This will appear on Separate Identity, volume 2:
In
1913 a survey of Indiana Churches done by the Presbyterian Board of Home
Missions found that “thirty seven per cent of the ministers have had no more
than a common school education.”[1] Liston
Pope’s analysis of clergy education in Gastonia County, North Carolina,
illustrates my point:
The policy of the Baptist churches has been even less
exacting. The denomination has never erected an educational requirement for its
ministers, or maintained an informal standard, or insisted on a course of
study. In 1869-70 there were only two college graduates in the Baptist
Association which included most of the churches in Gaston County. In 1903 few
Baptist preachers in the county had even a high school education and college
men were almost unknown. The tendency in more recent years has been to give
preference to better-educated men, but only 56 per cent of them at present have
college degrees and only 18 per cent have completed a seminary course.
The newer sects in the county are led by ministers
almost wholly uneducated. Several of them find it necessary to have some more
literate person read the Scriptures in their services. Others did not go beyond
the fourth or fifth grade in the public schools; none have college degrees.
Most of them are on sabbatical leave from jobs in cotton mills. There are no
established educational requirements for preachers in the sects with which they
are affiliated, though there are trends in that direction.
As compared with Presbyterian and Lutheran standards,
Methodist demands have been relatively low. The Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, did not establish a college degree as a prerequisite to ordination until
1934, and it was possible until 1940 to circumvent this requirement. Less than
half of its preachers in Gaston County at present have had seminary training;
most of them now have college degrees, but several older men, representative of
past standards, have only a high school education or less.[2]
Criticizing
Russell for what was common among several denominations is pure hypocrisy.
Bible Students saw Russell as ordained. Prentis Gerdon Gloystein [January 6,
1887 – April 19, 1956], writing to The Twin Falls, Idaho, Times
described Russell as the “duly elected-ordained pastor” of several Bible
Student congregations including the largest of these. Gloystein wrote as one “intimately
acquainted with Pastor Russell, having lived for a number of years in his home
town ... besides being an associate worker with him at his present headquarters
in Brooklyn, N. Y.”[3]
[1] Editorial Comment, The Homiletic Review, March
1913, page 177.
[2] L. Pope: Millhands and Preachers, Yale
University Press, 1942, page 107-109.
[3] See the March 23, 1916 issue.
