What sort of ministers does RME believe the Church needs? Like the Green report, RME is pragmatic in its outlook, favouring a corporate, management-driven institutional approach to ministerial training. It makes a respectful nod towards the words of Jesus in Matthew 9.37, in its single reference to scripture.
Yet, on the whole, it avoids advocating any explicitly theological engagement with ministry, apparently seeing this as peripheral (something the Church doesn’t need), a luxury (something the Church can’t afford), or – crucially – divisive (causing needless controversy within the Church).
To be asked to minister without an informing vision of God (which is what theology is really all about), however, is like being told to make bricks without straw. What keeps people going in ministry, and what, in my experience, congregations are longing for, is an exciting and empowering vision of God, articulated in a theology that is integrated with worship, prayer, and social action.
Ministry has both vertical and horizontal dimensions, standing at the intersection of God and the world. Both those dimensions need to be sustained. RME’s exclusively pragmatic approach to ministerial training risks the loss of its core motivation and inspiration for Christian ministry.
[blockquote] “The concerns of the people of God need to be high on RME’s agenda. The parish congregations I serve regularly tell me what they want from their clergy. They want help in reading the Bible and understanding its message. They want help in deepening their faith and their life of prayer (they might not always use the word “spirituality”, but that’s what they’re getting at).
They want help in facing challenging life issues, and doing things right when faced with complex ethical questions. They want reassurance and guidance as they face up to illness and death.
And, in the end, all these questions demand answers from ministers who are informed and nourished by a sound knowledge of the Christian faith.” [/blockquote]
I know that many ministers in the Church of England have these qualities.
The problem is, as Dr McGrath rightly pinpoints, that the CofE doesn’t seem to make the continuing development of these qualities a primary focus of its latest reports. That doesn’t augur well for the future.