Every seminary professor should make this post required reading for their students.
Every pastor should make this required reading for their parishioners.
Repeat this cycle every year.
August 17, 2011
A Common Plea For Those Who Serve
Every seminary professor should make this post required reading for their students.
Every pastor should make this required reading for their parishioners.
Repeat this cycle every year.
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Bishop Craig has some worthy thoughts to consider. I apreciate the thought behind them, and I think he is on to something.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, I myself would argue that the man of God (and I don't discount the experience of other religions, but can only speak from the traditional Christian point of view) ought to be trained well in not only holy doctrine and how to handle the holy things, but also holy living, and this training should be quite pre-ordination. In other words, it should be part of seminary training.
Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we deny the humanity of the priest, just that it is in fact good and right to uphold the divinity of his office, and help him to live up to it.
I agree that seminary does leave something to be desired in terms of teaching pastoral formation. In fact, even basic social skills aren't taught. There should be a better way to teach seminarians how to develop proper social skills in light of their position. The post I cited is not about that.
ReplyDeleteDeacon, you say, "Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that we deny the humanity of the priest, just that it is in fact good and right to uphold the divinity of his office, and help him to live up to it." That is not the case here. The issue is members who go past that point. It is one thing to try to assist the priest in upholding that divinity of his office. It is completely another to try to control and manipulate how that person should live in what they think is the divinity of that office. You know as well as I do the pietism that is rampant throughout the church. Why should those members be able to tell a priest how they should live if they ignore their priest who is telling them the same thing?
The congregation needs to learn that their priest is human who has been entrusted with holy things. If they are not willing to accept that he is human just like them, they are the problem. If the members want to gossip and rumor about how the pastor drinks beer, smokes cigars and plays the harmonica claiming that such activities are un-priest like, even unchristian, then why don't they live up to those same expectations? After all, if those expectations are good enough for their priest, shouldn't those same expectations be good enough for them?
This isn't a denial of the divinity of the office, it is about those who who try to impress upon their preist what they think is the divinity of the office. There is a level of common sense that should be invoked. Putting undue pressure and stress on an already stressful and pressure-filled position will lead to a very unhappy outcome for all parties involved.