Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 64:256 (Oct 1907)
Article: The Christian Ministry A Pragmatic Life
Author: A. A. Berle

BSac 64:256 (Oct 1907) p. 738

The Christian Ministry A Pragmatic Life

Rev. A. A. Berle

Three distinguished gentlemen have recently undertaken to set forth their ideas of “the ministry as a profession,” in addresses before the Divinity Club of Harvard University,— the Reverend George A. Gordon, D.D., pastor of the Old South Church in Boston, facile princeps among preachers and spiritual interpreters, speaking on “The Claims of the Ministry upon Strong Men”; the Right Reverend William Lawrence, Bishop of Massachusetts, speaking on “The Ministry from a Practical Point of View”; and President Eliot himself discussing “More Harvard Graduates for the Ministry,” though incidentally indicating with great candor and clearness his idea of the ministry. The addresses, issued by the University, have been bound for general circulation.

The discussion of the ministry at this time and by such men is itself symptomatic of an interesting condition in the church, the theological school, and the ministry itself. The three addresses may therefore be taken as the effort of the only purely undenominational theological school in the land to utter itself on the subject of the profession for which it is to train young men. It will not escape attention here, that these addresses are not delivered by members of the Faculty themselves. It will also appear that one of them is delivered by a layman, the particular layman, in fact, whose personal attitude and influence may be said to have done more to discredit the standing of clergymen in the community than that of any

BSac 64:256 (Oct 1907) p. 739

other man in America. No one who knows the history of President Eliot’s attitudes toward religious institutions and leaders, in the last thirty years, will venture to question this statement, notwithstanding he has a son in the ministry, and is closing his illustrious career with what must seem to students of his intellectual history a distinct attempt at reversal of an influence which was distinctly felt throughout the land for twenty-five years at least.

It will be noticed, also, that a second of the three addresses was delivered by a member of a body whose popular interests are distinctly secondary in the church of which he is a member, and who himself, by tradition and interests, is allied to forms of application to fundamental concerns of the Christian gospel which must make his address, as an “appeal,” worthless to any one who knows the facts. Even the most casual inquiry among industrial circles in Massachusetts will instantly bring this to light. The third was delivered by the only man of the three who may be said to know anything about the ministry as a life and as a whole life. And what this signifies for the discussion appears as the address ...