In 2024, Master’s College and Seminary (MCS) and Horizon College and Seminary (HCS) formed a strategic partnership. This terms of this partnership included MCS adopting Competency-based education (CBE), something HCS had adopted a few years earlier. As an educator, I wanted to understand the philosophy behind the new policies and procedures. Enter Theological Education by Kenton C. Anderson and Gregory J. Henson.

CBE at its core measures competencies rather than processes. Anderson and Henson explain the fundamentals of CBE as it operates in theological education (CBTE). They summarize their model in three main chapters on the principles, practices, and design proposals for CBTE. Anderson and Henson list six clear principles of CBTE:

1. Collaborative Mission: The educational institution and the stakeholders—churches and denominations—must work more closely than ever in a shared vision.
2. Contextual Discipleship: Students learn best when they’re embedded in the setting they’re preparing to serve. For Bible College students, this often means close involvement in the local church.
3. Integrated Outcomes: When students can demonstrate they’ve met the integrated outcomes (i.e., learning objectives), the mission is accomplished.
4. Customized Proficiency: All students learn at different paces and should be allowed to proceed at their own speed to reach proficiency. Faculty ‘mentors’ that take a broad view of a student’s progress may be employed to this end.
5. Team-Based Mentoring: Silos should be broken down, with people from every area of the educational institution involved in the growth of each student.
6. Holistic Assessment: Students should be assessed using real-world methods. You won’t be given a theology exam as a lead pastor, so why should a student take one?

Clearly, there are many benefits to CBTE. There are also many features that radically undermine the classic structure of educational institutions. For example, how can you support customized proficiency in a semester system? This means that adaptations (compromises?) will be made as Bible Colleges shift CBTE.

My biggest problem with this book was the classic straw-man argument. Old-fashioned education is stodgy and outdated: let’s do something completely different! The only problem is that it’s not completely different. I was thoroughly invested in integrated outcomes before shifting to CBTE. The overall curriculum of MCS pre-partnership was honed in collaboration with churches, and my syllabi’s learning outcomes reflected that collaboration. It’s fair to say that the shift to CBTE may be a more effective way to orient the educational system toward competency goals, but it’s certainly not an exclusive path.

Anderson and Henson speak of the modernist approach to education as “rigid pathways” and “standardized content” that issue in “predetermined educational experiences,” taught by “experts” (94). It strikes me that although left unsaid, the type of CBTE proposed by Anderson and Henson is a fundamentally postmodern in its approach to education, with the metanarrative of the classic university mouldering in the rear-view. For me, it remains to be seen whether CBTE will be a generative force that gains ascendancy in the years to come or a corrective shift that refocuses educational institutions in an age of upheaval.

Anderson, Kenton C. And Gregory J. Henson. Theological Education: Principles and Practices of a Competency-Based Approach. Kregel Academic, 2024.