Should clergy wear distinctive garb? A low-key debate has been started in the correspondence columns of this newspaper and whatever the sartorial merits of black, blue or purple shirts and white plastic collars, lying behind the debate are serious questions about the nature of Christian ministry.
It is rumoured that research was done in a university science faculty on the benefits and defects of continuous wearing of the clerical collar. The only verifiable data to emerge was that wearing a stiff collar restricted the supply of blood to the brain which, the researchers reasonably posited, might in part account for the behaviour of some clergy!
What is beyond dispute is that no fixed ministerial order is laid down in the New Testament, nor is there any indication that those in pastoral positions then were marked out by any particular dress code. That pastoral care was indispensable for the welfare of the church and that it should be adaptable to local needs was never an issue. Leaders, or elders, were chosen from within the congregation, not imposed from without, and what we have become used to - one minister for one congregation - was then unknown. Instead, there was a pastoral team which likely included full-time and part-time ministers, depending on the size of the church.
In sharp contrast to today's professional ministry, where academic qualifications are considered paramount, St Paul saw moral integrity, loyalty to the apostles' teaching and a gift for teaching it to others as essential requirements. The shepherds would tend Christ's sheep, as he had commanded, by feeding them and that nourishment was in the form of sound teaching.
The New Testament knows nothing of the structured priestly and hierarchical ministry of today's denominations. There, the scope of the priesthood is universal, embracing all God's people, as indeed is the diaconate, for we are all called to diakonia, works of humble service. However, the church is not a universal pastorate. All God's people are priests, all are ministers or servants, but "he gave some to be pastors and teachers" (Ephesians 4:11). The leader of a local church was therefore primarily a pastor/teacher which led to the stress that candidates must be "able to teach" (1 Timothy 3:2) and "hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it" (1 Timothy 1:9).
The two qualifications go together. Leaders must be loyal to apostolic teaching and have a clear gift for communicating it, whether to a crowded congregation, a small group, or one to one. Jesus himself taught in all three contexts and what distinguishes pastoral ministry in the apostolic writings is that it is a ministry of God's Word.
Now, as then, a congregation's attitude to its minister should not be determined by whether he wears his collar back to front, or dresses like a member of the chorus in Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, or insists on being addressed by honorific titles.
A perceptive congregation will assess whether their minister is faithful in teaching what the apostles taught and then humbly receive his message and submit to it, recognising it as the message of Jesus Christ to them.
The principal difficulty of wearing the garb and defining one's status and authority by it is that the very word "ministry" means lowly, menial service. It is peculiarly perverse, therefore, to put one's eggs in the status basket of shirts, collars, robes and titles when Jesus himself specifically distinguished between ruling and serving, clinging to authority and exercising ministry. Rule and authority thought of in those terms were pagan concepts, he taught, while his model was defined in the context of his own mission: "the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark's Gospel 10:45). Of course some authority attaches to ministry, and it is a scandal when congregations denigrate and demean godly clergy who serve them as Christ himself would have, by neither honouring their role nor funding them adequately. However, that a debate on the issue is taking place in Ireland is a sign of hope, for clericalism has been, and is a scandal. What it does, by concentrating power and privilege in the hands of the clergy, is at least to obscure the essential oneness of the people of God. At worst, it opens a wide door to all kinds of abuse, the entail of which can damage and demoralise Christ's flock for generations.
Optimism for reform and renewal of the church must be rooted in the truth that the church is Christ's and not ours. Perhaps the debate about those uncomfortable collars will lead on to more profound consideration of a holistic and integrated vision of renewal in every dimension of the church's life. G.F.