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| The Secret Lives of Pastors A recent Lou Harris poll asked the public to assign prestige points to various professions. Scientists and doctors came in first with 51% and 50% of the respondents saying that these professionals had “Very Great Prestige.” Ministers and priests are about halfway down the list with 36% agreeing that they have “Very Great Prestige.” This is down from 43% in 2001 — a slippage of 7 percentage points. Eleven percent said that the clergy have “Hardly Any Prestige At All.” I’m surprised. Given recent clergy scandals in the Catholic church, I thought the numbers would be worse. Still, the slide in public respect is something to look into. And to start, we turn to James. In his letter “To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion,” the apostle James, the Schwarzenegger of the New Testament without the groping, adds some muscle to the much-aligned notion of works-righteousness: Faith without works is dead. Terminated. DOA. The heavy lifting comes in chapter 3: “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (3:1). This might not seem fair, but it is eminently reasonable. We who teach must also do; we who preach must also practice what we preach. We are, after all, shepherds who say to the sheep, “Follow me.” St. Paul went further: “Join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us” (Philippians 3:17). Pastors are those who, if they can say nothing eloquent in the pulpit, can at least say to their people, “Watch me, follow me, and you’ll be okay.” The apotheosis of the parish pastor has virtually disappeared. Pastors have long ago voluntarily stepped off the pedestal for the pedestrian pleasure of being regarded as human and not much different from anyone else. Even James admits: “For all of us make many mistakes” (3:2). That’s why we should not be held to a higher standard because we’re human, too. Well, cry me a river. The really alarming thing is that in some quarters, the standard has been lower for clergy than for the people the clergy lead. Bishops, conference ministers and other denominational functionaries have shuttled problem clergy from pillar to post, hoping the troubled pastor will someday find his way. Sexual abuse and misconduct, tawdry business at high levels of leadership, misappropriation of funds — conduct about which any preacher could work up a lather in the pulpit — have too often been ignored or excused when discovered in the preacher himself. It’s clear that too many of us live differently on Monday than we do on Sunday, a complaint we frequently level against our parishioners. Are we any different? Do we, too, have secret lives that, were they exposed to the light of day, would call into question our moral authority to act as shepherds of the flock? We can get at this in another way by going to Jane Smiley’s little novella, Age of Grief, which was recently made into a fairly good movie, The Secret Lives of Dentists. David Hurst (Campbell Scott) is a dentist in co-practice with his wife, Dana (Hope Davis). David understands that everyone hates him — as a dentist. No one wants to see him. He’s not feelin’ the love. Perhaps that’s why dentists as a class have a notoriously high rate of suicide. Unloved and under-appreciated. He is also of the opinion that dentists like himself “are convinced that people can’t be trusted with their teeth,” a sentiment no doubt shared by many pastors who think that people can’t be trusted to take care of their souls. Teeth, those “two little rows of stones in the flesh,” are virtually indestructible. “Death is nothing to a tooth,” he says. “Life is what destroys teeth.” Long after the body has decayed in the grave, the teeth will be there. No matter the underground seepage of water and the acidity of the soil. The teeth will survive. But while in the mouth, the relentless application of candy, sugar, fast food can destroy molars and bicuspids within years. “Life is what destroys teeth.” The movie follows David as he takes care of his “teeth” as a metaphor for his life. And decay has started to settle in. He discovers that his wife is having an affair. He shoulders on, not wanting to know the details. He refuses to confront her because then they would have to act on what they know. He assumes all the cooking and laundry chores and the care of the three girls. He tries to keep things together when the family comes down with the flu over a period of five days. We watch the children, in turn, hurling into the toilet, or onto the table, walls or floor, and watch Dr. Hurst as he sops it all up. He has become the mother while his wife is philandering, but his feminization seems not to bother him. He just wants his wife to adore him, not ignore him. Pastors, of course, have lives beyond the parish walls. Their lives may look like many others: The oil in the car needs to be changed, the kids are going to get sick, bills need to be paid, marital spats will come and go. And so on. But what is going on when clergy abuse children in their parish? When youth workers molest girls in the youth group? When pastors struggle with alcohol? When pastors become addicted to Internet porn? When pastors can’t sustain and nurture a marital relationship? One major denomination that maintains a telephone hotline for pastors and their families reports that 25% of the calls involve porn addiction. Focus on the Family says that one out of seven pastors who call its toll-free line admit that they are addicted to pornography. Another study reports that 12% of Protestant senior pastors have been divorced. Yes, we’re human. But let’s not use the word synonymously with failure. To be human is not just another way to say we make mistakes. We need to recover the Athanasian notion that to be truly human is to be one with the Divine. In his view, people who fall into sin are in fact rejecting their humanity, are falling off the ladder of being, or at least slipping a rung or two. The Bible holds us to a higher standard. Something’s not right. We pastors need to start taking better care of our teeth.
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