Clergy Power, Church Power

Clergy power is an interesting thing in a tradition like the United Church of Christ. On the one hand, we affirm the ministry of all baptized believers and we firmly believe that everyone has direct, unmediated access to God without the need for clergy or saints to intercede on our behalf. (We literally fought wars and reformed the Church over this!) On the other hand, we believe deeply in the power and authority of ordained clergy to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12) and we affirm that clergy hold priestly, prophetic, representative, and servant leadership roles in the Church and the world.

Clergy are powerful. We hold in our roles the care of souls and communities, the need to proclaim the Word of God faithfully, and the administration of the rites and sacraments of the church with integrity and fidelity not merely to our individual conscience but to the historic and ongoing witness of the Church Universal. And because we minister to a diverse body of people with a variety of religious backgrounds, we do represent God in deep and humbling ways to many of them as a “direct line” to God.

Clergy are charged to live faithful, imperfect, and public lives. The UCC Ministerial Code provides a foundation for clergy conduct upon which our ministers’ lives can and should rest. While it is neither possible nor appropriate for any minister to live up to all the expectations that all people have about them, it is both possible and appropriate to expect our ministers to live lives of honesty, integrity, and spiritual wholeness. To be a minister is to be a public and private representation of the Church in the world. Our lives bear witness to the crucified and risen Christ whom we represent at font, table, pulpit, and community. How we live those lives matters to the Church and to the world. We do bear a responsibility to bear this witness with integrity, honor, truth, and care, and to be attentive to the ways that our witness is received by the world.

This is why the abuse of power by clergy—be it financial, sexual, spiritual, relational, or otherwise—is so serious. It is not merely a person-to-person offense, but it damages the intimate relationship between a person and God. Our bad acts harm others and they compromise the faithful witness of the Church. Even when we believe that our failures are private, they often still have public significance. Let me say that again: our personal failures often have public significance.

That is part of the reason why the United Church of Christ has robust disciplinary processes for clergy accused of misconduct. Called a “fitness review,” this process is outlined in Section 2, Article 6 of the 2018 Manual on Ministry and is conducted by an Association or Conference Committee on Ministry in response to concerns raised about a minister’s conduct. This process includes opportunities for folk to share about the harm they have experienced, for the minister to review that sharing and to offer their own statements regarding the concerns raised, and for a Committee on Ministry to discern whether the minister is still fit for ministry, and whether a program of growth can help them take accountability for their past and grow in ways to prevent similar choices in the future. These processes are confidential to protect both those who have been harmed by the minister and the clergyperson under review, but they are neither secretive nor particularly mysterious. Nor do they bind victims (or ministers) to eternal silence, even if Committees on Ministry remain limited in what they can say publicly.

The fitness review process is imperfect, to be sure, and Committees on Ministry may execute them less-than-perfectly. However, this process represents the Church’s faithful effort to ensure the integrity of the pastoral office, provide remedies for misconduct, and to seek restoration when possible of ministers who have abused their power. In short, our disciplinary process acts as a constraint on clergy power, meant for the well-being of all people. With this, the Church seeks to model both accountability and grace, forgiveness of wrongs and protection and support of the vulnerable.

Clergy are powerful, but they are not more powerful than or independent of the Church. Their authority comes from the Church and is bound by wise counsel of the Church. Let’s not pretend otherwise—in the words of our mouths or the examples of our lives.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Rev. Elizabeth Dilley serves as the Minister and Team Leader for the Ministerial Excellence, Support, and Authorization (MESA) team in the National Setting of the United Church of Christ.

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