Last week the news broke, just in time for the latest round of ordination exams, that there would be changes to the grading of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Ordination Exam on Biblical Exegesis.  The Presbyteries Cooperative Committee on Examinations announced two changes: 1) “The demonstration of a working knowledge of Greek and/or Hebrew will no longer be a requirement in order to complete the examination successfully.”  2) The inquirers and candidates will be asked to offer a “faithful interpretation” rather than “a principle meaning” of the text.

According to a document from the PCCEC these changes come from input received during a self-study.  The committee has implemented the changes as a response to those concerns.

This one came in below my radar screen and I must thank the other bloggers I will reference below for alerting me to it.  They have all made their own comments about it, and most in more detail and focus than I will.  I simply wish to highlight a few issues in this discussion.

1.  The Future Is Now
Maybe the most important thing to come out of this, from my polity wonk viewpoint, is that this is the first highly visible change resulting from our new polity model.  While we may have been focused on the Form of Government revision (nFOG) from the Task Force and the 218th General Assembly that the Assembly referred to the presbyteries for further review, we need to remember that the revision to Chapter 14 of the current Form of Government, sent to the presbyteries by the 217th GA and approved by them, was in the same spirit as the nFOG.  This is a model that removes procedural details from the Book of Order and shifts it out to “manuals” to be written and approved by other agencies and governing bodies.  So now Chapter 14 simply says that there will be ordination exams and one of the topics that will be covered is “Biblical Exegesis” rather than giving specifics about the Exegesis exam and what particular details it will cover.

If the nFOG gets adopted expect a lot more of this.  Depending on how you look at it this is not necessarily a negative thing.  In this case, while the Cooperative Committee may have changed the grading of the exam, the door is now open for a presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry to adopt grading and interpretation of the exam that are stricter than previously specified in the Book of Order.

So, if the church as a whole does not like this change what do they do?  (I would note that between the many blogs I read and a Google search I have found only negative comments about this change by bloggers, but it is usually those objecting that shout loudest.  However, reading through the comments on the blog posts I reference there are positive comments about the change like this one from Adam Copeland.)  It is not clear to me that there is an established method for input and adjustment to these new manuals from the wider church other than expressing concern to the committee and supervising agency or council.  There are of course always Book of Order amendments.

For more on the change in polity regarding this I refer you to Pastor Bob.

2.  This Discussion Has Been Going On Throughout Global Presbyterian History
I won’t go into great detail here, but while Presbyterians have historically held higher education requirements than almost any other denomination, the exact nature of those requirements has been a topic of discussion from the very beginning and continues today.  Whether pastors can be trained at small specialized institutions instead of full-fledged universities was a topic of discussion in 18th century American Presbyterianism regarding the Log College and today in the Church of Scotland regarding Highland Theological College.

One of the issues that has been mentioned related to this level of theological training is the high failure rate, possibly related to uneven grading, for any of the more “subjective” or “interpretative” ordination exams.  (The polity exam also regularly comes up in this category.)  Again, read through the comments on some of the referenced blog posts for individual stories regarding conflicting graders’ comments.

3.  This Shifts But Does Not Necessarily Weaken The Standards
If the Cooperative Committee and their exam graders were the final word than a good case can be made that the standard is weakened.  There is a great series of posts by Mark D. Roberts (First, Second, Third, Fourth, Postscript) on the change and what the weakening of the original language requirement and the different meanings of “a principle meaning” versus “faithful interpretation” imply.  (There is more great discussion in the comments to these posts and Jim Berkley has a follow-up.)  I think we will have to wait a little bit to see how this change is actually implemented in the grading.

What this change has effectively done has highlighted the responsibility of the graders for interpreting that standard, and shifted the responsibility for judging the candidates ability with the original language to their Committee on Preparation for Ministry.  While the proficiency with the original languages will not be graded it will be commented on for the benefit of the CPM’s.  What will the CPM’s do with that?

In essence this change has moved some of the authority and responsibility from the central structure of the denomination back out to the presbyteries.  It is now up to the CPM’s to take this new responsibility seriously, but you can bet that through differing levels of oversight and differing philosophies there will be a less uniform standard for candidates certified ready to receive a call.

A personal reaction:  First, I am a ruling elder and never had to suffer through ordination exams.  (Want to trade for my doctoral exams?)  However, having had formal Latin training and a few “kitchen table” classes on Greek, I have a rudimentary knowledge of that original language.  (Sorry, no functionality for Hebrew.)  I do sometimes follow sermons in my Greek text and have done my best to work with both the Greek and transliterated Hebrew on the few times I have preached.  From this background I am sorry to see original language ability disappear as an explicit requirement for the exam and if the exam grading remains like this I hope the CPM’s will still seriously evaluate a candidate’s functionality with the original languages when deciding if they are certified ready to receive a call.