Clergy

In common speech clergy is a term used to describe a religious official, certain members of a religious order or a pastoral leader of a church or denomination. Its counterpart is laity—the untrained, uneducated, common members of the church. This two-people approach to the church is anachronistic and unbiblical (see Laity). We look in vain in the Bible for laypersons in the sense of untrained, unequipped and not-called. Those words available in the ancient world to describe laypeople (in the common sense)—laikos and idiōtēs—were never used by inspired writers to describe Christians. Instead we are introduced to the whole people of God—designated by the word laos (the people)—who including leaders together are the true ministers. The Greek word for clergy (klēros) is used to describe the dignity and appointment of all the people to ministry. So paradoxically the church has no laypeople in the usual sense of that word and yet is full of clergy in the original meaning of that word.

We will examine how the tragic division between clergy (used henceforth in the normal and unbiblical sense) and laity appeared within the people of God and discover what we can do about it. The problem is almost universal, even among denominations that began with a vision for every-member ministry. Nothing can happen without the clergy’s presence; ministry is defined by “what the minister does”; pastors are called “the ministers” of the church. The clergy give the ministry, and the laity receive it. Four dimensions seem to be implicit in the modern concept of clergy: (1) the vicarious function, that is, service is rendered not only on behalf of, but instead of, the people; (2) the ontological difference, that is, a person becomes a priest or clergyperson by virtue of ordination, not character, and therefore cannot resign from ministry (I “am” a minister, rather than I “do” ministry); (3) the sacramental function, that is, generally the clergy alone are qualified to administer baptism and the Lord’s Supper (see Communion); and (4) the professional status, that is, the clergy represent an elite group with specialized functions that they can perform better than others.

Clergy in the Bible

According to the Old Testament the entire people were called to belong to God, to be God’s people and to serve God’s purposes (Exodus 19:6). But within that people only a few—prophets, priests and princes—experienced a special call to give leadership to God’s people, to speak God’s word and to minister on behalf of God (for example, Isaiah 6:8). Old Testament saints looked forward to the day when a new covenant would be inaugurated, when God’s law would be written on the hearts of all the people (not just in a document), when “all know [God], from the least of them to the greatest” (Jeremiah 31:34) and when the Spirit would “move [people] to follow [God’s] decrees and be careful to keep [God’s] laws” (Ezekiel 36:27). The apostles firmly believed that the promised day came with the coming of God’s Son, Jesus, and the outpouring of God’s Spirit on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:14-21). For this reason the apostles used the Greek word kleros (clergy) to describe a whole new reality: the dignity, calling and privilege of every member of the family of God.

Remarkably the Greek word klēros, a word from which clergy is derived, means “assigned by lot or inheritance.” It is used in the New Testament for the privileges and appointment of all the people of God (Galatians 3:29; Ephes. 1:11; Col. 1:12). When we step into the world of the New Testament, we meet a single people (laos) marked by universal spiritual giftedness, universal priesthood, universal empowerment by the Spirit of God, universal call or vocation and universal ministry. All are klēros in the sense of being appointed by God to service and dignity. The ministry belongs to the people. Layperson then is a term of incredible honor. A pastor can rise to no greater honor than to be a layperson. Indeed, one searches in vain in the New Testament for a theology of the laity in the usual sense. As the Catholic historian Alexandre Faivre observes, “Neither laymen nor priests can be found in it” (pp. 7-8).

The New Testament, however, has many references to leaders being set aside to exercise their gift of ministry within God’s laos, but these are not described and do not function in ways that resemble the modern idea of clergy: they are not vicarious leaders; they are not ontologically different from other laypersons; they do not perform a sacramental function; and they are not a professional class. Not even the call of Saul to be an apostle can be used to justify a special call to the clerical ministry, as some maintain, since the apostle never offers his own unique call to be an apostle to the Gentiles as a model for the special, “secret” call to become a pastor, missionary or priest.

The Clerical Captivity of the Church

In the second and third centuries a clergy-lay distinction arose in the church. Four influences can be discerned: (1) the attraction of secular “management” structures in the Greco-Roman world (the magistrates and the plebs, the common people), (2) the transference of the Old Testament priesthood model to the leadership of the church (church elders are the same as Old Testament priests), (3) the influence of popular piety elevating the Lord’s Supper to a mystery that required priestly administration and (4) political and theological pressures in the church calling for more control from the top. The last influence requires more explanation.

In the face of heresy threats (Docetism, Gnosticism and Judaizing), Ignatius of Antioch (a.d. 50-110) appealed for the necessity of having a single bishop as the focus of unity. In the works of the lawyer Tertullian (a.d. 160-220), we are given a structure for the church in which the laity is identified with the plebs, or ordinary people, and is distinguished from the priestly, or ecclesiastical, order of bishops, presbyters and deacons, though for him the laity is still the privileged and endowed people from whom the hierarchy emerges (Faivre, p. 46). Clement of Alexandria also used laikos for ordinary believers, but in sacralizing the hierarchy of the church, he also relativized it because he envisioned human deacons and presbyters as mere imitations of and steps toward the heavenly episkopos (Faivre, pp. 58-59). Origen, himself a layperson, complained about how difficult it now was for a lay teacher to bring a homily in the presence of bishops but also gave priests power to purify laypersons at the penitential level. So by the beginning of the third century, the term clergy was used to describe a special class within the church, and laity the rest (sometimes not even including women) who were not bishops, presbyters or deacons. The layperson’s function was “to release the priest and levite from all his material concerns, thus enabling him to devote himself exclusively to the service of the alter, a task that was necessary for everyone’s salvation” (Faivre, p. 69).

Cyprian, bishop of Carthage (a.d. 249), made it clear that a member of the clergy was not a layperson. Using the analogy of the Levites, he argued that clergy must not become involved in the world in order to properly attend to the ministry of the altar (Faivre, pp. 106-7). He was convinced that a bishop was accountable to God alone (Rademacher, p. 565) and modeled his church order on the civil orders of the rulers of the city of Carthage. As shown by Rademacher (p. 59), Cyprian’s influence on the church has been substantial: (1) He made a clear distinction between the ordo of bishops and the laity. (2) He sacralized the priesthood according to the Old Testament model of sacrifice priesthood. (3) He linked ministry to sacrifice, again in the image of the temple priesthood. (4) He shaped the church as a clearly defined institution of salvation. (5) He modeled the bishops on the image of Roman senators, thus excluding women. (6) He consolidated the ruling powers of bishops through numerous episcopal conclaves and established a monolithic episcopate.

From the fourth to the sixteenth centuries the clergy-lay distinction deepened. The laity ranked on the bottom of the clerical ladder. After his conversion (a.d. 312) Constantine appointed civil magistrates throughout the empire, organized the church into dioceses along the pattern of Roman regional districts and consistently used clerical and clerics to denote a privileged class (Rademacher, p. 60). Under the Gregorian reform (a.d.1057-1123), the ministry of the entire Western church was shaped by Roman law. So in the period prior to the Reformation: (1) The bishop of Rome came to be regarded as the head of the church on earth. (2) The language of worship had ceased to be the language of the people. (3) The clergy dressed differently and were prepared for ministry in an enculturating seminary. (4) Ordination became an absolute act so that congregations were no longer needed for the celebration of the Eucharist. (5) The clergy became celibate and thus removed from the normal experiences of the laity. (6) The cup was removed from the laity in the Eucharist.

In due course the clergy-lay distinction became institutionalized in religious orders, priestly ordination and the seminary system.

The Incomplete Reformation

Even the Protestant Reformation with its call to recover “the priesthood of all believers” did not succeed in recovering laity as a dignified people. How this happened—from the time of the Reformation itself and through the succeeding centuries—is a fascinating and important story. Factors in the incomplete Reformation follow.

Protestant replacement for priests. The substitution of the sermon for the sacrament as the central act of Protestant worship may have set the church up to give the preacher-expositor the same clerical standing as the priest-officiant at the Mass. Thus, the preacher replaces the priest. It tended to keep interpretation of the Bible out of the hands of the layperson again and confine it to the ordained person. In the evolution of Western society from a.d. 500 to 1500, laypersons lost access to top culture and learned traditions. An educated church leadership perpetuated the division.

Inadequate structures for renewal. The Magisterial Reformation did not provide an ecclesiology comparable to its rediscovered soteriology. Though this developed more among the Anabaptists, in time even denominations stemming from the so-called Radical Reformation gravitated from their founding vision of every-member ministry to the old clergy-lay distinction.

Lay theology lost. A theology of and by the laity was only partially attempted and largely lost. Though during the Reformation and in later periods there was a flurry of pamphlets and short books by laypeople, these rarely survived in the following centuries and, until recently, were mostly ignored by theologians and other scholars. The story of ministry and theology itself has almost always been written by clergypersons for clergypersons. Parallel to this is the written history of the church—which is from the perspective of the clergy and councils rather than the laity.

Eclipse of the kingdom. There has been a preoccupation with ministry in the gathered life of the church (or in its expansion through evangelism) rather than the totality of life under the rule of God. Kingdom ministry has been mostly eclipsed by church ministry. Ministry is viewed as advancing the church rather than the kingdom. The Epistles are the primary guide; the Gospels have been eclipsed.

A two-level call. Calvin’s “secret call” to the ministry of the Word perpetuates a two-level call to the ministry: a general call to all and a special call to the few. Even in denominations claiming to proceed from the Radical Reformation, ordination councils still require a testimony of the secret and special call to the professional ministry.

Laity unrecognized. Ordination is still retained almost universally for the full-time supported church worker; no adequate recognition of lay ministries exists. Most denominations still regard ordination as conferring a distinctive status rather than recognizing a specific function. No denomination ordains people to societal careers and missions (see Ogden, pp. 188-215).

Theological education. The Catholic seminary system was eventually adopted. While important exceptions still exist, by the end of the nineteenth century the seminary system became the universal model for equipping a generation of pastors, thus guaranteeing their enculturation into the clerical culture. With a few exceptions, theological education remains, by and large, the exclusive preoccupation of those intending a career in the clergy.

Spirituality. An adequate lay spirituality has rarely been developed. While the Reformation rejected the two-level spirituality of the monastery and the common Christian, and some of the Puritans developed a spirituality for the whole life, most Protestant spirituality has had a clerical cast with emphasis on the deeper life of outstanding Christian leaders or, occasionally, on the mystical. Thus, most Protestant spirituality has ignored exploring the holiness of the ordinary Christian in the totality of his or her life in the world. The church in the West has never become free of Greek dualism, which relegates bodily life to a lower level.

Influence of the world. As in the past, cultural and social forces at work in the wider society (secular management models, professional-lay analogies, increasing centralization of government) have influenced the shape of the world. The church must continuously fight the fleshly predisposition to distinguish between clergy and laity. Each generation must enter the renewal of ministry in Christ. The priesthood of all believers can be lost in a single generation. What will it take to liberate the church from its clerical captivity?

Liberating the Clergy

The trinitarian basis of understanding the people of God (laos) is crucial. As in the interpenetrating relationships between Father, Son and Spirit, the members of God’s people coinhere, pour life into one another, without coalescence and merger. Different spiritual gifts and various leadership functions can be expressed in a unified way without hierarchy. Those in a mutually other penetrating, cohering and functioning community can have submission to one another without subordination because that is the way it is in God, when the church reflects. The submission of the Son of God to the Father is not subordination but the quality of the way the Son relates to the Father. No hierarchy is implied. It is the whole Godhead, not just the Father, who rules. In the church it is the same: leadership is vested through mutual submission and rich diversity in the whole community without hierarchy. So, as Leonardo Boff says, being a people like God “produces a vision of a church that is more communion than hierarchy, more service than power, more circular than pyramidal, more loving embrace than bending the knee before authority” (Boff, p. 154).

What can be done to live out this biblical and theological vision of the people of God, a people who at one and the same time are without laity and full of clergy? First, theological education should be provided for the whole people of God in the context of both church and societal ministry (congregation, academy and marketplace learning). It is too important to be restricted to a few. A reformation in theological education institutions is sorely needed. Clergy and laity must study side by side in the same environment.

Second, every Christian should undertake lifelong theological education with the goal of becoming mature in Christ (Col. 1:28) and participating in God’s grand purpose for the universe. That is, every Christian person should become a theologian—reflecting biblically and culturally on one’s life and service in the church and the world.

Finally, those in church leadership should form a gracious conspiracy with the rest of God’s laity to bring an end to unbiblical clericalism. Equipping the saints (Ephes. 4:12) is a corporate task. Clergy must be liberated by laity from having the impossible task of representing the entire ministry of the church. Laity must be liberated from becoming clergy assistants to discover and embrace their own ministry. Pastors then become assistants to the rest of the people of God. This mutual liberation must be a ministry of love, not rebellion. As Jan Grootaers said, it will take the remainder of the twentieth century “to move towards this balance of revising the status of laity within the institutional Church. . . . One part of the Church can never move forward without the other, for both are subject, in common obedience, to one and the same Lord” (quoted in Rowthorn, p. 46).

» See also: Equipping

» See also: Laity

» See also: Leadership, Church

References and Resources

L. Boff, Trinity and Society, trans. P. Burns (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988); A. Faivre, The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church (New York: Paulist, 1990); G. D. Fee, “Laos and Leadership Under the New Testament,” Crux 25, no, 4 (1989) 3-13; R. Kimelman, “Judaism and Lay Ministry,” NICM Journal 5, no. 2 (1980); 32-53; S. C. Neill and H. Weber, The Layman in Christian History (London: SCM, 1963); G. Ogden, The New Reformation: Returning the Ministry to the People of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990); W. J. Rademacher, Lay Ministry: A Theological, Spiritual and Pastoral Handbook (New York: Crossroad, 1991); A. Rowthorn, The Liberation of the Laity (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1986); C. A. Voltz, Pastoral Life and Practice in the Early Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990); M. Warkentin, Ordination: A Biblical-Historical View (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982); J. H. Yoder, The Fullness of Christ: Paul’s Vision of Universal Ministry (Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Press, 1987).

—R. Paul Stevens