Sex and the Seminary
Rev. Debra Haffner
Posted January 7, 2009 | 06:03 PM (EST)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-debra-haffner/sex-and-the-seminary_b_156063.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-debra-haffner/sex-and-the-seminary_b_156063.html)
I became a minister after a 25-year career in sexuality education. I took courses at three different seminaries and was stunned to discover that none of them had a full-time course on sexuality issues for ministers; that sexuality, ever-present in the Scriptures, was barely mentioned in my classes on the Hebrew Bible or New Testament; and that my pastoral counseling courses included no preparation for ministering to the parents of a pregnant teenager, or the couple coping with infertility, or the lesbian and gay families who felt unwelcome in the congregation.
My seminary education began more than 10 years ago. And not much has changed since then. The organization I co-founded, the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, has just published a study demonstrating that seminaries and rabbinical schools are failing to prepare the next generation of clergy with the training they need to address sexuality issues in ministry.
Rev. Haffner brings up a good point. How are new clergy going to minister to people struggling with gender and sexuality issues? Seminaries will have to admit that gender and sexuality are part of the human fabric. To be an effective counselor, the WHOLE person will have tobe ministered to.
Gennee
Change in the Catholic Church makes glaciers look like a NASCAR race. Which is why the CC has been around so long.