God's best work...
Friday, January 09, 2009
Is the authority of the clergy in crisis?Are pastors as respected in society as they once were?
During the fall semester, I served as a graduate assistant for a course in American church history taught by Prof. Grant Wacker here at Duke. One of our main course texts was Brooks Holifield's God's Ambassadors: A History of the Christian Clergy in America. Holifield takes up these questions, in part by suggesting that the clergy of every era in American history have always viewed their power and authority as on the wane.
Holifield goes back to the earliest European clergy who came to this continent - first Catholic missionary priests and then Puritan congregationalist ministers in New England and Anglican priests in Virginia. In the colonial era, it is true that clergy held all sorts of authority that seems strange to us today. They acted as judges, drafted legislation, served as de facto physicians, and were the most widely-read authors. When institutions of higher education like Harvard, Yale, and the College of William and Mary were founded, clergy served as both presidents and professors for generations.
As American society developed and became more complex, the clergy gradually lost their dominance in all these areas. Holifield points out that as the professions developed and as the high education level of the clergy was matched by people pursuing other careers, it became less necessary to have clergy serve so many functions in society. (And interestingly, the clergy in some populist traditions like Methodists and Baptists in the early 19th century actually eschewed education.)
But here's the catch - and this is what I write about in my new Reporter column - Holifield argues that all these arenas of authority outside of the church have always been only peripheral to the clergy's true authority. And that authority is the ministry of the church: preaching the word of God, celebrating the sacraments, engaging in the ministry of pastoral care, and leading & equipping the people of God for ministry in the world.
I find Holifield's thesis compelling, and here's why: All too often, we are tempted to think that God has abandoned the church in order to do his work in more exciting venues. Whether it is politics, non-profit work, or social advocacy, the tendency is to think there has always got to be some exciting new area that aspiring clergy should gravitate toward. And in that milieu, the church becomes a 'fall back' option for those who can't do something 'sexier.'
But the reality is just the opposite. God's best work really is done through the church. We only know what words like justice, compassion, reconciliation, and love mean because we learn them through the grammar of the faith. And it is a grammar that is taught by the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. "By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us" (1 John 3:16, NKJV). The church is the steward of God's mysteries, and it is the community of God's own people. It is the very vehicle of God's salvation in the world!
As a pastor myself, I can tell you that ordained ministry in the church truly is an exciting vocation. Is it hard? Sure, it can be. But when one begins to gain the skills necessary for ministry (courage, patience, gentleness, among others) and allows oneself to be led by the Holy Spirit, fruits can be borne to which nothing else can compare. Fruits that include seeing glimpses of the coming Kingdom of God.
Why would the clergy need any other authority than that?
Labels: Book Reviews, Brooks Holifield, Clergy, Ecclesiology
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 11:30 PM
8 Comments:
Andrew, thank you for this post. You spoke directly to my call. For the years of my education I ran from parish ministry because I thought the 'sexier' options looked better. Then in my third year at Duke, while preaching weekly in a Field Ed. in Roxoboro I finially realized that everything I enjoyed about ministry and felt called to do was found in the local church. I have never regreted following God's call. Thank you again for the post and waking up the story of my calling.
Thanks for bringing this point back! If I may I'd like to add a supporting tangent. Consider the tradition of "singleness of purpose" that early members of Alcoholics Anonymous discovered as key to maintaining the effectiveness of their mission. Remember that AA grew out of the Oxford Group religious movement of the early twentieth century. AA has survived as a "mission" thanks to this whereas the Oxford Group expanded itself into oblivion. At the root of it all is the need for humility.
Andrew,
Do you think people can be legitimately called to the ordained ministry to serve in the local church or within its affiliated structures (conference, district, bishop, etc), and then be called to something else at a later time in life? Or have such people likely misinterpreted their calling? Having been an ordained elder (UMC) for a few years, I do constantly think about doing something else. For me, I cannot say with 100% assurance that God is not calling me to a new vocation entirely, but I cannot figure out how to reconcile that restlessness with a theology of calling / ordination.
Lars -
I think you raise an important point, and it is one worthy of discussion. I certainly do think that a person can be called to the ordained ministry in a congregational setting and then experience some 'changes in current' down the road. I have seen evidence (in my own life and in others) of the Holy Spirit leading people in different directions at different points in life.
Let me offer some examples from my own life. My ministry right now is divided between the local church I serve and my doctoral program (where I serve as a graduate assistant, teaching and evaluating the work of M.Div students, and where I also lead spiritual formation groups). Going further back, I started my ministry in a campus setting as a chaplain, then moved into a local church, then responded to a strong sense of calling to go back to school.
Presbyters and deacons in the church have always served in a variety of settings throughout Christian history. They've been missionaries, teachers, administrators, spiritual directors, etc., all in addition to the primary role as shepherd to local congregations. And the church has always (rightly, in my opinion) valued those ways of serving exactly because they help to spread the gospel in different and important ways.
The reason I wrote the article in the UM Reporter is because I just think that local church ministry gets devalued in the minds of many young people who are discerning a call to ministry. They think of the church they grew up in, which might have had mostly older folks (who probably seemed even older than they were through a kid's eyes). They want to follow Jesus' call into ministry, but they get panicky about getting stuck in a situation where they'll end up serving as chaplains to a dying church.
My whole point is that it doesn't have to be that way. I think the church is changing, and my experience (very recently, in fact) has been that the older folks who are in the church - the very ones who have kept this ship going for the past few decades - are hungry for young leadership that is ready and willing to blow on the embers of our church until a great fire erupts. We don't always have to assume that social advocacy or political involvement OUTSIDE the church is better or more exciting than social advocacy or political involvement INSIDE the church. And in fact, I would argue that it is better, fuller, and richer inside the church because it can be done in the context of Jesus' own community, studying the word of God in Scripture, and seeking a holy life together. That makes anything the church does or says to the larger world more important (and likely, with a more powerful impact).
Of course, none of that is to say that you are not experiencing a calling into a different field of ministry, Lars. Don't get me wrong on that. I just wanted to make the case in the article that congregational ministry is an exciting place to be. 'Cutting edge' even!
Andrew,
Thank-you for your extensive and thoughtful response! I personally want to be careful to avoid the whole "grass is greener somewhere else" trap, but at the same time figure out how to work through my restlessness with integrity to God's call.
Undeniably the church has the potential to be transformative, but I wonder frequently about how well we celebrate the specifics of being on the frontlines of change at the local level. At annual conference, for example, I am personally amazed and encouraged by what we do, but I have never found an effective way to share that energy within the local church. That may simply take more time to develop than I have ever had in a sngle congregation (not more than 3 years in the same church so far . . .), but on some level, of course, that kind of energy should in no way be dependent on the pastoral leadership, but inherent amongst the laity!
I agree wholeheartedly that the local church can be, and should be, the primary context in which we bring hope and transformation to the world (or rather God does so through us) via the power of the Holy Spirit!
The only disturbing part of this trend that I see is that the local church feels like it needs to "compete" with the sexier options and so either the local church or those who are in administration functions of at least our UM system try to make the church seem sexier in order to attract younger people. This gets at the root of why I'm frustrated with some (not all, by any means) attempts to "lure" younger clergy--because I see many of them as a denial that younger clergy could be called to something other than our stereotypes of where young people ought to be. I'm not saying that many younger clergy aren't called there--but we tend to assume that they want to be there, just like we have assumed from year to year that they want to be youth directors (or at least they'd make good ones just because they're young!) or they must want to be associates.
I agree with Jody above that one of the things I learned by serving a local church in a rural setting was obedience to a more general call, even while I was working out why that call was, in the end, not the one on my heart. But when I began moving into urban ministry, it was because I was truly called to it--not because someone had assumed that I ought to be called to it.
You know, it's funny how most things, our authority included, come back to our calling. When we're true (and allowed by our system to be true) to our calling, somehow issues of authority seem to creep away because we're being authentic to who God created us to be, whether that's through an extension ministry or in a local church. Authority is genuine and we don't have to wonder nearly as much if we're being given enough of it.
"I agree ... that one of the things I learned by serving a local church in a rural setting was obedience to a more general call, even while I was working out why that call was, in the end, not the one on my heart. But when I began moving into urban ministry, it was because I was truly called to it--not because someone had assumed that I ought to be called to it."
Cynthia, that strikes me as a very perceptive comment. I would add that it's not always a bad thing to serve in an initial appointment that is not your heart's true desire. It helps clarify exactly where you do feel called, and it provides a great opportunity for discernment regarding where you want to head in the future. There surely is a wider, general calling as well as a more specific calling within that.
One other thing that strikes me in this conversation is how necessary it is for bishops and district superintendents to take the time to work with pastors and move them into appointments that can make best use of their gifts and graces. The pastor who is called to rural, small church ministry is not the same pastor who is called to urban, inner-city ministry. And another pastor might be called to large church, multi-staff ministry in a suburban setting. It's important that we allow pastors to move to the areas where they can pursue their gifts in the best way possible. Can we say 'equitable compensation,' anyone??
This post encouraged me today. Thanks. There is an inherent dignity to preaching the word, administering the sacraments and engaging in care of souls. It's good to be reminded of that. Peace to you today.
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