A TitusOneNine comment cites UK research suggesting that one reason many men don’t come to church is that they find it hard to relate, let alone submit, to “pastors who had no worldly experience, no organisational skills, and did not want to let anyone else take positions of authority who might not be subservient.” I’m not sure how much of a factor this is, but it’s still interesting.
Moreover, we’re seeing a nationwide and even worldwide trend toward outsourcing: Businesses are figuring out how to parse and subdivide job functions, and to push work the lowest-cost providers.
It might be instructive to go ahead and ask: Could the Episcopal Church get by without clergy? I’m not suggesting we do so, but it’s sometimes useful to think outside the box.
Precedent
A clergy-less Episopal congregation isn’t without precedent. I’ve read that in many places, in the early days, clergy simply weren’t available. Most Sundays, lay leaders conducted Morning Prayer services, with circuit-riding priests celebrating the Eucharist when they came to town.
Even today, many congregations in small towns have lay vicars, either that or Canon 9 priests without seminary training who are ordained and licensed to serve their own communities only.
Eucharists
Priests and bishops historically have had the exclusive franchise to celebrate the Eucharist (Greek for “thanksgiving”). But that seems to be a matter of tradition, and of fanciful theories of priesthood and transubstantiation.
Nothing in the New Testament appears to restrict the thanksgiving franchise to a particular group of specially-designated people. Indeed, a plain reading of the Gospels suggests that every meal that Christians eat should be a Eucharist.
Pastoral Care
Priests clearly play a vital role in counseling and other forms of pastoral care. But that’s not per se a function of their ordained status.
In the modern world, counseling is routinely provided by non-ordained people. Even leaving aside professional counselors, consider the success of the Stephen Ministries, a non-denominational group that trains lay people to “provide one-to-one Christian care to the bereaved, hospitalized, terminally ill, separated, divorced, unemployed, relocated, and others facing a crisis or life challenge.”
Leadership
Priests can be great leaders. I’ve known several who were (but more who weren’t).
The problem is that the church’s leadership structure is dominated by two positions for which only the ordained are eligible, namely rector and bishop. I have a strong suspicion that this discrimination subtly discourages many lay people with strong leadershp qualities from making serious time commitments to the church.
My observation has been that strong leaders tend to gravitate to environments where they can make full use of their talents, and not to "waste" their time where they can’t. Perhaps it’s wrong of them, but that seems to be the way it is. Our job is not to argue with the weather, it’s to deal with it.
Make no mistake: I am not saying the church doesn’t have strong lay leaders. I am saying that by restricting the top leadership roles to the ordained, we artificially limit the pool of Christians with strong leadership talents who are willing to commit serious time to the church’s mission.
Bishops
Bishops certainly have their uses. Indeed, it’d be hard for the church to be an episcopal church without having bishops, given that the very word episcopal derives from the Greek word for “overseer.” And being a bishop is doubtless a full-time job (although the Latter-Day Saints seem to do just fine with unpaid stake presidents, their equivalent of an Episcopal bishop).
Would We Do Better at the Mission Without Clergy?
I wonder: Would we be more effective at bringing the Good News to the unchurched if we stopped being such a clergy-centric institution, and instead thrust more responsibility on the laity?
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