Why do clergy leave congregational ministry? A new study of clergy of five Protestant denominations reports that the largest group - 26 percent of those departing - lists conflict with others in their former congregations or with officials of their denominations or their disillusionment with denominational leaders as their major motivation. A second 26 percent credit their departure to a preference for other forms of ministry, a response that for some could include similar discontent. 

A majority of those surveyed felt that theological training today was insufficiently practical and realistic, and a majority of all but ministers of the Assemblies of God said their seminary training was deficient in spiritual depth. 

Even larger numbers, except from the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, said that their denomination's clergy deployment and placement systems needed overhauling. 

The study, sponsored by the Pulpit and Pew Project at Duke University Divinity School, was conducted by Dean Hoge and Jacqueline E. Wenger of Catholic University of America.

Relatively small response to the survey - taken among selected resigned clergy of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the United Methodist Church, and the Assemblies of God-led the project leaders to warn of possible skew in their findings. They said other information suggested that the angriest former pastors were likeliest not to have replied. 

The researchers worked with 963 responses to questionnaires sent out by the former pastors' denominations. Response rates ranged from a high of 54 percent in the ELCA to 20 percent in United Methodist Church and 19 percent in the Assemblies of God. 

The Hoge-Wenger report listed seven top reasons respondents gave for leaving congregational ministry: 

1. Conflict in congregation, with staff or laity.
2. Conflict with denominational officials; disillusioned with denomination.
3. Burned out; disillusioned; felt constrained; sense of inadequacy.
4. Prefer other ministry
5. Allegations of sexual misconduct
6. Need to care for family or children
7. Problems in family; divorce

Hoge and Wenger offered their preliminary findings in a paper given to the Religious Research Association in October. 

"Already we can come to some conclusions," they said. "For example, the main factors pushing local church ministers away are organizational and interpersonal. These pushes have to do with conflict, feelings of being stymied, and isolation. Also the former pastors, compared with active pastors, reported more stress, conflict, and alienation, more unclarity about the proper role of a pastor, and more resentment from spouses. 

"Pastors who have left do not feel that they had sufficient support from their denominations, especially during times of conflict. They often feel lonely and isolated and have little support from other clergy. They experience communication among denominational officials, pastors, and local churches as inconsistent and insufficient. Often they feel that they have had little opportunity to voice their opinions or air their positions. 

"Although we were able to identify the main motivation for leaving among pastors, it is the combination of these many stresses and difficulties that pastors face that result in a pastor's being unable or unwilling to continue to serve the local church." 

The complete study is to be published as a book later in 2004. 

Growth and Loss

The department of theology at the Catholic University of America of Washington, D.C., was reorganized this summer to become a structurally streamlined and non-departmentalized School of Theology and Religious Studies. A month later the new school was stunned by the sudden death of Monsignor Stephen Happel, the reorganization's principal architect. Happel, 59, who was three years into his tenure as Catholic's dean of theology, came home October 4 after jogging and died of a massive heart attack.

In an interview days before his death, Happel described theology's previous aggregation of sub­departments (theology, religion and religious education, biblical studies, church history), and separate schools (canon law and religious studies) as "inefficient academically, financially, professionally, and much more difficult for students." Created in the late sixties out of the desire to bring together separate schools of theology, canon law, and religion and religious education, the components of the previous structure brought with them overlapping and sometimes competing offerings and administration, which had become increasingly difficult for students and staff to navigate. In the new scheme, the dean presides over three associate deans (for graduate students, ministerial candidates, and undergrads) who guide their charges through seven fluid academic programs, and the governing board is comprised of the dean, the three associates, and four elected program heads. All of the forty-plus faculty positions are preserved. The programs (historical and systematic theology; biblical studies, religion and culture; liturgical studies and sacramental theology; moral theology/ethics; church history; and four sub-programs - Hispanic and Latino studies, ministerial studies, religious education, and spirituality - grouped within pastoral studies) are designed to remedy previous overlaps and balance the demands of both undergraduate and graduate-level students. The new school works with an essentially unchanged budget. 

Though the process took ten years of planning, ultimately it was right on time. Said Happel: "An organizational consultant with whom I worked told me that all good institutions 'revise' themselves about every thirty years, generationally! We were right on target: 1973 to 2003." Those that do not, he said, "atrophy and eventually become irrelevant or die." 

Happel has been replaced by the Reverend Francis Moloney, who was the professor of New Testament in Catholic's Department of Biblical Studies. A native of Australia, Moloney was founding dean of Australian Catholic University, a 1991 amalgamation of four Catholic colleges in eastern Australia. Owing to that experience, Moloney said, he "stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb" and was immediately named as Happel's successor.