Ethics for Christian Ministry

Moral Formation for Twenty-First-Century Leaders

Trull, Joe E., Creech, R. Robert

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781493411511
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

This one-of-a-kind resource in professional ethics helps today's Christian leaders maintain a high moral character and lifestyle and sharpen their personal and professional decision-making skills. Two experienced teachers and pastors address both current and perennial ethical issues and offer guidance for developing a personal code of ethics to maintain integrity in the work of ministry. The authors address the nature of ethical decision making as well as practical areas where integrity can be compromised, including issues raised by the use of smartphones and social media. Appendixes include codes of ethics from various denominations.

1
Walking with Integrity

A Profession or a Calling?

Ours is an age of ethical uncertainty. In Walker Percy’s novel The Thanatos Syndrome, a minister faces an ethical dilemma. Percy capsules his moral confusion and ours in one line: “This is not the Age of Enlightenment, but the Age of Not Knowing What to Do.”1 One writer calls this quote an apt aphorism for our age and adds: “Politicians, scientists, physicians, business leaders, everyday citizens, and our clergy increasingly find themselves in situations where they really do not know what to do. As a result, ethics has become a boom industry, and moral failure a regular front-page phenomenon. Conventional wisdom seems glaringly inadequate in the face of our environmental, technological, political, economic and social situations.”2 Ministerial ethics can no longer be assumed, if ever they were.

During the election year of 2016, many prominent evangelical ministers became involved in the political campaigns of candidates. One, the pastor of the renowned First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, even traveled to another state during a primary campaign to give his ringing endorsement of a candidate for president, although the candidate was himself not considered religious or even mildly moral.3 Not only was this a violation of federal law for clergy but the act was also an obvious breach of all ministerial codes of conduct.4

To this seeming confusion about ministerial morality, add the present decline in organized religion. Martin Marty, eminent church historian at the University of Chicago, calls the present trend a “drift away” from traditional churches, quoting author Linda Mercadante: “‘No matter how organized religions try to ignore, challenge, adapt, or protest it, our society is being changed by this pervasive ethos.’ Her studied types, ‘dissenters, casuals, explorers, seekers, and immigrants (to new beliefs)’ are often ‘millennials’ who cannot return to the religion of their youth, ‘in part because many of them never had one.’”5 All studies indicate that today’s youth are often more skeptical of the country’s institutions than the youth in the generations that preceded them.

George Bullard, an expert on church ministry and cultural change, asks whether the millennial generation (those born from 1982 to 2000) brought radical change. His answer: “During their birth years, we saw the emergence of the postmodern age, in which paradigms shifted and many understandings of reality retuned to zero and reset. The heavy focus on vision . . . has shifted to a focus on relationships. . . . Absolute truth has morphed into the story of each person’s truth. . . . Information previously imparted only by experts is now free on the Internet. . . . The fastest growing denomination beginning about 20 years ago is called nondenominational.”6

Somewhat like the Earl of Grantham in Downton Abbey, I have difficulty accepting the fact that something I love and to which I have given my life is changing. Yet the last two decades have brought many alterations to the shape of American church life. Things are different. Among the many challenges faced by churches and denominations in this second decade of the twenty-first century, ministerial ethics ranks near the top.

An annual poll of the top ten religious stories in 2014 listed clergy wrongdoing as number eight. Catholic communities are still reeling from the sordid revelations and costly court cases involving priests who sexually abused young people—the Archdiocese of Chicago released more than twenty-one thousand pages of evidence related to such clergy abuse. Mark Driscoll, the leader of a Seattle-based megachurch network in five states, resigned following a series of charges that included financial misconduct, plagiarism, and a harsh, hypermacho theology. In the nation’s capital, Barry Freundel, a prominent Orthodox rabbi, was accused of voyeurism and secretly spying on naked women in the mikvah, the ritual bath.7

Moral failures in the ministry are all too common today. Chaucer asked, “If gold would rust, what shall iron do?” Obviously, it too rusts—perhaps more rapidly. “For if the priest be foul, in whom we trust,” continued the author of The Canterbury Tales, “no wonder that a layman thinks of lust?”

The present crisis in ministerial ethics is both a reflection of our times and an influence on our society. Ethical failure in the pulpit affects the pew. At the same time, clergy morals seem to mirror the general decline in morality among the laity. In a day fraught with political cover-ups, insider trading on the stock exchange, corporate scandals, and media manipulation, people are seldom shocked when they hear of an immoral minister.

Today’s minister walks an ethical tightrope. At one moment, she or he may serve as a prophet, priest, or educator; in the next, a cleric may be an administrator, a counselor, or a worship leader. Each of these roles raises ethical dilemmas and exposes moral vulnerability not faced by doctors, lawyers, or other professionals. For example, most church members trust their minister without hesitation. Yet this intimate relationship often involves parishioners sharing their souls, which makes a church minister vulnerable to many subtle temptations. The most obvious danger is sexual misconduct. Many clergy catastrophes involve adulterous relationships, sexual liaisons, pedophilic acts, and other sexual transgressions.8

Equally immoral, though often overlooked, are certain ministerial habits that may be considered part of the “job description.” Pulpit exaggeration is accepted as a normal trait of preachers. More serious is the unethical conduct of an autocratic leader who misuses power, manipulates people, and practices deception and dishonesty. Blaise Pascal warned that people “never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious convictions” (Pensees 894). The American culture stimulates in many clerics the desire to succeed. To be called as a pastor of a large, prestigious church is a goal that has led many good ministers to sacrifice their integrity on the altar of success.

A foundational question must be asked at the beginning: Is Christian ministry a career or a profession? Is church ministry simply a vocational choice based on aptitude tests, personality profiles, or job opportunities? Should a person prepare to be a church minister without a sense of divine calling?

Oliver Sacks begins his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat with the fascinating story of a person suffering from agnosia.9 Dr. P. (the patient) was a distinguished musician and teacher in Berlin. His students first recognized his strange behavior when he was unable to identify people he knew well. In addition, he often mistook objects such as parking meters and fire hydrants for young children. At the close of one session with Dr. Sacks, Dr. P. started looking for his hat. Finally, he reached toward his wife’s head and tried to put it on his own. Agnosia is the psychiatric term for the loss of the ability to recognize familiar objects. Although Dr. P. retained a highly abstract cognitive ability, his illness prevented him from recognizing people, for he saw faces only in bits and pieces. Incredible as it seems, Dr. P. got along quite well despite his disability and was able to work until the end of his life.

Amusing and yet tragic, the case of Dr. P. is a metaphor for the practice of ministry and for ministerial ethics.10 Every seminarian knows that a call to become a minister of a church is a call to various tasks. Preaching, teaching, counseling, visiting, administrating, promoting, recruiting, leading worship, and doing community service are just a few of those tasks. Today’s minister must wear many hats. The unseen danger for the busy religious worker is “clerical agnosia,” becoming a minister who mistakes a parishioner for one of his or her hats! In short, people can get lost in the midst of an active ministry.

What caused this multiplication of roles, which increases the risk of contracting clerical agnosia and overlooking persons? James Gustafson observed three primary developments during the past century that precipitated this role change for ministers:

The first is the voluntary character of religion in the United States, which in its various dimensions makes the clergy unusually responsive to the desires and needs of the laity and to changes in the culture. The second is the breakdown of a sense of independent authority in the clergy; in the absence of wide acceptance of the traditional bases of their authority, clergymen seek substitute ways to make themselves legitimate. The third is the effort of the clergy to find new ways to make religious faith relevant to changing social and cultural patterns.11

These changes have led to clergy confusion and a condition Gustafson calls anomie, a lack of clear delineation of authority. The typical minister is bewildered, not only about what to do but also about whom to serve. Who has the final word: the individual member, the congregation, the denomination, or God?

Dr. P.’s story is a parable of what can happen to any church overseer. Without realizing it, pastors and other ministers can slip into believing that as long as the “bits and pieces” of people are visible, all is well. Ministry can become impersonal. Church members begin to look like consumer-oriented clients, and the church itself takes on the appearance of a corporation, whose chief executive must work to keep “profits” high and “customers” happy. In the midst of this busyness, the real purpose of ministry can be lost.

As we propose in the next chapter, the moral ideal for a minister is integrity, a life of ethical wholeness and moral maturity. How does the person called by God to serve the church achieve integrity of character and conduct? The most naive believe that since a minister is set apart by God, ethics will take care of itself, for God calls only good people. Others assume that those who preach the gospel must surely live by the Bible’s precepts and principles. Most laypersons admire the dedication of those who devote their lives to a Christian vocation and suppose that this commitment ensures a Christian lifestyle.

Ministerial integrity is neither simple nor automatic. Clergy ethics, however, does begin with a proper understanding of the minister’s vocation. Therefore, the purpose of this chapter is to reexamine the vocational role of the clergy. This begins with the minister’s understanding of “calling.” Is it to a career or to a profession? To answer this basic question, we must also define profession. A brief review of the history of professions, which originated in religious orders (whose members “professed” something), will aid an understanding of the term. This chapter also explores a significant change in cultural values that precipitated a crisis for professionals. Many believe that because of a change in professionalization in American society, the professional ethics model is fundamentally inappropriate for today’s clergy. Finally, we will attempt to determine whether the minister is indeed a true professional, and if so, how the professional ethics model can be a tool for “doing” clergy ethics.

The Call to Ministry

A basic prerequisite for an ethical ministry is a clear understanding of the minister’s calling. How does a person enter vocational Christian service? Does a candidate receive a divine calling from God or simply choose a career? Is the ministry an occupation or a profession? What does the office itself require of the ordained: an inspiring moral life, effective church leadership, polished ministry skills, sound theological beliefs, unerring professional conduct, or some combination of these ministerial attributes?

H. Richard Niebuhr called the ministry of his generation a “perplexed profession.” The situation today has not improved, for contemporary clerics are equally puzzled. Like butterflies newly hatched, seminary graduates flutter away from ivy-covered campuses planning to fly high, only to crash into the brick wall of “Old First Church.” Young ministers quickly discover that pastoral ministry, rather than the spiritual enterprise they expected, is more like running a secular business. The weekly calendar is crammed with financial meetings, publicity decisions, personnel problems, and laity complaints. When will there be time for theological discussions, spiritual disciplines, or the real mission of the church?

A survey of recent graduates conducted by two seminary faculty members revealed that the major concern of these first-time ministers was coping with uncertainties regarding their roles in minis...