(I bought my first computer from a former priest who was married to a former nun. Dr. Frank Crane, who we feature each Monday, left the Methodist pulpit to become a newspaper columnist. He explained, “I began to find out that I did not fit as a denominational leader…I was not interested in denominational aims…There never was any clash over doctrines. I believed, and still believed, in the great fundamentals the church stands for. But the machinery repelled me. I could not throw myself into the great and fascinating business of propagandizing the essentials because I had to work too hard at the nonessentials…My whole aim and enthusiasm is for the individual, not for the corporate body.” A century after he wrote those words, mainline churches are pondering what to do—not with ministers who leave the pulpit, but young people who don’t come through the doors. Dr. Crane left the formal ministry voluntarily; he was not DEfrocked, but he became one of—-)
THE UNFROCKED
There was a curious banquet held at Paris not long ago. There met a hundred and fifty former priests and former preachers who did not blush either for their past or for their present.
To one class of men society seems peculiarly unjust: to the unfrocked. The man who leaves the ministry, no matter how conscientious and sincere his motives, is always look up askance. We persist in regarding him as if were tainted with the flavor of desertion and disloyalty.
Why? Is it not more honorable to leave holy orders, when one no longer believes the articles of faith, or when one is convinced of the inutility of the institution, when the development of one’s mind and heart has led him honestly to these convictions, than to remain and be insincere?
Does not the church itself believe that an honest layman, no matter what his views, is better than a dishonest clergyman?
For all that, the rupture between the parson and his organization is always painful. Laymen hardly welcome him. By a strange illogicality we are usually cold to the men who enter our ranks for conscience’s sake. We mistrust them; we put pressure upon them to conceal their past as something of which to be ashamed; as a rule, they have a hard time making a living.
Among the former clergymen at the banquet mentioned we may note three lawyers, two police magistrates, two farmers, a physician, two artists, two capitalists, one mayor, besides commercial travelers, university professors, accountants, and public school teachers.
They have formed a union which proposes, according to its bylaws, never to proselyte or in any way attempt to induce men to leave the ministry, but to extend a helping hand to those who, on their own initiative, have severed their ecclesiastical ties, and to help them in their endeavors to gain an honest livelihood.
It will do no harm to the church—it can only do good—to make the way as easy as possible for those who have ceased to be in harmony with its faith or its methods to get out.
In most instances men enter the ministry when young. When they arrive at maturity their convictions may in all honor have undergone a change. It should not be taken as a matter of course that their reluctance to continue in the ministry means a loss of religion or of personal integrity. The minister may discover that, while his religious sentiment is as profound as ever, he is not adapted by nature or gifts to be a clergyman.
His retirement from church office may be as heroic and worthy of praise as his entrance into it.