The Signified Man
Ordination & the Shape of the Pastoral Office
by S. M. Hutchens
Much in the news these days is the story of the crisis among Roman Catholic clergy. One of the most interesting books I have read on the subject is Michael S. Rose’s Good Bye, Good Men, in which he chronicles the nearly complete takeover of the American Catholic seminaries by theological and moral dissidents who have proceeded to drive solid, godly men from the priesthood by every means possible. Although Rose has been criticized for not documenting his sources well enough, he does not need to demonstrate to me that the stories he has gathered are true, for I have seen what he describes first-hand, and don’t need convincing.
This sort of thing doesn’t happen just among the Catholics. It is epidemic today, and is found in all places in all ages of the Church, for there has been no age or place in which it has not been one of the principal concerns of evil spirits to corrupt and discredit the Christian pastor, to make as many destructive inroads as possible on this apostolic description of what he must be:
A bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt teacher, no drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil; moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, or he may fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. (1 Tim. 3:2–7)
We might summarize the passage in this way: The bishop—the word means “overseer,” and so one who has authority over and responsibility before God for the church—must be a stable family man, a competent and successful father, and a mature believer with a deservedly good reputation both within the church and outside of it.
There is nothing remarkable about this description. It describes the sort of person we naturally look to for leadership, and to whom we grant the necessary authority for it. But viewed from another angle, from the point at which I find myself as someone whose work has him look every day at a great many churches, that such a man might have survived to serve in the pastorate of any church is nothing short of a miracle. There is, we must understand, a desperate battle going on against him in every generation, an attempt to weaken his authority and sully his office, to disqualify him from meeting its standards, to exhaust and dishearten him, and to make the church and its ministry so ugly and distasteful that he will not even wish to approach its doors. Of these things Christians need to be aware, so they may enter the lists at his side.
A Father’s Care
It is worthwhile, I believe, for Protestants in general to ask themselves if the pastoral vocation, the pastor’s job as we normally think of it, is precisely what is in view in the New Testament, or the best possible arrangement.
There are reasons for the fact that the average Protestant minister stays in one church for only about three years. The fatherly care of souls is a job that naturally devolves on a single man in a congregation, for it is natural that if the congregation is like a family (this is directly suggested by the passage from First Timothy) it should have only one father. But spiritual fatherhood in a healthy church is a gift possessed by a number of its men, for the fatherhood of the pastor, which flows from that of God, itself flows to others, and it should be exercised by them.
It is true that the pastor is paid a salary, and with that salary he can care for a family of his own, but we must understand that what he is most frequently being called upon to do is to be the father of a family of hundreds, which no man can do well. Not many can stand the strain. They must get help, leave, die, or live with the burden of a continually inadequate performance—a terrible burden indeed for the kind of dutiful and conscientious man most churches want to be their pastor.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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