Abstract
I am a Presbyterian minister serving St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Fergus a small town in Ontario, Canada, and that fact impacts how I view the intersection between religious faith and work. The Presbyterian Church in Canada defines my status as being a professional church worker. Woven through the essay will be engagement with the Judeo-Christian assertion that human beings are called to love the Lord their God with their entire being. The proposed essay will explore how the professionalization of clergy impacts the work-life of clergy including shaping their religious lives outside of work. Professionalization invites a splitting of work from the personal creating two spheres of life, this contrasts with the all-encompassing claims that the religious makes on life. Further professionalization has shaped clergy into risk managers, whereas religious belief is an invitation to risk-taking trusting the unseen which cannot be fully known. Here Marshall McLuhan’s discussion of the ‘amateur’ versus the ‘professional’ is helpful for he argues that amateurs can take risks, including the risk of losing because they love, while professionals are unable to risk because they are bound to, and by, the community of other professionals.
Citation: Bush, Peter. “Amateur or Professional?: Reclaiming the Role of the Amateur at the Intersection of Work and Religious Faith” The Jugaad Project, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2023, www.thejugaadproject.pub/amateur-or-professional [date of access]
In the liturgy used at the ordination of individuals into the Ministry of Word and Sacraments in The Presbyterian Church in Canada, the event marking them as a member of the clergy, the one being ordained is reminded of their call to love God and love people. The newly ordained are to be lovers of God and of people, they are to be amateurs. The word amateur comes to English from French amateur (“one who loves, lover”), which in turn got it from Latin amatorem (“lover, friend”). However, as the ordained person becomes part of the clergy of the denomination they are recognized as being among the Professional Church Workers of the church. These two understandings, the amateur and the professional, arising from the same action highlight the challenges, for Canadian Presbyterians at least, of being a person who is employed (works) as a religious leader. Are members of the clergy professionals or are they amateurs?
Professionals have a specialized knowledge—law, medicine, accountancy—that they offer to other people in need of their specialized knowledge but who do not possess that training and knowledge. Their specialized knowledge marks them off from those who do not possess that training and knowledge, they are part of a community bounded by their specialized knowledge. In their work, professionals are guided by a set of practices and behaviours established by the community of professionals. This community creates processes to monitor the practice of individuals and to ensure they are working to the standard established. Such professional standards protect those outside the profession from various forms of professional misconduct, the standards are thus a benefit to both the profession and the wider community. Professionals in order to remain in good standing in their profession follow the lead of their professional organization.
This description fits well with some aspects of the lives of members of the clergy. Clergy possess a specialized knowledge, theology and pastoral care, having been schooled in the tools needed to interpret ancient sacred texts, learning the practices of caring for souls, and developing the management practices of leading religious organizations. Clergy in The Presbyterian Church in Canada are entrusted “in a special degree of responsibility” to ensure that the doctrinal standards of the church are upheld. Having received theological training and having been approved for ordination they have the knowledge to carry out this special task. Further they have the right to administer the sacraments of baptism and communion (also called the eucharist), ensuring that the sacraments are rightly administered. On this view, members of the clergy are professionals for they have special training to perform tasks that those who have not been trained cannot do, at least within The Presbyterian Church in Canada. There are other Christian denominations who have similar practices. These practices and patterns of work shape the way in which clergy function. These professional standards are a good for they function to warn against, and punish, actions that are clerical malpractice. Clergy turn to this professional standard, parts of which have been written down and other parts not, to know how to do their work for it shapes the ways in which they will act, teach, and lead in their professional life.
These professional standards create boundaries within which the profession functions. Constrained by the standards of their profession, the professional, in Marshal McLuhan’s understanding, is an environmentalist. An environmentalist, in this sense, is someone who lives within established boundaries, seeing the bounded reality as the environment, the context, in which they engage in their work. McLuhan writes,
The professional tends to classify and to specialize, to accept uncritically the groundrules of the environment. The groundrules provided by the mass response of their colleagues serve as a pervasive environment in which they are contentedly unaware. The “expert” is the person who stays put.[1]
The professional, or the “expert”, does inside-the-box thinking, for that is all they can see, they are “contentedly unaware” of, or do not desire, any other ways of thinking or doing their work, having been so shaped by their ways and values of doing things that they can see the work through only one lens. The professional therefore remains uncreative, for as McLuhan argues creativity requires independence from the constraints of the professional environment. As the professional earns the plaudits of their fellow professionals they win friends and become shaped by their peers. The phrase “creative accounting” and the reaction to it points to why creative professionals are not a good thing. Yet, creativity is a good and necessary thing. Using the 19th century scientist, Michael Faraday as an example, McLuhan argues it was Faraday’s “ignorance of mathematics”[2] that allowed him to make his substantial contributions to physics. Faraday was an amateur, unconstrained by the environment of the mathematical groundrules of his day.
Amateurism, according to McLuhan, “seeks the development of the total awareness of the individual and the critical awareness of the groundrules of society.”[3] The amateur sees beyond the established boundaries, moves outside of the box, using their total perception to understand how the environment is defined by the community of the profession. Their awareness is not limited by what the professional community says their members should see and perceive. Amateurs see beyond the constrained view of the professional and are willing to take the risk of moving outside that bounded environment. They can do this because, in McLuhan’s words, they “can afford to lose.”[4] The amateur can afford to lose because they love the subject, they love the work, they love and are willing to take risks for what they love. Their love for the thing loved is more important than the “mass response of their colleagues.” The amateur is willing to lose the plaudits of the profession for the sake of the thing they love.
The amateur gives primacy to their connection with the thing they love. The Hebrew Scriptures say, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5,6, Tanakh) The followers of “the Lord alone” were to be amateurs, putting every part of their being into loving God. Using McLuhan’s framing, they were not to classify, or narrow their commitment, to specific areas of life, the impact of their love for God on their lives was to be total. In this total awareness they were able to risk losing for the sake of loving with their entire being.
Clergy then are faced with a choice. Will they follow the groundrules of the professional standards which delineate the scope and shape of their work as clergy? Or will they be shaped by the communities out of which they were called, communities that are made up of amateurs who seek to love God with all that they are? In other words, should clergy become professionals, or should they remain amateurs? This tension lies at the heart of the work of clergy. For Canadian Presbyterians this tension has historically appeared when clergy cite the Holy Spirit as the guide to their ministry instead of following the patterns delineated in The Book of Forms, the denomination’s guide for professional conduct. Over the last 150 years there have been a number of cases where the profession guided by the rules in the Book of Forms acted to block those who were seeking to follow their desire to follow the Spirit.[5] On a more mundane level, in the midst of the extended COVID shutdown, a presbytery, a regional body (professional community) of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, became embroiled in a conflict between following the prescribed process for granting money to congregations and the desire to move quickly to show care and compassion to congregations facing challenges because of the shutdown.[6]
For some clergy this tension arises when the ordained individual is professionally competent and even effective, but no longer believes in God or gods. Belief in a god or gods is a central part of the call to love this God. Loving someone who one no longer believes in is implausible. The Clergy Project, an on-line community for clergy and religious leaders of all religions who no longer believe in a supernatural God, had over 1,000 members by late 2019.[7] The group estimated that a quarter of the community members were actively serving congregations or communities of faith. The church has recognized the lack of faith on the part of clergy as a problem for a long time. The church declares the sacraments to be spiritually effective regardless of the faith of the celebrant. However, parishioners in my experience have quite different expectations; parishioners desire to be led by clergy who believe in the spiritual power of prayer and the sacraments. The parishioners of the congregational pastor expect the one leading them in worship and celebration of the sacraments to do so in a ‘professional’ manner, with skill and confidence, and they expect the professional who leads them in worship believes in the words and actions they are enacting. Parishioners value professionalism, but a professionalism rooted in love for God; so that the words and actions of worship grow out of not only training but also out of conviction as to the truth of those words and actions. Clergy who lead worship without love for God are professionals who have turned away from the amateur aspects of being part of the clergy. To claim to have a calling is to assert that a presence beyond oneself has called the individual into the vocation. If the individual does not believe in the reality of a presence beyond themselves, then that person is a member of the profession but without a calling. Clergy who no longer believe in a supernatural God have moved from having a calling, a vocation, to having a profession.
The vast majority of clergy serving congregations believe in God or gods and have been shaped by their training to perform their tasks in ways that align with the groundrules of the profession, groundrules that invite the newly formed professional to “play safe” while also defining the terrain. That is to live in the tried and true lines of the well-trod ways of doing the work of ministry. However, love invites risk-taking. To love God and to love people may call the member of the clergy to act outside the groundrules of the profession which constrain their action.
In the late 1980’s guidelines were circulated within The Presbyterian Church in Canada about how clergy should be robed to lead worship.[8] While this may not seem a significant issue, what the religious leader wears to lead worship is a fundamental part of the worship, and worship leading is a primary task of clergy in the Presbyterian Church. The guidelines were an attempt by the profession to prevent the turn which saw many clergy rejecting the wearing of clerical robes to lead worship. The clergy setting aside their robes, were following what they heard as a call to love people by identifying with the people in their dress.[9] Many clergy chose to wear the street clothes to lead worship, resisting the groundrules of the profession which constrained the environment.
The interface between the groundrules of the profession and the amateur’s love for God and people often results in conflict. In 2011, a minister from sub-Saharan Africa believed they had been called by God to plant a new congregation in a city in Canada. They came to the presbytery, the regional body (professional community) which oversaw congregations in that part of Canada for The Presbyterian Church in Canada, asking for support in starting the new congregation. The presbytery used the groundrules of the profession in seeking to discern whether the congregation should be started. In the end the decision was to not support starting the new congregation because the presbytery did not believe the minister would accept direction from the oversight body and would likely live outside the professional standards guiding Presbyterian clergy. A difficult conversation took place in which the minister seeking to start the new church said, “You cannot prevent me from starting the new church, I have a call from God to preach the gospel.” To which the leaders of the presbytery could only respond, “We are not saying you cannot preach the gospel, nor are we saying you cannot start the congregation. We are saying we will not endorse what you want to do.” The minister did start the congregation, taking the risk of losing the approval of colleagues so as to pursue the thing loved, preaching the gospel. The tension between love for God and the groundrules of the profession are evident. There are times when seeking to express their love for God will bring members of clergy into direct conflict with those who administer the groundrules of the profession.[10]
The amateur who is prepared to lose for the sake of the thing loved, is prepared to go beyond the safety of the professional groundrules in order to love fully. A person who loves God seeks to live out God’s patterns in the world. God takes risks, as the Biblical narrative attests. God does not stay put but again and again moves out of the box to which God is often assigned by those who wish to keep God safe, and who wish to have God’s call to be to safe things. In Christian theology among the risky moves of God is the Incarnation, Jesus Christ, in whom Christianity affirms God came in human form to live among humanity.[11] God does not play safe, is not constrained by any groundrules indicating what God should do. This understanding challenges the safe constrained of professional standards.
Father Damien (now Saint Damien) for sixteen years (1873-1889 CE) served with the community of lepers at Moloka’i, Hawai’i, his caring reached beyond the safe patterns and clear boundaries of professionalism as he himself contracted leprosy. He put himself at risk in fulfilling the call to care. He loved with all that he was and was willing to ‘lose’ because of that love. While Damien’s story is known, there are many stories of clergy who so totally lived a love for God and for people that breaking the professional groundrules they took risks outside the constrained environment. Such examples invite clergy to critically examine the limits of professionalization in work.
Clergy are professionals, and the professional standards that guide them are important to their remaining grounded in appropriate patterns and practices of action. However, their calling to be amateurs, lovers of God and people, calls them to live in creative and critical tension with the constrained environment of the profession, being willing to take risks and to lose for the sake of the beloved.
References
_____ , The So-called heresy case at Galt (Ontario). Toronto: Imrie & Graham, printers, 1889.
Clergy Project https://clergyproject.org accessed Aug. 30, 2023.
Cooper, David J. C. "Vesture: A Reformed Perspective". Reformed Liturgy and Music. Winter 1988. Vol. 22, no. 1.
McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects Toronto: Jerome Agel, 1967.
Page, Sarah-Jane. “The Scrutinized Priest: Women in the Church of England Negotiating Professional and Sacred Clothing Regimes”. Gender, Work and Organization. 2014. Vol. 21: 295-307.
Presbytery of Barrie. The Presbyterian Church in Canada. Minutes: 19 May 2007 and 14 Sept. 2007.
Presbytery of Huron-Perth. The Presbyterian Church in Canada. Minutes: May 27, 1988.
Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington. The Presbyterian Church in Canada. Minutes: 14 Sept. 2021; 9 Jan. 2022; 8 March 2022; and 9 May 2022.
Rainer, Thom and Sam Rainer (podcast). “The Pastors Sunday Attire Dress Up or Blend In”. https://churchanswers.com/podcasts/rainer-on-leadership/the-pastors-sunday-attire-dress-up-or-blend-in/ accessed Sept. 29, 2023.
The Presbyterian Church in Canada, Acts and Proceedings of General Assembly, 1992, p. 316-317.
Sanders, John. The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2009.
Endnotes
[1] Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects Toronto: Jerome Agel, 1967, p. 84. There was a typographical error when the type was set for the first edition of the book. Instead of the word Message appearing in the title, Massage did and McLuhan chose to not have the Cover and title page re-set. The actual title is “The Medium is the Massage.”
[2] McLuhan and Fiore, The Medium, p. 92.
[3] McLuhan and Fiore, The Medium, p. 92.
[4] McLuhan and Fiore, The Medium, p. 92.
[5] See for example: The So-called heresy case at Galt (Ontario), Toronto : Imrie & Graham, printers, 1889; Minutes, Presbytery of Huron-Perth, The Presbyterian Church in Canada, May 27, 1988; and Minutes, Presbytery of Barrie, The Presbyterian Church in Canada, May 19, 2007 and Sept. 14, 2007.
[6] Minutes, Presbytery of Waterloo-Wellington, The Presbyterian Church in Canada, 14 Sept. 2021; 9 Jan. 2022; 8 March 2022; and 9 May 2022.
[7] The Clergy Project https://clergyproject.org/ accessed Aug. 30, 2023.
[8] Acts and Proceedings of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1992, p. 316-317.
[9] See for example: David J. C. Cooper, "Vesture: A Reformed Perspective", Reformed Liturgy and Music, Vol. 22, no. 1, (Winter, 1988); Sarah-Jane Page, “The Scrutinized Priest: Women in the Church of England Negotiating Professional and Sacred Clothing Regimes”, Gender, Work and Organization, (2014) 21: 295-307; and the podcast, Thom Rainer and Sam Rainer, “The Pastors Sunday Attire Dress Up or Blend In” https://churchanswers.com/podcasts/rainer-on-leadership/the-pastors-sunday-attire-dress-up-or-blend-in/ accessed Sept. 29, 2023.
[10] In the interests of full disclosure, I was one of the leaders of the presbytery who said “No” to the minister seeking to plant a new congregation. I still believe the presbytery made the correct decision, but we were forced to reflect on whether we were saying “No” because we were tied to the groundrules of the denomination and were unable to hear the cry of love for God.
[11] See John Sanders, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine Providence, (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2009).
