Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond held its final graduation -- its final ceremony of any kind -- on May 25, 2019. It was not exactly a funeral or a memorial service. It's hard to describe the experience of watching an institution close.

Technically, BTSR closed Jan. 31. Legally, I suppose, there may still be a month or so of reconciling accounts and completing all the other tasks an institution must handle at the end of its life.

But the graduation, with its laughter and tears, memories and selfies, felt like the end. Speakers reminded the graduates that the school will live on in the vocations of almost 800 alumni. Graduates were encouraged to stick together, gaining strength from community.

BTSR is just one of many Christian institutions to close. In recent years, I have heard the whispered laments, in board meetings and denominational gatherings, of mergers, consolidations and right-sizing, all the while assuming that the casualty would never be my own alma mater. But now it is my own alma mater, an organization I knew was fragile. But I didn't know how fragile.

We can blame it on the economy and that season in 2008 when everything changed. We can fault the evolving nature of higher education, with online access to schools, professors and degrees previously out of most people's reach. We can point to the shifting nature of religion and the fact that the church is no longer seen as the beacon of innovation, hope and social justice it once was.

What we cannot do, however, is simply stand by and watch it happen. Again and again and again.