Brian Gregory > Recent Status Updates

Pt. 3
“Such an exemplification was more important, given the focus on the family in the Protestant life and culture. But repeatedly the unrealistic expectations of ministers put them at odds with their congregations. Communities not only expected their ministers to be learned, sober, upright and modest, but they also wanted them to preserve local traditions.”

People’s habits somehow never change.

Pt. 2

The more the Protestant clerical ministry stabilized. The higher the levels of ministerial career and family endogamy, such that the sons of ministers married into the clergy and became clergymen themselves. That increased the focus on the parsonage ass the place where Christian good conduct was exemplified…

“Educational attainment was not a passport to effective ministry. The relationship between ministers and their congregations was ambivalent, and educated pastors in the rural world created suspicions….Not only was there a hierarchy of posts, with urban ones attracting the more highly qualified candidates, but rural patrons looked for other qualities in their local pastors other than their academic achievements.

“We picked each other up and threw each other around on club dance floors. We talked about sex like it was a team sport. We were puffed up on bravado and rodomontade; and we operated with ruthless honesty and zero completion in it with each other, often boring each other’s perspective consists senseless with long, drunk lectured about how amazing our friend was.