by Brandon K. Presley and Joshua R. Colson
Throughout church history, many have raised questions about the relationship between ministry and marriage. One of the most intriguing questions is whether Christian ministers should be free to marry or forced to abstain from nuptials. Evangelical readers likely heartily affirm the freedom of pastors to marry—and rightly so.
However, evangelical leaders sometimes remain skeptical about singleness, often encouraging or even functionally mandating marriage as a precondition for pastors. The experience of Mark Almlie, a single, evangelical minister, is not unlike the experience of others: “I’ll get an email saying ‘wonderful résumé.’ . . . Once I say I’m single, never married, I never hear back.”[1] Some churches even go so far as to state explicitly the requirement of marriage in potential pastoral candidates.[2]
We would like to suggest that evangelicals consider not only the viability but also the potential goodness of pastoral celibacy. Undoubtedly, marriage will be the norm for most pastors. Yet we should consider the idea that pastoral celibacy and pastoral marriage are each legitimate options providing different paths for effective ministry. We will begin with what the Bible teaches about the concept of pastoral celibacy before turning to the historical practice and responding to a major argument against pastoral celibacy.
Scriptural Background
People arguing in favor of strict clerical celibacy often point to Matthew 19:10–12 and 1 Corinthians 7:25–35, noting that both Jesus and the Apostle Paul contend that celibacy frees ministers to devote themselves entirely to the ministry. Those who are married, they may contend, must also attend to wife and/or children. However, this view unnecessarily bifurcates the ministry. Ministry occurs at home and in the church, and both celibate and married ministers have valuable perspectives from which to serve their flocks.
On the other hand, some, including celibate and married ministers, have observed that marriage is the norm.[3] Such people may point to 1 Timothy 3 or Genesis 2:18, noting that God gave humanity companionship as a gift. However, this view sometimes fails to give pastoral celibacy its legitimate due.
How should we reconcile these two perspectives? Is one approach better, or are they each effective in different ways? Some historical background will help us answer these questions.
Historical Interpretations/Arguments
The Early and Medieval Church
The early church’s stance on clerical celibacy was far from uniform, varying from locality to locality. Many pastors in the first, second, and third centuries were married, including the Apostle Peter (Mt. 8:14–15). Nonetheless, we also see exhortations to celibacy for those who are able.[4]
The attitude of the early church is perhaps best summed up by Paphnutius, the celibate bishop of Thebes, who argued against mandating pastoral celibacy: “that too heavy a yoke ought not to be laid upon the clergy; that marriage and married intercourse are of themselves honorable and undefiled; that the Church ought not be injured by an extreme severity, for all could not live in absolute continency.”[5] Paphnutius echoes the words of Christ as recorded in Matthew 19:10–12, noting, “He who is able to receive this, let him receive it.”[6] Paphnutius correctly believed that not all men who are called to the ministry can or should remain celibate, yet still realized the viability of pastoral celibacy.
Despite general freedom on the issue in the early church, actual prohibitions on pastoral intercourse were levied as early as 295.[7] For instance, the Spanish Council of Elvira (a local council, not an ecumenical one) imposed a life of chastity on those holding ordained office. If an ordained man was married prior to his ordination, he should remain married but abstain from spousal relations. Any disobedience to this principle would result in one’s removal from ordained office.[8]
Further, the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 318 placed a prohibition on living with any woman outside of close familial relations: “The great Synod has stringently forbidden any bishop, presbyter, deacon, or any one of the clergy, to have a subintroducta (woman) dwelling with him, except only a mother, or sister, or aunt, or such persons only as are beyond all suspicion.”[9] Thus, by the fourth century, many married men in the Western church were ordained but were often expected, or even mandated, to live in celibacy.[10]
Therein, we contend, lies the problem. Encouragements to pastoral celibacy were proper, highlighting the importance the Bible places on chastity and celibacy. The problems began with the mandate that a pastor must be celibate. Such an imposition was not an established mandate for all Western clerics until the First Lateran Council (1123–1153). The mandate itself created major issues, such as binding the consciences of ministers and attempting to bind the marital desires of ministers. Ultimately, such mandates lie at the nexus of many theological and sociological concerns too numerous to discuss here.[11]
The Reformation Church
The Reformers correctly argued against the requirement of clerical celibacy because many ordained ministers lacked the self-control to remain celibate.[12] They drew their argument from the words of Jesus in Matthew 19:10–12 and Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:25–35. Jesus and Paul quite clearly qualify their commands, Jesus saying, “He who is able to receive this, let him receive it,” and Paul arguing that only those who are not married may choose to remain single according to God’s will.
However, with the Reformers arguing against the Church’s mandate, many Protestants, perhaps unintentionally, swung the pendulum to abandon celibacy altogether. However, the seventeenth century English Puritan Richard Baxter typifies an exception to that trend:
I confess I would not have men lie too long under temptations to incontinency. . . . But yet methinks it is hard that men can do no more to mortify the concupiscence of the flesh, that they may live in a single condition, and have none of those temptations from wife and children, to hinder them from furthering their ministerial ends by charitable works. If he that marrieth not doth better than he that doth marry, surely ministers should labour to do that which is best. . . . This is one of the highest points of the Romish policy. . . . It is a pity that for a better cause we can no more imitate them in self-denial, where it might be done.[13]
Baxter echoes Paul’s words, noting that celibate ministers have less distractions of a certain type compared to married ministers. While praising Roman Catholic policy, he nevertheless believes that ministers can and, in some cases, should marry. Thus, Baxter’s position bears similarity to the beliefs and practices of the early church, providing a via media between any mandates to remain single or to marry. Such a belief provides a rare and sobering example both for Catholics and Protestants: encouraging those whom God has called to celibacy to remain celibate and encouraging those whom God has called to marriage to marry. More recently, one could point to the life of John Stott, longtime pastor of All Souls Church in London, as an exemplar of the viability of pastoral celibacy.[14]
Sociological Argument
Some Protestants have claimed that marriage is preferable in ministers because married ministers are less prone to sexual impropriety (e.g., abuse or adultery). They may even cite the Roman Catholic Church’s history of sexual abuse as evidence for this claim. However, the data to support such claims is anecdotal. In the United States, from 1997–2007 (most recent data reported), Protestant churches were more likely to have lawsuits filed against them for sexual abuse than their Roman Catholic counterparts; while these lawsuits did not specify whether the Protestant ministers were married, other studies show that 96% of Protestant ministers are married, suggesting that the vast majority of abuse in Protestant churches likely comes from married ministers.[15]
While lawsuits do not necessarily reflect the guilt of the parties involved, they do demonstrate that reported cases of sexual impropriety are virtually the same among married and celibate pastors. This fact is further substantiated by a recent report of the Southern Baptist Convention, which detailed sexual abuse cases involving its churches and pastors from 2009–2019.[16]
The data and information presented would indicate that sexual sin is just as common in married Protestant ministers as in celibate Catholic priests. Therefore, the stigma surrounding single ministers—that they are more inclined to sexual impropriety—is unfounded.
Conclusion
What do we make of these biblical, historical, and sociological considerations? Simply put, we affirm that both celibacy and marriage are gifts from God. He calls each of His children, including ministers, to one of these two states. Therefore, should one desire both celibacy and the office of a pastor, he should not be disqualified from the pastorate on the basis of his celibacy. Churches and associations should consider encouraging celibacy among pastors for the historical and biblical reasons established above to the extent God has called them to it. Attempts to punish a celibate minister or prevent him from service in the local church run counter to Scripture, which is, ironically, exactly what the Reformers charged the Roman Church of doing.
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Brandon K. Presley is an ordained minister serving at Wooddale Free Will Baptist Church (Knoxville, TN) as a teacher and substitute preacher. He was awarded a Bachelor’s degree from Welch College in 2018, a Master’s degree in Theology and Ministry from Welch College in 2020, and a Master’s degree in History from Arizona State University in 2021. He and his wife are expecting their first baby later this month.
[1]Erik Eckholm, “Unmarried Pastor, Seeking a Job, Sees Bias,” New York Times, March 21, 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/22/us/22pastor.html.
[2]Ibid.
[3]Even the celibate John Stott wrote, “Marriage is the norm, singleness the abnorm.” See Albert Y. Hsu, Singles at the Crossroads: A Fresh Perspective on Christian Singleness (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1997), 177. See also Albert Mohler, “Must a Pastor be Married? The New York Times Asks the Question?” Albert Mohler, March 25, 2011, https://albertmohler.com/2011/03/25/must-a-pastor-be-married-the-new-york-times-asks-the-question.
[4]Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, Cyril of Alexandria, St. Epiphanius also discuss this issue in letters and treatises to the Church. See Herbert Thurston, “Celibacy of the Clergy,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 3. (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908), 484. Cf. Helen Parrish, “‘If there is one faith, there must be one tradition’: Clerical Celibacy and Marriage in the Early Church” in Clerical Celibacy in the West: The 1100–1700 (New York: Rutledge, 2020), 15–57.
[5]Paphnutius, as quoted by Phillip Schaff in “Proposed Action on Clerical Celibacy,” The Complete Early Church Fathers Collections: Writings from the Ante-Nicene and Post-Nicene Period (Omaha, NE: Patristic, 2019), Kindle Edition.
[6]All Scripture citations will come from the Revised Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
[7]It is difficult to say exactly what caused the shift in practice. Likely, there was a growing mix of asceticism, a desire for “moral perfection,” and neo-platonic thought which influenced the Western church to adopt a skepticism regarding the holiness of ministers who were not celibate. C.f. Charles A. Frazee, “The Origins of Clerical Celibacy in the Western Church.” Church History 57 (1988): 108–14. https://doi.org/10.2307/3165654.
[8]Thurston, “Celibacy of the Clergy.”
[9]Ecumenical Council of Nice, The Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church: Their Canons and Dogmatic Decrees, Together with the Canons of All the Local Synods which Have Received Ecumenical Acceptance, ed. Henry Robert Percival (New York: The Christian Literature Co., 1900), 11.
[10]Frazee, “The Origins of Clerical Celibacy,” 114–17.
[11]For more see, Brian Gogan, “Clerical Celibacy,” The Farrow 61, no. 1 (January 2010): 57. On the theological side, the sacerdotal system that matured in the Medieval Era led to a “close identification” of every believer but especially the pastor-priest “with the virgin Jesus.” On the sociological side, European feudal lords preferred to have their own heirs appointed to ecclesiastical offices rather than see those offices go to the sons of clerics.
[12]Martin Luther, “The Institution of Marriage and the Family,” in Luther on the Creation: A Critical Devotional Commentary On Genesis, trans. Henry Cole, ed. John Nicholas Lenker (Minneapolis: Lutherans in All Lands, 1904), 21023; John Calvin, “The Seventh Commandment,” in Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Elsie Anne McKee (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 149–153.
[13]Richard Baxter (1656), in The Reformed Pastor,ed. William Brown (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1899), 167–68.
[14]Albert Y. Hsu and John Stott, “John Stott on Singleness,” Christianity Today, August 17, 2011, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/augustweb-only/johnstottsingleness.html.
[15]Within the United States, several insurance companies exist, but only a handful insure churches. In 2007, three of those insurance companies (the Church Mutual Insurance Company, the GuideOne Insurance Company, and the Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company) reported the numbers of claims filed against the churches they insure. Between the companies that insure churches, they averaged receiving 260 reports per year of sexual abuse against minors in Protestant churches between the years 1997–2007, while in the same period averaging 228 from Catholic churches. C.f Melanie Blow, “Is there more Sexual Abuse in the Protestant Churches than the Catholic Church?” Stop Abuse Campaign, January 8, 2018, https://stopabusecampaign.org/2018/01/08/is-there-more-sexual-abuse-in-the-protestant-churches-than-the-catholic-church/; David Kinnaman, “How Healthy are Pastors’ Relationships?” Barna Group, February, 15, 2017, https://www.barna.com/research/healthy-pastors-relationships/.
[16]Holly Meyer and Deepa Bharath, “Southern Baptist Leaders Release Secret Accused Abuser List,” The Associated Press, May 26, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/religion-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-baptist-southern-convention-ade6d177368e6b7bc0981a6097a3bdc6.
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