I actually though hard about the title.

"Theological education has a lot of uses, like a legal education does," said Barbara G. Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological Seminary in New York and director of its Center for the Study of Theological Education. "It's good to have people with a theological education doing lots of things. It's a perspective that helps."

I decided I'd rather have people who know how to think clearly about religion and matters of faith out amonst the hoi poloi, than running for office and by their presence igniting the ignorant ones they could have been teaching.

Students Flock to Seminaries, but Fewer See Pulpit in Future
By NEELA BANERJEE

ATLANTA — Among the important things Kirkland Reynolds has figured out in his three years in the seminary is that he does not want to be a church pastor.

Like many young people here at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University, Mr. Reynolds, 24, hopes to put his religious education to some other use, saying he does not want to preach or take a position of authority in the community.

Across the country, enrollment is up at Protestant seminaries, but a shrinking portion of the graduates will ascend the pulpit. These seminarians, particularly the young ones, are less interested in making a career of religion than in taking their religion into other careers.

Those from mainline denominations are being drawn to a wide range of fields from academia to social service to hospital chaplaincy, said the Rev. Daniel O. Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada. Students who are evangelical Protestants, meanwhile, often end up at advocacy groups, sometimes called parachurches, which have defined the priorities and solidified the influence of conservative Christians.

Only about half of those graduating with a Master in Divinity now enter parish ministry, Mr. Aleshire said. The portion has fallen sharply in a generation, he said, and declined 10 to 15 percentage points in the last five years alone.

The idea of using the seminary as the jumping off point for other, seemingly unrelated pursuits, is not new; just the number of people doing it is.

George Rupp, for instance, graduated from Yale Divinity School and served as president of Rice and Columbia Universities before becoming president of the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian aid group. Thomas M. Chappell, co-founder of the Tom's of Maine line of soap and toothpaste, completed Harvard Divinity School. And Al Gore attended Vanderbilt Divinity School for a time before switching to law.