Continuing Education Forms

The completion of continuing education forms by clergy is a fairly recent phenomena. I, personally, am not too thrilled with the idea. Fortunately I'm not clergy and what I read and what I study is my own personal business. I think it has all the inherent dangers of the government going into the public library and accessing the data base of books you've checked out. Why have a form floating around that could lead to presumptions about people's stands on all kinds of issues when you could just pick up the phone and talk? At this stage of life, new information is brain candy - I know I don't really need it but I love it. What is amazing is how much sifting through you have to do to toss out false information taught by experts and proven incorrect. And there's all that stuff that's lying dormant in the memory cells that you've forgotten you ever knew - stuff like algebra or some rarely used latin phrase. Part of the appeal of Angels and Demons, The DaVinci Code and National Treasure is that the hero and heroine actually save themselves because of their vast stores of knowledge which they can recall when needed and use to solve complex puzzles. Continuing education hours make sense in the sciences where information is outdated by the time it is published. Christianity is built upon ancient texts. Are priests being asked to verify that they've studied the ancient texts or the works of their contemporaries?