Quotes about Clergy

As good heirs of the Bible, we think that a great misfortune necessarily follows a great infraction. In this respect the intellectual caste, in our world, is the penitential class par excellence, continuing the role of the clergy under the Old Regime. We have to call its members what they are: officials of original sin.

If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice; for all right of private judgment is then denied.

Hell is paved with priests' skulls.

The Clergy is the greatest hindrance to faith.

If all Church power vests in the clergy, then the people are practically bound to passive obedience in all matters of faith and practice for all right of private judgment is then denied.

When it comes to the whole Bible, I believe we should not only be reading right through the Bible individually at least once a year — for clergy I'd say twice a year at least, and perhaps the gospels four times a year, and if this means reworking your personal schedules then fine, do it — but that we should make it possible for our congregations to try creative experiments for how to experience the whole Bible.

Hell is paved with priests' skulls.

Among our own people also the church sorely needs clergy in close touch with the ordinary life of the laity, living the life of ordinary men, sharing their difficulties and understanding their trials by close personal experience.

One side effect of our individualized reading of the Gospel is that it allows the clergy great control over individual behavior, via threats and rewards. Obedience to authorities became the highest virtue in this framework, instead of love, communion, or solidarity with God or others, including the marginalized.

Looking back to the earlier centuries of the church, most of the great teachers were also bishops and vice versa. It's only fairly recently that the church has had this great divide.

There is a long and well-documented tradition of wisdom in the Christian faith that any venture into leadership, whether by laity or clergy, is hazardous. it is necessary that there be leaders, but woe to those who become leaders.

The clergymen call us sinners, conceived and born in sin. Bah! What confounded nonsense that is. Is it a sin to love, to feel the need for love, not to be able to live without love? I consider a life without love a sinful and immoral state.