The Spirit of Things on Sunday 11/02/01

Summary:

In the 1950s it was one of the happiest professions, but today the clergyman or clergywoman is more likely to be lonely, depressed and generally unfulfilled. As a result, many are ‘burning out’ and not only leaving their positions, but leaving the church as well. This week we speak with Paul Whetham whose book, Hard to be Holy, examines how church leaders are handling their roles and relationships.

Also on the program is a discussion about the difficulties that living a life of ‘holiness’ can bring. We hear from Pastor Brian Pember of Shellharbour Baptist Church in NSW, Father David Ranson from the Catholic Institute of Sydney, and the Reverend Helen Jane Corr, an Anglican Minister in Kwinana, Western Australia. A full web transcript is now available.

Details or Transcript:

Ever since Jesus left the desert and brought his message to the people, the die was cast for the Christian clergyman: he would be available to the flock, to baptise their babies, educate them about The Word, and bury their dead. Today, he (and increasingly she) is likely to be found at the end of a mobile phone, dashing to an appointment with the local bishop, the school principal or the local politician. Gone are the days when the local priest can be encountered in a churchyard taking a quiet afternoon to reflect on his own relationship to God.

In fact, a study of 60 clergy, from the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Baptist, Uniting and Pentecostal churches found that clergy were not only having great difficulty developing their personal spirituality, but many left the church out of frustration and a failure to develop meaningful relationships. Divorce among clergy is among the highest for professionals in Australia, drawing close to American statistics where it is the third highest.

Paul Whetham’s book, Hard to be Holy, documents the personal accounts of what emerges as the loneliest profession. Clergy who give advice, inspiration, and succour to their congregations, are often unable to ask for help themselves, especially from fellow clergy.

Not all clergy enter the profession with unrealistic expectations. Three clergy join in a discussion that explores “holiness” in their ministry. Roman Catholic priest, Father David Ranson (Sydney), Baptist Pastor, the Reverend Brian Pember (Wollongong), and Anglican woman priest, the Reverend Helen Jane Corr (Perth) are agreed that the understanding of “holiness” as well as the roles they fulfil for the community, are changing. Psychology is providing a more “healthy minded” approach to forming and managing relationships. The example of other religious traditions in our society is helping to “unpack” the idea of “holiness” and how it is best embodied by the spiritual leader.

A full transcript follows.

Hello, and welcome to Hard to be Holy, The Spirit of Things first new program for 2001 on Radio National. I’m Rachael Kohn.

After the restful sounds of summer, we’re about to tackle one of the most disturbing situations in our religious landscape: the enormously difficult life of the clergy, who are increasingly ‘burning out’ and leaving not just their positions but often the church itself.

The expectation to live out a life of ‘holiness’ is part of the job, or more accurately ‘the calling’, but problems arise when holiness becomes a posture or a cloak that is donned for the occasion.

We get the holiness caught up in the role and we take this role on, and we take on the expectations of holiness that we think other people have, that we have of ourselves or that our denomination or our traditions put on us. And we try and live that out, without actually being it.

Rachael Kohn: That’s Brian Pember, Pastor of Shellharbour City Baptist Church in New South Wales. He’ll be joining me later, together with Father David Ranson, of Sydney and the Reverend Helen Jane Corr of Perth, for a discussion on holiness, and what it means to them.

But first, the study that prompted our look at the clergy: Paul Whetham’s doctoral thesis, now published as a book, called Hard to be Holy in which he examines how church leaders are handling their roles and relationships.

With a sample of 60 clergymen from Roman Catholic, Anglican, Uniting, Baptist and Pentecostal churches, Paul Whetham discovered that the clergy had a high incidence of ‘burn out’ and a range of dysfunctional relationships, including with their families. As you’ll hear, the statistics for divorce and leaving the church altogether, are very high. So, how is it that we often imagine the clergy as ‘having it all together’?

Paul Whetham: I suppose when we think about clergy we often think about them spending time with God and reading the Bible and conducting all the things in the church, and so we assume that they’re going to be the pinnacle, functioning and going to impart these spiritual mysteries. But the reality is often far different; they’re often very busy and there’s a lot of expectations placed upon them, so that actually leaves them in a precarious position where they’ve had little time to nurture their relationships with people and God.

Rachael Kohn: Paul, just how many roles does the average clergyman fulfil when he’s running a church?

Paul Whetham: Well there are many. We’d like to think that they’re sprinkling babies’ heads, joining men and women in divine matrimony and imparting these mysteries in sermons. And whilst they do have the role of priest, preacher and scholar involved in that, there are also more nitty gritty roles such as counselling and being a pastor to people in their church and outside, and being evangelist to those on the margins, being an educator conducting group work in church; social reformer, you know, addressing social injustices, and also most importantly administrators, dealing with the paperwork and chairing meetings and so on of church life.

Rachael Kohn: So in a sense they’re always giving out. Is there enough time for them to take in, to actually cultivate and nurture as you say, that relationship to God?

Paul Whetham: No. It makes it quite difficult. There was a national study of clergy – 4500 clergy in Australia, and 43% felt that they wasted times on tasks not central to their role. So their job description’s a little bit like a blank piece of paper, they’re just expected to do everything, be there from the beginning of life to the end of it, being at the hospital, helping parents work through a stillbirth and then having to preside at a wedding.

In addition to that, too, I mean their boundaries are very blurred and their workplace is typically their home, their houses are near or on church premises, everyone has their phone number and their addresses. They’re expected to say a word of grace or something at the beginning of social times and so on. So they’re always on their best behaviour and being a clergyman is a strange kind of thing: everyone watches their p’s and q’s you know, so you don’t say things in front of the clergyman. So they’re often working when we don’t, and they’re playing this role all the time.

Rachael Kohn: Well it would seem to put an inordinate strain on family life.

Paul Whetham: Yes. Clergymen and their wives are often seen as a two for one deal. It does bring strains on the family. For instance, they have the third highest divorce rate amongst all professions in America in one year.

Rachael Kohn: That’s extraordinary.

Paul Whetham: No doubt. They have incredibly low levels of intimacy and loneliness and very poor social skills as well. In the study that I undertook on some measures they were seen to have less skills than people in psychiatric populations.

Rachael Kohn: That’s amazing. Now these are all of the things that people expect the clergy to excel at and you seem to be saying that they’re actually failing at it. What in fact is the incidence of burnout, of ministers leaving their post?

Paul Whetham: Yes, well that’s another sad story too. There was a study of Uniting clergymen, or clergywomen as well, and I think of all the 376 participants, all perceived their role as very stressful. In another Anglican study, all of the I think it was 142 participants were bordering on burnout, and it’s been suggested that one in every two clergymen leave the ministry before retirement age.

Rachael Kohn: Why aren’t they using the spiritual tradition that they in fact are representative of to help them through this? Why are they unable to actually address their own issues, their own problems which obviously they help congregants through?

Paul Whetham: It’s a good question. I think times have changed. In the mid 1950s they were found to have very low levels of stress and doing very well, out of all professions. I think things have changed now, you know, post-Christian, post-modern culture; there’s a range of religious offerings out there, and that has meant there’s less congregations and a job for life is now questioned.

Rachael Kohn: Do they have difficulty actually asking for help? Turning to other clergy, for example.

Paul Whetham: Yes. That was certainly a common response with many of the clergymen that I interviewed. They thought it would get back up the ranks. The fact is, not too many people know what clergy go through, so yes, it would make sense that they would turn to their peers. I think the problem with that is that word can get out that they’re not coping, and that often sends shock waves through their denomination.

It’s interesting, the ecumenical kind of clergy support seem to work quite well. In these type of forums a safe environment is created and they’re able to share and typically that’s seen to be quite good. So feeling safe is very important.

Rachael Kohn: And people often feel safe when they are alone, is that part of the syndrome, as it were, clergy remaining almost secretive or solitary?

Paul Whetham: Yes, it’s a good point. I think when the chips are down and you’re emotionally exhausted from things, there is a tendency to withdraw. It’s interesting that loneliness is a key predictor of burnout. However it’s a strange kind of tension. When things are difficult there is this tendency to want to retract, but actually it’s in connecting with people and sharing your own frustrations and concerns that things change.

Rachael Kohn: And that’s Paul Whetham, author of Hard to be Holy. He’s my guest on Radio National’s The Spirit of Things, where we’re discussing burnout amongst the clergy.

Paul Whetham: I think for many ministers like people in society, they have certain expectations of what the job should be like, and very soon into their ministry they’ve had to re-evaluate that, and radically change their expectations.

And it’s interesting that burnout is frequently found in new ministers, those with little training experience, and it’s understandable to some degree because they go into this theological environment, their beliefs are turned upside down, they’re forced to learn Greek and Hebrew and church history and stuff like that, and then they’re ripped out of their supportive environment, placed from pew to pedestal basically in the new parish environment, and they’re expected to dispense the mysteries of God and be able to deal with all the power holds and factions within church congregations. I mean it’s an incredibly stressful buffeting time.

Rachael Kohn: I guess that’s why we have read on occasion that ministers and priests have gone awry, as it were, they’ve found solace in relationships that turn out to be illegal or immoral or indeed even criminal. I’m talking about sexual abuse here. Is that usually found in the clergyman who has experienced burnout and who is living a kind of solitary life?

Paul Whetham: Oh most definitely. I think when your back’s against the wall and you’re trying to deal with all the issues that present to you, and you have very few people to talk to about it, there is the high tendency to feel vulnerable and meet your needs in some way. And if your relationships at home aren’t working, relationships in the congregation aren’t working, and you’re feeling pressure from people outside of the church, yes, it does leave you in a precarious situation.

I mean the research is not that encouraging – up to 33% of clergy in America have acknowledged they’ve done something sexually inappropriate to people, other than their spouse. In regard to sexual intercourse, the incidence runs at about 10% to 14% that have acknowledged sexual intercourse with someone other than their spouse. I mean these figures are quite alarming, they actually run at about double compared to their secular counterparts and the Council of Psychologists and Psychiatrists. And it actually led to the head of Fuller Seminary, Arch Hart, to say that if he had to send one of his daughters for counselling, he’d send them to a secular psychologist and not a minister for these reasons.

Rachael Kohn: Goodness, that’s quite an admission. Well Paul, what’s the solution for clergy who have descended into a kind of lonely existence and whose own spiritual life if not very fulfilling?

Paul Whetham: Well just as lonely clergy have poor relationships with people, we certainly found that they had poor relationships with God. The converse of that is also true, if they have good relationship with people, they also have a good relationship with God. So helping them to be more integrated is really the solution. That’s certainly more desirable from an ethical point of view as well.

People often say, ‘Look you know, sexual abuse is quite high, let’s just enforce more ethical codes’, but the fact is, if these people find it hard to listen to the words of Jesus, will an ethical code make any difference? The answer is not necessarily, so it’s really about integrated and accountable relationships.

It was interesting, one finding in the study, we also looked at who they turned to for help in times of trouble, and out of all of the sources of support available to them, turning to congregations was the least utilised, yet strangely enough when clergy turned to members of the congregation their loneliness and a range of other factors, kind of disappeared. And we were really encouraged by that finding, because it really just sugge4sted that being integrated with the people around you, is a good thing.

Rachael Kohn: They’re certainly more accountable, it would seem to me. Does this require something of an emphasis on being open? Disclosure of the clergyman to his congregation. Isn’t that a risky thing?

Paul Whetham: Oh yes, all relationships are risky. I think one of the main difficulties we have in the church are these crippling stereotypes, particularly what we call the pedestal effect. So clergy seem to be spiritually above the congregations, and even if they choose to take themselves off the pedestal, many people in the congregation will try and whip them straight back up there.

But if they are discerning, wisely discerning who to turn to for help, amongst them in their own backyard, I mean that has numerous advantages. It certainly breaks down the stereotype that they are godlike and OK in their loneliness, and need no-one. I think also it helps congregations to pull their weight, and it’s interesting when people who’ve read the book, some have gone up to their Ministers and said ‘Sorry but I’ve had the bar too high, I’m going to try and expect less of you and I’m going to try and contribute more to the life of the church.’

And I think these are the type of responses that we’re really encouraged by, because no one person can conduct church, you’re just too big for any one person, no matter how dedicated. It really is a group effort, and somehow we need to be journeying together as different parts of the body, not being segregated and holding on to this professional model which separates clergy from the people around them. I think for me, relationships can be seen as vehicles for testing out our spiritual meanings.

Rachael Kohn: So you seem to be taking a more psychological approach to the problem or definition of holiness. You seem to be proposing that holiness is primarily something that is demonstrated in our relationships with people, whereas perhaps others might proffer a more theological definition of holiness.

Paul Whetham: Yes that’s a good point. People who read the book will certainly find out that we don’t actually define holiness. We did that deliberately, it was quite intentional. It was often from clergy peers, we said, ‘Look, you’ve put an argument up about relationships, the whole Bible’ s about relationships, don’t worry about the theological arguments’, so yes, we were quite deliberate.

I suppose it could have been called ‘Hard to be Human’; whether you’re a psychologist or a religious person, relationships are at the core of what we do. What I was more concerned about is what is it about these things that are so important? I mean at the end of the day faith without deeds is dead.

Rachael Kohn: Indeed. It’s been great speaking to you, thanks for being on The Spirit of Things.

Paul Whetham: A pleasure, thanks for having us.

Rachael Kohn: The book Hard to be Holy was written by Paul and Libby Whetham and is published by Openbook Publishers, with royalties from the sale of the book going towards supporting people with mental illness. And it sounds like some of the clergy might be among them!

Coming up on The Spirit of Things, Radio National, two clergymen and one clergywoman share their views on holiness and how they cope with what can be the loneliest profession.

Rachael Kohn: In the 1950s being a clergyman was one of the most decent, respected and satisfying jobs one could have in the community. It, after all, was more than a job, it was a calling from God. But today professional training, including ancient languages, Bible study, theology, and psychology, produces young people who have high expectations of themselves and their role in the church. But reality can be very different, including how ‘holiness’ is to be understood and lived out. Coming up, a discussion with three clergy on how they view holiness.

Father David Ranson, Pastor Brian Pember, and the Reverend Helen Jane Corr are together in a discussion with me about holiness.

Stereotypes abound in this area and I wonder whether I can ask all of you whether in some ways you have had to wrestle with stereotypes. David Ranson, the stereotype of a priest: sanctimonious, slow, obedient; have you had to wrestle with that?

David Ranson: Well yes, I think we all have to wrestle with stereotypes to one form or another. I think within the Catholic tradition there are so many stereotypes of priests. You’ve got your very clerical, rather rigid kind of stereotype, very conservative stereotype, and juxtaposed against that you’ve also got the kind of country priest stereotype, which is often referred to as the barbecue priest.

Rachael Kohn: Well where do you fit in?

David Ranson: Well neither, really. In fact I think I’ve made it a lifelong ambition to resist stereotyping, and that’s confusing to a lot of people actually, because I think if you don’t fit in neatly into an expectation then it’s rather confusing for people.

Rachael Kohn: Brian Pember, you’re a pastor to a community that is working class, do they have expectations of you?

Brian Pember: I’m sure they do, but I’m unsure what they are sometimes. I just know that there are occasions when I’ve not lived up to expectations, find that I cop the ire of the people around me and think ‘What have I done wrong?’ I’ve tried to do the right thing to my understanding, my knowledge, but sometimes I just don’t seem to be able to do it, whatever it is.

Given that I work with Christian people who have one set of expectations and I also work amongst the community which often has a completely different set of expectations, and sometimes it’s the community expectations that are easier to live with, not because they’re somewhat less, but they’re probably a little more realistic, they allow me to be a bit more human sometimes.

Rachael Kohn: Helen Jane you’re a woman, and you’re an Anglican priest. Do you find that the congregation you minister to is realistic in their expectations of you? Or did you have to sort of fight with the idea of being a woman?

Helen Jane Corr: No I think they found it refreshing, and the lovely thing about being a woman priest, from my experience, is that they don’t know what to expect. They don’t expect you to be the same as men, and as yet that role still hasn’t been put into any definition, it hasn’t been there long enough, so it’s still a new area of what a woman priest looks like and hence what the expectations are.

Rachael Kohn: So they weren’t suspicious that you might be involved in courses on the goddess?

Helen Jane Corr: No, there wasn’t that. One of the patriarchs of the parish told me after my first Sunday that if he didn’t have communion, a lot of people wouldn’t. But he chose to, and I suppose I was fortunate in that, and the older members just accepted me.

Rachael Kohn: I’m wondering about the idea of a calling to holiness. Is that very evident in the ministry today, or is there a real emphasis on training and professionalism? Where does the idea of a calling fit in? David?

David Ranson: Well fundamentally, ministry is a calling, but it’s not exclusive of professional training. So both go together. But the call to holiness has to be regarded as a universal call, so it’s not something that’ s exclusive to those in ministry. Everyone who’s involved in Christian discipleship is called to holiness, and it’s the same amount if you like, of holiness that everyone is indeed called to.

Of course a lot of that will depend to how one defines holiness, and if one has a very particular model of holiness that removes oneself from the ordinary involvements of everyone else, then I think we’d have to be suspicious of that kind of model.

Rachael Kohn: I wonder whether we can identify it when we see it. Brian Pember when you see holiness in your congregation, say amongst the people who you minister to, is it always evident to them?

Brian Pember: I think not, I think there are times when they would display some aspect of holiness and not be aware that that’s what it is. A lot of the people I deal with are – I was going to say not educated, but that’s not the write word – they’re not academically educated and they’re not run through the theological mill, and for them, holiness often conjures up thoughts of piety and the stereotype that you were talking area that David doesn’t quite fit.

But I think often they are doing things and they are being people who have aspects of holiness in their lives and they live it out, and it’s good to see. And when I do, I try and affirm it, I try to point it out, give a name to it, and let them pick it up and run with it.

Rachael Kohn: So you’re actually not standing apart from the congregation as a kind of representative of sanctity or holiness?

Brian Pember: I don’t think I could. I think that would be beyond me. For me, holiness, the concept of holiness, is simply being set apart for the use of God. And that can be anything from a chamber pot to a person, and I probably come more at the chamber pot end of the spectrum. But to be set apart for the use of God, within my patch, my community, the people that I work with, the city that I live in, to say God use me, put me to work here. Which would be something like David, be encouraging every member of my congregation, and beyond, to do as well.

Rachael Kohn: And yet holiness so often is more easily recognised when it’s other, when it’s apart. One thinks of the Swami who glides into the room and speaks in a beautiful language and looks quite different; people quite often see that as a representation of the holy, whereas the familiarity breeds contempt kind of mentality so often affects the way we relate to the minister or the spiritual leader of our congregation. Helen Jane, I wonder if you can comment on that?

Helen Jane Corr: I think there’s two things happening there, one being that sometimes you hold something for people that they can’t yet own themselves, so there might be a projection or sort of seeing in you something of holiness or a sense of you know, they know that God’s with you, because they ‘re not yet owning that in their own life, they haven’t incarnated that part within themselves. And it’s my job, I find sometimes is to discern when they can start receiving that in their own life. Otherwise my congregation wouldn ‘t let me be too holier than thou, they demand me to be quite human and earthly.

Rachael Kohn: That’s the Reverend Helen Jane Corr, Pastor Brian Pember and Father David Ranson, my guests on The Spirit of Things Radio National. We’re discussing the problem of being professionally holy.

David, I’m just thinking of the priest in the Catholic tradition as the person who leads the most holy Catholic life. I know you’ve just said that you recognise holiness in ordinary people’s lives, and yet so many Catholics would see the priest as the special person who in a sense carries the can for the rest of the community, who can’t quite live out that fully committed Catholic life.

David Ranson: I don’t think I’d quite agree with that, Rachael, in the sense that certainly it would be very falacious to think of the priest as somehow more holy or as being called to live a more holy life than anyone else.

Rachael Kohn: But he is obedient to the church in a way that ordinary Catholics aren’t, in terms of the whole extent of their life.

David Ranson: I think he, by his role and by his position, he of course is embodying the whole community, and therefore there’s an expectation that he will lead a life that is consonant with that kind of role. But holiness is an entirely different thing, holiness is a much more personal reality, and I would have met many people who are not ordained who are more holy than people who are ordained.

Holiness is not something that can be categorised by virtue of the role that one carries. Holiness is something much more diffuse, much more pervasive. So I certainly think it would be very dangerous to split holiness according to the role that one had within the ecclesial community.

Rachael Kohn: I wonder how well that is really understood though, say amongst the clergy? Do they necessarily accept that the public and the private should be totally integrated, that they’re not separate?

David Ranson: Well with holiness I think we’ve got to take its English counterpart, which is wholeness. A holy life is a whole life, a life that is not being compartmentalised, a life that is integrated, and a life that is fully alive. I don’t like the word ‘private’ myself, I think that’s a very misleading word, I much prefer a distinction between the public life and the personal life.

No personal life is fully private, as no real life is ever private, but a personal life is very in touch with its own needs, its own particular ways of nurturance and sustenance, and is able to achieve that.

Rachael Kohn: Brian, I’m just wondering, because I know you’ve been wanting to respond to David, and I’d like to hear you on this, particularly as the minister is so often there all the time, and it’s great to experience wholeness and integration, but it can be pretty exhausting, too.

Brian Pember: It can be very exhausting. I think for a lot of us we get the holiness caught up in the role, and we take this role on and we take on the expectations of holiness that we think other people have, that we have of ourselves or that our denomination or our tradition has put on us, and we try and live that out, without actually being it. We put it on as a role and we take it off as a role, and then there is a danger of that which people see on a Sunday or a Wednesday night and who you really are. And when that happens, for the clergy particularly, there is a sense of loneliness and aloneness that just becomes dreadfully unbearable.

Rachael Kohn: Yes, I mean this has been one of the issues that Paul Whetham has brought up in his book Hard to be Holy that that loneliness sets in, and interestingly, he’s found that people who were raised in a religious life, they actually have a hard time making close relationships, and it’s people who come into the clergy or the ministry from outside are much better at it.

And I’m wondering what’s actually happening there, do they have a more realistic notion of what it is to be alive and to have relationships, or is it perhaps that people raised in a religious life have too exclusive a notion of holiness for it to be real?

David Ranson: The moment we have an image of holiness I think we’re missing the point. Authentic holiness admits of no image of itself, but one of the problems I think growing up in a religious environment is that you can take on a very particular image of holiness, and try and approximate that.

And the difficulty there is that of course that becomes the standard by which life is lived, and the ordinary mistakes, values, experimentation, part of the whole process of maturation don’t really take place. Whereas if one is growing up outside that kind of context where there is no specific image of holiness, I think one is probably able to enjoy making mistakes a lot more freely, to learn from them a lot more deeply.

Rachael Kohn: Helen Jane, you actually were a fashion designer before you became an Anglican minister, so how do you respond to this question of coming from the outside, are you more creative?

Helen Jane Corr: I think I have a bit more freedom. My creativity taught me a lot about God, and it was the best tool to learn how to write sermons. It was what you’d sort of – I think it was YSL or Chanel, said it was what you took away from the design that made it work, not what you added. And just in crafting sermons it was helpful. But yes, it’s given me a freedom I think than perhaps people who have always been part of the institution.

Rachael Kohn: Do you find that in terms of this issue of the private and the public, or the personal and the public, do you find you have enough private life or personal life, or are you on call all the time?

Helen Jane Corr: I think I can define boundaries with some amount of freedom. Yes, I am on call technically, but the advantage of having answering machines that you can unplug is very helpful, and at times I have to do that. I think Brian was saying earlier how tiring the ministry is, and I know that I can’t keep going at some stages, and I just have to have time out and hopefully by the grace of God, that works in a way that people can still contact me if need be.

David Ranson: Yes I agree with Helen there, because often enough holiness can be considered a synonym for holiness within the Christian community can be availability, and that if one is not totally available, then one is not living out the call to be holy. Somehow in people’s minds holiness equates with total availability.

Rachael Kohn: Brian, is that an issue you have to deal with all the time?

Brian Pember: It is. I live in a community where people don’t live out of diaries, so making an appointment is a bit crazy. People will turn up on my door and they’ll be there at half past eight in the morning, there’ll be there at half past eight at night. As well as that I have to get on with the things that are in my diary, and I do carry one.

Recently I went on holidays but I had to leave my number with my secretary because there were a couple of people who may have needed to get in touch with me while I was away. And I chose to do that, partly out of a pastoral heart I presume; and maybe that would be recognised as some form of holiness, to set apart even my holidays for God should he so desire.

Rachael Kohn: You’re listening to ‘Hard to be Holy’ on The Spirit of Things, Radio National with Pastor Brian Pember, the Reverend Helen Jane Corr, and Father David Ranson.

David Ranson: Drawing boundaries is one of the chief difficulties of clergy and ministers in general, and being able to claim space for the personal, and being able to enter into the personal and to regard the personal as a true source of holiness. It can be very, very difficult.

Helen Jane Corr: I know my own personal inner work, which often takes time and can often leave me in places of being depressed, is so important in my role as being priest.

Rachael Kohn: How so?

Helen Jane Corr: Well it marries my outer and inner. The person I present and the person who I am inside become closer and somehow that’s holiness for me, it’s becoming whole.

Rachael Kohn: How much do you allow yourself to show frustration, that you have perhaps with the community that you minister to?

Helen Jane Corr: I think I’ve been fairly blessed, I don’t find them that frustrating. When I do, I usually take it away, which maybe lacks integrity, and I’m learning how to present it in ways that they can hear it.

David Ranson: Again, just a holiness doesn’t equal total availability, so doesn’t it equal not having what we might call negative emotion. The unfortunate thing is that we think anger and holiness are mutually exclusive, and that’s a very odd perception, but if somebody is showing frustration, if somebody is showing anger or impatience or whatever, then somehow they are not holy. Holiness equals this very bland niceness that is totally available. That can be a very common perception and it’s a very dangerous one.

Helen Jane Corr: And it lacks backbone, too, doesn’t it?

David Ranson: And it lacks backbone, exactly. And also of course, within the Christian tradition particularly in its Judaic roots, and the image of God that we have in the Old Testament, holiness deals with the full gamut of emotion.

Rachael Kohn: Brian, where do you look for your kind of model of holiness? I mean Jesus said ‘Turn the other cheek’, so are you always moved by that kind of image, not show anger, not show frustration, how much freedom or latitude do you give yourself?

Brian Pember: I think at the end of the day Jesus would be my main model that I would say I would like to be like him. There are other people, some who are followers of Jesus and some who are not, and I look at them and think I like aspects of their life, I would like to take that aspect and make it part of who I am, part of my wholeness, I suppose.

Rachael Kohn: I’m wondering whether holiness is still as important today as a theological concept, as it was say, 50 years ago. I’m wondering whether today there is a great deal of psychologising, philosophising, even comparative religion coming in to extend or unpack that notion.

David Ranson: I think we actually are becoming more simple about the notion. I think the studies that you’ve mentioned there Rachael, have actually helped us enormously with our understanding of holiness, particularly psychology. In terms of what it actually means to be holy, the images of holiness have had to be deconstructed and I think that’s a very worthwhile project. And I think that’s enabled this dichotomy of classes to be eroded, and for holiness to be seen much more as a life of wholeness, and available to everyone.

Rachael Kohn: I wonder how much holiness is almost an aesthetic quality, beautiful, peaceful, extraordinary countenance. I’m asking that because there is certainly a lot of interest in other traditions, particularly the exotic articulators of those traditions, the Dalai Lama, a swami, a visiting teacher, people like that tend to gain a lot of attention because of a certain countenance they have. Is there a hunger to see that, to experience it?

David Ranson: Oh there’s certainly a hunger there, but I think that countenance that you mentioned, can be very seductive. I think it would be a great pity if one identified a life of holiness on the basis of that countenance.

Now I think a life lived in holiness will eventually radiate a certain countenance and one sees that in all manner of people and very, very ordinary people who don’t have any kind of media profile. But there is a danger that a certain countenance can be publicised, it can be very seductive. Again that needs to be interpreted, it needs to be deconstructed, but its value I suppose is it does call forth from people a desire, but the desire must indeed if it’s going to be authentic, must be for a life, for a whole life lived and not just for a particular fruit or a particular body posture.

Brian Pember: Yes we are at various levels deconstructing holiness and reconstructing it from the inside out rather than the outside in. Yet I know that for a lot of the people I deal with, and the people I mix with, for some of them they’re not able to do that. They accept the models, the norms, the stereotypes and for them holiness is something that they think is beyond them, and because it’s something out there, often they don’t grasp for it, because it’s out there.

And I think that for the western world, we have put an economic structure on holiness that we are able to enter into holiness if we live within a certain structure, if we live within a certain strata of society, if we participate in particular aspects of society. And if you don’t, sometimes because you can’t afford to, then holiness for those people seems to be out of reach. I find that very sad.

David Ranson: Yes it is, it’s tragic. And yet one of the things that I think we’re learning about here in Australia, particularly through our literature, is that a lot of people do experience holiness in the most ordinary of ways. But as you were saying earlier Brian, because they are not within a structure, they dismiss it or fail to name it. Certainly one of the responsibilities that the Christian community must have is to enable people to name the holiness that they are actually living.

Rachael Kohn: Helen Jane, I wonder are we moving away from doctrinal or theological definitions of holiness and…

Helen Jane Corr: Bringing it into the ordinary?

Rachael Kohn: Yes, bringing it into the ordinary, the spirituality or the holiness of the everyday I think.

Helen Jane Corr: Like it’s no longer holiness, it’s wholeness that seems to be the sort of movement, so holiness is though it’s a separate group of people who are ordained or live a religious life, it’s now wholeness within the community, not only in individuals, but in the whole society.

Rachael Kohn: But what about the imperatives that holiness brings with it? Is it just a matter of experiencing it or does it require us really to act in certain ways, Brian?

Brian Pember: I think that if holiness is going to be the idea of being set apart for God, then we must have an idea of who God is, and we must have an idea of what God will require of us. If he’s going to put us to use, then he must call something out of us, and I think the Christian disciplines, prayer, Bible reading, fellowship, the Sacraments, all have a part to play in there. But they have a part to play in adding to our holiness, not being our holiness.

Helen Jane Corr: But it’s like when you experience that holiness it transforms you, and on some level you want to reach out and start to explore the Bible, explore the disciplines, receive the Sacrament. It’s almost like that’s the garden that then gives birth to more fruit. Does that make sense?

David Ranson: Well holiness I think is not something that just doesn’t descend on somebody, holiness always must be translated into concrete action, in and through which it emerges but also in and through which it expresses itself.

Rachael Kohn: Yes, is recognised and hopefully changes the world.

David Ranson: And that’s why I’m very suspicious of countenance as an exclusive sign of holiness.

Rachael Kohn: Yes indeed, because what I was really getting at was that holiness is often seen as something one cultivates in oneself, and once that is completed there will be an onflow to the rest of the world or to relationships, and yet obviously that can become too exaggerated.

David Ranson: Well it can become narcissistic in the end. And holiness, genuine holiness, is certainly not narcissistic, it’s other related, it’s other centred, and leads one out into the world of otherness. So that’s why ethics and that’s why concrete decision is important.

Helen Jane Corr: The other side of the coin to that, the narcissistic stuff and being self-centred is for women they often have only thought of the other, so there’s often a journey for them to even begin to get to know themselves. And actually not become narcissistic, but actually do their own inner journey that then gives birth to being with and for others.

Rachael Kohn: Well it sounds like while holiness is simple, it’s also highly complex and we haven’t got even close to a definition. But I’d like to thank you all: the Reverend Helen Jane Corr, Pastor Brian Pember, and Father David Ranson.

All: Thank you very much Rachael, thank you.

Rachael Kohn: And that wraps up ‘Hard to be Holy’, our look at the lonely life of the clergy, with David Ranson, who teaches spirituality at the Catholic Institute of Sydney, Brian Pember, who Simon Smith: the minister of Shellharbour City Baptist Church, south of Wollongong, New South Wales, and the Reverend Helen Jane Corr of Kwinana, near Perth.

Perhaps this sermon which ends the film ‘A River Runs Through It’ is an apt comment on some of the difficulties that face the clergy.

Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and asks the same question. We are willing to help, Lord, but what if anything is needed? It is true we can seldom help those closest to us, either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give, or more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted.

And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them, we can love completely without complete understanding.

Rachael Kohn: Hard to be Holy is produced by me and Geoff Wood, with technical production by Roi Huberman.

Next on The Spirit of Things, the first of two programs on the most remarkable travellers you’ll ever hear about, in search of mystery, knowledge and fundamentally themselves.

Andre Brugiroux is a member of the Baha’i Faith and has spent his whole life travelling to every part of the world. Alexandra David Neel was also a dedicated traveller only she started out in the late 19th century and travelled where no white woman had ever gone: the sacred city of Lhasa in Tibet. The story of this remarkable traveller, scholar and irascible woman who lived to be over a hundred, is our story for next week. So join me then.

So long from me, Rachael Kohn.