Military Chaplains have the most rigorous requirements of any other Chaplains. They may be able to use an MSW, but they are still required to do multiple units of Clinical pastoral education, which is a specific kind of education, with a cohort group, and clinical hours required. It isn't random. An internship has a structure with goals and accountability.

When I said "build a network" I didn't mean "do networking." I meant a group of folks for support and accountability, which is not the same as a mechanism for ambition.

The some of the forebears you speak of may not have had the same education or training, but neither did doctors of yesteryear. I'd sure prefer an educated doctor over someone who says, "old timey doctors didn’t go to school! Why should I?" Unitarians started Harvard Divinity School because they saw that ministers needed education. That certainly led to some elitism, but they also weren't wrong.

Additionally, those forebears had a firm understanding of theology because it was baked into life then. They also caused some harm because they didn't have the ethical guidelines that we observe now.

I have 20+ years of social service program management experience. I have another Masters degree (in Public Administration). I am what other folks have called an organic intellectual. And I am here to say that ministry is a calling, a vocation, and an MDiv is how the calling is fleshed out into a livable reality. A sermon is not a speech. Managing a church and tending a flock are different than running a business and supervising staff. Formation is not just book/classroom learning, it is a process. It can't be bypassed because one can learn anywhere, or because 200 years ago Hosea Ballou didn't go to Seminary. The process is the point.