One of the most important parts of my recent ordination was the theological examinations by the board of examining chaplains. My exams were a couple hours long, and we covered all sorts of areas: sacraments; church history; biblical studies; practical theological questions; christology; moral theology - you name it, we discussed it. Each topic was interwoven with others, as they all relate to each other in various ways. They were very similar to my comprehensive exams from seminary, actually. Each diocese has its own board, served by a group of priests who rotate on and off. The board reports to the bishop.
Now personally, between inquisitor and candidate, I think they - the board - have the harder job. The reason I say that is because they have to interview and question people who have done their theological training at vastly different seminaries... because there is no "continuing church seminary". They might interview someone like me, who went to a liberal Roman Catholic seminary, and then someone who went to a conservative Presbyterian seminary, and then someone who went to an ECUSA seminary, and so on. That requires lots of discernment and very specific questioning on the examiners' part. Would not someone who went to a conservative Presbyterian seminary and someone who went to a liberal UCC seminary answer a question about the sacraments in a very different way? What is the standard of judgment? It has to make questioning very difficult in some areas, and thus the job of examiner difficult at times. Indeed, they need our prayers and encouragement.
Their job would be a lot easier if there were a set of traditional Anglican seminaries around the country with the same standards of education and formation to send men to. That way, everyone would be coming at them from the same background. I hope that one day there will be a couple of places like this to send our men to. Anyone have a couple million bucks to get this thing off the ground?
