Trapped: Stuck between Keeping our Jobs and Preaching What Needs to Be Heard

T R A P P ED : Stuck between keeping our jobs and preaching what needs to be heard

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By Randy VanDeventer

Just as I began writing, it happened again. Another straw heaped upon the camel’s back in the form of yet another story about a pastor needing to choose between their job and their integrity. This particular episode came from Christian Piatt, author and blogger from Portland. He tells about a friend who lost her job as a pastor after exploring the role of doubt in the life of faith publicly with her church. Alarmed, her elders sat her down to press her about “what she really believed.” Here is a piece of her story: “I had a choice... I could continue collecting a paycheck and doing ‘ministry’ to people who wanted me to pretend to

with which I am most familiar, this is seeming less and less like a scattering of unfortunate incidents and more like an unhealthy trend. Last year, when Fuller hosted the Talk of God, Talk of Science conference here in Pasadena, this was constantly at the fore. At a conference geared toward a more constructive engagement with science in the faith community, and particularly from the pulpit, there were constant concerns being raised to the tune of: “Everything we’ve talked about here is great, and I think it would be helpful to talk about, but if I admit that to my congregation I will lose my job.” This makes becoming a pastor sound like an effective shutting down of all critical thought processes.

“Everything we’ve talked about here is great, and I think it would be helpful to talk about, but if I admit that to my congregation I will lose my job.” be something I was not. Or I could free myself from that dishonesty to explore what it is that I really believe...”

The more stories I hear, the more it seems like “pretending to be something you are not” is a basic part of the pastoral job description.

Lately, I feel as though I’m hearing stories like this everywhere I turn. Of course, I realize that they do not represent the whole of pastoral experience.

But especially in the Evangelical waters

As though taking a job in a congregation means you have to promise never to introduce anything new or challenging.

The church does not want its feathers ruffled, especially not from those it considers called to be beacons of static, unshakeable faith. I was once a part of a “teaching team” at a large evangelical church, where a small group of pastors and volunteers met to plan out sermons and outline teaching content. It was a common occurrence, in considering what to communicate from the pulpit, to hear the phrase, “Well, that’s true, but

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we can never say it.” I could frequently sense palpable fear that certain good ideas were a little too good. The type of wrestling common to the human experience- and especially the journey of Christian faith- seems to be rather undesirable in pastors.

Outlooks for those among us looking towards a future in academia might not be all that different. Many readers will be aware of stories like that of Howard Van Till, a scientist whose ideas concerning evolution effectively ended his career at Calvin College; or Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who was kicked out of Westminster Seminary after publishing a book that questioned modern views on Biblical inerrancy. Enns talks about this atmosphere in Christian academia often

vided you come to predetermined conclusions.” People like Enns and Van Till have had their credibility, and their faith, deeply questioned because their conclusions challenged what some consider to be theologically non-negotiable.

Because challenging the status quo is not for Christians. Can I get an Amen?

These academic horror stories mirror something very similar that is going on in the American church. Excellence in pastoral duties is expected and mostly rewarded, until one disrupts the pre-conceived ideas that a community has about what a pastor ought to be and do. In a recent interview with the Homebrewed Christianity podcast entitled “10 Dirty Secrets About Being

“Degrees, books, papers, and other marks of prestige are valued-provided you come to predetermined conclusions.” in his blog for Patheos.com. One such pieced is called, “If They Only Knew What I Thought,” in which he talks specifically about the pervasive reality of professors at Christian institutions who have to choose every day between academic integrity and putting food on the table [It is by far his most read post.

I do not suppose this is a coincidence].

Enns sees the evangelical academic climate as one largely built around defending rather than critically exploring.

Elsewhere, Enns says that in Evangelical academia, “...degrees, books, papers, and other marks of prestige are valued- pro-

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a Minister”, writer and ex-pastor Greg Horton spoke about the idea of those in full-time ministry being a prop. The good side of this is the opportunity to be there for people, to prop them up, to help them. The bad side is being treated as though one’s only function is to serve whatever presupposed role people decide you ought to serve. You become a tool rather than a person, and the second you deviate from that perceived function and show yourself to be a [gasp] normal human being, you’re out of the job.

What does all of this say about the Christian community in America? In the same interview, Horton noted the fact that he and many of his contemporaries constantly had to deal with the reality that those members of a church who donate the most money get a clear privilege over everybody else, especially when it comes to hiring (or firing) a pastor. The same is true for large donors at Christian academic institutions. Many of these schools would love to talk more and fund more research about certain topics, but fear what kind of financial ramifications it would have on the school.

Ah, the golden rule. Whoever has the gold, makes the rules. Christian Community 101, am I right?

I am happy to say that Fuller does not strike me as such a place, although I’m certain that our school’s history contains more than one episode of faith leaders straining to toe this dubious line between being honest and being employed.

Historical accounts of Fuller legend Carl F.H. Henry suggest that the suspicious absence of pieces in Christianity Today in support of civil rights was due in large part to fear of losing the support of the publication’s earliest financier, an oil tycoon called J. Howard Pew. Henry’s biography is riddled with stories of having to toe the line, and find ways to be true to his faith without losing the support of his community.

I want to say clearly that I don’t have much by way of a constructive solution. I also realize that my tone might come off as that of a spoiled seminarian whining that people in his field of interest cannot simply do whatever they

please. I have recently been in conversation with people who I feel would offer valuable criticism to my thoughts, and I hope they will do so publicly. My primary goal in all of this is to try to bring these issues to the surface. In the Peter Enns blog post mentioned above, Enns laments that he could formulate a hefty list of scholars and leaders that feel trapped beneath a dishonest façade, ever terrified that they might disturb the waters just enough to ruin their careers. I fear I could make a similar list of pastors and faith leaders who feel that the only way to be the person they feel called to be is to vacate positions of pastoral leadership. I find this trend disturbing, and I think it points to some of the current church’s systemic problems.

A community of people looking ahead to [or already in] similar positions ought to consider these problems more openly, as letting them fester will only rob our communities of the dynamic journey that should resemble the life of faith.

Randy VanDeventer is an MDiv student from New Hampshire. His favorite theologians are Abraham Joshua Heschel and George Carlin. He deals craps on the weekend and enjoys a good pair of sweatpants.

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