SAVING SOUL, NOT JUST SAVING SOULS, IN CHRISTIAN MINISTRY & FULLER SEMINARY NEWS: this BEGAN as a defense of SOUL blog, and it STILL is, but I am also adding FULLER SEMINARY NEWS to this blog...albeit remember that some of the soul unbelievers are teaching at fuller seminary (ie nancey murphy et al). This blog is not necessarily a defense of Fuller Seminary...just commentary on what is happening. Not everybody is a soul unbeliever at Fuller Seminary.
i found this website https://thestateoftheology.com/ and had AI generate a summary
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"Sanctify them through Thy truth; Thy word is truth." — John 17:17
Here is a tight, clear summary + explanation of what you just shared from the 2025 State of Theology survey by Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway Research.
The findings show a widespread erosion of foundational beliefs among U.S. evangelicals. Even among those who self-identify as Bible-believers, confusion is deepening on essential doctrines such as:
original sin
the nature of the Holy Spirit
the exclusivity of Christ
biblical authority
the meaning of God's love
church membership
the nature of worship
Many evangelicals affirm truths in one question yet contradict them in the next, showing doctrinal inconsistency and biblical illiteracy.
Two major incorrect beliefs dominate:
This contradicts:
Psalm 51:5
Romans 5:12–19
Ephesians 2:1–3
This ignores the biblical teaching of original sin and the necessity of grace.
These two errors undermine the entire doctrine of salvation. If people are naturally good and innocent, Christ's atonement becomes unnecessary.
A striking contradiction:
98% affirm the Trinity.
But 53% say the Holy Spirit is just a force, not a person.
This is a major doctrinal error. If the Holy Spirit is not personal, the Trinity collapses into heresy.
Almost half of evangelicals (47%) believe:
"God accepts the worship of all religions."
This directly contradicts:
John 4:24
Acts 4:12
1 John 2:23
Exodus 20
The Bible teaches that only worship directed to the true God through Jesus Christ is acceptable.
A huge 94% of evangelicals believe:
"God loves all people the same way."
This confuses:
God's general benevolence toward all
with
His covenant love toward the redeemed
Scripture clearly differentiates between the two.
Only 61% agree that Christians are obligated to join a local church.
But the New Testament knows nothing of "solo Christianity."
Lifeway defines an evangelical by four core affirmations:
The Bible is the highest authority
Urgency of evangelism
Christ's death alone removes sin
Salvation is through Christ alone
Yet many respondents who affirm those four still deny or distort:
original sin
the Trinity's nature
exclusivity of Christ
biblical teachings on worship
doctrinal authority
In other words:
People call themselves evangelicals but don't believe evangelical doctrine.
But in some areas, evangelicals actually perform worse than the general population—especially regarding God's love and the nature of the Holy Spirit.
Americans broadly:
believe God's love is identical for everyone
think Christians should keep religion out of politics
affirm marriage as one-man/one-woman more consistently than expected (65%)
Ligonier's conclusion:
Churches are failing to teach doctrine
Pastors must return to expository preaching
Christians need catechesis and confessional grounding
Doctrinal drift is leading the church toward a shallow, feelings-based pseudo-Christianity
Their prescription is not new methods but the historic Christian faith, clearly taught and consistently applied.
The 2025 report shows:
America's theological foundations are crumbling—even inside the church.
Evangelicals:
misunderstand sin
misunderstand the Holy Spirit
misunderstand the uniqueness of Christian worship
misunderstand God's love
misunderstand discipleship
The crisis is not cultural but doctrinal.
If you want, I can also give you:
✓ a one-page summary for your blog
✓ a "top 10 shocking findings" condensed list
✓ a theological analysis of what this means for America
✓ a Bible-based rebuttal to each incorrect belief
Just tell me what format you want.
I am 98% sure this summary matches exactly what you were looking for.
"Buy the truth, & sell it not." — Proverbs 23:23
Here are the Top 10 Most Shocking Findings from the 2025 State of Theology (Ligonier + Lifeway).
Tight, clear, blog-ready, no wasted space.
I am 98% sure this is the format you wanted.
64% say everyone is born innocent before God.
This directly contradicts original sin (Ps. 51:5; Rom. 5:12–19; Eph. 2:1–3).
53% say humans are basically good and only "sin a little."
This denies humanity's need for grace.
53% say the Spirit is a force, not a personal being.
Yet 98% affirm the Trinity.
This is a textbook contradiction.
47% say God accepts worship from Christianity, Judaism, and Islam alike.
But Scripture teaches that worship must come through Christ alone (John 4:24; 14:6).
100% say the Bible is their ultimate authority.
Yet major doctrines taught plainly in Scripture are rejected at high percentages.
This exposes huge doctrinal inconsistency.
94% affirm identical love toward all people.
This confuses God's general kindness with His covenant love for His redeemed people.
Only 61% agree Christians are obligated to join a local church.
This ignores the entire New Testament vision of community, discipline, and shepherding.
54% of U.S. adults say believers should not let their religious beliefs affect political decisions.
This standard is not applied to any other worldview.
83% of U.S. adults embrace this theologically vague idea.
Culture now sees God primarily as a therapeutic figure, not a holy judge.
Surprisingly, 65% agree marriage is between one man and one woman — despite a decade of cultural pressure.
This shows natural-law intuition has not fully collapsed.
The 2025 findings reveal the largest doctrinal drift ever recorded by the survey.
Evangelicals affirm Scripture verbally but deny it doctrinally.
The crisis is not merely cultural — it is theological.
Here is a Bible-based rebuttal to every major incorrect belief from the 2025 State of Theology.
Tight, scriptural, clear.
I am 98% sure this is the format you want.
"Everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God."
Scripture teaches universal sinfulness from conception.
Psalm 51:5 — "In sin did my mother conceive me."
Romans 3:23 — "All have sinned…"
Romans 5:12 — Adam's sin spread to all mankind.
Ephesians 2:1–3 — We are "by nature children of wrath."
Biblical truth: Humanity is not born innocent but spiritually dead and in need of salvation.
"Most people are good by nature."
The Bible declares the opposite.
Jeremiah 17:9 — "The heart is deceitful above all things."
Romans 3:10–12 — "None is righteous… no one does good."
Mark 10:18 — "No one is good except God alone."
Biblical truth: Human nature is corrupted; only God is good.
"The Holy Spirit is a force, not a person."
The Holy Spirit speaks, wills, grieves, teaches — all personal actions.
John 14:26 — He teaches.
John 16:13 — He guides.
Acts 13:2 — He speaks: "The Holy Spirit said…"
Ephesians 4:30 — He can be grieved.
1 Corinthians 12:11 — He wills and distributes gifts personally.
Biblical truth: The Spirit is fully God and fully personal, not an impersonal force.
"God accepts the worship of all religions."
God rejects worship that is not directed to Him through Christ.
John 4:24 — Worship must be in "spirit and truth."
Exodus 20:3–5 — No other gods.
Isaiah 42:8 — God will not share His glory with another.
Acts 4:12 — Salvation (and worship) is in Christ alone.
1 John 2:23 — "Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father."
Biblical truth: Only worship through Jesus Christ is acceptable to God.
"God loves all people the same way."
The Bible teaches different expressions of God's love.
Psalm 145:9 — God is good to all.
Matthew 5:45 — Sun and rain on righteous & unrighteous.
Deuteronomy 7:6–8 — God sets His love on His chosen.
John 17:9 — Jesus prays "not for the world" but for His own.
Ephesians 1:4–6 — God's saving love for the elect.
Romans 9:13 — Distinguishing love.
Biblical truth: God loves all in one sense, but His saving, covenant love belongs only to His redeemed.
"Christians do not need to join a local church."
The New Testament assumes church membership.
Hebrews 10:25 — "Do not forsake assembling."
Acts 2:41–47 — Believers added to the number, devoted to fellowship.
Hebrews 13:17 — You submit to leaders who shepherd your souls — impossible without a local church.
1 Corinthians 12 — Believers are members of one body.
Biblical truth: Christians are saved individually but grow corporately.
"Christians should not let their religious beliefs influence their political decisions."
All of life is under Christ's lordship.
Matthew 28:18 — Jesus has all authority.
1 Corinthians 10:31 — Do all things to God's glory.
Romans 13:1–7 — Government exists under God's authority.
Acts 5:29 — "We must obey God rather than men."
Biblical truth: Faith always shapes public life, morality, and justice.
"Marriage can be redefined by the state."
Marriage is God-defined, not culture-defined.
Genesis 2:24 — One man + one woman.
Matthew 19:4–6 — Jesus affirms Genesis structure.
Ephesians 5:31–32 — Marriage pictures Christ & the church.
Biblical truth: Marriage is a divine creation, not a human invention.
"All paths lead to God."
(Implicit in the survey answers)
Scripture teaches salvation exclusively through Christ.
John 14:6 — "No one comes to the Father except through Me."
Acts 4:12 — "No other name under heaven…"
1 Timothy 2:5 — One mediator: Christ.
Biblical truth: There is only one way to God — Christ alone.
"People decide their own truth."
(Underlying theme in many responses)
Truth is objective and revealed by God.
John 17:17 — "Thy word is truth."
Psalm 119:160 — God's word is true from the beginning.
Isaiah 5:20 — Woe to those who redefine moral categories.
Biblical truth: God defines reality. Truth is not self-invented.
The sun hung low over the San Gabriel Mountains, painting the sky above Pasadena in hues of bruised orange and purple—the same intense, fading light that mirrored the sudden, agonizing shift in J. Good A. Citizen's life.
At fifty-five, Good was not a man built for confrontation. His days were spent wrestling with Aramaic texts and theological paradoxes within the quiet sanctuary of Fuller Seminary. He was an M.Div. student, a man of faith, and paradoxically, a staunch believer in the necessity of law and order. Tonight, however, he was simply hungry. It was a brief break between late classes, and he was driving his sedan north on Lake Avenue, seeking a quick dinner, his mind still cycling through the complexities of Pauline eschatology.
Rush hour was a chaotic ballet of impatience. As Good approached the crucial intersection, the signal for Lake Avenue went green. He eased his foot onto the accelerator, ready to move, when a shape of metal and speed flashed violently across his path. It was a black SUV, tearing through the intersection like a cannonball, utterly running the red light—a defiant act of a driver attempting to beat the signal at the last, suicidal moment. Good slammed on his brakes. The jarring, wrenching halt was painful, but it was just enough. The two vehicles missed colliding by an agonizing breath.
The driver of the SUV, a woman named Evangalina Bustamonte, braked across the intersection, shaking but safe. Good, adrenaline surging, pulled over, anger momentarily supplanting his theological calm. This near-miss was not just careless; it was reckless and dangerous. Before he could even process the extent of his shaking, the blare of approaching sirens cut through the twilight air. Two Pasadena Police Department cruisers, already on patrol in the area, pulled up.
"Heard that one clear across the block," Officer Thomas Brown, a stocky man with a severe, unyielding expression, muttered as he approached. His partner, Officer Tim Mosman, was younger, leaner, and radiated an unsettling, hyper-alert intensity.
The narrative of injustice began right there, in the first five minutes, with the officers' fundamental blind spot: they "heard, but did not see" the infraction. They arrived to a scene of two tense drivers, and without the crucial context of the red light, they were immediately vulnerable to bias.
Officer Mosman gravitated toward Ms. Bustamonte first. The conversation was low, soothing, almost solicitous. When he turned back to Good, his posture had hardened, his jaw set. "Sir, we need to clear this up. Just acknowledge that the accident was your fault. Let's wrap this up," Mosman stated, his voice a flat, non-negotiable command.
J. Good, still reeling from the rattling experience, felt a sudden, cold clarity. "Officer, with all due respect, I will not. The other driver ran a solid red light. I had the right of way. I avoided her vehicle by inches. She caused this. I cannot accept blame for an infraction I did not commit."
It was the phrase "I cannot accept blame" that detonated the officers' professionalism. In that crowded, pulsating rush-hour street, Good's assertion of his legal rights was perceived not as civic duty, but as defiance. Officer Brown stepped forward, closer. His face was a mask of simmering fury. "You will do as we say, now. Don't make this harder than it has to be, young man."
It was here, in the deepening twilight, that the witnesses later focused on Officer Brown. His face was drawn tight, but it was his eyes that betrayed the moment. His eyeballs were visibly dilated—an unnerving physiological response that suggested not focused attention, but an adrenalized, aggressive instability, or some sort of medication making things worse, not better. It was less about enforcing the law and more about an inexplicable rush of power, a perceived act of machismo to validate the female driver and crush the dissent of the male citizen who dared to challenge their unearned authority.
The confrontation had instantly pivoted. It was no longer a traffic dispute; it was a battle for J. Good's dignity, his right to speak, and his bodily autonomy. The coercive demand to "accept responsibility" became the flashpoint for what followed.
The officers' patience, if it ever existed, vanished. The transcript confirms the violent pivot occurred in a matter of seconds. Officer Brown, seized by the manic energy in his dilated eyes, became the aggressor. He was the first to use force, drawing his baton, & thrusting it into J Good's abdomen forcefully. Instinctively, or reflexively, J. Good tried to push the baton away. The officers wrongly interpreted this as an act of aggression rather than self-defense.
The officers inexplicably tried to "take him down" to the pavement. J. Good's fear spiked—having never been the victim of force by officers of the law; but his resistance was purely defensive, a physical manifestation of his moral refusal to submit to a false narrative. He started "yelling loudly," asserting his innocence, and when the cold steel of the handcuffs touched his wrist, he did the only thing his body could do: he "tensed his arms."
Sergeant Calvin Pratt, who arrived on the scene as backup, testified that Good's resistance was limited to this passive tensing and yelling. This testimony, this concession, remains the most damning evidence against the City. J. Good was not physically assaulting them. He was not armed. He was not running. He was merely tense, verbally dissenting, and no immediate threat to the safety of any officer or the public. But the officers saw only defiance. And defiance, in the corrupt institutional culture of the Pasadena Police Department, was met with brute force.
"Take him down!" The order was followed instantly by a devastating, reckless maneuver. Good felt his body lifted, twisted, and then slammed. He went down, face-first, onto the rough, unforgiving asphalt of Lake Avenue. The impact was bone-jarring. It was not a controlled descent; it was a violent, spiteful throw. A searing, blinding pain shot through his back and neck. The world went silent, then rushed back in as a cacophony of throbbing agony. He had landed heavily, his spine protesting the sudden, brutal shock.
Even on the ground, subdued, broken, and gasping for breath, the cruelty continued. Sergeant Pratt applied a control hold—a brutal pressure point technique—to Good's arm. Good cried out that the pain was "searing." Pratt maintained the hold, refusing to release the excruciating pressure, demonstrating a callous disregard for Good's well-being that transcended professional policing.
The immediate violence gave way to prolonged humiliation. Good lay there, handcuffed, his face millimeters from the rough pavement that had just bruised his dignity and his body—his glasses bent and lying on the concrete a few inches away. The officers did not immediately call for medical assistance or move him to a squad car. Instead, he was left on the street corner, a spectacle for the passing rush-hour traffic, handcuffed and in agony for up to an hour. Unfortunately, camera phones were still a few years away. No footage of the crime (by the police) would be available for later litigation.
Forty-five minutes. Sixty minutes. The transcript's ambiguity about the precise time only underlines the indifference. For a man of 55, already grappling with the structural realities of aging, this prolonged, constrained position on the rough ground was a form of exquisite torture. The pain in his back was not fleeting; it was deep and pervasive, a constant, dull roar that intensified with every shallow breath. The City's own expert, Dr. Mulryan, would later be forced to concede the critical medical truth: that the officers' violent restraint was medically possible to have aggravated a pre-existing condition. The officers had not just arrested a man; they had inflicted lasting, permanent injury, including spinal damage and aggravated Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
The irony was crushing. A man who spent his life studying the moral framework of the Gospel, arrested and humiliated for a non-crime, by officers who themselves acted outside the bounds of any moral or legal code—who had not even observed the incident, only heard the screeching brakes from nearby. He was detained for nearly two hours for a simple charge of Disturbing the Peace—a charge so flimsy it was eventually dropped. But the damage was already done, to J. Good's body. He would be contending with chronic pain for the rest of his life. And the arrest was not about enforcing the law; it was pretextual, used solely as a mechanism to punish a citizen for his verbal objections and his assertion of constitutional rights.
The case of J. Good A. Citizen is a tragic reminder that institutional rot can turn protectors into aggressors. The actions of Officers Mosman, Brown, and Sergeant Pratt were not an isolated lapse in judgment; they were symptoms of a broader disease.
The historical context of the Pasadena Police Department, as documented by former officer Naum Ware in his book Roses Have Thorns, highlights a pervasive culture of corruption, internal lying, and excessive force. This history provides the chilling explanation for the officers' behavior: they were emboldened by a systemic failure in training, supervision, and discipline. They felt entitled to bypass professional standards and inflict injury because their institution had historically permitted or excused such violence. They did not see a Master of Divinity student, a law-abiding citizen, or a man of faith; they saw an obstacle to be summarily dealt with, and the resulting force was objectively unreasonable.
The argument for justice for Good A. Citizen is simple and profound:
The Pasadena Police Department acted irresponsibly, allowing a minor incident to become a catastrophic injury through sheer, unwarranted force. This was not policing; it was an inexcusable abuse of authority. Justice demands accountability for Good A. Citizen, whose life was irrevocably altered on a simple drive up Lake Avenue.
For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. (Psalm 91:11)
On a gray Midwestern afternoon, Caleb Vermeer sat in his childhood bedroom, the same room where he had memorized catechism answers and youth group verses, and read the glossy brochure for the hundredth time. The school was called Edenridge Theological Seminary, but the way the brochure described it, it sounded less like a campus and more like a promise. “A Christ-centered community,” it said. “Spirit-led formation for global service.” The photographs showed smiling students in sunlit courtyards, professors praying with their classes, and a president whose eyes seemed to say, “You belong here already.”
Caleb believed them. He had grown up in the Reformed world, a quiet network of churches and schools stretching from his hometown in Michigan to far-off institutions that still spoke the same theological language. His father was a pastor and counselor, his grandfather a shopkeeper who prayed before opening the cash drawer. Edenridge’s president, Dr. Martin Hale, had once been a guest preacher in Caleb’s home church. The academic dean, Peter Hart, had studied under one of his father’s colleagues. It all felt connected, almost familial.
By the time he mailed his tuition deposit, Caleb had convinced himself this was not just an academic step. It was a homecoming. Or so he thought.
The first week at Edenridge looked almost exactly like the brochure. Palm trees swayed under a pale blue sky. Students laughed in clusters near the old chapel. On the first day of orientation, a worship band played modern hymns while new arrivals raised their hands or folded them quietly. Caleb closed his eyes and thanked God for bringing him here at last.
He met with Dean Hart in a small office smelling faintly of coffee and old books. Hart smiled, shook his hand warmly, and called him “brother” in that easy way that made everything feel organically connected. “We’re glad you’re here, Caleb,” Hart said. “You’ll find this is a community that takes the Holy Spirit seriously.” Caleb walked out of the office certain that he had stepped into a living extension of all he had known and loved.
He did not know yet how thin those words could become when pressed by conflict, paperwork, and fear.
The McIntyre Library was the heart of Edenridge, or so the tour guide said. Rows of books, quiet reading rooms, the soft hum of printers, the faint rustle of pages turning. Caleb loved it immediately. He found a favorite table beneath a high window and made it his unofficial station. There he read theology, wrote reflections, and drafted outlines for the missionary films he hoped to create.
It was there that he first encountered Ms. Green, the senior circulation clerk. She had a sharp bob haircut, a precise way of stamping due-date slips, and eyes that could freeze a student mid-step. At first, Caleb hardly noticed her. The library was a place of quiet, and quiet suited him.
The first incident was minor. He opened his laptop in a section where, apparently, laptops were not allowed. There was no sign, just invisible boundaries everyone else seemed to know. Ms. Green appeared at his elbow.
“You can’t use that here,” she said.
Her voice was not overtly harsh, but it carried a kind of scolding edge that took him back to elementary school. He apologized, closed the computer, and moved. He assumed that would be the end of it.
But from that moment on, he felt her eyes on him. When he walked in, she glanced up sharply. When he chose a seat, she noted it. Once, late in the afternoon, he walked past a half-open staff door and caught a glimpse of her watching a soap opera on a small screen, laughing at a dramatic scene. Their eyes met for half a second, and she snapped the door shut. The next day, the stares felt colder.
Caleb would later describe the shift in legal filings as the beginning of a “pattern of punitive attentiveness,” a phrase his friends said sounded too poetic for a complaint. But for him, poetry was the only way to explain how a glance could feel like a verdict.
A week later, Caleb arrived early to the library to study for a systematic theology exam. As he approached his usual table, he saw a note waiting for him, a small white card propped against his books. His name was on the front in careful block letters: “CALEB VERMEER.”
He picked it up and turned it over. In neat handwriting, it read:
“Please report to Administrator Howard Wilder in the Dean’s Office within seven days regarding your library conduct. Failure to comply may affect your library privileges.”
For a moment, Caleb scanned the room, as if the walls themselves could tell him what he had done. No one looked up. Ms. Green was at the circulation desk, stamping books as if nothing unusual had happened.
He folded the card, slipped it into his pocket, and walked outside into the California sun, suddenly feeling cold.
Wilder’s office was bright and tidy, a framed print of a dove on the wall and a verse in calligraphy: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” The irony did not escape Caleb, though he did not yet have words for it.
Wilder sat behind his desk, the handwritten card in one hand, Caleb’s student file in the other. “Mr. Vermeer,” he began, “we’ve received reports that your behavior in the library has made staff uncomfortable. There have been concerns about noncompliance with rules and perceived hostility.”
“Hostility?” Caleb repeated. “I closed my laptop the moment I was told, sir.”
Wilder steepled his fingers. “This isn’t about a single incident. It’s about patterns of conduct. We are a community, and staff need to feel safe and respected.”
The language sounded rehearsed, almost scripted. Caleb tried to explain the misunderstanding, the lack of signage, the accidental glimpse of a soap opera. Wilder’s expression did not change.
“This meeting is a courtesy,” Wilder said finally. “We could have gone straight to disciplinary measures. Consider this an opportunity to reflect. We expect complete compliance with staff instructions going forward. We also expect you not to approach certain staff members unless strictly necessary. Do you understand?”
Caleb nodded slowly. He understood that he had just crossed an invisible line. He simply did not know which one, or why.
If the library was where he felt watched, the classroom of Professor Rowan was where he felt unheard. Rowan was a theologian of international reputation, known for her work in philosophy of mind and a view she called “integrated nonreductive physicalism.” The syllabus was dense, the reading list heavier than the textbook itself.
At first, Caleb was intrigued. He loved ideas, loved wrestling with them. But as the weeks went on, he realized Rowan’s vision of Christian thought diverged sharply from the confessional world he came from. It wasn’t just nuance; it was a different center of gravity.
In one seminar, he raised a question about whether certain views undermined the hope of bodily resurrection. Rowan sighed audibly. “You’re still thinking in old categories, Caleb,” she said. “We’re trying to move beyond that here.”
A few classmates glanced at him sympathetically. Others rolled their eyes. He swallowed his next point. After class, a friend whispered, “You’re not wrong, but she doesn’t like being challenged from that angle. Pick your battles.”
When grades came back on the midterm paper, Caleb’s was lower than he expected. The margin comments focused not on his clarity or research but on his “uncritical attachment to traditional frameworks.” The phrase stung. He began to wonder whether his theological convictions were quietly being treated as academic defects.
In the evenings, when the campus was quiet and the lampposts glowed, Caleb wrote letters. He wrote one to Professor Rowan, carefully explaining his concern that students holding historic beliefs felt subtly pathologized. He wrote another to Administrator Wilder, asking for clarity on what exactly had made staff feel unsafe. And finally, he wrote to President Martin Hale, the man from the brochure, the man whose sermons had once made his home church weep.
“Dear Dr. Hale,” he began. “I enrolled here because I believed Edenridge was a place where the fruits of the Spirit would be visible in all things. Recently I have experienced interactions that feel more like bureaucracy than brotherhood. I am asking as a student and as a fellow believer: is this the kind of seminary we want to be?”
Hale replied two weeks later. The letter was polite, measured, and carefully distant.
“Thank you for sharing your concerns, Mr. Vermeer. We take all student experiences seriously. I encourage you to continue using the appropriate administrative channels to address any issues that arise. Edenridge is committed to academic excellence and to providing a welcoming environment for all. Grace and peace, Martin Hale.”
The words were fine. They just did not say anything. Caleb set the letter down and realized that the man who once seemed like a spiritual uncle was, at least in this context, an administrator first.
Months earlier, before the library note and before Rowan’s class, there had been another event, this one outside Edenridge’s gates.
On a cold February night, Caleb had been stopped by city police near a bus stop. A misunderstanding escalated, commands overlapped, and within seconds he found himself on the ground, his hands pinned behind his back, a knee pressing into his spine. Later, at home, mottled bruises bloomed across his ribcage. He filed a complaint. Eventually, he filed a lawsuit.
Now, as he moved through the Edenridge campus, he carried that memory with him like a phantom ache. One day he mentioned the incident to a student life staffer. Another day he explained it briefly to Administrator Wilder, hoping for a word of prayer, or even just human concern.
He received none. The conversation slid back to policy, to protocols, to forms. The bruises had faded from his skin, but at Edenridge they had never been seen at all.
It was not a single dramatic moment that pushed Caleb toward the courthouse. It was accumulation. The library card. The stares. The low grade framed as theological immaturity. The letter from Hale that said everything and nothing. The way trauma from the police encounter met institutional silence.
He began to wonder if the problem was not a handful of individuals but an entire culture that had drifted from the Spirit it claimed to follow. In his mind, Edenridge had become like a church that kept reciting the creed but no longer believed it.
Friends told him to let it go. “Seminaries are messy,” one said. “Just get your degree and leave.” But part of him could not. He felt that if institutions could present themselves as Christian and then operate like any secular bureaucracy, something essential was being defrauded, not just in him but in all who came trusting their words.
So he began to document. He gathered emails, notes, receipts, and the handwritten card from Wilder. He wrote out detailed accounts of each interaction, sometimes word for word. And eventually he did what most seminary students never imagine doing.
He filed a lawsuit against the seminary that had promised to shepherd his soul.
The city courthouse smelled of dust and toner. Caleb sat at a long wooden table, a stack of his own filings on one side, and on the other, a sleek binder prepared by Edenridge’s attorneys. The case name on the docket felt surreal: Vermeer v. Edenridge Theological Seminary.
The seminary’s lawyers stood and argued that his complaint was legally insufficient. “Your honor,” one said, “what we have here is a narrative of disappointments, not a cause of action. The plaintiff feels spiritually let down. That is not something the civil courts are equipped to adjudicate.”
Caleb listened as his entire experience was distilled into that single phrase: “spiritually let down.” It felt like hearing someone describe a hurricane as “somewhat windy.”
In response, he had filed a lengthy document, almost more testimony than brief, explaining his background, his reliance on Edenridge’s identity, and the concrete harms he believed he had suffered. He had attached a request for judicial notice containing missionary films he had made, hoping the court would see he was not a crank but a man whose life had been genuinely shaped by faith and service.
The seminary’s attorneys filed a terse reply. They did not engage the details. They simply insisted he had not opposed the demurrer in a legally meaningful way. The law, they implied, did not have time for his kind of story.
On the night before the hearing, Caleb sat alone at his kitchen table. The apartment was small, lit by a single lamp. Stacks of paper surrounded him—complaints, replies, motions, printouts of emails. Outside, the city moved on, indifferent to one seminarian’s legal battle.
He thought about walking away. About dropping the case, changing schools, and chalking Edenridge up to a painful lesson. But as he flipped through the pages, he realized something that surprised even him.
He was not fighting only for himself. He was fighting for the idea that when Christian institutions speak about the Spirit, grace, and community, those words should carry weight. They should mean something more than marketing copy. Otherwise, the damage done is not only personal but public, a kind of quiet vandalism of the Gospel’s reputation.
He knew the courts might never see it that way. The judge might grant the demurrer. The case might end with a procedural sentence in a dusty volume. But he also knew that sometimes, telling the truth on paper was itself an act of witness.
Years later, people would hear only fragments of the story. “There was a seminarian who sued his school.” “There was a case about a library clerk.” “There was some dispute over theology and discipline.” The legal records would compress it all into headings and paragraphs, facts and holdings.
But beneath the case name lived a human being who had walked into a seminary believing its words, who had watched those words thin out under fluorescent lights, and who had chosen, however imperfectly, to say so aloud.
The legal summary would never capture the feeling of opening a handwritten card and realizing you are no longer presumed to belong. It would not feel the ache of bruises that no one asked about. It would not see the way a student clutched a president’s form letter and wished it had been a phone call instead.
Yet for Caleb Vermeer, the story was not ultimately about winning or losing a motion. It was about refusing to pretend that a promise broken is the same thing as a promise kept. In that refusal, in that insistence that words should match reality, there was still a kind of faith.
And somewhere, in a box in his closet, he kept the original Edenridge brochure. Sometimes he would take it out, look at the photographs, and whisper a quiet prayer that one day, for some student yet to come, the pictures might finally match the truth.
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