Tom, I have labelled your 4 types A B C D for clarity.
At 11:43 AM 30/10/03 +1100, Tom Stuart wrote:
I have heard some leaders of late draw on the term theocracy. While I admit to not having all that clear an understanding of such terminology I get an uneasy feeling this days that it could be term used by leaders of the church as a cop out.
I wonder how accurate this generalisation of clergy this is:
I find there a 4 type of clergy. A. There are those who did their training who had their horizons broadened (if they weren t already broad). They discovered why lies behind the scriptures, and church history etc. These people went into ministry with great fervour and tried to impart their understanding. They got rejected and many ended up in bureaucratic roles in the church.
B. Then there is the minister who went through the same process. Was wise enough to realise that they should be careful with their knowledge and hid it from their congregations. This is the largest group.
C. There are those who went through the former and decided their ideas too radical for their congregations so they took back on board the dominant views of the lay people.
Once upon a time I was ministered to by someone in this category. They started out as 'B', got a bit battered so became a 'C'. They once said to me something like ... "I understand where you are coming from with your <broad horizons> but in my experience, belief in those terms doesn't have any power. Believing in <black and white> terms is what gives people faith that has the power to change their lives."
On reflection, thinking of the lives of faithful people I know, I suppose I could see some truth in that. But I also wondered, what or who is the source of this power? The orthodox supposition is that it is from God. But I think it could possibly also be explained in human terms - either as a psychological determination (akin to the discipline of a sports person), or maybe a religious manipulation (akin to conforming to a sect.)
Now God & human don't have to be mutually exclusive (though I'm certainly uncomfortable at straying too far into sectdom, and some christian churches are too far down that road for me) - meaning that just because we can understand something in psychological terms doesn't mean that God is not part of it.
However it would also be important to look long term - does this 'power' faith persist over years. Certainly there are a substantial proportion of cases where is doesn't.
So I suppose that I found the minister's angle not very satisfactory as a theological tool.
D. There are those who already knew the dangers of theological training and set as their goal to defend the real truth through the process. They were the thorn in the educator s side and the delight of the congregation.
The UC is not alone here of course. A friend of mine in Qld training for the anglican ministry decided to go to Moore College in Sydney, convinced that the teaching at St Francis (?) in Brisbane was just too dangerous.
So minister s in the main unwilling to be honest with their congregations gather together with the few lay people who have seen the light and complain about the simplistic faith of the lay people. They find succour in each others worst stories. They remind each other of how liberated they are from their congregations superstitious and legalistic faith and then head back into their parishes with their secret knowledge secure.
At the meetings where they get together they say things like The church is a theocracy there for were listen to where God is calling us. And so long as the lay people comply we think we are doing a good job and we are saving our denomination from the ill fate of fundamentalism that dominates other church groups.
But then we hit a subject like homosexuality. The people react. The leaders are bewildered. We hold the people with disdain for the lack of insight. The people hold the clergy in disdain because we have never taken them seriously.
I think theocracy is a word used to allow clergy and like leaders to create an apparent ethos that has no real regard for the ordinary member. I think I would like to go back to democracy. That is where I have to take seriously what the person in the pew is saying and therefore I have to walk with them and not in front of them. That IS, after all, where God walks.
Many clergy and leaders are embarrassed now because everybody is discovering what our church is REALLY like rather than the church we have been trying to pretend we are. Its about time. Now we can start working with reality.
This account seems to me to be highly consistent with the Spong view, and I personally find quite a lot of logic in that view. But as we know Spong does not resonate universally, even amongst the <broad horizons> folk. So I would tend to say it is a good thesis, maybe not the one and only.
Kind regards, Lindsay Brash.
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