COMMENTARY: As Spirituality Booms, Clergy Shortage Deepens

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) While millions of Americans are currently searching for something called”spirituality,”there is an acute clergy shortage in the country. Fewer men and women are studying to be spiritual leaders, and the dearth of rabbis, priests and ministers […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(UNDATED) While millions of Americans are currently searching for something called”spirituality,”there is an acute clergy shortage in the country. Fewer men and women are studying to be spiritual leaders, and the dearth of rabbis, priests and ministers affects both the Jewish and Christian communities.


As seminary enrollments drop, the explanations for the decline multiply. Every religious group has its own unique set of problems in attracting future clergy.

Some observers attribute the shortage of Roman Catholic priests to smaller families. Others believe the celibacy requirement keeps many otherwise qualified men from the seminary, and other observers”blame”the booming U.S. economy and low unemployment as the job market provides opportunities with both status and a lucrative income.

A priest recently told me: “It used to be that American Catholics had six or seven children, and frequently one of the sons became a priest and a daughter a nun. But now many families have only two or maybe three kids. The traditional talent pool has been cut in half.”

Since only priests can celebrate Mass, many parishes must share clergy with other congregations, particularly in areas with small Catholic populations.

A similar shortfall of clergy is taking place in many Protestant denominations. A recent news report noted the Episcopal Church has 15,000 clergy, but only 300 of them were born after 1964. The math is ominous: only 2 percent of priests are under the age of 36. Color Episcopal clergy gray.

My Episcopal friends explain the problem in several ways. The steep drop in church membership has resulted in a fall-off in seminary applications. The Episcopal Church, like several other religious groups, has been sharply divided over the status of gay and lesbian clergy, and the question of ordaining women has also been contentious.

Other Protestant denominations report a shortage of ministers at a moment in history when more and more Americans are joining New Age groups, controversial sects or Eastern religions like Buddhism. Shopping around for spiritual identities is accelerating in what Wade Clark Roof of the University of California at Santa Barbara has aptly called “a nation of seekers.”

Some theological schools describe a new phenomenon: Students enroll in Protestant seminaries without ever becoming ordained clergy. In such a fluid situation, becoming a minister of a shrinking denomination is less appealing to more people.


Some young Protestants who reject the ministry cite the generally low pay of a pastor in an affluent society. They are put off by the long hours and seven-day workweeks constituting the usual work pattern of so many clergy, and believe they can serve God and their church as well as maintain a better family life without becoming a minister.

Seminaries serving black churches have traditionally attracted many older, part-time students. That trend is continuing, but one African-American leader complains some prestigious white seminaries are “cherry picking” the best and brightest young black seminarians with the lure of large scholarships black theological schools simply cannot afford to offer.

The clergy shortage has not skipped the Jewish community. All branches of Judaism, including Orthodoxy, are feeling the pinch. An old joke has the parents of a potential rabbinical student asking their child, “So you want to be a rabbi. … Is that really a profession for a Jew?” The bittersweet implication is that the rabbinate is too demanding, both emotionally and physically, to enter as a full-time profession.

To meet the challenge, several rabbinical schools have intensified their outreach campaigns on college campuses, and the Reform Jewish movement is devoting much more attention to its high school youth programs and summer camps, both prime recruiting areas for the rabbinate.

The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Reform Judaism’s seminary, offers “para-rabbi” courses for qualified laity. Para-rabbis are authorized to officiate at Sabbath and holiday religious services, ritual circumcisions, funerals and bar/bat mitzvah ceremonies in synagogues where there is no full-time rabbi. Interestingly, this arrangement is a throwback to a much earlier time in Jewish history when rabbis were often sandal makers, blacksmiths, carpenters or farmers in addition to mediating community disputes and teaching Bible and Talmud.

One thing is clear: The continued shortage of trained clergy will result in even more religious illiteracy and ignorance in America. And that would be a terrible loss for everyone.


DEA END RUDIN

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!