“…In the almost thirty of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others. My church has never once offered to improve those skills which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I needed any kind of support in what I was doing. There has never been and enquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate the faith to my co-workers. I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of a ministry in my career. In short, I must conclude that my church doesn’t have the least interest whether or how I minister in my daily work.” (William E. Diehl. Christianity and Real Life. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976. v.-vi. Diehl was an executive at Bethlehem Steel.)
“Theology is not the private reserve of theologians. It is not a private affair for professors…Nor is it a private affair for pastors…Theology is a matter for the church. It does not get on well without professors and pastors. But its problem, the purity of the church’s service, is put to the whole church. The term ‘laity’ is one of the worst in the vocabulary of religion and ought to be banished from Christian conversation.” (Karl Barth. Theologische Fragen und Antworten, 1957, 183-184, quoted in R. J. Erler and R. Marquard, eds., translator, G. W. Bromiley. A Karl Barth Reader. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986, 8-9. I found the quote in R. Paul Stevens. The Other Six Days. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999, 24)
“This then is the ‘new direction’ which a biblical perspective on the Christian laity requires of us today. It calls for a widespread recognition and honoring of the biblical vision of the unity of the laos of God, of the ministry of all members, of the priesthood of all believers, of the vocation of all Christians. It will be realized only if the ‘nonclergy’ are willing to move up, if the ‘clergy’ are willing to move over, and all of God’s people are willing to move out. For the ministry of this community is rendered first and foremost in the world and for the world. It is performed in the daily lives of its people, in their participation and involvement in the structures of a complex society, in their sacrificial obedience in ‘worldly affairs,’ in their mission to reclaim the world for the God who claims the world in love.” (Thomas W. Gillespie, “The Laity in Biblical Perspective.” Theology Today, v. 36, no. 3, Oct. 1979, p. 315-327. p. 327. Dr. Gillespie is a retired pastor, former president of Princeton Seminary, and a fellow General Assembly Council member.)
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