Squeamish about holiness?

Chris blogs:

Squeamish about holiness?

So nervous about separating ourselves from the Catholic Church, the Reformed tradition has, by and large, neglected the priestly office of its pastors.

At one of my first presbytery meetings as a young pastor, one of our tall-steeple pastors interpreted the work of one of our camps and conference centers. A Hindu group, he told us, had recently rented the facility for a conference, and he, as a member of the board, had been summoned to welcome the Hindu group to the facility. With a good deal of self-depricating humor, he recounted the way a Hindu leader had introduced him to the conference. "This," the Hindu had said with great seriousness and respect, "is the Presbyterian Holy Man." "Now, there's an oxymoron!" the tall-steeple pastor told the presbytery that day. And everybody laughed.

But if we can't call our pastors "holy," what kind of church do we have? Do we even have a church?

Chris Erdman