Course Review: Pastoral and Social Ethics

The Reformed Theological Seminary hits the mark once again with Dr. John M. Frames lectures of Pastoral and Social Ethics. With forty three lectures ranging from forty minuets to one and one half hours in length and with titles such as An Ethical Glossary, Divine Lordship, and Christian and Non-Christian Ethics, the course offers its Seminarians a way to derive ethics from scripture while wearing Reformed glasses.

Dr. Frame starts the class by defining God as Lord and outlines what ethical servitude means within its unique relationship and moves on to outline language used in both Christian and non-Christian ethics. The class discusses the difference between Biblical ethics and Biblical law while showing students how to apply these differences to the Reformed tradition. Finally, the class ends with lectures on the ethics of each of God's ten commandments.

The podcasts offered by the Seminary was audio only and id not include slides as some enhanced lectures from the Reformed Theological Seminary. While the quality of the audio recordings was well within average, the lack of enhanced slides left me feeling like something was missing. Dr. Frames, with his introductory lecture, introduces himself as a "liberal" thinker and is forthright in his assertion that the class is not about theoretical questions and speculative answers, but deriving hard answers from Scripture that are still flexible enough to change with time.

I have taken other courses in Pastoral Ethics from Cherry Hill Seminary and what set this one apart from its Pagan counterpart was its ability to give answers rather than speculating on them. In the class at Cherry Hill I discussed with my classmates a wide range of ethical topics such as transference, countertransference, the need to create clear physical and emotional boundaries. The Reformed class did not concern itself with the legal responsibilities of pastors or pastoral counseling, and, while I felt that this topic was sorely overlooked, I am keeping an open mind that the Seminary offers (requires) another class on the legal ramifications of pastoral ethics.

This lecture series was a valuable asset to my study as to run a successful religious organization or business you must be familiar with both the ethics of you faith and the ethics of other denominations while being able to determine answers to ethical questions through your scripture, text, mythologies, oral tradition, or rituals and rites.

This class taught from a pastoral perspective which is the position I ultimately aim for, and by bringing the discussion of pastoral ethics to the table prepares the student to bring on the responsibilities associated with ministry leadership.