“A Stutter and a Stick”
“A Stutter and a Stick”
The (Non-) Value of Educational Credentialing
This chapter focuses on the ways in which these ministers legitimate their sense of themselves as clergy in spite of a nearly complete absence of what we have come to believe is an essential feature of religious credentialing: Bible school, divinity school, or seminary training. The respondents assert that their special competence as ministers comes not from any particular training (which they often deride) but instead through what they call “the anointing.” The chapter describes how ministers explain this anointing, detailing the complex ways they say the anointing operates within them as a resource, rendering their lack of seminary training irrelevant. It also demonstrates how many of these ministers denigrate educational credentialing as an illegitimate means of certifying one's calling, thereby claiming less easily challenged evidence of their position as religious laborers.
Keywords: seminary training, educational credentialing, the anointing, religious laborers, clergy
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
