Freedom From Ministry – Richard Neuhaus

It is possible for those who fall in love with transcendent reality in an abstract way. It should not be possible, however, for those who have encountered the God who reveals himself in Jesus the Christ. To be converted away from the world toward this God is immediately to be converted back to the world. In other words, if we are truly converted to God in Christ, then we participate in his conversion to the world.

We cannot love him if we do not share his love for his creation. But it should be clear that the religious commitment to the immanent is finally for the sake of the transcendent. Some years ago, when “secular Christianity” held sway in some quarters, a Roman Catholic missionary sister wrote that the time had come for Christians to love the poor not for Christ’s sake but for their own sake.

She worked in Mexico and demonstrated an expansive and apparently inexhaustible caring for “the wretched of the earth.” No doubt the juices of caring flow more naturally and strongly in some people than in others. But the proof of love is in loving the unlovable, in affection that is not sustained by affinity.

Unless each human life is the mirror and bearer of transcendent reality, it seems neither likely nor logical that we should relate to that life with the reverence that love implies. The Mexican peasant girl, the senile old man in the nursing home, the insufferable parish gossip — these are not loved for their own sake, because we do not encounter them on their own but within the sacramen- tal bonding of a double and doubling conversion; conversion to the transcendent God who in Christ has made himself vulnerable to our loving and our hurting in the immanent.

“Matthew 25” Ministry in the inner city has taught me what little I know about the connection between spirituality and success, between sacra- ment and satisfaction. It was a heady thing at age twenty-four to move into the heart (some would say the core) of the Big Apple and discover how quickly one can become “an important person” who “makes a difference.” I confess there were too many times when I believed the advertisements for myself issued by myself and others. In the kingdom of the disheartened, the optimist is king.

And Brooklyn was disheartened and disheartening. But optimism about the difference one can make is of course a feeble premise for ministry; it cannot be sustained without delusion of self and others. I had already in seminary intuited that a sustained commitment to service required something more, an intense engagement in the sacramental mystery of The Presence. I doubt if I understood the connection very well then, and I am far from understanding it fully now, but all my experience has reinforced that intuition.

And not my experience only.

First edition copyright © 1979 by Richard John Neuhaus First published 1979 by Harper & Row, Publishers 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022 Revised edition copyright © 1992 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49503 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Neuhaus, Richard John. Freedom for ministry / Richard John Neuhaus — Rev.

ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8028-0622-8 (pbk.) 1. Clergy — Office. 2. Pastoral Theology. I. Title. BV660.2.N42 = 1991 253 — dc20 92-3650 CIP Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations in this publication are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946, 1952, © 1971, 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and used by permission. Quotations from The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry, by H. Richard Niebuhr, copyright © 1956 by Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., are used by permission of the publisher.

To Henry Karau In grateful remembrance of an exemplary Christian life Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library httos://archive.org/details/freedomforministOOneuh_0O oc Oe N BD WO Fe DY YO = | — I SO Preface to the Second Edition Debts . The Thus and So-ness of the Church . Ministering by Hope Beyond Apology . A Choice of Models . Authority for Ministry . Reconciliation Against Resignation .

Sacrament and Success . The Search for Community . Enacting the Mystery . The Importance of Being a Preacher . The Imperative Indicative . The Pursuit of Holiness Index of Names Vil Contents 132 208 256 Preface to the Second Edition This author has written many, perhaps too many, books. But to none has the response been so gratifying as to Freedom for Ministry. Not, mind you, that the other books have not been very well received.

They have been. At least well enough received to keep the author involved in the writing of books — described by Dr. Johnson as “the pernicious conspiracy for the destruc- tion of paper.” Yet Freedom for Ministry holds a special place in my affections, and the fact that it seems to be a special book for so many readers has led me to accede to numerous requests for a second edition.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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