Selfie Vocations

It bothers me a great deal how much self-selection goes into the calling of pastors. How important and deceptive is the feeling of “being called to the ministry” (or priesthood)? And so, how many people are at the altar and pulpit basically because they feel that they should be? Or are prompted by what amounts to a voice in their head? The volitional chickens have surely come home to roost when the presbytery becomes open to women, in whom the affective side of personality dominates and in whom therefore the subjective call which has become so widely and wrongly expected among men becomes decisive and institutionally set.

One cannot help but think that if things were right, the call should normally come externally and irrespective of personal feelings (raw instances of which one encounters in the prophets, apostles, and church fathers), that simply being a faithful Christian man whose profile matches that of the Pastoral Epistles makes one liable to be named by his congregation or pastoral superior to the apostolic office. The old nolo episcopari, rather than the desire involved in the personal call, should be regarded as the normal condition of the will in the election of ordained ministers, and whatever formal training is deemed necessary should follow the call and pastoral ordination, being as it is wholly ancillary to the institution itself.

S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.

Print &
Online Subscription

Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!

Online
Subscription

Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!

bulk subscriptions

Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.

Transactions will be processed on a secure server.


more on ministry from the online archives

32.4—July/August 2019

Pastor Prime

on a Steady Presence in an Unsteady World by Preston Jones

32.1—January/February 2019

Role Reversals

Sex, Women's Ordination & the Rejection of Hierarchy & Equality by James A. Altena

33.5—September/October 2020

Killing Homicide

on Missing Fathers & Redemption in Prison by Bob Perry


more from the online archives

31.1—January/February 2018

In Defense of Prudery

The Wisdom of the Victorian Quest for Innocence by David Sandifer

24.1—January/February 2011

Secular Grendel

Ruminations on the Monstrous Envy of the Soul-Devouring State by Anthony Esolen

30.1—Jan/Feb 2017

Family Matters

Domestic Altars & Godly Offspring by Allan C. Carlson

calling all readers

Please Donate

"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand

"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor

Support Touchstone

00