I am often asked if my continuing church has a seminary, and the answer is no, even though we are one of the biggest ones out there. This is a problem in the small Anglican denominations known as the "continuum". The REC has three seminaries, but I do not know much about them. And strictly speaking, they predate the continuum. APCK has one, but I don't know if it is just a seminary on paper with a nice building out in Berkeley. There is not much information about it on the web. So yes, it is problem. How is one supposed to learn what he needs to learn to become a priest? I will explore this later on.
But suffice it to say that many churches do not have seminaries, such as those big black "denominations". They send their pastors wherever it is convenient for them to go. The large non-denominational megachurches do not have seminaries. The Episcopal Church has only two seminaries from a conservative perspective. The PCA/OPC have more seminaries than you can shake a stick at, but they are never good enough. Even Greg Bahsen suggested that a person study under a pastor like they did in the olden days instead of going through a formal seminary education. So you see that the whole question of seminary is very complex. It does not necessarily make a church or denomination, but it is still a problem not to have one.
Again, there will be more on this later.
