I must begin this piece with an apology to my several priestly friends (I hope they remain friends after reading it!). There are undoubtedly many places in the Anglican Communion where priest and laity work harmoniously together for the greater glory of God, at all times and in all circumstances. In the early church, such a balance did, one imagines, exist. The Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians and Romans may have moaned a bit from time to time but I can’t remember them actually complaining of being bullied by St Paul.

But there is also a parallel universe in which things do not always go that smoothly. According to a paper on the website of The Episcopal Church called Towards a Theology of Ministry:

In 1999, the Zacchaeus Project pointed to a theological truism in our community: when the trained clergy (bishops, priests, and deacons) and all baptized persons work together in mutually empowering service in mission, then the church experiences significant success in ministry. In a wide range of theological settings—Anglo-Catholic to total ministry, progressive to evangelical—the Zacchaeus findings echoed oddly similar themes of mutuality, servanthood, respect, and shared ministry. The old dichotomy between “lay” and “ordained” is fading. It is being replaced with a vision of American religious history. In the Episcopal Church, the decline stopped in the early 1990s and membership has held steady for a number of years around 2.5 million. It should also be noted that in spite of the numerical decline, the Zacchaeus Project data identified greater vitality in terms of church attendance and giving in the Episcopal Church in the 1990s than anytime since the 1960s….
If mutuality between clergy and lay persons in ministry was identified by the Zacchaeus Project as key for healthy congregations, then two corresponding problems existed in troubled ones: clericalism or laicism. Clericalism is an often discussed problem. An inappropriate sense of clergy authority has led, sadly, to a host of issues regarding abuse and malpractice. The opposite problem, laicism, is less discussed. In the case of an inappropriate sense of lay authority, laity conceive of the church as their “property” and the clergy their “employees.” In such circumstances, lay persons commit abuses as well—undermining clerical ministries, refusing financially to support the church, forcing clergy from positions. In either case, clericalism or laicism, the church becomes a battle ground for power issues and any real sense of the mission of church is lost.

A major difference within the Anglican Communion has been highlighted by the present attempt to introduce the Covenant: whereas the Episcopal Church has since its inception recognised the laity as one of the four orders of ministry by virtue of baptism, the Church of England recognises only bishops, priests and deacons. Other churches in the Communion presumably take one view or the other. On the face of it, one might think that relations between the priesthood and the laity might be more harmonious in those churches which take the same line as TEC, but the above paper suggests this may not necessarily be the case. In a ‘Church Times’ article in the issue of 17 September 2010, the Revd Hugh Valentine argued that ‘Clericalism is the bigger problem for all Churches…ecclesiastical models of power infantilise lay people’.

The UK’s ‘Church Times’ reported on the first residential meeting of the Diocesan Lay Chairmen, which was held in 2008. Under the headline ‘Unease at attitudes to Laity’, Bill Bowder writes: they heard Professor Gordon Stirrat, lay chairman of Bristol diocesan synod, say that “the New Testament pattern of the ‘ministry of the many’ has been turned by the Church of England into ‘the ministry of the few’.” Terms such as “priest-in-charge” and “interregnum” implied clerical supremacy, he said… The co-convener of the meeting, David Hawkins, lay chairman in Worcester diocese, said afterwards that he and some of the others were “very desperate” about the state of the Church. “You only have to go north to see how desperate it is.” There was a problem of dislike. “Some of the bishops don’t like laity, just as some consultants don’t like patients; and the middle ranks of the clergy feel threatened by the laity.” But the laity were “enormously talented”. 

There is a debate going on at the Lay Anglicana discussion forum which gives more detail than I can here, including a successful  relationship in Norwich diocese between the Revd Fiona Newton and her Lay Elders.

There is undoubtedly at present a rising demand by the laity for an increased share in the running of the church, perhaps inspired by the increasing democratisation of other institutions. But it also comes down in the end to numbers. Nature abhors a vacuum and so do Anglican congregations around the world: if there are not enough priests to run each parish church, sharing the responsibility with the laity must be a better alternative than simply abandoning the task.

What do you think?

Note: The illustration ‘reverend2’ is by Lee Pirie, courtesy 12 Baskets.