“My colleague, Stanley Hauerwas, was recently asked about the moral confusion of contemporary clergy. Hauerwas said something to the effect that, ‘You have these people who get out of seminary thinking that their job is to ‘help people.’ That’s where the adultery begins.’
What?
‘So you have these clergy,’ he continued, ‘ who have no better reason for being in ministry than to ‘meet people’s needs.’ Little Johnny needs picking up after school. And Johnny’s mother, since she is working, calls the pastor, who has nothing else better to do, and ask him to pick Johnny up. And the pastor thinks, ‘Well, I’m here to help people.’ So he goes and picks up little Johnny. Before long the pastor meets a parishioner who is lonely and needs love and then, when caught in the act of adultery, his defense is that he is an extremely caring pastor.’
In a culture of omnivorous need, all-consuming narcissism, clergy who have no more compelling motive for their preaching than ‘meeting people’s needs’ are dangerous.”
–William Willimon, Preaching Master Class (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2010), 58.
