Month: April 2012

Silent Clergy Killers: ‘Toxic’ Congregations Lead to Widespread Job Loss

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– Source: Huffington Post

They are called “clergy killers” — congregations where a small group of members are so disruptive that no pastor is able to maintain spiritual leadership for long.

And yet ministers often endure the stresses of these dysfunctional relationships for months, or even years, before eventually being forced out or giving up.

Adding to the strain is the process, which is often shrouded in secrecy. No one — from denominational officials to church members to the clerics themselves — wants to acknowledge the failure of a relationship designed to be a sign to the world of mutual love and support.

But new research is providing insights into just how widespread — and damaging — these forced terminations can be to clergy.

An online study published in the March issue of the Review of Religious Research found 28 percent of ministers said they had at one time been forced to leave their jobs due to personal attacks and criticism from a small faction of their congregations.

The researchers from Texas Tech University and Virginia Tech University also found that the clergy who had been forced out were more likely to report lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression, stress and physical health problems.

And too few clergy are getting the help they need, said researcher Marcus Tanner of Texas Tech.

“Everybody knows this is happening, but nobody wants to talk about it,” Tanner said in an interview. “The vast majority of denominations across the country are doing absolutely nothing.”

A secret struggle

The issue of clergy job security will be front and center next month when delegates to the quadrennial General Conference of The United Methodist Church considers a proposal to end “guaranteed appointments” for elders in good standing. The church’s Study of Ministry Commission says clergy job guarantees cost too much money and can focus more on the clergyperson’s needs rather than the denomination’s mission. On the other side, many clergy express fears that eliminating job security may lead to arbitrary dismissals. A major concern is that clergy will be judged based on their performance at “toxic” congregations, churches with so much internal conflict that it is difficult for any minister to have success.

The clergy have good reason to worry. A small percentage of congregations do seem to be responsible for a large share of congregational conflict.

Seven percent of congregations accounted for more than 35 percent of all the conflict reported in the National Congregations Study. And that conflict often had a high price.

In the 2006-2007 National Congregations Study, 9 percent of congregations reported a conflict in the last two years that led a clergyperson or other religious leader to leave the congregation.

It is difficult to get specific denominational figures, Tanner said. Many churches do not keep records indicating when a pastor was forced out as opposed to leaving voluntarily. And not only is it difficult to get clergy to open up about such painful experiences, many ministers are forced to sign a nondisclosure agreement to receive their severance package.

In their study, Tanner, Anisa Zvonkovic and Charlie Adams recruited respondents through Facebook groups relating to Christian clergy. Four-fifths of the 582 ministers participating — 410 males and 172 females from 39 denominations — ranged in age from 26 to 55.

The participants were asked whether they ever left a job “due to the constant negativity found in personal attacks and criticism from a small faction of the congregation.”

Twenty eight percent of the respondents said they had been forced from a ministry job. Three-quarters had been forced out once, and 4 percent had been forcibly terminated three or more times, the study found.

Even one time, however, is more than enough.

A heavy toll

Ministers who were forced out of their jobs because of congregational conflict were more likely to experience burnout, depression, lower self-esteem and more physical health problems, the online study found.

In addition, more than four in 10 ministers forced out of their jobs reported seriously considering leaving the ministry.

A separate survey by Texas Tech and Virginia Tech researchers of 55 ministers who were forced out of a pastoral position found a significant link with self-reported measures of post-traumatic stress disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.

“This study shows that not only is forced termination an issue, but a cruel one that has very distressing effects on those who experience it,” Tanner, Zvonkovic and Jeffrey Wherry reported in the current issue of the Journal of Religion and Health. “It is important that Christian organizations recognize the problem and implement steps to increase awareness and solutions.”

Months of suffering traumatic and demeaning psychological and emotional abuse as they are slowly being forced out of their pulpits due to congregational conflict, Tanner said, “is a really, really horrible process.”

What makes it even worse is the complicity of silence that prevents clergy from getting the help they need to go forward.

David Briggs writes the Ahead of the Trend column for the Association of Religion Data Archives.

Is This the Most Beautiful Orthodox Church in the World?

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Below are some pictures of the consecration of St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kronstadt, Russia. A window to heaven has opened and the harmony of the unseen and uncreated are made visible to man. The Church is nothing short of astonishing.

The only other place I have seen such depth of beauty outside of nature is in the iconography of the new chapel in Ossios Lukas monastery in Greece. There the icons possess an ethereal but ordered brilliance that reflects the harmony that must have existed at the beginning of creation and points to its final restoration; a non-material and dynamic logic that infuses all created things and establishes their material limits and governs their workings. I see the same revelation here.

Harmony is revealed through art. If art touches that non-material logic, the pulse that runs through all things like the steady note that rings off the tuning fork, the divine is discerned and the soul is elevated and nourished. If art rebels against harmony and order, the soul is darkened, knowledge is lost, and hope dies.

First, the photographs, then the Google translation (choppy but still understandable) from the Russian text. More photos are available at Православие и мир.

HT: Byzantine, TX (one of the most informative Orthodox sites on the web). Click photos to enlarge.

Video of the consecration.

Source: Православие.Ru

Google Translation:

April 19, 2012, Thursday, Bright Week, the Holy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill performed the rite of consecration of small Kronstadt Naval Cathedral of St Nicholas, and then headed the ministry in the church liturgy, transfers Patriarchal.

At the service sang the chorus of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, St. Petersburg (choir director Lev Danube).

By the visit of His Holiness the unique interiors have been recreated Nicholas Naval Cathedral, as well as original sketches made on the subjects of church utensils – censers, tabernacles, Eucharistic vessels, altar Gospel used in the Patriarchal liturgy.

Temple could not accommodate everyone, and for many residents of the Kronstadt sailors and the service was broadcast on screens installed in Anchor Square near the Cathedral.

At the end of the Liturgy of His Holiness appealed to the faithful with the primatial word, and then handed the award a number of high church officials, particularly labored in the rebuilding of the temple of naval glory.

As a gift to St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Russian Church Primate conveyed the icon of “The Baptism of Russia.”

After the service, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill and President of the DA Medvedev visited the baptismal (lower) Church of St.. John of Rila, where candles were lit before the icon of the Resurrection of Christ, and then climbed to the upper temple, where they examined the crash site of German shells, left neotrestavrirovannym in memory of the Great Patriotic War. President of Russia and head of the Russian Church, candles to set the image of the Mother of God and the temple icon of St. Nicholas, which was donated to the cathedral by the President.

After visiting the Cathedral of St. Nicholas D. Medvedev and Patriarch Kirill headed to the Anchor Square, which sent a congratulatory words to the High Command and the Russian Navy sailors, residents and visitors of Kronstadt.

Next, a reception was held, at the conclusion of which His Holiness has announced its decision on awarding Nikolsky Kronstadt Naval Cathedral stavropigialny status. Archpastoral care about the current activities of the cathedral – the liturgical life, educational, social, cultural work – was entrusted to Metropolitan Vladimir of St Petersburg. “So we, on the one hand, we give Stavropighial, the highest status of the church, on the other hand, do not tear off from the real life of the Church of St. Petersburg”, – said the Primate.

With the blessing of His Holiness the liturgy in the cathedral will be performed weekly: Saturdays, Sundays and days of religious holidays, and in the future – every day. The full blessing of St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral is planned to make in 2013 – the 100th anniversary of the consecration of the first temple.

The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church said that at one time in the cathedral choir sang only the sailors, and expressed the hope that in our days Chorus Baltic Fleet will participate in the most solemn services, just as the Kuban Cossacks Choir accompanied by the Patriarch of worship in the Krasnodar region.

Philanthropists and leaders of contracting organizations who took part in the restoration of the cathedral, were presented to the Patriarch, and state awards.

The same day, His Holiness departed from St. Petersburg to Moscow.

April 20, 2012

60 Minutes on the Plight of Palestinian Christians

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Source: The Atlantic

APR 23 2012, 8:46 AM ET 280

By Robert Wright

Last night’s 60 Minutes segment about the plight of Christians in the West Bank has gotten a lot of attention, in part because of the attempt by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren to intervene with CBS brass while the segment was being put together. (See the 11-minute point in the video below, where CBS correspondent Bob Simon confronts Oren with this fact.)
You can see why Oren might rather the piece hadn’t aired. Things that Palestinian Muslims routinely say about the Israeli occupation may get more traction in America when Palestinian Christians say them. Such as this, from a Christian clergyman: “The West Bank is becoming more and more like a piece of Swiss cheese, where Israel gets the cheese–that is, the land the water resources, the archaeological sites, and the Palestinians are pushed in the holes.”

Also, Oren clearly doesn’t want this document, mentioned by Simon, to get attention. In it an interdominational group of Middle Eastern Christian clergy–Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant–refer to the occupation as “clear apartheid.” (Oren hints that they’re anti-Semitic.)

Finally, the 60 Minutes piece complicates the post-9/11 Israeli narrative according to which Israel and Judeo-Christian America are involved in a common struggle against Islamic radicals, and the occupation should be viewed in that context. Hence the importance of the moment when Oren insists Christians are leaving the West Bank under duress from Islamic radicals, not because of the occupation, and Simon presents testimony to the contrary.

Notwithstanding Oren’s understandable qualms, the piece struck me as legitimate and balanced. Its subject–the ongoing exodus of Christians from the Holy Land–is of undeniable interest to American viewers. And Simon emphasizes that Israel isn’t singling out Christians for persecution; their plight is simply the plight of Palestinians in general–a plight that, Simon notes, is due partly to actions taken by Israel to secure itself against terrorism. Now that Oren has had a chance to see the 60 Minutes piece, I’d be interested in hearing what, if any, parts of the story he thinks CBS should have included but didn’t.

Charles Colson: 1931-2012. May His Memory Be Eternal

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Charles Colson died today. He was 80 years old. I first met Colson at a conference at Washington, DC and was struck by his magnanimous character and intelligence. Everyone knows his story. Colson was a ruthless political operative in the Nixon administration, got caught up in the Watergate imbroglio during the Nixon administration and went to jail.

I heard him explain his experience in prison during one of his talks. It was the lowest point in his life where he had lost everything and began to question purpose, decisions, and direction. He was visited by a friend (former Minnesota Governor Al Quie) who shared with him how Jesus Christ came into the world to redeem man. Colson listened, cried out to God for help and, as his life would later prove, God heard him. His repentance was deep and lasting.

Prison opened his eyes not only to God, but the desperate conditions of other prisoners. He founded Prison Fellowship, an organization they helped prisoners while incarcerated, after they got out, and their families. The Russian Orthodox Church called on Prison Fellowship after Communism fell to help them build viable prison ministries in Russia.

Colson’s work grew to incorporate what he called teaching the Christian World View. He saw that decline in culture was moral in nature and that a return to the values and precepts of the Christian faith were the only hope for cultural renewal. This meant that he had to do the work of an evangelist. It also meant that a deep ignorance among Christians about their own history, the history of Western culture, and the viability of the Christian message in a relativist age needed to be addressed. That led to ecumenical outreach, and it was at one of his ecumenical events that I first met Colson.

I attended a conference with Christian leaders (cultural activists mostly) from all types of Christian communions; the first Orthodox priest ever invited to such a gathering. Most of us were not academics but more of what I call “rubber meets the road” types; people used to debate, interaction, dealing with crisis, and so forth. As such, the conference had a very practical, even edgy feel to it at times. All shared the conviction that the Christian faith has a public dimension and that we should not cede the public square to secularism. Christendom is, well, Christian and no amount of brow-beating, public scorn, the insecurity and impotence of liberal Christianity, or any other malady should stop us from boldly speaking out with intelligence and conviction.

It was there too that I first recognized how much that Orthodoxy has to give the culture. I saw that many Christians of other communions are waiting for us to step to the plate and make our contribution. They welcome us.

Out of that conference came the idea for the Manhattan Declaration, a document asserting that Christians would not forgo the moral mandates of the Christian faith even if the dominant culture or, God forbid, the government demanded that we do. The Declaration was roundly criticized when it was released a year later including in Orthodox circles. However, the recent Obama mandates that attempt to force the Catholic Church to act against its moral teachings show the signers understood the currents of culture better than their critics did.

I spoke with Colson through out the years, most recently last month in Naples where I live. He always had a deep appreciation for Orthodox Christianity and was especially interested in the resurgence of the Church in Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church has shown deep prescience about the Western cultural struggles, much more so than any other foreign patriarchate, and has garnered the notice of the cultural thinkers on the conservative and non-secularist side of the divide.

The late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus said we are more united in the honest expression of our differences than in pretending that no differences exist and he was right. This is what he called an ecumenism of the Holy Spirit. Colson believed that too. He could bring different people together to work in that common and needful commission of restoring the religious and thus moral foundations of culture.

The world has lost a good man. We will miss him. May his memory be eternal.

Colson at the signing of the Manhattan Declaration:

G.K. Chesterton: It is the State which changes; it is the State which destroys…

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“It is the State which changes; it is the State which destroys; it is nearly always the State which persecutes. The Totalitarian State is now making a clean sweep of all our old notions of liberty, even more than the French Revolution made a clean sweep of all the old ideas of loyalty. It is the Church that excommunicates; but in that very word implies that a communion stands open for a restored communicant. It is the State that exterminates; it is the State that abolishes absolutely and altogether; whether it is the American State abolishing beer, or the Fascist State abolishing parties; or the Hitlerite State abolishing almost everything but itself.” G.K. Chesterton from The Shallows and the Wells.

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