Priests and Pastors

As I try to think through the implications of being a Reformed Anglican in an Anglo-Catholic parish, I am learning that the office of priest and that of pastor are two very different things. Now to be sure, some priests manage to be pastoral, and pastors certainly preside over sacraments in a priestly role.

But there is this one major difference, I think. Priests relate to people primarily through things and rituals while pastors relate to people primarily as individuals and utilize the things and rituals in support of people. In my limited experience, I can get closer to pastors than I can to priests. Priests maintain a distance from others, for example in something as basic as how they dress.

Priests preside over sacraments and sacrifices. Priests usually operate in an authoritarian, top-down organizational structure, carrying out the duties assigned to them. Pastors are more likely to function in a democratic structure, focusing on the needs of their constituency. Priests obey bishops. Pastors work with committees.

The authoritarian structure in which the priest lives and works tends to create Bible studies in which the priest is the expert lecturer who expects to be questioned by students (again, I am not speaking categorically of all priests, but in a general context). Bible studies led by Pastors tend to be more participatory and interactive. Priests show and tell; pastors ask and listen.

The pastoral role was emphasized in the New Testament. Never is mentioned the spiritual gift of priest or the office of priest. That may be because there were still priests functioning in the Temple, but I think it is more likely a theological distinction. Since Scripture affirms that Jesus is the great High Priest Who has made the final sacrifice for sin, there was no need of priests in the early Church. Timothy and Titus and Epaphras were pastors.

Priesthood was emphasized in the Dark and Middle Ages as the world functioned under the assumptions of a feudalistic society. But with the Enlightenment and the emergence of Protestant thought, the role of the pastor re-emerged in an age in which individual expression and individual autonomy became the norm.

I think most Anglo-Catholics find comfort in the repetition of rites whereas Reformed Anglicans, while not unmindful of the benefits of the sacraments, have a fear that ritualized repetition can lead to apathy. So, Reformed Anglicans are more likely to emphasize the pastoral aspects of Communion while priests seem to me more likely to emphasize the sacerdotal aspect. The Reformed pastoral aversion to "Mass" and the priestly aversion to spontaneous praise reveal the the mutually exclusive nature of these offices.

I think it is easier for a pastor to be priestly (although not to the satisfaction of a "real" priest) than for a priest to be pastoral. But I'm not sure why I believe that. I think it may be because priests can virtuously celebrate Holy Eucharistic all by themselves, but a pastor who preaches or teaches to an empty church seems a little off.