What do Christians believe?

Encyclopedia of Opinion

Question: What do Christians believe?
Position1 of 7›: Beliefs held in common by Christians
Argument‹6 of 7›: Christian Clergy

The clergy of the Christian church consists of ordained ministers.

The argument

Clergy are a body of ordained ministers in a Christian church. Until the 20th century in most Christian churches, the clergy was restricted to males. Also until the 20th century, the clergy was divided into a hierarchy of lower and upper members. Now, women can be ordained and there is no hierarchy within the clergy. Members of the clergy are an intermediary between the average person and God. They offer spiritual guidance and hear prayers and grievances from the Christian public. Clergy members give sermons and baptisms. Clergy members have direct communication with God and can communicate with God on their behalf to answer prayers and perform miracles. Furthermore, Christians believe the clergy receive God's messages and can communicate them to everyday Christians. The clergy keep the line of communication between God and everyday Christians connected.

Premises

[P1]Christians hold that ordained clergy serve as intermediaries between God and ordinary believers, offering spiritual guidance and performing rites like sermons and baptisms. [P2] Christians believe clergy have a direct line of communication with God, able to relay prayers upward and convey God's messages back to the faithful. [C] Therefore, a shared Christian belief is that the clergy function as the connective channel maintaining communication between God and everyday Christians.

Counter-arguments

The Christian clergy is not a relevant institution in modern times. Christians now use prayer to communicate with God directly and do not need an intermediary. Furthermore, the clergy is seen as a corrupt and bureaucratic institution. For example, many Christians believe that clergy members are profit seeking and don't have the good of Christians in their mind. Below a quarter of Christians believe that the clergy is a relevant Christian institution.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The intermediary role is not a belief held in common. It is central to Catholic and Orthodox teaching and expressly rejected by Protestant traditions holding to the priesthood of all believers, for whom no ordained person stands between the believer and God. [Rejecting P2] No mainstream Christian body teaches that clergy have a private line of communication with God or the power to perform miracles on request. Prayer is held across traditions to reach God directly, which is why the office is described in terms of teaching and administering the sacraments rather than relaying messages. [Rejecting C] Since the premises describe one tradition's understanding of ordained ministry rather than a shared one, the entry does not establish what it sets out to — a belief held in common by Christians.