Respect for clergy at a low ebb in the UK
How did it come to this?
According to a new survey, out of twenty-five professions, only eight ranked lower in terms of respect than Priests / Ministers.
54% of respondents had a “Great deal” or “Fair amount” of respect for clergy.
The professions held in lower regard were:
Accountants 46%
Bankers 15%
Building Contractors 43%
Business Executives 28%
Car salesmen 14%
Journalists 20%
Lawyers 53%
Politicians 15%
Clergy ranked equal with Actors / Artists.
Hat-tip BRIN
Tags: Christianity, Church Life, Religion Society
October 14th, 2012 at 7:46 am
[...] probably elsewhere too… Stuart reports (from the UK), and asks: How did it come to [...]
October 14th, 2012 at 9:06 am
Such results reflect mainly the media depiction. When was the last time that you saw a positive presentation of clergy? All the dirty vicar stories … the ridiculous bishops making crude political diatribes, or else camply excusing vice… what is there to respect in that?
October 14th, 2012 at 10:22 am
Well, I used to be a lawyer and now I am a clergyman, so at least I have gained 1% in respect!
On a more serious note I suspect that the clergy should be supremely un-bothered by this…I don’t think that Jesus and the disciples were highly respected by society at large but then they were not out to win respect and neither are we…
October 14th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
‘Respect for clergy at a low ebb in the UK’… Dear, dear, webmaster, you’ll be writing for the Daily Mail or the Express next with leaders like that! Where is there any indication in the information given on BRIN that there has been a REDUCTION in the respect for clergy? We would need a longitudinal study for that – and this is just a snapshot. There is nothing to say clergy were MORE respected in the past. Yes, I know there are some weird fantasies around that somehow, circa before 1960, there was some halcyon world where people doffed their caps to vicars and sexual intercourse hadn’t been invented. But given church attendance was already below one in five at the time, I can’t see there being much difference between then and now when it comes to respecting clergy.
My father was born in 1927 and lived in fear and hatred of the local Methodist minister who would call at their house every Friday for a contribution for the church: given he was one of eight children and his father had been gassed in WW1 and couldn’t work, so money was tight, it is no wonder my father had no respect for the clergy. Similarly my mother (born 1926) has little respect for the RC Church she was baptised into: nuns she loathes because they were – in her words – ‘evil bitches, who delighted in inflicting suffering on children…’ . As for RC priests, when the first whisper of child sex abuse began in the 1980s my mother said: ‘Oh it was well known when I was a girl that little boys shouldn’t be left with this priests and little girls got felt up by another.’
I’m with Paul White on this one… But moreover, I think respect is earned – not just given as a right because someone is a man or woman in holy orders. Three of my close friends are Anglican priests: two are Evangelicals and one a conservative Anglo-Catholic: I am forever amazed how people behave when we’re out and about and one of these friends is wearing a dog collar – they’re all good friends, but I don’t thing any deserve any more or less respect than anyone else. Indeed perhaps there lies the answer, we are told not to judge others, as we ourselves will be measured by the same standard – this works just as much when it comes to putting people on pedestals as to when we’re condemning our neighbours.