What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Love your church minister

    No – not me. Well, you can if you like. But more an invitation to head over to Malcolm Round’s blog and read a post that he wrote a couple of weeks ago which has now been read by thousands of people, being copied and referenced all over the web.

    Malcolm has really hit a nerve in writing about how congregations treat their clergy – beginning with this:

    Sadly the Christian church is littered with good people who have left the ministry because of the pain, the criticism, and the lack of support they’ve got from congregations. Some Christians assume they can behave in a church setting in a way they’ve never be allowed to in a work setting. Minister abuse is much more common than is talked about.

    I know exactly what he is talking about and very many clergy will know it all too well.

    Malcolm raises a number of very pertinent questions that I think need a lot of talking about. The most striking questions this piece prompts for me are these:

    • What level of discipline should exist in a voluntary organisation like a congregation, particularly when the congregation has an ethos of inclusion and welcome? After all, churches tend to exist for the purpose of adding more to their numbers. How do they manage anti-social and particular anti-clerical behaviour?
    • In my own denomination, what part does the anti-clericalism that is the unfortunate and entirely unnecessary product of so many of our conversations about affirming lay ministry play in this?
    • Who cares for the pastors of the church and how?

    The bad behaviour that Malcolm talks about leaves him saying:

    Such treatment sadly has become normative in the ordained church life.  Which is one of the reasons I personally will virtually never support anybody going into full-time ‘ordained’ parish ministry.

    When a senior church leader says that then the rest of us ought to be paying attention and carrying on a serious conversation about it. This is important and significant stuff.

    So, hop on over to Malcolm’s blog and take a read.

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5 responses to “Heresy hunting”

  1. Nick Brindley Avatar
    Nick Brindley

    It is probably helpful to be clear about the distinction between “dogma” (which is best understood as the definition of orthodoxy and of heresy, of the things it is mandatory to affirm and the things it is forbidden to affirm) and “church order” (the rules about how people are to conduct themselves). These are related but by no means the same thing.

    “Doctrine” is a third thing again, to my mind. It is the body of teaching that the church affirms but is much more extensive and changeable than dogma.

    Of particular relevance is who has the authority to pronounce on these things. Denominational authorities quite properly establish church law and discipline (this needs to be done and there’s nobody else to do it) but would go beyond their proper sphere (in my view) if they tried to establish new definitions in the field of dogma.

    Reply
  2. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    I feel the need to separate praxis and doctrine, but I suppose that is probably a minor heresy in itself, in a church that hides its doctrine in its liturgy. Although I suppose the deftness of the ‘McCarthy Liturgy’ has maybe sidestepped that pitfall as deftly as an 18th century non-juring bishop side-stepping western orthodoxy and the rest…

    Reply
  3. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    To a degree I think it is a matter of tradition. Anglican churches have tended (and it is only a tendency) to insist of orthopraxis. Church of Scotland churches have tended (same health warning) to emphasise orthodoxy of belief, call it doctrine or dogma. St Andrews is not of course a C or S institution, but it used to be, certainly in my day, and to a degree in yours, heavily steeped in C of S ethos. St Mary’s trained C of S ministers and that was ALL the training they got, because then they knew Orthodoxy.

    Reply
  4. Jimmy Avatar
    Jimmy

    The links on this post have led me to think of this –

    The Inner Party – The Outer Party – The Proles.

    The model demands tight control of the middle class, with ambitious Outer Party members neutralised via promotion to the Inner Party or “reintegration” by Miniluv, while proles can be allowed intellectual (and sexual) freedom because they lack intellect. Winston nonetheless believed that “the future belonged to the proles”. Wikipedia.

    Reply
  5. Allan Ronald Avatar
    Allan Ronald

    There was most definitely a C of S ethos at St Andrews in my day [67-71]. Robin Buchanan-Smith was running a packed college chapel and one president of the SRC and one president of the Union were St Mary’s men who went on to ordination and, in one case, to be Moderator of the Kirk. Perhaps they got their orthodoxy from Matthew Black at St Mary’s and their skill in future clerical politics from their student posts…….

    Reply

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