Wednesday, January 08, 2003
What they teach in seminary
- Old Testament: Pentateuch, Wisdom, Prophets, Lesser Prophets, Psalms, Writings.
- New Testament: Four Gospels, Letters of Paul, and other infinitely variable combinations
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Liturgy
- Pastoral Care: Rogerian and Whitehead Models of pastoral conversation
- Field Education: in which the Field Ed supervisor, usually the Rector of a local church, gets a Youth Group leader for a semester.
- Theology: Systematic and Foundations and other elective perversions.
- Preaching
- Canon Law
- Christian Education
- Christian Ethics
- Bioethics
- Human Rights
- Christology
- Church History (I actually stood at the ancient tomb of the Venerable Bede at Durham Cathedral in England this summer and cursed him for having to read his History of the Church)
- Anglicanism (insert the appropriate -ism for your denomination)
- Clinical Pastoral Education - in which the seminarian approaches and occasionally exceeds the limits of his/her ability to endure an endless summer of colonoscopies by peers.
What they should teach in seminary
- Small business management
- Yoga
- Desk-top Publishing
- Alternative spiritualities
- How to relate to people who think you are God
- How to relate to people who think you are Satan
- Small engine repair
- How to relate to people that you think are God
- How to relate to people that you think are Satan
- The difference between annuals and perennials
- How to keep from thinking you are God
- How to keep from thinking you are Satan
- Landscape Design
- How to relate to your Music Director who thinks you are Satan
- The Music Director is incapable of thinking of you as God
- Electrical Contracting
- Masonry
- Plumbing
- How to relate to the Altar Guild who thinks you are Satan.
- The Altar Guild is incapable of thinking of you as God
- Telephone repair
- How to relate to your Office Manager who tells you not to ever touch the office machines while she's away.
- How to buy something you desperately need but have no money with which to pay.
- How to get the church Matriarch to think something's her idea.
- How to age bills gracefully.
- How to keep from counting the days to retirement.
- How to tell someone at three in the morning that their teen-ager has just been killed in a wreck.
- How to have a relationship with your family
- How to continue to have a relationship with God (who?)
2:41:14 PM
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