Ministerial Ethics provides both new and experienced pastors with tools for sharpening their personal and professional decision-making skills. The authors seek to explain the unique moral role of the minister and the ethical responsibilities of the vocation and to provide "a clear statement of the ethical obligations contemporary clergy should assume in their personal and professional lives." Trull and Carter deal with such areas as family life, confidentiality, truth-telling, political involvement, working with committees, and relating to other church staff members. First published in 1993, this edition has been thoroughly updated throughout and contains expanded sections on theological foundations, the role of character, confidentiality, and the timely topic of clergy sexual abuse. Appendices describing various denominational ministerial codes of ethics are included.
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Oliver Sacks began his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat with the fascinating story of a person suffering from agnosia.1 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.2 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 that 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.3
These changes have led to clergy confusion and a condition Gustafson calls anomie, a lack of clear delineation of authority.4 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?
The Dr. P. 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 very 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.
Recently, one of us was reading a state denominational paper that featured a seminary student we both know. The student identified himself as pastor of “one of the fastest growing churches in Louisiana.” Both of us knew very well the small mission church where he served. The caption did not seem to fit. A check of denominational records for the previous three years verified our suspicions. The church membership numbered only a few more than one hundred. During one year, church records reported a large decrease in numbers, followed by a similar increase the next year. While this was “growth,” overall attendance was roughly the same as it had been for several years. There is nothing wrong with numerical increases in a church. If ministers become so obsessed with growth that statistics are manipulated, however, they worship their own success rather than God.
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 of 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 ministry. “We found beginning clergypersons almost completely at the mercy of the expectations of their first parish without counterbalancing claims from denomination or profession. Formation of clerical identity depended on satisfying the first congregation.”5
If this is true, it is important for first-time clergy to have a clear understanding of their role. Every church has an unwritten list of expectations for its ordained, and similarly, each new church shepherd arrives with a notebook filled with plans and priorities. The two sets seldom match. Much disappointment and many tensions arise during the first years because of such misunderstandings. The result can be catastrophic: increasing conflict, ministerial fatigue, and even forced termination. Yale professor Gaylord Noyce asserts, “Clergy ‘burnout,’ so publicized, results more from a blurred pastoral identity than from overwork. Professional ethics well taught counteracts that kind of haziness.”6
So the question arises again: To what is a minister called, a career or a profession? An occupation or a unique vocation? Each cleric must also ask, “Whom do I serve, Christ or the congregation?” Or to put it another way, “Am I serving Christ as I serve the congregation?” Building a ministry based on integrity requires that a minister’s sense of calling and concept of service be biblical, ethical, and Christlike.
Most evangelical ministers would identify with Jeremiah’s account of his calling: “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations’” (Jer. 1:4–5). This messenger to Israel believed that the sovereign Lord had graciously planned for him to be a spokesman for God from the beginning of his existence. Christian ministers should likewise be confident of God’s plan for their lives as revealed in their call to Christian ministry. This conviction about the will of God is more than a choice of career based on personality inventories; it is an acknowledgment of a divine appointment. As Yahweh chose Abraham to lead a new people (Gen. 12:1–3) and sent Moses on a redemptive mission (Exod. 3:10), so God calls and sends ministers today. Their response to God’s calling must be like that of Isaiah: “Here am I. Send me!” (Isa. 6:8).
Jehovah’s prophets are not only called but also given a message and a mission. Such was the case with Deborah (Judges 4–5), Isaiah (6:8–9), Amos (7:15), and John the Baptist (John 1:6–8). The apostle from Tarsus was so convinced that God had appointed him as a missionary to the Gentile world that he wrote, “I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor. 9:16). There can be no doubt that the minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ is set apart and sent forth by God to fulfill a divine mission. The ministry is a vocatio, a calling from God.
At the same time, the minister usually fulfills this calling through service to a congregation of God’s people. This body of believers pays the salary of the church leader and expects some type of ministerial service in return. How should a person set apart by God to minister to the Christian community interpret his or her relationship to the church?
An early church leader, Simon Peter, wrote a clear word about pastoral responsibility to the
of Christ:
Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.
1 Peter 5:2–3
It is impossible to discuss ministers and what they do apart from the church, for what the clergy most needs is a function of what the church most needs.7
[A]t a very early date, from among the ranks of the baptized, the church found it good to call some of its members to lead, to help the congregation nurture within itself those virtues needed for the life and work of the colony. Call these leaders preachers, priests, pastors, prophets, or just plain Jane—this is their particular vocation: building up a congregation.8
Although a minister’s primary loyalty is to God, this devotion must never be an excuse for avoiding pastoral duties. Ministry involves both privilege and responsibility. A minister’s calling always must be fleshed out in some kind of community, usually a local congregation. One cannot serve Christ without serving people, for to serve people is to serve Christ (Matt. 25:31–46).
As we seek a clear understanding of the minister’s calling, we should note that the terms vocation, profession, and career have multiple meanings. William May of Southern Methodist University has suggested that this confusion of terminology has created tensions. He points out that every Christian has a vocation, which traditionally has meant a commitment to God and neighbor. A career, however, is a more selfish thing; it is a means to pursue one’s own private aims and purposes. Instead of asking what the need of the community is, a career person asks, “What do I want to be, and where do I want to go?”9 If these two questions are uppermost in your mind, does that not mean you are pursuing a career rather than answering a call?
In the biblical sense, as Martin Luther and John Calvin both emphasized, all Christians are “called” to serve God in and through their vocation. The minister stands somewhere between this generalized concept of vocation for all Christians and a specific career. He or she is fulfilling a calling and not just choosing a career. Yet something more is involved. The unique calling to be a Christian minister has features that result in unusual obligations.
Historically, the word profess meant “to testify on behalf of ” or “to stand for something.” Being a professional person carried implications about knowledge and moral responsibility. “The professional knows something that will benefit the wider community, and he or she has a responsibility to use that knowledge to serve the wider human community.”10 Let us now explore how this traditional concept of a professional relates to the vocation of the minister.
