Colleges for Theological Knowledge: the view from 1962

This morning I stumbled on an article in the Journal of Christian Education written by my grandfather, Donald Robinson, ten years after he began as lecturer in Old Testament and then Vice-Principal at Moore Theological College in Sydney. It’s about what a theological college is, and what it is meant to be for.

His characteristically radical (yet obviously biblical) conclusion is that a theological college is not the place for discerning and training ministers.

What’s fascinating for me reading this 64 years later is both the enormous cultural changes since then, and also how much of what he identifies resonates today in our context.

An obvious difference: young elders

Robinson begins with an observation that what’s going on in theological colleges cannot be separated from the general patterns our churches accept in terms of ordination:

Often men are ordained to the oversight of a congregation—what, in the New Testament, is the ministry of an elder—while still in their middle twenties. They become, at this age, what in the second century would have been the monarchical bishop of a local church. We have insufficiently examined the problems created by this pattern.

Now, in my context this is no longer the case. We no longer have 22-year-olds being appointed rectors/vicars after 2–3 years of theological education out of school. The average student at Ridley College, by way of comparison, is 36 and already in part-time ministry. In general, ministers are getting ordained later, and staying in the job longer. It varies a lot by diocese, but I was ordained in 2013, and many of the people I studied with are only now being appointed to their first role as “elder” of the local church after more than a decade of full time ordained ministry experience. I know someone in their 40s who was told by a selection committee that they had all the experience and qualifications but “we just needed you to be 10 years older”.

No doubt Robinson would have thoughts on the pros and cons of this quite different situation. But what he says next definitely applies in our context.

Same challenge: identifying godly leaders

In Robinson’s context, the appointment of young men (yes, they were all men, in all Australian dioceses until 1992) in their mid-twenties raises two related problems.

First, there is the problem of discerning whether they have the qualities and qualifications which are required theologically for elders over a local church:

how can a man’s qualifications for such a ministry be confidently judged at a time when he still lacks those criteria which were employed in the New Testament for admission to the ministry of oversight, namely, the satisfactory discharging of the duties of being the head of a household, the successful educating of his children, his aptness to teach and discipline his household, and his blameless reputation among his neighbours?

Without a track record, it is hard to discern the criteria that are theologically required of elders, which are almost all about proven character within a community rather than (say) intelligence or charm. (It is often observed that the qualities listed in 1 Timothy 3:1–7 reflect how we conduct ourselves in community relationships.)

In addition to the problem of discerning these criteria, there is the second problem that some qualities take time to develop:

how can such a young man adequately exercise the ministry to which he is ordained, when he has no experience (of the kind mentioned in the New Testament) on which to draw? Does he not shoulder an intolerable burden?

The skills needed to manage the household of God are partly gained through experience in other social relationships, like the household (which in the first century would likely have included more than just the 2.5 kids).

The more theologically we think about it, the more the task of the theological college seems impossible.

Robinson’s characteristically radical conclusion

How can a theological college discern based on behaviour they are not able to directly see? Or assess based on a track record that has not happened yet?

The answer, in typical Robinson style, is both radical in its rejection of what accepted practice (at the time) assumed, and so obviously biblical that it is hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with it.

A theological college cannot do these things because those things are not its job.‍ ‍

Robinson queries the assumption that the answer to our need for training people for ministry lies within the walls of the theological college. “It is even dangerous,” he writes, “in the present situation, to think of a theological college as the place where ‘men are trained for the ministry’.”

Now, before you head to the comments section, Robinson is not saying that training for ministry is unimportant, or irrelevant to what happens in colleges. He has already argued that theological colleges are a vital part of training for ministry; and training for ministry is central to what theological colleges are for.

The key phrase here is “the place”. For Robinson, the mistake is to think that theological colleges can do it alone.

He makes a few challenging observations:

• The task of a theological college is to teach theology “at a higher level than is possible in the normal teaching programme of a parish”. Note that he sees the college as distinct from, but an extension of, parish teaching and training.

• Theological study at this level is essential for those who are seeking ordination into ministry (and indeed any vocation that involves teaching theology) but not only for them. A college “should be ready to serve the whole church” which means admitting students who would benefit from studying theology at this higher level. Theology is not just for ordination candidates, or the exclusive domain of professional Christians.

• Theological colleges in our particular context (1960s Australia) provide something that secular Australian universities cannot, namely study in the context of “positive Christian faith”. Keep in mind that Robinson himself studied theology at Cambridge and taught biblical studies at Sydney University. He acknowledges their value, and would not discourage anyone from studying their courses. But it is essential, he thinks, that we don’t dispense with theological colleges because they offer something unique.

• Theological study for its own sake is essential to avoid dangerous pragmatism and “the modern cult of ‘communication’” in our ministry. Here he gets spicy. Without a theological understanding of the gospel, the church and its ministry, we will “be tempted to be conformed to this world” and already “there are dangerous signs of this tendency”. Ministry is about more than learning to “communicate” the gospel using “modern theories of advertising”. “The rejection of the prophetic, dominical and apostolic message”, he points out, “was not due to a failure in communication.”

• Studying theology will never make up for a lack of Christian piety going in. If someone believes he is called to ministry and needs to therefore study theology “he should be expected already to have reached stability in his personal Christian life, which includes his life of prayer.” Of course, being part of “any Christian community” will encourage such “habits of personal piety” and that should include the community at theological college. And a deeper understanding of God and the world will feed your prayers.

• College is not the place to first hear your call to ministry. Those seeking theological study as part of a pathway to ordination (which, as we saw above, is not everyone at theological college) should, he thinks, already have an evident call. Interestingly, the call is not only a subjective one: “a man’s claim to be a candidate for the ministry cannot be taken seriously without such attestation from those competent to judge”. Who are these people? Not the staff at the theological college! It is the “experienced Christians in the congregation from which he comes” who are able and have the responsibility “to attest the gifts of ministry in such a person.” What we see at college can rule people out, but we don’t get to see enough of someone exercising their gifts in “a position of sustained pastoral responsibility” to do the job of discernment alone. This means that…

• College is not where your ministry should begin. Nobody can discern gifts without seeing them exercised first. “It is difficult”, writes Robinson, “to understand how a man can even think he is called to ministry unless he has already commended himself” in a role involving “sustained pastoral responsibility.” This resonates with me: when I do enrolment interviews one of the first questions I ask is what ministry the prospective student is already doing. It need not be a formal ministry, but hearing the joy in someone’s voice when they talk about reading the Bible with a new Christian is much more important to me (and a better predictor of thriving at college) than whether they have already read Church Dogmatics.

• Colleges are part of the training pathway, not the whole pathway. The theological formation that students receive is necessary but not sufficient. Equipping for ministry must continue after ordination in partnership with local churches and dioceses, with on-the-job mentoring by more experienced ministers and ongoing specialised training.

On every point (some of which may be controversial, others less so) Robinson challenges us, in his typical style, not to let our cultural assumptions and traditional patterns stand unchallenged, but to start with a theological understanding of what ministry is.

Theological colleges are not the place for discerning and equipping people for ministry. That process must be seen as a partnership with the local churches who send their candidates to us.

Here, Robinson is absolutely speaking to us in 2026. Almost every week well-resourced churches ring up my friend and colleague Graham Stanton to ask him if he can send them a youth minister. As he gently, but truthfully, tells them: we can’t train them if you don’t send them. (If you are interested, Graham is working on this systemic immaturity in new and creative ways.)

In 2026, as in 1962, we must not imagine theological colleges as magical gardens where fully formed gospel ministers grow on trees.

(In fact, the need for churches to be intentional in their involvement in discerning vocation before college is even more urgent now as in 1962. Before federally funded FEE-HELP was available for theological courses, most students relied on the generous financial support of their local church to pay their student fees. For people who knew you well to put their hard-earned cash into your training for ministry was a precious confirmation of your call. Now, with student loans and part-time work, it is theoretically possible for students to begin study without their church even being aware.)

The role of a theological college

All this points to the vital need for partnership between colleges, churches and the diocese — both before and after a candidate is sent to study theology. He observes that supervision by older ministers is a vital part of the formation process:

Older ministers are often heard to complain that their new assistant was not taught this or that piece of pastoralia in his college course. In a number of cases it has turned out that instruction was in fact given, but that the student did not remember it. What is needed is a fresh realization by older clergy that part of their God-given ministry is precisely this instruction and guidance of younger clergy who are committed to them.

The next half of Robinson’s article deals with the content of a theological course, which is fascinating in itself and I might deal with in a future article (I’m all for his allocation of 50% of the course to biblical theology!).

But already we have an instructive insight into how, in 1962, he answered the question “what is a theological college”:

A theological college, then, is a college for the study of theology. As a community of Christian students it has also the form and activity of any Christian family or household, that is, its life is based on table fellowship and common prayer and on such exercises as enable those who have oversight to instruct in general Christian teaching and exhort to true Christian living. The special purpose of such a college is to enable those who learn in it to reach a standard of theological knowledge higher than would be possible in the normal life of a parish. (At present, time is wasted in theological colleges in giving instruction that should have been given in parishes.)

This is a good answer, I think, though we need to rethink the details for the situation we find ourselves in today (as Robinson himself would be doing now, if he were still alive).

But the way he goes about answering the question, to me, is the most precious part of it. His method demonstrates his answer to the question. Theological colleges train us to think theologically about our answers to all sorts of questions, including the question “what is a theological college” itself.

What Robinson exhorts us to do, he models for us as well. He refuses to fall back on accepted patterns, or operate purely pragmatically, or mindlessly preserve the systems we have built already. Instead, he takes us back to theology: What is a church? What is Christian ministry? And what kind of people should we aspire to have leading it?