The Backdoor Between Lawyers & Clergy

I don't know how many folks notice this: There is a huge backdoor
between the legal profession and the clerical profession.

I know of tons of folks, from several Christian traditions, who leave
the legal profession to become a pastor, priest, or minister.

I also know a bunch of folks (not quite as many), who leave the
clerical profession to become a lawyer.

Why is this the case?

I think there is a skill set issue, and an issue of meaning.

In terms of skill set, I think the two "professions" share a bunch of
overlapping skills:

Both professions require listening carefully and caringly to
"clients", and prescribing a course of action to deal with issues
presented.

Both professions are based on the interpretation and application of
"sacred texts" which give the boundaries for practice (lawyers treat
law codes and court decisions as holy writ, while clergy treat
scripture and tradition as holy writ).

Both professions require skillfull and persuasive presentation of the
issues and implications required by the text (clergy do this through
sermons and lessons, whereas lawyers do it in the courtroom and the
judge's chamber).

And both professions have a myriad of "schools" and "sects" which
interpret and apply the "sacred texts" to contemporary life and culture.

This would lend one to think that both professions are interchangeable.

And Christian history would lend credence to this, because several
Lawyers have become Theologians, and several Theologians have helped
shape the Western tradition of Jurisprudence. On the whole, I think
the legal profession has benefitted from this, as Christian theology
tends to humanize law systems and make them more merciful.

As a sidebar:

I think theology has been ransacked by legalism, and in the words of
Sting their "logic ties me up and rapes me". The harsh legal
categories, concepts of legal guilt and retribution, and rigid black-
or-white concepts do violence to the organic, relational nature of our
relationship with God, through Christ, by the power of the Spirit.

I have only to mention Mediaeval Scholaticism, Calvin, Zwingli,
Protestant Scholasticism, and Charles Finney to show how legalism can
infect, distort, and deconstruct the relational, organic nature of the
Christian Life.

Enough sidebar.

The other reason that I think there is such a huge backdoor between
the Legal and Clerical "professions" is that people are either looking
for, or have given up on, meaning and purpose.

Happy, fulfilled clergy have meaning in life. They believe they are
involved in Christ's mission of healing the world. They believe they
know God and are making God known... They are loving God, and taking
God's Love to the world.

Likewise, happy, fulfilled lawyers (and judges) have meaning in life.
They believe they are advancing justice and truth in the world. They
may even see themselves as instruments of God's justice, helping
setting the world to rights with God.

But, sadly, I think this is the exception rather than the rule.

Often the case is that those in the legal profession are jaded. They
see the legal profession as an exercise in "spin", in manipulating and
packaging the truth, so that money and damages are transferred from
one party to the other. Truth is not served. Justice is not served. It
devolves into a process of the unwilling transfer of resources from
the winners to the loosers. Truth becomes a mere exercise of power.

So, in a flight from meaninglessness to meaning, lawyers think that
becoming clergy will "fix" their problems with meaning, and utilize
the skills they already have. Many of those who make this flight are
disillusioned...

Because being clergy often is much like being a mid-level bureaucrat,
a used-car salesman, or a franchise owner. There are tons of
administrative tasks, most of which are aimed at "covering your ass"
from legal liability (thanks legal profession!). There is a never-
ending cycle of trying to please people who complain, and never
getting their approval no matter what you do or do not do. Most people
in the pews are apathetic to Jesus' message of healing and world-
transformation. They just want words of comfort that validate their
prejudices and social mores. Often, the entire gig feels like an
extended sales call where you are trying to "sell" Jesus to a jaded
and skeptical audience of consumers who's big question is "what do I
get out of this deal?"

So, realizing that most (if not all) of the clerical profession is an
exercise in selling spiritual goods and services, and growing the
consumer base, while keeping the current customers happy, clergy leave
the profession to use their skill set in the legal profession (which
on the whole is a little more honest about the fact that money and
power are the REAL bottom line).

It would be my prayer that both the clerical profession and the legal
profession would come to realize their true meaning and purpose in
God's mission for the world. One is God's agent of healing for a
damaged and dismal world, and the other is God's agent to structure a
just society where less people get damaged.

But, until we make the changes necessary to return to our Purpose in
Christ, I guess there will continue to be folks like me who are jaded
for Jesus...

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com

Clergy and The Way Starbucks Sees It #296

Today, as I paid my tithe to the consumer coffee goddess in the form
of a $2.00 Grande Drip of the Day [room for cream, two cups, no
sleeve], I read "The Way I See It #296". It reads like this:

"By the time executives get married, take on a mortgage, raise kids,
cope with the crabgrass, climb the corporate ladder, do their best to
manage career pressures, build their net worth and get into their 40s.
they've lost touch with what they believe in and care about most
deeply."

My thought was this: The same is true for clergy, especially in Church
bodies where there is a "career path" (and let's be honest, almost all
of them have such a path, whether it is explicit in terms of a
hierarchy, or implicit in terms of moving up the ladder from smaller
churches to more prestigious churches).

What has happened to the Church? We were founded by our Master to
continue His work of healing the world. We were anointed and appointed
by His Resurrection Spirit to make individuals, families, and
communities healthy and whole in body, spirit, and soul.

And we have become what?

A corporate ladder that mimics every other corporate ladder, begging
the dominant consumer culture to validate our self worth, by attaining
higher and higher levels in the corporate system, with more
"product" [i.e. self-help-jesus-ism] to sell to more "consumers" [i.e.
the crowd on sunday morning we are desperately trying to entertain, be
relevant for, and hold on to].

Put a person in that system in their 20's, and they will be jaded and
numb by their 40's.

Guaranteed.

We need a new Jesus revolution.

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com

Marrying Mother Church

i am getting ordained.

soon.

i am doing it because i love serving jesus. i love helping/pastoring/
teaching people to love jesus too.

because, really, jesus is the center, source, and goal of life.

but the church. we fall short. we.

i do not exempt myself from that reality. i am church too.

but getting ordained is a bit... no it is exactly like getting married
to the church. the church is the bride of christ.

the church is the mother of all who come to christ. because she is one
who knows christ and makes him known.

but, i feel like hosea marrying the whore.

because mother church, let's face it...

mother church is a faithless whore.

it doesn't make her any less our mother. or any less the body of
christ. but, let's be honest about her track record...

when she sold out to imperial roman power in the 300's...

when she used christ to wage war in the crusades...

when she sold salvation in the middle ages...

when she ripped apart europe and killed other christians in the
reformation...

when she helped export western colonialialism in the last three
centuries...

when she became adept at making jesus a consumer product in our
country...

when she chained herself to bureaucracy and property across the world...

she's whored herself out so often to so many, it is hard to embrace
her as mother.

and now i am going to marry her. i am going to serve her. i am going
to become part of the leadership that makes her what she is. that
guides her life.

that makes me nervous.

i believe... i know... i am called. called to marry a faithless whore.
called to be hosea version 123,011,093.1

and i am called to do it without any superhero fantasies that i can
"fix" her. i may be able to influence my part. my portion. my ghetto
in the church.

but the whole church?

hmmmm.

i am called to realize that, in fact, the wheat and weeds will grow
together in the church until jesus returns [see matthew 13].

i am called to realize that, in fact, the one holy catholic apostolic
church is made of warring factions of schismatic syncretistic
exclusionary heretical churches.

i am called to remember that, perhaps, the only way to save "the"
church is to preside over the destruction of the churches. and that
makes me sad. stressed. wary.

and yet hopeful.

because i believe in jesus.

and i believe he will have the last word.

that he IS the last word… and the first...

and i believe he has called me to this.

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com

On "Gay" Agendas and "Christian" Agendas

Recently, a friend emailed me a propaganda email from the "American
Family Association" which was urging Christians to fight the "Gay
Agenda".

It said that a newspaper in Denver was doing an online poll about
whether people thought homosexual orientation could be changed.

So far, 75% say no.

And the email urged all faithful Christians to take the poll, so that
we could show the world that homosexuality CAN be changed.

Really?

Yes, but does fighting untruth with untruth bring glory to Jesus?

Doesn't polling simply miss the point entirely?

It is not about whether people think homosexual orientation can[not]
be changed. It is about whether, in fact, it can be changed regardless
of what people think.

It is about whether people who encounter the power of Jesus are
actually changed.

And what if- I know this might be hard to believe- but what if a
homosexual met Jesus and was transformed into Christ-likeness, and
began really embodying the fruit of the Spirit [Galatians 5.22-23]?
What if such a person was filled with Christ's love, joy, peace,
patience, goodness, kindness, faith, humility, self-control, wisdom
and hope?

And what if all of that happened, but they were still homosexual? And
what if they still insisted that people who follow Jesus treat other
homosexuals with Christ's love, joy, peace, patience, goodness,
kindness, faith, humility, self-control, wisdom and hope (regardless
of whether they "converted" to heterosexuality)?

What would we do then? What would we say?

Wouldn't that royally screw up our pro-Jesus political-power rally?

And people will not encounter the power of Jesus through polls. People
will not encounter the power of Jesus through political power, or
legislative coercion.

If that was the case, Jesus would have come in political power to
destroy his enemies, and he would have set up a political kingdom
which destroyed Rome.

But he didn't.

He empowered a powerless group of people to love and heal through the
power of the Holy Spirit.

The whole right-wing semi-christian political movement acts counter to
this. They, in fact, deny the Kingdom of God by seeking to establish a
christless kingdom in Christ's Name.

If you want to prove that Jesus heals homosexuality [or anything else]
should you not rely on the strategy of Jesus himself, who says in the
Gospel of John "believe me on the evidence of the miracles themselves".

Jesus did not poll. Jesus did not curry popular opinion nor political
power.

Jesus just healed.

Maybe followers of Jesus should do that too.

May Jesus draw you into Himself,
jaded.for.jesus@gmail.com
http://jadedforjesus.blogspot.com