The New York Times has an interesting piece today about the decline of seminaries.
According to a study released this week by the Association of Theological Schools, 55 percent of its member schools have declining enrollments. The students are aging, too — by 2020, “there may be more 50+ students than 20-somethings.”
In response, seminaries and divinity schools are in a period of unprecedented experimentation. Schools are merging; or joining together, across religious lines, in interfaith consortiums; or moving online.
You can see the problem. The Christian narrative is incontestably false, and the younger generation has left it behind. That doesn’t mean they don’t think about ethical, how-shall-we-live? type questions; it means they don’t frame them according to some made-up bedtime-story from 2000-years ago. It means, too, that matters once considered settled — homosexual relationships, for instance — are being considered anew and that, in some cases, non-traditional answers are reached.
Undoubtedly, we shall see a great many seminaries disappear over the next few decades; in view of the miseries caused by the ignorance they cultivate, nobody should regret that.