THE CHURCH of England has been thrown in to turmoil following the leak of a restricted Ministry Division report finding that clergy are not up to the job.
While the Archbishop of Canterbury’s spokesman insisted that they were not aware of many complaints, shortly after The Sunday Telegraph revealed the findings of the report, Quality and Quantity Issues in Ministry, ecclesiastical blogs filled with bitter remarks illustrating the betrayal and hypocrisy observed by clergy.
In a response to concerns expressed by bishops over the standard of clergy, the report surveyed the opinions of 37 diocesan bishops, about 90 per cent of the House of Bishops. A third of those replied that half of the stipendiary priests in their diocese were unable to meet the challenges of ministry. Only one bishop replied that he was very confident that the newly ordained have the gifts and abilities to meet those challenges.
In response to the furoré, the Ministry Division issued a press statement which said: “One insight not reported was that more than eight in ten bishops expressed confidence that our newly ordained clergy have the gifts and abilities to meet such challenges and opportunities.”
Oh my.
Why is this and what can/should be done? Is St. Stephen’s House at Oxford still good? Where else do Anglo-Catholic seminarians go in the U.K.? What are the best remaining seminaries for low churchmen?
What is really so remarkable about this? Most of the bishops and other clergy in the U.S., Canada and England apparently are not even able to understand the Book that Christians declare to be the revealed word of God.
#1: archangelica, can’t a liberal like you put 2 and 2 together? Anglo-Catholics have been effectively driven out of the CofE by WO, and now women bishops will be the coup de grace.
As for clergy quality in the CofE, from what I know of the English scene: most newly ordained people in England are women in the 40s or 50s, who’ve been through part time courses. Some dioceses have ordained almost no men in the past year and no one under 30. The women ordained may be pastorally minded but will not provide dynamic leadership. Most will incline to a soft liberalism.
Where have all the young men gone?
Let me be brutally honest…as a male priest in his thirties the calibre of those ordained with me – and then training alongside me during my post ordination training course was shockingly bad.
When I met those I was to train with it was a huge dent to my morale- and I seriously questioned what I was doing. So many broken, dysfunctional souls who then set the agenda. Page one of the college manual encouraged us to ‘trawel our woundedness’. Get a life! It is sad but the majority of these people would be overlooked by any semi serious recruitment company. As well as being needy they often had unkempt hair and took little care of their appearance. That said- a resonable minority did have some genuine promise. (Thank God).
At theological college I can think of a frighteningly large number who had obvious psychiatric disorders. One woman had just fallen out of a very painful ivorce and railed against men at every opportunity- how was she to minister to God’s flock? She was due to do a part time course- but when her marriage collapsed the church in its infinate wisdom bumped her up to full time training!! Sadest of all the college delighted in mocking evangelcials and loathing forward in faith- the name of Jesus was seldom used..for it seemed to cause acute embarrasment. Everyone claimed to be Catholic but it was all chasuble and no knickers. The college only really seemed to worship intellectualism – most academics being placed on pedestals- their genius declared by ‘enlightened’ liberal views. I failed one essay outright – for using the term ‘mankind’. That was it- sexist language- FAIL no chance of it being re- marked. A college where as an orthodox believer I felt the need to withdraw- and hide for three years- rather than show my true colours.
My post ordination training course faired little better. Most were middle aged women or chronically wet men- who had very little intellectual grasp of theology and prefered to gush sentimentally about their ‘feelings’. The worst of all was the woman actually running the course- in three years she gave us NOTHING to read. An educational course whereby theological reading was not required!!!!! Instead we shared stories and discovered our vulnerability etc… on top of that we were given semi pagan worship including prayers addressed to ‘Mother God.’ And the result when I complained to the Bisho? I was labelled a trouble maker and my card was marked!! I became the nasty uncharitable male who was being uncaring towards these poor cretins!
The really sad thing is that the Church is so wet and nice it dare not turn anyone away. So it shows abundant ‘care’ to the cretinous ordained – forgetting that putting them into a parish is only setting them up for failure! They then break down or are ineffectual and the malais continues. Increasingly driven and capable young men will not even consider the church – for when they look to it there will be no-one to act as mentors and inspirational figures. I predict that if nothing changes- 75% of vicars will be middle aged mummies by the year 2015 and that is NOT a good thing for holy mother church.
#4
I hear what you are saying and it gives me pause.
What I’m wondering about after reading about your experience (which as an Affirming Catholic reappraiser I find to be a sad, sorrowful, milk toast state of affairs in theological education) is this:
Were there no/any solid, deep thinking, deeply devoted to Jesus women preparing for ordination? I ask this because here in Dallas we have several female clergy who are theologically astute, absolutely orthodox and Evangelical who have little or nothing in common with their more numerous liberal sisters in ordained ministry.
Also, are you able to name the school where you went? If not I certainly understand. Where would you reccomend a student desiring a rigourous, vibrant and robust theological education go these days?
#5 its not quite that simple.
At my college there were several VERY intelligent men and women. Oxbridge graduates and able academics….BUT their desire to preach the faith…was -let us say- less than evident. That college was Westcott House inj Cambridge. Half were able thinkers – the other half less so…
…my post ordination training was done in Chelmsford Diocese where the calibre was very low…tragically so
RPP: I have checked out the Westcott website in the past and noted how they proclaimed themselves ‘orthodox’. What you’ve described doesn’t sound remotely like the vision or theology of Westcott’s great namesake. But what you don’t mention is the gay or progay subculture that pervades liberal institutions in England. It’s also in liberal evangelical institutions like St John’s Durham. I understand this fact was one of the reasons Salisbury & Wells Seminary closed some years ago. And with Changing Attitude patron John Gladwyn as Bishop of Chlemsford, I’m not surprised your postordination training was so disappointing – but friends in England have told me similar stories from other dioceses. It’s often in the hands of a liberal catholic who hasn’t a clue about the gospel or how to preach it.
The mushiness you describe also infected evangelical seminaries in recent years – partly, I think, a reflection of the increasing number of women and an introspective obsession with ‘spirituality’, in which lighting candles and journaling took the place of old-fashioned prayer meetings for missions. But there has been, I understand, a reaction setting in. One seminary in Bristol recently replaced its dean with a mission-minded evangelical, and Wycliffe seminary in Oxford seems determined to produce some red-blooded preachers. Oakhill seminary in London is as resolutely reformed as ever, but with increasingly confident academic credentials.
The Achilles heel will continue to be the reliance in England on thin parttime courses populated mainly by middleaged women. So your projection for the future looks uncomfortably true. In such a setting, not many young men of ability and energy will be attracted to the ministry. This is one of the operations of the law of unintended consequences.