New Forms of Religion in the Seminary

Abstract

Stimulated by recent interest in conceptualizing and measuring new forms of religion in contemporary society, this inquiry focuses on new forms of religion emerging in the seminary. Four types of seminarians are distinguished--the traditionalist, the revisionist, the academic, and the activist-and their religious perspectives and attitudes toward ministry are described. The traditionalist maintains primary emphasis upon fellowship with God; the revisionist focuses on community among men; the academic follows the revisionist but plans to minister in college teaching; and the activist emphasizes social transformation. Some of the sources and consequences of these four perspectives are given, and suggestions are made toward further study of seminarians and other religious elites. Although considerable advances have been made in recent years toward the study of contemporary religious phenomena, the dominant conclusion that emerges is that much remains to be explained. In fact, many of these studies have been predominately negative (e.g., Berton, 1965; Berger, 1961; and Winter, 1962), discovering more of what religion is not, than of what it actually is. More recently the empirical work of Glock, Stark, and colleagues (1965, 1967, and 1968) has also proven the need for new formulations of religion. While their focus on traditional "orthodoxy" has contributed immensely to the understanding of denominationalism, secularism, anti-Semitism, etc., the fact remains that their "orthodoxy index" left the beliefs of many church-goers unexplained. As one approach to studying new forms of religion, interest has recently been directed toward the analysis of religious elites. Hadden (1969), for example, has focused on new forms of social involvement among ministers, and Time (1970) journalists have surveyed Catholic priests and nuns to, discover sources of change within their ranks. The study of religious elites cannot in itself fully predict the nature of new religious forms, but it has long been recognized as a useful place to start. Max Weber (Bendix, 1960), for example,