Readers Write
Essay 1/17/14: Clergy Unfettered
Rabbi Larry Maher, Parrish, FL: I couldn't agree more [with your essay "Clergy Unfettered"]. I had a 50+ year career as a Reform Rabbi, and heard frequently from members of my congregational boards -- "You can't say that rabbi." "Remember that our congregants pay dues, and those dues pay your salary." "You upset the congregation too often." In too many congregations, it was assumed that the rabbi's role was to placate the membership, to tell them what they wanted to hear, and the basics of Judaism and its teachings be damned. Ronald Pickett, Columbia, SC: I am one of those clergy about whom you wrote. I have, in fact, not used my real name but have vouchsafed it to you privately, because if what I have to say became public I would lose my pension. Organized religion in this country is the Rotary Club at lunch and Friday night football, complete with the "Star Spangled Banner" and much cheerleading. Fifty years ago I had dithered between law and the ministry. I dithered in the wrong direction. Thanks for your encouragement. Joel Pugh, Dallas, TX: Thanks for the new word. Had not heard of "bunkum." We use a different word here in Texas (a bovine reference). Don Caley, Milford, MI: A strange way to live a life, yes. But don't discount the myriad positive ways you've touched other lives. I personally know of several instances when you've expressed a thought, or put words to a feeling that a listener or reader had, but just couldn't articulate. It is liberating to suddenly realize that someone else on the planet is on the same wavelength as you are. Lois Bailey, St. Clair Shores, MI:
As I read your essay, I thought, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Sixty years ago, while living in Romulus (Michigan), the pastor of the United Methodist Church in that town was trying to move a white church into acceptance of those who lived across the tracks. Did not work then, and probably does not work now. Another pastor of two churches in the Flint area, one a small country -- white -- church, and the other a black church in a black community in the north end of Flint -- and I guess the folks who make assignments thought after 60 years it would be easy. Well, guess what: the agony is the same. Acceptance does not exist in those churches. The pastor is a white man, trying to get acceptance between those two congregations, only to be met with anger and frustration, because of his messages -- acceptance, working to feed the poor, and the homeless, etc.-- the Gospel according to Jesus -- they want to keep looking backwards, over their shoulders, about how it used to be -- not that it was so great back then.
Brian McHugh, Silver City, NM:
It's interesting to see one's life described on the Internet. Yep, disillusionment, certainly. But then, it was really my own fault. When I left the religious life, I wish I had known to strike out in a different way. I was never meant to be a parish priest, in the business of propping up institutions that are very difficult to prop up! However, I tried to do in parish ministry what I had done in my work as a monk. That is, to lead people to a deeper sense of faith, religion, and, in fact, beyond faith. To see how the world worked, how existence really was, and what was that great and immense mystery of life, which the word "god" barely touches. Yes, it turned out to be mostly comforting the comforted -- which meant that they could use Jesus to justify all of their prejudices and petty hatreds and self-delusions. Oh well. Water under the bridge. Now, I am taking this year to learn how to define myself, or perhaps present myself, as the person I am, shed of all of the "Rev." stuff. Just being me. Strangely, I am able to be much more the person I wanted to be, now that I have nothing to do with the institutional church. Life is full of mysteries. Two priest friends of mine, in their 70s, have both renounced their ordination vows. And both of them are much happier.
Elizabeth Oakes, Burke, VA:
Don't despair. There are many of us out there. I am one of them.
Fred Fenton, Concord, CA: Your "Clergy Unfettered" essay reveals a hidden source of energy and inspiration for institutional religion. Retired clergy with years of experience in the field could be valuable partners in reshaping church and synagogue for vital ministry today. Instead, they are largely left to themselves, as they were during their years of active ministry. It is assumed they are too old and desire to be left alone, and thus a valuable resource is wasted. Consider the example of Pope Francis. Arriving at the age he was required to retire as archbishop, he made arrangements to live in a retirement home for clergy. Friends said he appeared tired and depressed. Then, surprise, he found himself elected Pope. Big smiles lit up his face, his energy was restored, and he began a remarkable effort to revive and restore his church throughout the world.
Blayney Colmore, La Jolla, CA: I would say he [your pastor] "humbles" more than shames me. I can only assume that -- in addition to his more Zen-like personality -- his "faith" exceeds mine. By that I mean his confidence in some inchoate eschatalogy that promises, as Dame Julian said, "All things shall be well; and all manner of things shall be well." I hugely admire your pastor for his patience and faithfulness in carrying on his good works fed by that conviction. Phillip Dickson, Minneapolis, MN: You speak for so many of us who have gone down the road you describe. I never became a scholar, but I knew what I believed and what was believable. I could not preach or teach that which was not believable. I had to drop out before it killed me. I took refuge -- don't laugh -- in the life insurance business, though I am long since out of that, too. Mari Bonomi, Kilmarnock, VA: Reading about the clergy who've retired from the pulpits, et al, because they refuse to speak "bunkum" reminded me of Our Jewish Community, the online arm of Congregation Beth Adam in I think it's Cincinnati. It's a humanist synagogue, co-led by two rabbis, one of them a young woman who went through elementary school with my daughter, Rabbi Laura Baum. I actually have been taken aback on occasion by how far from the traditional bunkum these two teachers have moved -- and I'm a secular humanist "cultural" Jew.
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