Reformed Theological Seminary is led by Ligon Duncan and is one of the leading Presbyterian seminaries in America. On Monday, they announced a breakout session to be had at The Gospel Coalition’s 2026 Women’s Conference, to be held in June. The session is being hosted by Nancy Guthrie and Michael Kruger.
This announcement instantly garnered scrutiny for why a seminary that pretends to be theologically conservative is aggressively marketing to women.
Struggling Seminaries
It’s not a great time to be a seminary. RTS has seen a 20% decline between 2007 and 2024 according to Ryan Burge, exceeded by Gordon-Conwell, New Orleans Baptist, Southwestern Baptist, and Fuller. So, some of the most overtly woke seminaries have declined the most. Ligon Duncan endorsed and wrote the forward to Eric Mason’s Woke Church.
Decline of Seminaries
The model of seminaries has been called into question since they have been shown to be the hotbed of heresy for decades, and it’s increasingly impractical for men to put their lives on pause to move to a new city to go back to school. The local church can train a pastor in everything but languages in the majority of cases, making on-campus seminary a relic of the past.
Liberty University has championed online learning, allowing prospective pastor candidates to study at a seminary within their local churches. And as a result, they are now the largest seminary in America, practically overnight.
Why RTS?
So why is Reformed Theological Seminary marketing to women? Go woke, go broke has hit some seminaries hard. So one way to make up for the loss of enrollment is to recruit women. Does Reformed Theological Seminary believe in women’s ordination? The neat thing is: they don’t have to. They will be providing credentials for eventual women pastors. This phenomenon was discussed when Evangelical Dark Web reported on the female pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention who graduated from Cooperative Program seminaries. Thus, RTS’s actions are attributable to desperation and greed.
One Response
“The neat thing is: they don’t have to. They will be providing credentials for eventual women pastors.” This so succinctly says it all. Even if they had good intentions, the outcome will not be good.