Reflections
SEMPER REFORMANDA SECOUNDUM VERBUM DEI DE-CLERGIFICATION
By Robert T. Henderson
The whole principle upon which our Reformed tradition is based can really get one into hot water. Traditions and symbols become idols, and any suggestion that they may be replaced or reformed become suspect no matter how substantially they may be based upon scriptural foundations. One such idol that is more and more under the spotlight is that of clergy, also called by some as “church professionals.”
So where does an academic degree and a career choice come in as qualifications to minister in the community of faith? How does an ordained stranger with an M. Div. degree qualify to give pastoral leadership to an existing community of faith? These are good questions. And these kinds of questions are being raised by significant reformed thinkers.
Lesslie Newbigin offers principles that he believes are necessary if the church is to be in true missionary confrontation with the world: “As a third requirement for a missionary encounter with our culture, I would list what might be called a ‘de-clericalized’ theology. . . . Theology has been the preserve of those who minister as priests and pastors to the inner spiritual life of their people. Consequently, when theologians whose whole work is in this pastoral ministry try to speak about matters of politics and economics, their words do not carry weight. And Christian men and women who are deeply involved in secular affairs view theology as the arcane pursuit of professional clergymen… The Bible has been taken out of the hands of the layperson” (Foolishness to the Greeks, [Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986] 141-42).
Or note the appropriate words of Jacques Ellul: “When we are told that the church has ministers, and its life is organized around them, well and good. But at once we have to remember that these ministries are a gift of the Holy Spirit and not a permanent or organized thing. This leads us to invert the biblical movement. We set up pastoral positions or benefices with rectors and bishops, etc. We then fill these posts with people we think are suitable. But his is the opposite of the movement presented in the Epistles, in which the Holy Spirit gives to the church people who have the gifts of love or the word or teaching, and the church has to find a place for them, even if it had not anticipated doing so. If, after awhile, the Holy Spirit does not give someone who has the spirit of prophecy but gives someone who has the gift of miracles, then the church must change its form and habits” The Subversion of Christianity [Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1986] 157).
Newbigin was a missionary-theologian, and Ellul was a sociologist-theologian, but both sensed the divide that grows between the clergy sub-culture and the culture in which lay men and women function day by day.
Case in point: After a rather normal Sunday worship service a young lawyer friend recently came along and I asked him how his week had been. He broke into a grin and began to relate that what was on his mind was the crazy office party he had attended on the previous Saturday night, with all the characters vividly described. He was having trouble shifting gears to relate the worship service to his other life in the profession. We pursued the track of the church as the equipper of people like him for ministry in that often “crazy” Monday-morning-world, where the children of light engage the larger community in missionary encounter. It is there that we meet and befriend those still looking for answers. It is there that the ethical principles of the dominion of God become salt and light. But for him, this was not a reality. The church was an escape. The times of worship and nurture were comforting to him, but not equipping him for such a vision. Most church activities did not have this Monday-morning-world in view. The idea that they should intrigued him; and he is a congregational leader! The gulf between the clergy world and the laity world is wide and tragic, and must be bridged. This is what both Newbigin and Ellul are proposing. Their propositions may bring a new and different look, but this is reform that has a wholesome biblical ring!•
Bob Henderson is a veteran pastor, former Director of Seminary Ministry for Presbyterians for Renewal, champion of the ministry of the laity, and currently completing a book manuscript on Enchanted Community: Reflections on the Mystery of the Church.
Used with permission from the author. Originally published in Catalyst, Vol. 27, N0.3, March 2001. Catalyst is a project of A Foundation for Theological Education. For more information visit: http://catalystresources.org.
Print
Email
