Gallup took another poll, big surprise. No, not really. The real suprise is where clergy ended up in the 2006 Most Honest and Ethical Professions poll. Have you checked the link yet? Clergy ranked 8th. 8th! Well 8th is better than 23rd. Clergy still ranked higher than car salesmen and congressmen. Well, that’s a relief….or is it? The top five were in the medical profession one way or another. Even engineers and college teachers ranked higher in people’s eyes than clergy. College teachers? That’s a whole other blog in itself. The days of Jim and Tammy Faye are long gone, even Jimmy S. is back with a television ministry. I’ve watched it a couple times, it wasn’t bad.
Of course, for those defending the clergy #8 ranking, you can say the poll was just taken at a bad time for christians in America. The fall of Ted Haggard still fresh in the minds of Americans. And that may be true, but you can’t put the blame for this, all at the feet of one man. Maybe the Catholic Church and all it’s priests problems. Maybe, but I think you have to dig deeper. Little deeper. Just a little deeper….do you see it? Maybe the glow of it coming into focus? Maybe it’s something on more of a grassroots level. Maybe it’s just clergy in general, and people looking for perfection where perfection cannot and will not be found. I don’t think you can blame bad timing. Trust me on this one. I’m a pastor’s son and have been a pastor. Perfection you will not find, but you can find the pursuit for perfection. With the assumption that perfection is to be Christ-like, of course.
So, why the low ranking? Granted, 8 out of 23 isn’t terrible. Here’s my guess. Maybe the reason is transparence, or the lack of it. Perhaps we as pastors(clergy), board members, sunday school teachers, lay people, christians just need to be more transparent with people. Let people know that we aren’t perfect, but we are trying. With the transparence comes honesty. And of course, with honesty comes the ethics and people’s perception of you and your honesty.
Let me encourage you to be more transparent today. Let people get to know the real you. Not the ‘Perfect Paul and Polly Christian’ fascade that we put on. Let me know what you think.
Until next time.
Filed under: Blog, Outreach, Public Relations, The Walk, church
