Prof. Robert Bruce Mullin, over and above his salary at GTS, a total of $672,020.00 in hourly fees” for serving as TEC’s hired expert in the lawsuits. So GTS’s involvement in the lawsuits goes beyond giving David Booth Beers an honorary doctorate. http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2011/08/making-heresy-pay-ecusas-hired-expert.html

Tim+,

Perhaps you cold donate your sheepskin from GTS to some monastery for calligraphy and illumination of Holy Writ.

Chip+

Surprised?  Filing suit is the closest thing 815 has to a sacrament these days that doesn’t involve using your Grindr app.

Tim—As a fellow General grad, I share your mixed feelings.  I went to the GTS dinner at General Convention last week. It was a very nice affair, but as I looked around I was painfully aware that I was probably the only person in the room who voted against A049, the Same Sex Blessing Rite resolution.  So much for the fantasy that it is the “General” Seminary—of the whole church.  Our alma mater is doubling down on a strategy that is reducing the church to irrelevancy, not to mention simply going out of business in wide swaths of the country (fortunately not in Sioux City or in Richardson, TX)..

Ah, seems that one half of BeerKat et. alia has finally, after all his hard work putting little old ladies out of their churches, after coordinating lies and inuendos to entire diocese at the same time, after placating, maneuvering, swindling, cheating, obfuscating, and just plain gloating over the grave of the episcopal church ought to get something for his efforts.

“I’ve met plenty of men, great thinkers all, and they aren’t any smarter than you or I, but they did have one thing that you don’t have…a Diploma!  Congratulations!”
(Oz to the Scarecrow)

mrb

Tim+, I suggest putting it in a drawer so you don’t have to look at it and be reminded of what has happened at GTS since you graduated.  Of course, you can do anything you like with your diploma but the knowledge that you acquired while there can not be taken from you no matter what. Perhaps one day, you will be able to look at it again thinking of what you have learned while there. If not, do what you like with it- a diploma is not that important. Your GTS transcript is much, much more important than the diploma.

Tim+,

Thanks for the H/T. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but since ENS didn’t make a big to do over this, I thought more folks beyond the GTS website users ought to know about it.

These are trying times, indeed. I can imagine the day when I’ll look at my ETSS diploma (next to Wheaton College, and Beeson Divinity School—both of which I’ll own up to!) and have similar questions. I think we can be thankful for the good, while praying for God to reform the bad.

I’m reminded of a quip a theology prof at Wheaton made while we were discussing the merits of The Passion of the Christ (pun definitely not intended): “No one is saying that God can’t beat someone straight with a crooked stick, but we should still be able to question whether or not the stick is crooked.”

We press on, confident that God has great plans for His Church and His people, even in the midst of this mess.

David+

Jeff - “Filing suit is the closest thing 815 has to a sacrament these days that doesn’t involve using your Grindr app.” 

- You forgot the blessed sacrament of baby killing.

And just think what the other lawyers at the saying about DBB’s new doctorate. 

“Hey - Davie got a shiny new doctorate for doing his job!  Hey Davie .. I work the divorce side of the law.  Do you think that I could get one of those if I represented a famous bishop at her divorce?  My carpenter is building a table set for KJS.  Think he could get one of them too Bwahahaha.” 

Speaking of “preserving property for future Episcopalians,”  maybe GTS should award itself a degree for selling off or leveraging various chunks of itself to condo developers!  Way to protect that heritage, you hypocrites.  No, more than hypocrites.  As I wrote above, LIARS.

Hey Tim+, If you decide to burn your diploma, don’t forget to take pictures and then post here. I am sure you can think of a witty title for your post. Perhaps you could consider sending the ashes back to GTS with a polite note saying exactly what you think of them? No holding back, ok?!

MWN, #9, you are obviously correct here - the Gospel of St. Ragsdale.  This makes the goal of “preserving property for future Episcopalians” all the more laughable, as the current generation of Episcopalians is either busy becoming non-Episcopalian or making sure that there are no future Episcopalians to speak of.

This is all very Boomer-ish, don’t you think?  Baby boomers have proven themselves quite adept at consuming the seed corn, and not producing a future generation to make use of the property is of a piece:  They can just sell it off and use the proceeds to fund their retirements.

Tim+,
If you decide to rid youorself of your diploma I would suggesst returning it to GTS with a letter of explanation.

GTS gives a degree to someone violating Jesus’ very words, the law and the spirit of the law.  Really turns the stomach.  Then you shake your head and realize that nothing is surprising. 

Whether you are in or out of TEC - pray and be faithful where you are to plant the seed of faith in Christ in the next generation.  Teach them how to stand when under fire by using this and similar examples (God knows there are PLENTY!).  Teach them the difference.  The buildings and political structure of TEC are not important.  If God blesses them they will remain - and we’re not seeing that, now are we?  But God’s word does not return void.  Our investing in our children, growing them in Christ will stand the test of time.  Their future, however, will not look like our present or past. 

Tim+ - I haven’t kept track of who’s in TEC and out, but if you’re still in sending your diploma back might be enough to get Title IV.  Then again, just voicing an opinion does that, too. 

#14 evan miller - so far, I like your suggestion best.  If I go that route, I will make the letter an open one here on SF.

Some time ago I adapted a term I learned at the Belmont Club to describe the rodents currently standing triumphant atop the Episcopal and Anglican Churches:  TWANLOB = Those Who Are No Longer Our Brethren.

If you haven’t noted Fr. Faulkner’s comment #8, please do so.  His blog broke this story, which TEC had on the down low. 

Blogs can be flaming madness but we also make it harder for our betters to hide their betterness from public scrutiny.

Hmmm. The place where I went as an undergraduate has fully bought into the homosexual agenda. I still have the diploma, because it represents what this place was at that time. I don’t feel an urge to wipe anything with it.

But, when I get e-mails, phone calls, and other solicitations for $$$, I politely say no.

General Seminary has a wonderful history, and it’s been in trouble for various reasons, and at various times in that history. It’s now ultra-liberal, and I don’t know if it will recover.

Nashotah House and Trinity School for Ministry, on the other hand, deserve all the financial and other support that we can give them.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to make a donation to one, the other, or both, and to write a letter to the GTS dean and president. The response to that letter (if there is a response) would make very interesting public reading.

Tim+, I do hope you will keep your GTS diploma. While you are thinking this over, put it in a drawer so you don’t have to look at it. Evan Miller’s suggestion at #14 is indeed the most sensible suggestion.  I also like Ralph’s suggestion of making a donation to Trinity School for Ministry, Nashotah House,  or both and then sending a letter to GTS.  No money for GTS and “aiding and abetting”  the competition. Here is a silly suggestion for you. What if your diploma and nicely worded letter could be sent back to GTS as a howler (remember the exploding letters/howlers from the Harry Potter series). That would be attention getting for sure!

In all seriousness, keep the diploma. Just recently, I was looking for one of my diplomas. I managed to lose it in the moves between graduation (1996) and now. I wish I had it.

Tim, you may want to consider changing the title. Seminaries, to my knowledge, when they give out honorary doctorates, give a Doctorate of Divinity, a D.D., not a Ph.D. Sometimes they call it donated dignity.