The last decades have provided the regime with near ideal conditions to seize control over the Shiite clerical establishment in Iraq as well. Under Saddam Hussein, restrictions were imposed on the Shiite seminary in Najaf traditionally a counterbalance to Iran s Shiite establishment forcing the emigration of a number of clerics to the Iranian seminary in Qom.

A group of divinity students at the Princeton Theological Seminary were told that they were going to give a practice sermon and they were each given a sermon topic.

There was a very important study done a while ago at Princeton Theological Seminary that speaks to why it is that when all of us have so many opportunities to help, we do sometimes, and we don't other times.

As a result, religious interpretation previously, a highly decentralized function undertaken by various seminaries was concentrated in the hands of a political leader. Accordingly, the seminary establishment was no longer a civil structure managing only religious affairs, but instead developed into a unified, ideological party serving the interests of the regime.