Are clergy becoming dull conformists?
I have long been interested in the question of psychological profiling for two particular reasons. First, as a Personnel Manager working in a blueish-scrap manufacturing company, psychological profiling and psychometric testing were a stock in merchandise. In recruiting people for our National Office, I used a United states-adult psychological profiling interview which looked for traits that appeared important to the all-time of our existing staff. Intriguingly, they had done work for the US Roman Catholic Church building, so when I announced I was leaving, they offered to take me through the process they had developed. Manifestly I would have been quite a good Catholic priest!
Secondly, I recollect very clearly the time during my own ordination training when we were introduced to Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (as many ordinands still are). Apart from the controversy and the emotions generated when people discovered that they did not announced as they idea they would, my abiding retentivity is standing in the big infinite of the chapel, cleared of chairs, equally we each moved to one of the xvi squares indicated by out Myers-Briggs contour. The reason it stands out in my memory is that, as an ENTJ, I wasn't lonely in being an iNtuitive, merely watched equally all the Introverts, Feelers and Perceivers headed off to huddle together in i cosy corner—while I marched, solitary, to the other side of the room.
So I was intrigued to read in the Church Times of new research by Leslie Francis and Greg Smith about the changing contour of Anglican clergy who are recently ordained. It is immediately worth qualifying whatsoever utilise of such profile for several reasons. Some object to the fact that the MBTI appears to exist based on a Jungian understanding of archetypes (an idea that gets distinctly odd when you delve into it), and that is can function as a way to put people into boxes—at times literally, every bit in the case of our chapel experience! My other observation is that life is merely a little more complex, and people are more adaptable, than the process suggests—and that over fourth dimension the differences are less important than when we are younger. Withal, I know a good many people for whom the process has been a really important stride in growing cocky awareness, and particularly in understanding the nature of their interactions with others who are unlike from them. And previous piece of work by Leslie Francis has yielded some intriguing insights—such as his piece of work (using his ain profiling system) highlighting the differences in personalities from one church tradition to another.
It is likewise worth noting that whatever comment about cohorts and trends isnot a criticism of individuals with those profiles. Any our 'preference' as suggested by psychological type, nosotros always need to make allowances for cocky awareness and critical reflection to mean that nosotros can act in ways other than that suggested. Psychological type is not a form of social predestination!
I have not had the take a chance to read the original inquiry newspaper (which needs to be done) but iii things stood out for me from the Church Times report.
The first was the trend amid the recently ordained to focus on detail, rather than on the bigger picture.
In relation to psychological type, the study reports that its master finding is that "the current generation of young stipendiary male curates is much less likely to prefer intuition compared with clergymen in the 2007 study (42 per cent compared with 62 per cent)".
The study defines clergy who prefer intuition as those who "focus on the possibilities of a state of affairs, perceiving meaning and relationships", and who "focus on the overall picture show, rather than specific facts and data". Such clergy "follow their inspirations enthusiastically", and "often aspire to bring innovative change to established conventions and have less patience with tradition".
The curates ordained in 2009 and 2010 were more than likely to be at the "sensing" end of the spectrum: those who "focus on the realities of a situation, and on specific details, rather than the overall moving-picture show. They tend to be downwardly-to-world and matter-of-fact. They are frequently fond of the traditional and conventional."
It seems to me that this is entirely explicable, perchance thought of as necessary, merely also has its challenges. Information technology is entirely explicable because we are living in a culture which is becoming extraordinarily bureaucratic in but nearly every realm—most notably in the two not bad arenas of public debate, healthcare and education. My married woman reckons she needs to do an hour more each day of admin and paperwork than she did ten years ago, and any teacher will tell you about the administration and bureaucracy that is needed, which is often felt to detract from the cadre tasks of didactics. And clergy don't appear to exist allowed from this. Added to that, we live in a risk averse world, not least in the wake of safeguarding scandals. One of the cracking potential prizes for the practice of ministry would be the centralisation of grade filling at a diocesan or national level—but at that place are significant ideological objections, based in either the perceived autonomy of clergy or the independence of dioceses, which prevent or discourage this. (I am told that the Church of England cannot do centralised personnel planning because these is no obvious mechanism for obtaining and collating data from dioceses!)
In many areas of practical parochial ministry, it seems you need to have a lawyer's attention to detail to ensure you implement practice and policy correctly. If you are in an urban, gathered church which tin can beget authoritative staff, you might be protected from this. Simply rural and estate ministry oft does not enjoy this luxury. And such a focus does not atomic number 82 to innovative and dynamic customs building. As Francis and Smith notice:
The Church building of the future may exist a more tightly managed and more conservative Church, only less inspirational and less responsive to transformation.
The problem here is that in that location is adequately widespread agreement that a step-alter in culture is needed for the Church at the moment—abroad from beingness inwards looking to being much more invitational, and away from being concerned with self-preservation (the fatal instinct in those implicated in safe-guarding failures) to make assuming modify—something that the SDF church plants have in fact been delivering.
This leads to the second observation—that of institutional conformity. The report here shifts from drawing on MBTI to making use of Francis' own profiling categories.
The proportion of clergy with an Apollonian (intuiting/feeling) temperament ("idealistic and romantic"; "inspiring communicators"; "proficient . . . pastoral counselling techniques") cruel from 35 per cent in the 2007 written report to 19 per cent among the 2009/10 clergy. A similar tendency tin exist seen in the sample of women curates.
"The move from the Apollonian temperament to the Epimethean temperament . . . may carry implications for the future grapheme and identity of the Church of England," the authors write. "The Church of the future may exist a more tightly managed and more than conservative Church, but less inspirational and less responsive to transformation.
The key question hither is: what kind of 'conservative'. I remember it is hard to over-estimate the pressures driving people towards institutional conformity, specially in the early on years of ministry. Through the pick process (which might last two years or more from first exploration), through pre-ordination training (two or iii years) and right through curacy (3 or 4 years), the ordinand isentirely dependent on the expert stance of those who are assessing him or her. This could mean nearly a decade when one of the primarily psychological challenges is to conform and non to be seen as 'difficult'. Even those with freehold or mutual tenure depend on the bishop whose licence they concur when the fourth dimension comes to move post. I know very well (not to the lowest degree from correspondence with individuals) that to challenge the person whose license you hold on some matter of doctrine or practice demands a very high threshold of confidence—which might exist good for the sanity of the bishop concerned, merely means that those who practice will tend to be eccentric, or limited to those who plan to stay in postal service indefinitely and then believe they have nothing to lose.
This business organisation with institutional conformity sits, paradoxically, aslope a concern for 'diversity' which means that issue of doctrinal understanding seem to take a back seat. I was recently involved in a fascinating discussion nearly Birmingham biblical scholar Michael Goulder. Goulder in one case commented:
With all its weaknesses, the Church building of England is an clan of good people, bound together past a noble platonic. Because of its weakness it is not tempted to strive for ability over its members… The Anglican Church has an honourable tradition of honesty and liberalism, and I have always belonged to it at heart. It is but the intellectual issues which forced me to leave it, and I have never regretted that decision.
I commented in response:
I recall it is an empty comment to make any observation about accommodating 'liberalism', since the nature of liberalism is constantly changing. At ane fourth dimension it might hateful rejecting penal commutation, at another information technology ways beingness sceptical about the whole NT and rejecting any realist notion of God. If he thought the C of Eastward was virtuously open to all ideas, then all its confessions are meaningless.
To which Marker Goodacre, well-known NT scholar who studied under Goulder, commented:
Well, that'southward why he left it in the end. He was criticized by some Anglican colleagues for that motion, people who thought you could be in the church without assertive in God, but Michael institute that dishonest.
I call back Francis and Smith, rightly understood, are warning u.s.a. of the dangers of institutional conformity that masks what Goulder called an intellectual dishonesty.
I wonder whether this is related to recent tendency in photos of jumping ordinands. At one level, this is just a scrap of fun—but the paradox here is the (institutionally driven?) need to look 'normal' and 'accessible' whilst wearing mediaeval garb. There is nothing quite like distinctive clothing to set you autonomously from those around you lot—which at one level tin can be useful in continuing out and being identifiable. But information technology is the most obvious mode in which the culture of the Church is completely out of step with modernity's intellectual and social construction. Distinctive styles of dress to friction match indigenous or status identity has been common in history, and is still the case in many parts of the world (I remember Quranic students dress in white robes on the streets of Kingdom of morocco earlier in the year). But information technology is a primal cultural deviation in Western civilisation. Why has there been a proliferation of episcopal garb, including the wearing of mitres, when these things are non historically Anglican, and contradict all the impulses to be 'relevant'? Because, even for bishops, defying expectations of institutional conformity is very demanding.
The study concludes: "Within a Church that is managing reject, and doing and then with increasingly overstretched resources, reliance on the Epimethean temperament may exist a wise and cautious strategy. Here are leaders who will non stone the boat and who will offer a sense of security during palliative care. Indeed, the extraverts amid them may well stimulate some growth by preaching a straightforward gospel of certain truth highly-seasoned to fellow SJs."
Would that we had more leaders who would rock the boat—but in a mode other than questioning or defying the teaching of the Church!
In that location is hither, though, more than a hint of hope. I don't want to offer an insidious value judgement about the relative claim of an private being introvert rather than extravert. Just one of the consistent features of Anglican clergy is that they take been notably more introverted than their congregations and society every bit a whole. This can brand the investment in communal relationships much more emotionally demanding, just research suggests that (surprise, surprise!) a sense of a warm and welcoming community is a key chemical element of a healthy, then growing (in every sense) church community. If the proportion of extraverts who are able to contribute to this with less personal demand is growing, then that might be a good thing.
One final idea. I am all for skillful analysis of both ministry building and mission. But in a complex globe, is there a way of recovering the simplicity of ministry and flourishes and is life-giving? The two things that, in my experience, almost Christians (and would-be Christians) are looking for: a 18-carat sense that they are loved and cared for; and a compelling vision of God's grace and action. Expert pastoral care, and dynamic preaching, are surely the foundations for a healthy church and the goals of healthy ministry.
Is anything more needed?
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