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elbanditoroso's avatar

How many of your high school friends ended up to become clergymen or women?

Asked by elbanditoroso (33577points) May 1st, 2021

I was thinking about this today.

My high school (back in the 1970s) had a population of roughly 50% Jewish, 30% catholic, and 20% protestant. A handful of other religions, but a tiny percentage. Our graduating class was a little over 1000 people. My crowd was probably 45–50 close classmates.

In my circle of friends, two of them became rabbis and one a minister (some protestant group, not sure which. Not Baptist, for sure). That seems unusually high to me.

How many of your high school graduation class entered the clergy?

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21 Answers

janbb's avatar

Don’t know of any. We were a suburban high school, about 330 in the graduating class. I would say we were pretty evenly split among Jewish kids, Catholic kids (mainly Italian) and some Christian denominations.

JLeslie's avatar

None that I’m aware of. My class was 450 students, and I knew a lot of people one and two years ahead of me also.

@elbanditoroso You are in the Bible Belt if I remember correctly, so where you live is probably more likely than where I lived.

elbanditoroso's avatar

@JLeslie – I live here now, but grew up in the North (Ohio)

stanleybmanly's avatar

Not one that I know of. In fact I cannot offhand think of a single acquaintance of mine who chose the ministry as a vocation. That’s rather peculiar.

kritiper's avatar

There was one guy I knew in high school who became a woman.

Tropical_Willie's avatar

Three – - two women and one guy. Class was three hundred.

Strauss's avatar

I went to a high school level seminary, and even they had a surprisingly low rate of ordination. Of course the additional six years of post high school (four for a bachelor’s degree and two years for a masters in theology) might have had something to do with it.

Nomore_lockout's avatar

Just one that I know of…became a Church of Christ pastor. But his father has been a pastor before him, so maybe that explains it.

flutherother's avatar

Only one as far as I know. He was in the Scripture Union when I knew him at school so it wasn’t a great surprise.

jca2's avatar

None that I am aware of.

The area I grew up in was ethnically and religiously diverse, with a lot of Catholics (Italians, Irish and Polish mostly), and about 30% black, who tend to be other Christian denominations.

RedDeerGuy1's avatar

I had no friends in high school. So eazy to answer. Zero.

Zaku's avatar

I know of one of about thirty students.

Dutchess_III's avatar

None that I know of. Pretty sure most of them are atheist at this point.

Pied_Pfeffer's avatar

High school class of 250; none that I know. One fellow college student is a minister.

Zissou's avatar

I applied to the novitiate of a Catholic religious order but was turned down. Aside from that, I don’t know of anyone from my high school who entered the clergy. I know of one acquaintance from college who became a Methodist(?) minister. (She was smokin’ hot back in the day.)

canidmajor's avatar

Two. One a Presbyterian minister, the other a rabbi.

SnipSnip's avatar

My class was 674 graduates. I know of three, all protestants.

KNOWITALL's avatar

We were a large class but I’m only aware of three men and one woman who are clergy. All four of those people were always good kids who never partied with us.

raum's avatar

Graduating class of around 500? Once, that I know of. Most likely more, since I don’t keep in touch with that many.

It was initially surprising. But it’s pretty cool. She’s actually pretty progressive. We need more of that.

sorry's avatar

Of the kids I went to school with in the US (which I think this is what you’re referring to) I know of two who became ‘therapists’ to push their conversion therapy religion on young people. It was a small school with about a 70 person graduating class back in the ‘80’s. They now, proudly, promote their religious therapy programs.

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