Even though some Christian traditions are anti-clerical, they still have clerics. Very few groups are pure enough in their eschewal of clericalism that they do away with the pastoral office altogether.
Perhaps the most famous are the Quakers. They have no clergy, and generally not even paid staff in their local bodies. Outside Christianity, Mormonism has a similar structure at the local level, although if you go up to the national level there begin to be paid staff who function quite similar to clergy or bishops.
Lutherans, though their first clergy were defrocked by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, nevertheless established an ordination process for clergy and saw no reason to do away with the office of pastor and presider. Quite to the contrary, Lutheranism has for the most part retained what might even be considered an intense focus on the office of pastor in the local congregation.
In a way (and this is bizarre) there can’t be a Lutheran Church without a called pastor, because it is the ordained pastor who alone is authorized (even in my own rather liberal ELCA) to preside at communion, and it is communion (the Eucharist) more than anything else in the life of the local congregation that “makes” the church.
If you spend a bit of time thinking about it, you’ll realize honestly how imbalanced the emphasis on the function of pastor is in most local congregations. Your pastor is likely expected to be the preacher, main bible teacher, liturgical expert, pastoral care provider, hospital visitor, steward of the tradition, not to mention chief executive officer with business acumen and perhaps also the staff supervisor and HR expert.
If your pastor is a bit outside the box, they might also serve as community organizer, social work provider, fundraiser, social justice advocate, etc.
Now I’ll be honest. I’ve always been more into being a Renaissance man than a specialist. I like to do a lot of different thing. So of course pastor was attractive as a profession for precisely this reason. On any given day I can wear a dozen hats if I so choose, from youth director to rock musician to hospice chaplain.
But this extraordinary hyper-focus on the function of one person (or a small paid set of people) within the life of the local congregation also has the tendency to crowd out the gifts and interests of the unpaid members of the body of Christ, and even results in a name being given to all the people who are “not clergy.” We call them the “laity.”
So here’s my best Lutheran argument for a more Quaker form of Lutheran ecclesiology. I’d like to argue the best Lutheranism should adopt the mentality: there are no laity. And should also point out: and we need more priests.
Let’s start with the “no laity” argument. Really, it doesn’t make sense to designate a category of Christian who is “not” one of the other kinds of Christian, because we confess that every Christian at their baptism receives the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I’m not going to go down the whole rabbit hole of whether people are gifted as apostles, preachers, teachers, shepherds, etc. because honestly I think that whole discussion is kind of over-wrought. But I do believe that each member of the body of Christ is a member of the body of Christ, and so has gifts to share as part of the body.
So it just doesn’t make sense to label everyone other than one group with gifts—the clergy—as “not clergy” because then it implies so many things we don’t actually want to teach or emphasize in Christian life.
On the other hand, we do need the Quaker idea that, sitting together in community, at any point in time anyone might come forward with a word, might be inspired to contribute. When there are no laity, everyone is a priest. I think this is honestly a much better position to take as Lutherans, because as we often discuss it was Luther himself who emphasized the priesthood of all believers, and we are all just always trying to actually live into that priesthood.
So what about the clergy? I mean, all y’all do pay me a salary to do this thing. I’m a full-time Christian in a way distinct from many others, which then frees me up to at least be “more of the things” than those who work 50 hours a week.
For my money (and I do get paid money to spend time thinking these things) the best move in our theology of clergy is to de-mythologize the office of pastor/priest/cleric. That is to say, think of pastors in the same way as you think about electricians, or welders.
We’re a guild. Yes, we have some sweet skills that you would find difficult to emulate without long practice. But in a way these are just practical, work-a-day chops. It’s our trade. But we weren’t “called” to a special vocation anymore than a plumber, or a computer programmer.
We just happen to know, because this is the way humans work, that the larger an organization is, the more it needs at least some paid staff to make things function well. Every organization knows this, from the Rotary to the Quakers to food franchises that sell lemonade. Anyone can staff one lemonade stand unpaid. Want to sell lemonade to every Chick-fil-A in the world? You’ll need to pay some people, and ideally pay people who are really good at what they do.
In the meantime, how would this affect the local congregation? Well, for one it would introduce more inter-changeability. I’ve thought for a long time that it is wrong-headed to put a gate around communion and claim it’s only the real meal of Jesus if an ordained pastor presides at it.
I see no warrant for this in Scripture, and every warrant, based on the words of Jesus, that Christians are free to profligately administer the sacrament of Holy Communion anywhere and always where Christians gather and there is bread and wine and the memory of Jesus.
Similarly, members of the body, inasmuch as they have time and energy, could and should jump into more of the pastoral functions: hospital visitation, preaching, teaching, speaking out as prophets, etc.
And in the meantime, we would all be better served by secularizing the function of the paid pastors in a church. Which isn’t to say that God isn’t at work in and through pastoral preparations to teach, or preach, or preside at worship, but rather that God is not MORE present in that work than in any other work of the body in whatever place or capacity. It is the hyper-spiritualizing of clergy-work that is problematic here.
Spiritualize everything. Then we’re all good.
There are no laity, because we are all priests. Now go make some good and godly trouble in the name of Jesus, who wasn’t a priest either. Except that he was.
I would absolutely love to volunteer to work in the office, do hospital visits or whatever is needed. Would also like to deliver a message at services at some point.
From one Quaker to a great would-be Quaker, nice job Pastor