How we should change clerical education
We should change the way how we train our clergy. Here is one suggestion.
The priesthood would be a five year training program that is conducted locally in the home diocese, on-line with seminarians and professors nationally (and internationally), with yearly coursework at established seminaries.
In the first three years, the aspirant would apprentice in three different settings selected by the bishop. These mentors would be trained to mentor. For a fourth year, the priest would work as an intern at a church in another part of the country for a modest stipend. Aspirants could keep their jobs while training.
For three years and 24 weeks on Saturday Mornings - or any other mutually agreeable time - the aspirants would gather as a class to discuss readings, reflections and problems in their diocese. There would be provincial meetings for all the aspirants yearly. This would be strengthened by on line education, with videos and lectures. The online seminary would be based in a traditional seminary.
During these three years, aspirants would go to seminaries for three weeks at a time to build collegiality with other students in from different dioceses, experience a monastic rule of order, and have time for intense reading, writing and reflection. Although the class would remain the same in some ways, they might also mix with other classes, thereby studying how social dynamics change in different contexts.
For one additional year, as in the Lutheran Church, the national church pays for a year where the priest works as a full-time intern in a poor parish. The national church will fund language education for the student. After this year, the person may be ordained.
The following year, the newly ordained priest writes two papers: a case study on a parish of his/her choice; and a comprehensive personal paper where the person engages in constructive theology.
The National Church should establish a curriculum expected for all aspirants to complete over the 5 year period.
Comments
I like a great deal about
I like a great deal about your ideas here, but there's one part of it about which I have serious reservations:
The emphasis on "all" in formation for ordained ministry having to follow a single program according to a single five-year curriculum.
Call me biased, but I think that aspirants who already have considerable and not outdated theological education under their belt (e.g., someone who already has an M.Div. or an M.Div. plus other advanced theological degrees) might not particularly need to take the same coursework as someone who doesn't. For example, I assume that your proposed curriculum would include introductory-level courses in theology, biblical studies, Anglican history and polity, and so on. Surely someone who was already a professor of a subject doesn't need to take an introductory-level distance learning course in that subject.
And should an internship year in a poor parish be required of someone who, for example, has already spent several years or more working in a poor parish other than their sponsoring parish?
In short, one size does not fit all. The problems with programs of discernment and formation for ordained ministry today are not, I think, as much about three-year residential M.Div. programs being universally undesirable as they are about imposing universal requirements whether or not they make sense in the context of a particular aspirant's life, vocation, or prior experience.
Hi Sarah! I think you are
Hi Sarah! I think you are right: we should reject a "one-size fits all" curriculum. The idea is that this proposal would allow for much more flexibility. I wouldn't get rid of a three-year residential program, either. And yes - bishops should allow waivers.