Clergy Education Part II

The last time we took up this subject, I had mentioned that two needs exist. 1) A practical way to deliver the advantages of a seminary education to men who cannot quit their jobs and run off to school, and 2) defining acceptable standards that go across the current jurisdictional lines.

At this time only one seminary exists in the Continuing Church movement, namely, St. Joseph of Arimathea Seminary in Berkeley California. This seminary serves the Anglican Province of Christ the King exclusively, and the credit for its building goes mostly to now retired Archbishop Robert Morse. In a previous post I stated that all of the good qualities that, in the past, were associated with Nashotah House, are found at this seminary. The academic program is excellent, and the life that a student is expected to live, centered on the daily life of prayer that begins and ends in the chapel (with a Mass in the middle of the day), is as fine as can be.*

In general, throughout Continuing Church bodies, the priests who did not transfer from ECUSA, have needed education that is as fine as the standards once held by the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican churches in other countries. From what I have seen of the quality of seminary education in the Episcopal Church in the United States, I can safely say, it is not what it once was. Along with spiritual decline has been intellectual and academic decline. The current standards of the Episcopal Church seminaries have become pathetic, and that includes Nashota House (and, I do not know how much this is the case in other countries. I do suspect that many of them, C of E, Canada, etc., have been in decline as well). It is not enough to say that we must equal those seminaries: We must surpass them.

And, here again is the problem that most seminarians are not young men straight out of college, but men in their late thirties, usually already in their forties, with wives, children and mortgages. In the APCK, such men are expected to find a way to live in Berkeley, no matter where they have been living. The archbishop was a combat veteran of World War II, and a young college graduate who was ordained in the 1950s. The model he was accustomed to does not fit these times in a practical way. The trend today, clergy who are older and more experienced in life, is a good trend; but, it means we must deliver clergy education by the older model: Reading for Orders under the guidance of the Bishop Ordinary, with as much hands on training as is required. Yet, we must have standards that are generally known and accepted.

In comments from an earlier post, a reader from Down Under, Sandra McColl, mentioned the areas in which clergy must be educated. Her list was so good that I am breaking the commandment and stealing it (well, not exactly. She consented to this appropriation of her intellectual property back in July).

1)"...a subject dedicated to the best of the Anglican theological tradition (Hooker, the Caroline divines, the non-jurors, the Oxford fathers, assorted chunks of Mascall and Farrer)..."

2) "Greek and Hebrew..." The Bible languages (most seminaries in the Episcopal Church never taught Hebrew by the way, just Greek. My knowledge of Hebrew has made me the odd man out, especially as I was taught S'phardic Hebrew at a Jewish college.)

I will add, some Latin, the liturgical language of our Western tradition.

3) "...music: both a survey of the Anglican musical tradition and practical training in basic skills such as singing the note that the organist has just played for you, reading chant and modern musical notation..." This may seem unimportant to a few Low Churchmen; but St. Bede records just how important this instruction was considered to be in his day.

This third point leads to a bigger one: A very detailed knowledge of liturgy, both the liturgy of the Mass and of the daily offices of Morning and Evening Prayer that come from the Benedictine tradition and that are of the essence of the Anglican life of prayer (the Prayer Book is not just a book of services: it is a simplified Regula for all of life).

I add these:

4) Church history (Not just Anglican history).
5) Pastoral ministry, including the practical instruction it takes to be a good confessor, a good instructor for confirmands, etc.
6) Sacramental theology
7) Practical business matters of church administration and finance.

Furthermore, the student must be instructed in his own spiritual formation through daily prayer and his pursuit of holiness and the formation of godly character.

Now, how do we go about the practical business of making this education available to men where they live? How do we set in place the confidence that high standards are being applied as a norm that crosses the current jurisdictional lines?

* I have been critical of the APCK in general, despite its orthodoxy and the fine spiritual quality of most of the clergy that I have known. My criticism has never been about the seminary program, but about the unpredictable behavior of bishops. My statements should serve as a warning to any man who is seeking Holy Orders in the APCK, that he must be prepared economically. He must be ready for any sort of capricious decisions that will, if he is not financially secure, suddenly and without warning remove all of the support that a postulent should expect from his bishop and diocese. He is on his own, and the needs of his wife and children must come first.