The seminaries most closely tied to churches would be those most likely to thrive. Churches that have an existing relationship with their young potential pastors will be more likely to support them financially, and to tie their learning to the life of their churches.

When a church launches a search for a new pastor, the most traditional source has been the bricks-and-mortar seminary—but that option may undergo a significant change before long.

Churches could have fewer job candidates to choose from, according to a recent study by Auburn Theological Seminary, which found that ministerial students are often so hampered by college student loans—which can range from $30,000 to $80,000—that they are either unable to continue their studies or may not be able to afford to live on the usually modest salaries that await graduates. The study, reported on last week by Christianity Today, the pre-eminent magazine of evangelical Protestantism, said that seminarians may be “too poor for a vow of poverty.”

One possible solution, Christianity Today suggests, may be found in the trend toward seminaries expanding into online education. The expense of training pastors in the classroom makes the relatively affordable option of going online—more affordable for schools and students—so attractive that the magazine once proclaimed “The iSeminary Cometh.”

Trends such as these make Christian academics nervous. After all, our hymnals and songbooks are already fighting a losing battle against the overhead-projection screen and iTunes. What happens, academics worry, when we replace accredited seminaries dedicated to classical disciplines with the online equivalent of Uncle Ronnie’s Bible School?

That bleak view of the future is misdirected. First of all, solid theological education, steeped in the classical disciplines, has a long history; so does low-quality religious education by unaccountable schools offering credentials to the lazy and unqualified. Churches and future ministers know the difference. The technological revolution may empower dumbed-down schools, but no more so than the dubious correspondence programs of the past.

And not all online ministerial education will be suspect—just as first-rate universities like Stanford and Harvard are exploring ways to offer classes online to a wider audience, so too will solid seminaries. Churches and future ministers will know the difference there as well. I suspect that the next generation will find what the seminary I serve has seen: online programs supplementing rather than supplanting the life-on-life classical theological education.

More important, the sorts of questions raised by student debt and ministerial career instability may help reattach ministerial education to its real-world moorings: education with churches in mind, not just theology. In order to train ministers, Protestant communities must abandon the current system in which future pastors discern, almost in isolation, a call from God and then seek out training ad hoc.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on online.wsj.com– however, the original URL is no longer available.]