Tue 7 Oct, 2008
Dante and Me Meditation 2
Clergy Credibility – The Demise
I first discussed Dante’s insight into spiritual journey in my book Why Should I Believe you? Rediscovering Clergy Credibility (Abingdon Press 2006). I suspect it was received with a resounding “Huh?”
I believe that the demise of clergy credibility today is as big a crisis as it was in the 14th century. Dante wrote The Divine Comedy in the early 1300’s … and the Protestant Reformation was largely provoked by widespread disrespect for the privileged lifestyles and self-serving dogmatisms of that time. The current collapse of credibility has taken some time to develop but followed a similar path. As in the 14th century, there are outside forces of rationalism, nationalism, and paganism undermining clergy credibility. But as in the 14th century, the real blame lies with the clergy themselves. This is not simply an institutional collapse. It is a personal collapse of integrity.
So, Dante’s descent into Hell, struggle through purgatory, and ultimate ascent to paradise is really an account of the progressive collapse of spiritual leadership in his and our day, and a blueprint for the recovery of spiritual leadership in his and our day.
When seekers today look at the sad spectacle of church leadership, they see layers of disreputableness. Here are the progressive layers of the Inferno that is consuming the church:
At the top, there are some virtuous church leaders. The steps toward corruption descend first to lustful leaders, and then self-centered leaders, greedy leaders, self-righteous leaders, and heretical leaders. Up until this point, the general public is largely indifferent to the decline of clergy credibility. They will just vote with their feet and avoid going to church. But the next stages of declining clergy credibility move the public from indifference to outrage.
Legal and governmental interventions are required to address the abusive church leaders, the fraudulent church leaders, and ultimately the traitorous church leader who betray the spirit of Christ himself.
It is clear that Dante is not just describing different kinds of church leaders. He is describe different stages of spiritual corruption with the personal life of each church leader. Since he has begun by speaking biographically, we know that he applies this threat of corruption to himself as well. We cannot stop at pointing the finger at “those people over there” … whatever denominational or theological rivals we want to blame for the demise of contemporary credibility. We have to see these stages as part of our own spiritual crisis. Moreover, we see that this spiritual crisis is so powerful as to be almost irresistible to even the most virtuous church leader. Sin is that powerful.
In my next meditation, I’ll talk about the first stages of redemption. It is a very hard struggle to change. Repentance and grace will not be easy. It is the “purgatory” requires to retrieve credibility.
