emerging church part two: seminaries

during the past three months, i visited several seminaries and talked to many seminarians or would-be seminarians.  one of the major things the seminaries and asperants had in common was that by far the majority of them were "converts" to the big church from some protestant group.

this makes me wonder:  does no one who has grown up in the catholic, orthodox, church want to become a priest?  (or almost no one:  i did meet a few seminarians who had grown up orthodox.)  there are, oddly enough, many roman catholic women seminarians, who will not become priests.  this situation i will have to ponder more before i can convince myself i understand it.

i also am struck by what the converts find at seminaries.  again and again i heard discussions of what they bring to the schools, and from a casual and unscientific review of the church history/doctrine courses at most seminaries these days, there doesn't seem to be very much emphasis on what they will receive from the church that is older than the latest edition of the paperback textbooks.  as one who thinks that the way to do theology is prayer, i'm not too concerned about the current texts when they are read in the context of a solid spiritual practice, and that does often seem to be supported in the seminaries.

but i also wonder how all  these emerging students will change the understanding of the church.  it seems that nearly all of today's seminaries, except for the few that remain very traditional, have become emergant seminaries.  there was a time when those coming to mother church for baptism were asked the question, "what dost thou ask of the church of god?"  the answer was expected to be, "faith."  it seems that the same question might be asked of in-coming seminary students.  i hope the church still has enough faith to share it.