Quotes about Clergy

Evangelism is not a calling reserved exclusively for the clergy. I believe one of the greatest priorities of the church today is to mobilize the laity to do the work of evangelism.

No clergyman however brilliant, no evangelist no matter how eloquent or compelling, can bring about the revival we need. Only the Holy Spirit can do this.

The pulpit elevates the clergy to a position of prominence. True to its meaning, it puts the preacher at center "stage"—separating and placing him high above God's people.

The thing that alarms me is that there are so many clergymen who say that the so-called 'new morality' is all right. They say we're living in a new generation; let's be relevant, let's change God's law. Let's say that adultery is all right under certain circumstances; fornication's all right under certain circumstances. If it's 'meaningful.'

The clergy are, practically, the most irresponsible of all talkers. [ Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming, The Westminster Review, 1885. ]

Avoid, as you would the plague, a clergyman who is also a man of business.

Hell is paved with priests' skulls.

A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

So too, in forming a constitution, or in enacting rules of procedure, or making canons, the people do not merely passively assent, but actively cooperate. They have, in all these matters, the same authority as the clergy.

The Attack is a funny book which the reader has the option of taking seriously. For when the laughter subsides we realize that SK has set before us a stark either-or proposition: either follow the gospel according to Christ and the apostles, or follow the gospel according to the clergy. There can be no dialectical synthesis between these contraries.

Hence, the Reformers dramatically failed to put their finger on the nerve of the original problem: a clergy-led worship service attended by a passive laity. It is not surprising, then, that the Reformers viewed themselves as reformed Catholics.

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.