1928

Had a profitable talk with a Jewish friend in the east. He said the only Christian church that he could ever join would be that of the Quakers. Of course he would not join the Quakers in the kind of a world in which we are living, where Christians practice social ostracism against Jews and thereby force every Jew to regard such a transfer of religious loyalty in the light of treason to his racial community. He felt that if he were free to choose his religious group he would choose the Quakers because they have no professional ministry. He dabbles in psychiatry and thinks he has looked through the professional minister.

I would like to have him talk to a group of preachers sometime. Like all realists he barely escapes the kind of cynicism which destroys wholesome human relations. But he does escape it and is not at all bitter in his analysis of human nature. That is why his reaction to the ministry disquiets me. He has his hands on considerable truth.

There is something very artificial about the professional ministry. When religion deals with magic the professional priests can dispense the magic and be quite happy. But when religion becomes a search for all of life’s highest values there is something incongruous about making your living in the business of helping people to discover and develop these values. I don’t think this consideration invalidates the ministry as a profession. In a day of specialists and experts there ought to be room for a specialist in moral and spiritual values. But think of commanding a large salary because you are a better preacher than someone else! Isn’t that putting a market value on the ability of a man to help people find God? Fortunately it is the rhetorical rather than the spiritual gift that usually creates the different prices in the preacher market.