Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 65:259 (Jul 1908)
Article: The Expert Minister, And His Training Of His Laymen
Author: George Walter Fiske

BSac 65:259 (July 1908) p. 465

The Expert Minister, And His Training Of His Laymen

Prof. George Walter Fiske

It ought to be a mere truism to say that Congregationalism must be saved by its laymen. Theoretically the Congregational Church is a pure democracy, composed only of laymen, with a universal priesthood of believers and no clergy class. Our ministerial dignity is really only the dignity of labor in an aristocracy of service. We are simple, unassuming ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, not ordained to special powers, prerogatives, or dignities, but set apart to serve. Our ministry is not an order, a class, a caste, but simply an office,—the office merely of a leader among equals.

But we often forget this, and our overappreciative flocks sometimes help us to forget it; for some parsons are born to the cloth, some assume priestliness, and others have priestly honors thrust upon them. All of which is something else. It is not Congregationalism. In the strictest sense, theoretically we are all laymen. But practically we are clergymen. Our doctrine of utter ministerial democracy has become compromised by the common consensus of the character of the Christian ministry, and we are inevitably involved in the interdenominational composite photograph which modern life has put together and expects us measurably to live up to.

If this composite has some features strange to us, such as a Roman collar and a St. Andrews cross, a Lambeth waist-

BSac 65:259 (July 1908) p. 466

coat and a Geneva gown, a Quaker hat, a smooth-shaven face, extra-long and Calvinistic, an Epworth tone, an orthodox unction and a general high-church ensemble,—our simon-pure Congregationalism may feel as uncomfortable in such a conglomeration of toggery as the stripling David; but modern society seems to expect us to play the part. Something like this they fancy the professional “elder” to be.

But if we ministers eschew all such accidentals, tags, earmarks of clericalism, and claim merely to be manly men among men, they at first wonder, then welcome, then embrace. The world does like a manly minister. It is merely bored by the professional parson. At present the ministry is traditionally regarded as “in orders” ; but rapidly, I apprehend, the layman-minister is coming to his own.

Granted that, according to present standards, we must make a distinction between the ministers as a class, and the laymen; then it is far from a truism to say that Congregationalism must be saved by its laymen. Ministers have been increasingly regarded as clerics, paid to do the professional work of religion, until in some parishes in the frigid zone they have come to expect the pastor to do all the preaching, all the prayi...