TLDR: The author compares two surveys on Religion in America, one from 2021 and the other from 2023. There are reasons for concern and opportunities for engagement. Please read on.
Back on November 16, 2021, the New York Times published an article entitled, “The Pastors aren’t all right: 38% Consider Leaving Ministry.” The jest and summary of the article could go like this, “As the pandemic has gone on, burnout continues to take its toll on church leaders. They feel stuck, which just adds on to the pressure and the burnout.” The article made its rounds to many boards and judicatories (people in charge) of both the formation and supervision of clergy. There was a sense, however, that this pandemic was going to change the way religion operates in America. The church building would stop being the center, and the cyberworld of livestreaming and Zoom would become the new way we reach the faithful. Priests and pastors were then required to learn a new set of technologies some had never seen before, become tele-evangelists as their services were broadcasted around the world via Facebook live, and rely almost exclusively on their telephones and email to have any meaningful contact with parishioners. In person pastoral care went out of the window, giving dropped in many churches, and pastors became more isolated than they had ever been. But there was a hope among clergy and Bishops that these pains would be transitory. We would recover from this pandemic soon enough, and we would then go back to our “normal” lives, having made a few smart technological adjustments that would make our life in community better. The congregation would gather again in their beloved buildings, the pastor would return to their customary schedules, and eventually a new status quo would be here again. And then, pastors and priests would reclaim their joy, job satisfaction, mental and spiritual health, passion for the gospel, and peer networks that would reduce their isolation.
It has been almost two years since that landmark article, which was based on a landmark research by the Barna group, and although a few things have gotten better, pastors and priests are still in trouble. This last Monday, September 19th, 2023, the results of a new nationwide survey on Religion in America were released. The headline reads like this, “New Survey: Mainline Protestant Pastors Notably More Liberal Than Congregants.” You may be thinking, “Duh, we already knew this!” And you are right. We have known this since the 1950s. Pastors and priests are trending to the left, while people in the pews are mostly in the middle or trending to the right. This in itself is not news, but what interests me is the following statements, “A full 44% of mainline clergy members have thought about leaving their current religious tradition, while only 23% of their congregants have. Only 15% of all American church goers have considered changing faiths.” I have personally known a number of clergy who have in fact switched denominations. One of my curates from Grace, St. Francisville, is now a priest in the Greek Orthodox Church in Nashville. Many have also left to go to the Anglican Church in North America or have abandoned the ministry all together. Another issue of concern is the following, “Clergy are about twice as likely as white mainline Protestant churchgoers (17%) and about three times as likely as all churchgoers (13%) to say that their church is more divided by politics now than it was five years ago.” The polarization in our country has seeped deeply into many congregations and priests are often overwhelmed by having to referee, call for civility, preach to the middle of the nave (neither left nor right), or cleanse the gospels of any seemingly political or social message (which is impossible!)
One of the last conclusions is even more concerning, “Pastors are not happy, stress has increased since the return from pandemic, and many are leaving churches. This is clearly one of the reasons mainline Protestant congregations are shrinking and losing churches on a regular basis.” For a snapshot of the survey, please go here. For the fuller report, please go here.
A full two years after the N. Y. Times and Barna report, in a mostly post-pandemic church, pastors and priests are still in trouble. One third of us will be retired within the next ten years and seminaries are not graduating enough students to take over. Additionally, while congregations have remained ideologically and theologically central to right in their faith, most seminaries in America continue to trend middle to far left. Job satisfaction continues to trend downwards, and many pastors and priests feel “stuck” and “drowning.” According to religion reporter, Bob Smietana (Reorganized Religion, Worthy Publishing, 2021) the tensions created by the 2016 presidential election, and the political polarization that followed, have made many of the sermons and social activism of clergy sound “suspect.” Clergy feel under attack. They are often classified as “woke” for preaching the same messages they used to preach before the polarization of the secular world entered our churches in full force. Now, they must police their sermons and actions because anything they say or do can isolate members of their congregation on either side of the political divide. For homogenous churches in historically conservative or liberal communities (where everyone experiences an understood “sameness”) this may not be as much an issue as for communities undergoing great multicultural shifts. Sadly, many priests have responded to the polarization by staking a place firmly on the left or on the right, falling for the same polarization afflicting our country. When I see this, I always remember the wise words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, to a group of young people in a pre-ordination retreat in 1971 (Published in 1972 under the name, “The Christian Priest Today): “The true radical is not a man (or a woman) who suspends themselves from the branches on either the left or the right, but the person who in their thinking and action goes to the root of the three.”
In conclusion, the political divide, the reduction in giving in many churches across America (which requires that clergy do more than at any time in recent history,) infighting over political or theological matters, a rapidly changing church landscape, and poor support systems are just some of the causes for burnout and ministry attrition. And for some who may be wondering about the reason for this article, let me say that this is not an “Poor me, love me more, take care of me” article. I believe I belong to the group retiring within the next ten years. Additionally, I am very happy in my ministry and very much in love with Jesus of Nazareth. The purpose of this article is to ask for your prayers for vocations and your support for men and women in formation. It takes a special kind of person to choose ministry today. No one I know is in this field for the money, the perks, the country clubs, and the high-level academia posts they will be offered after their curacies. Men and women choose these posts because they love Jesus of Nazareth and they believe his Gospel is still good news for the world. Their imaginations have been captured by a loving God, who so loves the world for which his Son gave up his life, that he created a Church for his Son’s mission. They want to do good and they want to love the people God loves. They deserve our prayers and our support. Please call me if you are interested in concrete ways in which we can support men and women in formation in our Diocese.
May our Lord continue to bless you,
Fr. Roman+
