1. Who is Jesus? What does it mean to say “Jesus saves”? How do you interpret John 14:6?
2. Why is it important to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity? Why is it important that Jesus rose from the dead? If the bones of Jesus were found in a grave in Palestine, would that make any difference to Christian faith?
3. What is the central message of the gospel?
4. What is justification? Sanctification? How are they related?
5. What does God contribute to salvation, and what do we contribute? How are they related?
6. How do you understand divine sovereignty and providence? Can anything happen outside God’s will? Can human beings thwart God’s will?
7. Why do Christians pray if God already knows everything that will happen and exercises divine providence over the world?
8. For whom did Jesus die? If Jesus died for everyone, why isn’t everyone saved? Why do you think some people believe in Christ, and some don’t?
Good questions and not just for clergy. If we’re dedicated to forming the Christian community then at least some of these have Adult Forum written all over them.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
I think they can be used to interview ministers while searching for a new denomination. However, I think the list is of lesser value if one is looking to either the RCC or EO.
Let’s hope at least someone on the search committee can themselves answer the questions.
#1, Jeremy, how would you answer #15- “Was the Reformation mostly a good thing or mostly a bad thing”? Depending on your answer would you then be “Mostly Catholic and Reformed” or “Catholic and Mostly Reformed”?
This is a bit like a quiz from a High School apologetics class.
Phil (#4)
You’ve managed to identify a question to which, on mature reflection, I realize I could not give a straight “aye” or “nay.”
My response would be that it was necessary but that I deeply deplore its necessity. From which would follow “Mostly Catholic and Reformed.”
Brian (#5),
So what questions would you ask in order to ascertain a potential rector’s theology? Isn’t it reasonable to ask how a teacher of eternal truths would actually teach. I don’t see that these questions necessarily imply a single blueprint of belief but they do oblige one to define one’s terms.
And what’s so wrong with thoughtful apologetics anyway?
Thanks, Jeremy, I guess we’re all mostly Catholic. I look forward to Dr. Witt’s answers to his questions.
“Mostly Catholic and Reformed†or “Catholic and Mostly Reformed�
This is excellent.
One thing this would do is get the candidate to talk about what he/she actually believes. That can be surprisingly difficult with clergy.
I’ve noticed how often in church life we project our hopes or fears onto the rector’s ambiguities. How many sermons have I sat through, assuming I understood what the preacher believed about something only to find out long afterwards that he believed the opposite? I had simply hoped he meant something, when in fact he didn’t. Same problem with candidate interviews, I’m sure.
Part of the reason our congregations are often so woefully ignorant of scripture and theology is because we don’t demand preachers and teachers actually tell us something substantive. Asking hard, thoughtful questions at the beginning could not only reveal what the candidate believes, but also set the tone for future discourse. It might let him/her know that the parish expects clarity and thoughtfulness from its leaders.
Stephen+
I am intrigued by these questions, but as a priest myself, I would be more inclined to be happy answering these questions if the vestry were willing to answer them as well. I think that would go further in establishing trust and not turn the interview committee into a mini-inquisition.
#9
I agree with you. The line of questions could end up feeling like the 3rd degree if the search committee doesn’t reciprocate. However, I figure anything that points interviews in a theological direction would be a huge improvement. I don’t know about your experience, but mine has been that questions are more of the “will you be nice?” and “will you worship our parish’s sacred cows?” variety. Too much rides on being a nice guy and having the right schmoozing abilities, and not enough on the content of our faith.
Stephen+
Actually, I think Dr. Witt’s list of 22 important and revealing theological questions would make excellent questions for the GOE’s, i.e., the infamous General Ordination Exams that senior seminarians dread. The trouble is that many of them are difficult to answer briefly in a satisfying way, but it’s still a great conversation starter.
It also strikes me that just as the famous Alpha Course is organized around basic questions, so these 22 questions about fundamental issues in Christian theology could be used to provide a framework for a great series of adult education classes. Imagine a parish that took one of these 22 questions each week and discussed the issues involved over a six month period. It could be fun, and instructive.
And I agree that the search process is a two-way street. In my experience, a lot of search committees couldn’t agree on how to answer those 22 foundational questions. And it would be helpful for a candidate to discover that diversity of opinions from the start.
Way to go, Dr. Witt. A very practical idea.
David Handy+
These could be questions for an oral interview, but they more properly are meant, I would surmise, as questions for written responses. THAT’s when the fun begins, if a candidate gets past the initial review to being a finalist. The search committee (and although some search committees are prompted to have a different set of questions) has every right to ask FURTHER questions of the written answers. It might even be helpful to ask one or two of the already written questions and response as oral questions, just to see and hear if there is any difference between written and spoken responses from the candidate.
Of course, the parish profile is supposed to adequately reflect the status, the needs, the history and the hopes of the parish, and that would include some sense of current expression of faith and worship. Why shouldn’t these kinds of questions be included in the profile? That would be great, but daunting. Most search facilitators I’ve ever read or talked to will tell you that gaining some concensus on these questions would take a real act of God to gather, sort and state.
My feeling is that the search committee members should be asked to complete the same questions asked of each candidate, and then in the search committee meetings prior to the consideration of any candidate, be given the opportunity to share their answers with each other. Having heard the answers from a variety of others, the candidates’ responses will be easier to listen to critically, and can really inform oral questions later.
RGEaton
Good questions, but I would rephrase them away from theoretical and un-applied beliefs to ask the candidates how they have DEMONSTRATED those developed beliefs in their prior parishes.
I find it interesting and, particularly Episcopalian, that at least three priests on this thread wouldn’t want to answer the questions until they knew what the questioners thought about them. First, at a job interview, you don’t usually get to ask the interviewer what he/she thinks before you answer. Second, truth is truth. If I were a preist I’d be gratified that a search committee even cared about questions like these. Usually all they really want to know is if you will bore them during sermons (actual content irrelevant) and if you will look good a social events. Third, though I can’t speak for others, I would have no problem discussing these sorts of questions with my clergy or anyone else. I am pretty sure our last rector and my current bishop, both of whose searches I participated in, know exactly where I stand on the fundamentals of Christian faith–which is is why they don’t like me anymore.
David Keller (#15),
I’m not sure if you were counting me as one of those three priests or not, but if you were, I think you misunderstood the drift of my #12. I have NEVER been reticent about showing my hand theologically. I have always been very up front about where I was coming from theologically. My own tendency as a biblical scholar and theologian at heart who is also a priest (as opposed to being a priest or pastor at heart who is also trained as a biblical scholar) has been to accent my very distinctive theological position as a radical 3-D Christian and to do this as a way of setting me a part from the rest of the pack of candidates. And as a result, I’m quite sure that I failed to get several jobs it looked at first like I might get. But that’s OK, I really wouldn’t want to get those jobs anyway if the parish isn’t comfortable with my highly dogmatic style of preaching and ministry.
What I was trying to get across in my post #12 above was that if a search committee or vestry were to take Dr. Witt’s list of theological questions and discuss them seriously among themselves, I suspect that many search committees would quickly deadlock in a stalemate of opposing views. And that would be very revealing. It would show that they need to do their homework and reach some kind of clarity of what kind of priest they are really looking for in terms of his or her theological views before they proceed.
It’s true that mid-level management people can’t expect job interviews to be much of a two-way street. But with independent professionals, such as doctors or lawyrers seeking a new firm to practice their profession in, it’s a different story. Part of what’s going on in clergy search interviews is establishing whether the new priest expects to be the boss or leader of the parish, or whether the priest is willing to adopt a lesser role, leaving the vestry in charge. That may be exaggerating the contrasts in most contexts, but there is often an element of that power dynamic at work in such search interviews.
David Handy+
Never a cameleon or a blushing violet theologically
Brian (#5),
So what questions would you ask in order to ascertain a potential rector’s theology? Isn’t it reasonable to ask how a teacher of eternal truths would actually teach. I don’t see that these questions necessarily imply a single blueprint of belief but they do oblige one to define one’s terms.
And what’s so wrong with thoughtful apologetics anyway?
David Keller above points out the issue: It’s a list designed to exclude, by only one wrong answer, someone who does not 100% agree with you. Could you see this in a political party? Who among us could answer all of these questions exactly the way that William Witt would?
Thoughtful apologetics is fun when you’re at the “milk” stage of your faith, but at the “meat” stage it is a bit much.
I think as I’ve progressed from “milk” to “meat” I do prefer to know where my leaders (lay and ordained) are theologically.
I don’t think one would ask everyone these questions exactly as Dr. Witt has outlined them (some are more obviously scholarly than others) but I would want to know the answers less because I’m interested in determining sheep and goats (I think most of the people I know could best be described as theological alpacas, anyway) and more because I want to understand how their faith has come together. That might reveal something that made it impossible for me to work with them (in the sense that we would be working entirely at cross-purposes from the beginning) or something that challenged me to look at things differently. Understanding how they apply their faith in pastoral settings is equally important, but I also want to know how people are thinking about what they are doing and being.
I looked at the questions again and most seem open-ended to me.
[i]”Why is it important to believe in the doctrine of the Trinity?”
“How do you understand divine sovereignty and providence?”
“For whom did Jesus die?”
“How would you respond to someone who said they could not believe in God because of all the suffering and evil in the world?”[/i]
Obviously if one offered “liberal” takes on these questions Dr. Witt (and others) would draw certain conclusions, but couldn’t a similar set of questions be offered from a progressive point of view?
What is your theology of inclusion? Can one legitimately exclude the broken from the Holy Eucharist?
Postmodern scholarship has revealed the importance of cultural context. Is it appropriate to apply Old Testament mores to present-day social trends?
Need one believe every word of the Nicene Creed in order to recite it with integrity?
A call to ordained ministry is a uniquely personal experience. Is it ever appropriate for the community of faith to put this in doubt?
A search committee is always going to ask questions of some sort. Either they stick to generalities or they endeavor to find out who they’re hiring. Is it better that a potential pastor should be rejected because he or she is not seen to fit in “socially” (as I’m sure was the case in many Episcopal parishes in days gone by) or because the way he proposes to teach runs counter to the way the community itself believes?
I would seriously debate whether the majority of questions listed by Dr. Witt fall into the category of questions to be answered “rightly” or “wrongly.” They should simply be answered with integrity and the interviewers will have to judge if a question has been dodged.