Topic category: Religion & Philosophy in the News
So Long As No Apostasy Involved, Who To Say Pastor Has No Vocational Calling?
An online theologian posted on social media, "...not everybody who is a pastor truly had a calling. Many Christians don't even believe that you need a calling to go into the ministry. Shame on them."
But if the minister got the position and doesn't profess any explicit apostasies, there must have been some internal and external vocational call there to begin with.
That calling might not live up to a holy roller emotional intensity.
However, both of these traditional criteria would have at one point intersected to an acceptable degree.
What this statement under consideration really is is a way to place a veneer of piety on as to why you can't or are reluctant to articulate a non-Biblically based reason as to why you don't like a particular minister.
I get accused of “individualism” repeatedly.
But isn’t this statement under consideration an example of individualism if one on one's own assumes that a minster does not have a calling when the congregation that this hypothetical ecclesiastical functionary serves holds differently if neither congregation or minister are part of an expressed heresy or form of apostasy?
Is it that the pastor does not have a calling or, if you feel inclined to this pious mysticism, is it that the Spirit is calling you as a mere pewfiller to another congregation where you might be happier or more settled?
Such a calling has been confirmed by both the individual and the congregation if the position is granted.
You are asserting a form of individualism that not only is the individual not meant to be your pastor pastor but that he should not be anybodies pastor because he does not adhere to YOUR preferences.
Like it or not, a traditional understanding holds that the vocational calling starts within the individual and then is confirmed externally by the congregation extending the position. So who is this online theologian, who goes on the record as one willingly subordinated to the will of the ecclesia, to state otherwise?
Perhaps it is this online theologian that is being called elsewhere and not the pastor.
By Frederick Meekins
Frederick Meekins
Issachar Bible Church & Apologetics Research Institute
Biography - Frederick Meekins
Frederick Meekins is an independent theologian and social critic. Frederick holds a BS in Political Science/History, a MA in Apologetics/Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and a PhD. in Christian Apologetics from Newburgh Theological Seminary.