History (brief).
The Church of England seems to have an odd relationship with the child it brought to birth when canon law was changed to allow the admission to holy orders of those who would continue to earn their livelihood by means other than the church's payroll.
Whereas the Roman Catholic foray into worker-priest activity had been explicitly theological in purpose (before being closed down), the Anglican project was a slightly unsatisfactory mix of theology and practicality: partly about reaching the unchurched, more about getting additional clergy to assist in parishes. I think it accurate to say the theology was the lesser driver, but others may disagree. Since then, priests in 'secular employment' within the Church of England have not really hit their developmental milestones (maybe we should now ditch the parent/child analogy). Why is that? The Church has not actively called or chosen them; too few of them have lacked a clear vision or drive (which may say something about selection); not many of them have been deployed thoughtfully (this seems true of clergy in general); there is little effective support of individual MSEs or of them as a body. Beneath all this lurk some powerful attitudes and resentments on all sides, touching on recognition, reward, acknowledgement and power. Nothing new there then in the life of the church... "But it will not be so with you...." It is never too late to undertake serious change within institutions or the heart - but it needs a tipping point, where enough people want change. |
The Church of England had itself been to-ing and fro-ing on the theme of variants to the prevailing model of the paid parish priest for some time. In the 19th century Thomas Arnold, an Oxford professor, church reformer and father of the poet Matthew Arnold, proposed that some working men should be made deacons. This, as he saw it, would address both the shortage of clergy and the desirability of softening the distinction between clergy and laity (he opposed Tractarianism and what he saw as the exaggerated status of the ordained). His view gained little support, and it ran contrary to the interests of those who saw ordination as a profession and those who held to a sacramental and elevated view of clergy.
Roland Allen is a name to note in the story that eventually led to the Church of England having unpaid clergy, some with a focus as ‘ministers in secular employment’. In 1923 he published The Case for Voluntary Clergy. The mood was more receptive, helped by requests from Southwark and London diocesan conferences for a rethink on the ban on clergy holding secular employment. Allen’s views had been shaped by his experience in overseas missions where dispersed groups of Christians needed the services of local priests. In 1929 the Church Assembly (the forerunner of today’s General Synod) requested a report on voluntary clergy, although this exploration appears to have been scuppered by the bishops of the 1930 Lambeth Conference.
What may be seen in the history of those times is a concern about falling numbers of paid clergy. What that concern comes up against is a view that to ordain working men would somehow weaken, even taint, the priesthood.
Ideas of purity were at work, as were matters of professional status and perfectly understandable self-interest. What seems insufficiently present in C of E thinking is what was seen in the French Roman Catholic experiment: a concern with the lived experience and unmet needs of most working people, what we might think of as the-church-beyond-the-institution.
Within the mainstream liturgical and episcopal churches (those run by people called bishops) tradition is highly valued. A common factor is the structure of three orders of commissioned, ‘ordained’ ministry: deacons, priests and bishops. It appears that this model was settled by the end of the first century, though less clear that they were paid in any sense we’d understand that today.
Many would have been itinerant, supporting themselves in various ways, including by selling their labour. Things took a turn after the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century and made it the religion of his empire. The clergy became persons to be reckoned with, no longer having to earn a living or depend on charity.
Roland Allen is a name to note in the story that eventually led to the Church of England having unpaid clergy, some with a focus as ‘ministers in secular employment’. In 1923 he published The Case for Voluntary Clergy. The mood was more receptive, helped by requests from Southwark and London diocesan conferences for a rethink on the ban on clergy holding secular employment. Allen’s views had been shaped by his experience in overseas missions where dispersed groups of Christians needed the services of local priests. In 1929 the Church Assembly (the forerunner of today’s General Synod) requested a report on voluntary clergy, although this exploration appears to have been scuppered by the bishops of the 1930 Lambeth Conference.
What may be seen in the history of those times is a concern about falling numbers of paid clergy. What that concern comes up against is a view that to ordain working men would somehow weaken, even taint, the priesthood.
Ideas of purity were at work, as were matters of professional status and perfectly understandable self-interest. What seems insufficiently present in C of E thinking is what was seen in the French Roman Catholic experiment: a concern with the lived experience and unmet needs of most working people, what we might think of as the-church-beyond-the-institution.
Within the mainstream liturgical and episcopal churches (those run by people called bishops) tradition is highly valued. A common factor is the structure of three orders of commissioned, ‘ordained’ ministry: deacons, priests and bishops. It appears that this model was settled by the end of the first century, though less clear that they were paid in any sense we’d understand that today.
Many would have been itinerant, supporting themselves in various ways, including by selling their labour. Things took a turn after the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the 4th century and made it the religion of his empire. The clergy became persons to be reckoned with, no longer having to earn a living or depend on charity.
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Belief is reassuring. People who live in the world of belief feel safe. On the contrary, faith is forever placing us on the razor's edge. Jacques Ellul
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