In australia you need a theology degree to be a minister or to have gone to a bible college which will be 3 to 4 years as well as steps afterwards before you're made official (apprenticeship basically). How were you a minister in your late teens?
Challenge for all atheists
- Thread starter 5billionof5billion
- Start date
- Status
In australia you need a theology degree to be a minister or to have gone to a bible college which will be 3 to 4 years as well as steps afterwards before you're made official (apprenticeship basically). How were you a minister in your late teens?
A
Amaris
Guest
You don't need a theology degree to be a member of the clergy in the United States. In fact, you don't need anything just to start your own church. I got my ordination from an online ministry. Some of them, at the time, merely sent you an ordination license if you paid the fee. I went through an organization that required you to study, take a test, and if you passed you got an ordination.
That said, an ordination isn't enough if you want to have the ability to wed people. For that you need a license from that particular state (in some cases) to officiate weddings and make them legally binding. So I became, and still am, a licensed, ordained minister who can legally marry people in the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.
It's always the new movies, isn't it...
Funny, I thought the Antichrist was Marilyn Manson 
That sounds potentially very lame. You don't learn how to be a minister by studying for an online test. I'm assuming most denominations would require actual study that took in social work, psychology etc.. as well as having a person work in the field under the care of experienced ministers before they were able to call themselves one. i guess that's why there are so many small, non-denominational whack job churches in the US.
Just one of those things we don't regulate. I'm glad, because we don't need to be wasting time and resources regulating bolognium.
History is written by the Victors.
A
Amaris
Guest
Nope. You can start your own church, and run it as the pastor without ever attending a Bible college or Seminary of any kind. The more complex, more organized churches often require some kind of bible school, but that's about it. To be a theologian, you do have to acquire a degree, but again it depends upon what kind of organization.
There are a metric ton of tiny churches in the U.S., mostly in the country. Preachers spring up and start churches that consist of ten or twenty congregants. A lot of the medium sized churches ordain their own clergy after they've been there for so many years (and if they want to pursue a life in that ministry). That's why you can have an ass-backwards "preacher" with a congregation of a hundred angry, hateful people telling you why the gays are going to burn in hell, and he can be called a minister. There are no hard and set rules on the state, or federal level, aside from being licensed to officiate marriages.
Notice how it's more of a petulant holier-than-thou response rather than an earnest discussion of why God is God. Most of these people have no idea the nature of their own supreme being. They would be surprised if I would have told them "God is the creator of evil," because they've likely skipped over Isaiah hundreds of times, or never bothered to absorb the information within. Many evangelical fundamentalists will nod their head at the preacher, and never comprehend a single thing beyond what they already believe to be true.
I imagine anything coming near to "God is evil" would have an adverse effect on the collection plate. These people don't want to know the truth, they want to be comforted.
A
Amaris
Guest
Indeed, God is always righteous and just, he's just bad with money and needs a lot of it (to borrow from the forever quotable Carlin).
Not government regulated, denomination regulated. I seriously doubt mainstream (not splinter group) Baptists, Episcopalians, Nazarenes etc.. in the US just let you send away on the internet for a card and call yourself a minister. I have one relative in the US becoming a minister and it involved first a degree and now a long process of lay minister training before ordination.
I'm not sure anyone can really stop someone that wants to call themselves a minister, pastor or priest.
And I don't doubt you did but what do you think is going on when people of other religious and beliefs do the same thing and experience peace? When the newager says some white light thing or when the hare krishna chants or when the buddhist repeats a reassuring verse?
My point was that mainstream denominations don't take let you be a minister without training and study. So you won't be getting a job with a church with any kind of accountability, or where you can be fired.
If you called yourself a minister here without any real training and/or degree you'd be called a fake, it would be seen as making shit up. If there's some news report about a minister doing something bad it's always reported as a negative if they call themselves that without the training and recognition outside of their own group to back it up.
Last edited:
Of course not. But then, there's probably a healthy percentage of folks that do it the lazy way because they are simply looking to make some cash.
Think of it as The Alec Peters School of Religion.
A
Amaris
Guest
Sure they do. Non-Denominational is a denomination (interestingly enough), and as an Evangelical denomination, many of them have no issues whatsoever with it. @BillJ makes an excellent point, too, in that most people just grab whatever gets them their license and go. That said, many Bible colleges are just ways to get a "legitimate" degree, while teaching next to nothing on the theology itself beyond "these sins are bad, the Bible is perfectly written, and here's why."
Yeah but in my defense I didn't have my driver license yet.
No issue whatsoever with the person leading them having no training and education in being a minister? Why such a low bar for such an important (to them) job?
A
Amaris
Guest
You'll have to understand the basic mindset of the average fundamentalist Evangelical Christian: If God Calls you to the ministry, then you're already ordained. Anything else is just paper. More importantly, if your "Calling" just happens to espouse a theology that agrees with their ideology, then you don't need to prove anything with fancy liberal elitism.
Sounds like a recipe for ego driven disasters.
- Status
Similar threads
