Singleness and Ministry

The first time it happened I shrugged it off, the second posting I saw I ignored, but the trend that I've noticed while browsing pastoral job postings online came to a head the other day when I called about a position and was told not to apply because I was single.

I can understand if these churches were looking seeking a pastor only for unwed mothers or for some other small microcosm of the church like that. But most of these positions have been for your average run-of-the-mill pastor. The most recent one was for a UM church in Covington, Indiana looking for an Associate Pastor who's "ministry areas would focus on youth and children's ministry." The posting for this job said that they were looking for a "couple with elementary kids" and so I decided to call to see if this was just a preference or if it was a definitive restriction. When I asked the question to the Pastor he said "that's what we need to have" and as soon as I got the words "I was wondering because I'm a recent seminary graduate and I'm single" out of my mouth he make a quick move to close the conversation and pretty much hung up on me.

While I am very frustrated at this paradigm I can't fault the pastor for openly stating that a married couple with children is what his congregation needs. I have to respect that he has the needs of his parish in mind while looking for an Associate Pastor, but I do have to fundamentally disagree with his assessment that his congregation NEEDS a married couple WITH children.

Maybe he is right that his congregation does need that sort of couple. But it really seems to me that this case and the many others are indicative of the lie that Protestantism has largely embraced, namely, that being married is better and more edifying than being single.

This view, which dominates Protestant Christianity, is not Christian in either a biblical or historical sense. While I don't want to spend the time laying out an exhaustive case let me lay a little bit of a foundation.

In 1st Corinthians Paul makes an argument to the unmarried that thy should remain unmarried as he is. If this wasn't enough we also can remember that our Lord himself was single. These seem to present a solid enough case but one might be tempted to raise the passages in which it lists one of the qualifications of an Elder as having a spouse. I think it is significant that the verse uses "of one" or "only one." Thus implying that marriage itself isn't a requirement but that not having more than one spouse is.

Historically Christians have always valued singleness and celibacy. This is evidenced by the vibrant monastic life through the church and the many saints who were unwed (both male and female). One can also see extremes in this; such as the push for continent marriage among some of the later fathers. While we would recognize this extreme as ridiculous I also think that we have gone just as far in our thinking that singleness makes one not able to fully minister.

I personally think that this misconstrual by the Protestant church has done more damage than good. Besides the obvious problems that this may bring; such as problem marriages, high divorce rates and the like, I think the biggest problem with this mindset is that it prohibits Protestantism from having monks and nuns.

Granted there are other factors (historical and ecclesial) that contribute to the complete absence of protestant monasteries. But with this diminished view of the single person and the single person in ministry Protestantism shoots itself in the foot by implicitly setting a stance that is contrary to the monastery.

You may be asking why the monastery is so important. It is my contention that monasteries are absolutely vital to the health of the Church. In fact, I would argue that one of the reasons why protestant theology is in such a mess right now is because we have not had a monastic presence to norm theological development. Not only do monasteries provide a place for spiritual retreats and pilgrimages with individuals who have committed themselves to be dead to the world, focus solely on God, and live by a strict rule of discipline. But they act as a vital place of piety and theology for the church and the individuals. Through history as the church has started to deviate from the apostolic faith one of the major factors that has kept the church on course has been the voice and call of the monastics. These men and women spend their lives breathing, praying, and living the faith out in its fullness and as such the Church in the trenches must rely on their holy advice in times of trial.

To come full circle, it seems to me that the attitudes exemplified by this pastor in Indiana and the countless others that I have seen that require a potential minister to be married are very dangerous to the Church as a whole. We, as Protestant Christians, need to learn from our Orthodox and Catholic brothers and sisters that have a strong theology of singleness and marriage. I'm not sure if or how one could develop a Protestant monastery for as I said the roadblocks are numerous, but we need to realize that singleness is not a plague and that single people may have more to offer the Church that just inexperience.

As an addendum it may be helpful in-case anyone stumbles across this post to know that while I am not married I don't feel that my call in life is to remain unmarried. And for my friends who read this: yes, I am still with Kristy.