A Note on Clergy-Laity Differences among Lutherans

Abstract

F ew students of organized religion today doubt the existence of a gap between clergy and laity of the mainline denominations. There may be disagreement about its causes, and whether the gap is widening, but the religious and secular press attests frequently to some kind of clergy-laity conflict. There has, however, been little empirical study of the extent of such differences between clergy and lay leaders in the parishes of a single denomination. In 1969 I examined a judgment or purposive sample (Miller, 1970: 56-57) of clergy and lay leaders who were members of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), a relatively conservative denomination adhering to the traditional Lutheran position which emphasizes pure doctrine, liturgical propriety, and abstention from civil affairs (Kersten, 1970). I selected 13 northern Illinois parishes that were typical of the LCA structure, representing approximately 13,500 baptized Two of the churches were from the city of Rockford (population 150,000), two from towns of about 20,000 population, two from rural communities, four from the Chicago north and west suburban area, and three from the city of Chicago. Each congregation elects a governing body, the council, consisting of adult members. Council members must be active in church life and they are usually heavily involved in parish activities. They comprise the essense of the lay power structure in the parish. They are its most influential members. If the pastor is having trouble in the parish because of his social and theological views, he must reckon, above all, with the council. The pastors of the 13 churches I selected submitted the names and addresses of the 240 council members, all but 11 of whom were men and none of whom were black. A total of 136 of these lay leaders, or 57 percent, returned the mailed questionnaire. In the clergy sample, 19 were pastors of these same congregations, all of whom returned their questionnaires. In addition, 58 questionnaires were returned from pastors of other congregations, both rural and urban, from a total of 83 which were mailed to every second pastor in a list of parishes in Illinois north of a line running approximately between Chicago and Rock Island-Moline. The total return for clergy was 77 or 76 percent.

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