The Pastor as Upper Middle Class Professional

https://www.opc.org/feature.html?feature_id=504

According to the guidelines provided by the OPC, the pastor is to be 'free from worldly care and employment'. And yet what this translates into is that the pastor should make a salary commensurate with that of an upper middle class professional.

While the article and its financial assumptions were offensive to New Testament ethics, it did not surprise me. As a young Christian preparing for seminary I had many a long conversation with my OP pastor and I heard many shocking things come from his mouth – things I would consider to be 'unwritten' codes within the OPC and Presbyterianism in general. One of them was with regard to income. He was quite candid and said that generally speaking the OPC wanted its pastors to make salaries that put them into nice neighbourhoods, the kinds of places where doctors and lawyers would be their neighbours.  

He further justified this because of the education level of most pastors. Having a Master's Degree (in divinity) they should have an income that matches that level of accomplishment. Remember also this was almost twenty-five years ago. The college craze was only just beginning and so college degrees still had more import at that time.

So because of their credentials and the status that pastors 'ought' to have, he concluded they needed to make an upper middle class of income. This whole line of thought rubbed me as wrong at the time and I challenged him on it – a move on my part which most certainly generated resentment. He would later (when I had moved away) stab me in the back and generate no small amount of grief for me. He was the first OP cleric to do so but he wouldn't be the last.

His mentality regarding this issue and many others was not derived in any way shape or form from the New Testament but was instead a product of the business world. It reflected the same kind of mentality that leads 'ministries' to pay their leaders obscene salaries by appealing to the pay made by CEO's of non-profits and the like.

What this pastor's mentality and the linked article amount to are a form of clerical careerism – the pastor as the respectable professional. As such, one marks career milestones, has a nice retirement portfolio, cozy benefits and the like. It's a mentality born of the Magisterial Reformation and with regard to the OPC, it belies the denomination's claim to both Scriptural Authority and its Sufficiency. It is certainly a denial of its denominational narrative testimony vis-à-vis the Mainline. They have hijacked Scriptural texts that indicate elder support (a polity different than the 3-office Presbyterian clericalism of the OPC) and used them to justify posh bourgeoisie ethics and norms.

The numerics of the article were ridiculous and ethically repugnant even from a worldly standpoint. Based on the numbers, in the area I live I should (if an OP pastor) make over $100,000 a year – a ridiculous notion. Such an income would place me well above the median, let alone what is actually required to live. $17-20 an hour in this area is more than what many adults make. High School graduates are looking at something in the neighborhood of $10 an hour. I guess life is good in Iowa but those numbers do not match realities in much of the country.

I realise that for many living in larger metropolitan areas an income of $100,000 is not terribly impressive but for much of the country it still is. Even the nationwide median income is considerably less at $65,000 – and I don't make anything near that, not even close. And yet my family certainly survives.

Reading the article reminded me of my missionary inquiries during the late 1990's. At the time I was still very much plugged into the Reformed world. I was staggered to find that going to Eastern Europe or the Balkans I would have to raise over $5,000 a month in support – literally ten times what working class people were making in those countries at the time. I had just come back from Hungary and even with my paltry income, my American dollars made me feel like I was wealthy.

$5,000 a month? I think at the time I was making about $2,000 a month and supporting a family, Twenty-five years later I still don't make $5,000 a month and yet we certainly pay our bills and eat. Apparently we are excessively burdened by worldly care.

I came to quickly understand that the money went toward a number of absurdities such as benefits and most of all – the institutional overhead. I would be required to raise $60,000 a year to live in a place that only required $6,000. The rest went to fueling 'the machine' – the racket is more like it. I couldn't justify it. This along with many other things about the Reformed-connected missions organisations I looked into led me to abandon the quest. I don't believe God will bless their work. I knew I couldn't be part of it.

I had wanted to go to Hungary or Romania and live on a few hundred dollars a month – and live like the people I would be evangelising. But American Middle Class sensibilities triumph it would seem. It would never even occur to these people that someone like me couldn't care less about their pension program, their benefits package – and I have to say I literally spit on the notion of a 401K and all that it represents.

I wasn't looking for a cushy life with redundant security nets. I wanted to go out and be a missionary. The episode marked another step in my practical and ideological departure and ultimate severance with the larger Reformed world – and all it represents in terms of society and culture.

The first step had been the 'insider' conversations with the OP pastor. I found his ethos repugnant and couldn't imagine being part of his world. In his case it was worse because he was on many levels a deceitful person and so it painted his whole attitude toward money and status in particularly bad light. I looked him up a few years ago. He's still a pastor (which is unfortunate) but he's no longer in the OPC.

There were some rather impoverished people at the church and even at one point some homeless folks who lived in a car. His cavalier and dismissive attitude toward these people reflected his Right-wing values and had nothing to do with the gospel of the New Testament. I had been to his home and I know some of these other folks probably felt like they were visiting a palace.

The very status the OPC would boast in – is in fact a severe mark of shame. Imagine the poor feeling alienated and uncomfortable in the home of a church leader because of its opulence. The experience smacks more of Roman Catholicism and its monied clerical hierarchy than anything to do with the Scriptures which repeatedly warn and condemn the wealthy – and declare in unmistakable terms that we cannot serve God and mammon.

On many an occasion I have reflected on how Presbyterians lost out on the frontier. As the American nation moved west in the nineteenth century the Presbyterians lost out to Methodists and Baptists. The latter rode circuits and lived out on the frontier with the folks they ministered to. There were exceptions but many Presbyterians would not abandon town life and the status it afforded them. Many of their losses were born of pragmatics and logistics – they just weren't there while the Methodists and Baptists were. It would seem that even in the 21^st century, the lessons have not been learned.

If you think of the 'pastorate' as a career, and plan your moves on the basis of benefits, perks, and a life of middle class ease and comfort, then you're not interested in New Testament eldership. Go get a job at an office. The mindset reflected in the OP article is one of a post-Constantinian mindset in which the elder is not servant-shepherd to a flock of strangers and pilgrims but (perish the day) a respected member in society, a bureaucrat at the head of an institution. It's strange thing especially for a group like the OPC which often thinks of itself in terms of being a true remnant – which they are I suppose. Not in terms of New Testament Christianity but in terms of the nineteenth century Princetonian Presbyterian tradition. It's hardly something to be proud of.

In terms of the New Testament their approach to these questions is no guide and must be condemned and ignored.