A Crisis of Expectations

What We're Looking for Often Doesn't Look the Way We'd Expect

In a recent post on her Christian Century blog, Carol Howard Merritt raised some interesting questions about the significant challenges facing younger clergy seeking congregations in our denomination.

Long and short of it?

You come out of undergrad, all bright eyed and bushy-tailed for Jesus.  You crank your way through seminary, eagerly sopping up the latest and most cutting edge scholarship while racking up three more years worth of student debt.   You heave your way through countless Committee for Preparation for Ministry meetings, take those dagflabbing Ords, retake them, and then then drop your PIF out there into the world.

You're not asking for much...just a salary sufficient to support a new small family.  Oh, and a diverse, urban congregation that reflects your passion for liberation theology and/or LBGTQ justice.  And it should be near public transportation.  And willing to try exciting new emergent-ish worship.  And able to get you a new super fast 3G smartphone as part of your reimbursables.

There are a few wonderful, perfectly-primed for seminarian-dreams churches like this.  Seminarians have no hope of getting them.  Ain't gonna happen, kids.  That church will go to someone with fifteen years of experience and a doctorate.  Ninety-nine-point-nine-seven-five percent of the time, your PIF won't even make the B pile.

Instead, you'll be tracked into Youth Ministry, because that's the place the Good Lord calls everyone under 40.  What?  Not called to Youth Ministry?  Not under 40?   Hmmm.   That could be problematic. 

It isn't that there aren't plenty of churches out there that could use a pastor.  There are plenty of vacant pulpits, churches that would be happy to have you.  But they are, for the most part, in rural and small town churches that often can't afford to support a full-time pastor.

Sort of like mine.

My church is an awesome little congregation.  It's welcoming, multigenerational, and warm.  It laughs, is supportive, and loves music.  But what it isn't is large and well-off.  We're the fifth largest church in our modest town, and our town has five churches.  Size matters not in matters of Force and the Spirit, of course, but there are implications.

It does what it can with what it has, and knows how to make do.   But I see the giving figures, which are great given the size of the community and the real impacts of our sustained economic downturn.  Even with people committing amounts that reflect their deep care for the church, a full-timer just isn't an option.  It doesn't reflect the reality on the ground. 

There are thousands of churches like this, in all of the oldline denominations.  They are not bad churches. Some are amazing.  But from the demand side, they just can't meet the expectations of most seminary graduates.   Many could support a single person, living a neomonastic life.  But a family?  No, not unless you teach the kids to photosynthesize. 

If that is the reality, scope and actuality of things, then what must change?

Clergy Sexual Misconduct

Yesterday's release of a study from Baylor University delves into an area of some discomfort for most Christians: the issue of Clergy Sexual Misconduct. According to the study, one out of every 33 women attending a congregation has, at some point in their adult lives, experienced sexual advances from a religious leader. Some folks are resisting these numbers, reflexively assailing the results as anti-church, but from my experience, it sounds about right. It's a real issue.

I do, however, struggle a bit with the definition of Clergy Sexual Misconduct used by the study. It's a familiar one, one that I heard recounted in my pastoral counseling classes. As the study leader puts it:

"Many people -- including the victims themselves -- often label incidences of Clergy Sexual Misconduct with adults as 'affairs'. In reality, they are an abuse of spiritual power by the religious leader."

The prevailing thesis presented in seminary was that any sexually charged contact or romantic entanglement between a pastor and a congregant was automatically an abuse of power by the pastor. While I understand the intent behind this mindset, I think it overstates the case. Every instance of clergy sexual misconduct is not an abuse of spiritual power, and every romantic entanglement between a pastor and a congregant is not clergy sexual misconduct. While recognizing that discernment is necessary for every instance, I tend to parse the issue in three ways.

If a pastor has actively used his or her spiritual authority to coerce a congregant into sexual relation, it's not just an abuse of their authority. It's tantamount to rape. Vulnerable individuals are often identified by predatory individuals, who are willing to use the perception of their spiritual authority to manipulate and control those individuals sexually. These predators are a threat to the integrity of the church, and should be removed from any position of leadership...and, frankly, from the church itself. The dark compulsion that drives them is the enemy of the Way.

But all pastors who canoodle are not predators or abusers. Some are just human beings who screw up. The stressed-out overscheduled pastor who ends up having an affair with a married member of her choir is not a monster, nor is she manipulating that choir member with the power of her position. Pastors can, amazingly enough, be lonely and isolated. When they connect to another human being on a personal level, sometimes that desire for human connection drives some questionable actions. Stressed human beings make crappy decisions. Is such a thing predation or abuse? No. Is it Clergy Sexual Misconduct? Yes. A pastor must be held to high standards of integrity, and one of those standards is a deep respect for the sacred covenantal union between partners in a marital relationship. That standard needs to define their behavior, both within their own marriage and as they approach other covenant unions. If they breach that standard, they need to be subject to the discipline of the church. That should probably involve removal from the pastoral position, and a period of counseling. What they've done, though, isn't predation or abuse. The other individual involved is not a victim. It's just an affair, just ol' fashioned adultery.

Then there are consensual romantic relationships between unmarried pastors and unmarried congregants. These are deep into a grey area. On the one hand, it's nearly impossible to still be "the pastor" in that situation. It is also possible that when such a relationship ends, it can be disruptive to the life of a church. Heck, if it becomes a source of church gossip, it can be disruptive when it's going on. But presuming that pastors cannot actually fall in love with members of their churches assumes that we are no longer human beings. Those relationships need to be approached carefully, openly, faithfully, and with Christian integrity...but they are not inherently wrong.

Though I feel this isn't something that should be described using broad-brush generalizations, it is a real issue...and one that the church needs to take seriously.

Seminary Clearly Ruined Me

Over at her blog and on a recent web radio broadcast, my colleague Carol has been asking a puzzler of a question...is there any reason for our denomination to continue to expect to have educated clergy?

Seminary education, or so Carol's brain teaser goes, might just be too expensive. It drives those who might be seeking a congregation away from smaller churches, because even otherwise healthy communities just can't pony up the cash that you need to pay back student loans. A denomination in decline...which ours certainly is...can no longer require a Masters of Divinity for those seeking ordination. We'd be better served focusing on developing lay leadership and fast-track certification programs that get folks into the pulpit more rapidly and at lower cost. I have a great deal of sympathy for this argument, and I think there is real value in having the leadership of local congregations arise organically from their community.

That argument against seminary education is a new one, and is reflective of the struggles of the progressive church. It joins up with another argument...the "seminary-ruins-you" argument that typically comes from conservatives and fundamentalists. For them, the problem with seminary is that it can be a hotbed of progressive thought within the church, bent on turning hapless young Christians into lesbian wiccan vampyres, or worse yet, Democrats. Better to stick with a nice little Bible college that doesn't teach anything you couldn't learn in VBS. Gotta keep the kids away from the siren song of ancient Greek or Hebrew or the history of the church. Too confusing.

So...should the church require a seminary education? Having had one, I would say: Abso-freakin'-lutely.

Why? Because you can't be a competent pastor without one. Sure, you can run a church just fine. If you've got any business experience, or have been part of a voluntary organization's leadership structure, you've probably developed the chops to handle the organizational requirements of a congregation. If you've got natural charisma or public speaking experience, you can wow 'em on Sunday with your golden tongued oratory.

But you're not going to be a resource for the community where it counts. You aren't going to bring anything to the table theologically. You're not going to have the tools to give new insight into their study of scripture. Your community might grow in numbers, but it won't grow in understanding. You will not be teaching.

What do I mean by this? Let me illustrate.

This last Sunday in Bible study, I was trying to show the gathered group a connection between John's Gospel and 1 John. We'd read from the lectionary, and as I tried to show the ways that 1 John shared important language and theology with John, we hit a stumbling block. All of the group came out of an evangelical background, and all had New International Versions as their translation of choice. The NIV is a decent and worthy version of the Bible, but the way it rendered the verses totally obscured a connection that was both profound and part of the intent of the author of 1 John.

In 1 John 4:15-16, we're supposed to be reminded deeply of what it means to "abide" or "live within" or "be part of Christ." That understanding is central to how the ancient church understood our Christian identity. The passage intentionally mirrors the teachings of Christ in John 15:1-8, when we are commended to be grafted onto the True Vine, and to abide in Him.

Problem is, the NIV uses two entirely different English verbs in translating the Greek verb meno. In John, the NIV uses "remain." In 1 John, it uses "live in." Technically, that's accurate enough. But it obscures a deep resonance, a vital symbolic connection that was an intentional part of 1 John. No reader of 1 John in the NIV would be struck by the similarity of language, or reminded of the words of Christ, even though that's why those words were written.

Having gone to seminary, I now reflexively look across translations. I observe differences. I look to original contexts and their intents and meanings. Every once in a while, I go back to the original language. In doing so, I bring value...and hopefully, understanding...to a community that is trying to make those connections themselves and come into a deeper understanding of both Christ and the church.

It isn't so much that the church should require seminary. It's that those who are genuinely called by God to serve the church should want it, should hunger for it, should see it as a central and vital part of their service.

That is not at all the way the nondenominational world views it. If you think you have an anointing, then by God, you should preach. On the one hand, that's true. It's the call that's important. On the other, failure to strengthen yourself in preparation for your service to the church is just lazy.

If you..meaning you personally, you as someone who God has whupped upside the head and dragged into service...take your calling to serve as a pastor seriously, it's worth the effort.

The depth of knowledge seminary gives you makes you a better resource. So long as you remember to speak in ways that can be understood outside of academe, it gives you the tools to be a more effective servant.

And one thing we can't afford is to have more ineffective servants, or more folks whose grasp of the Bible doesn't go any further than their political persuasion.