Managing Clergy Lives: Obedience, sacrifice, intimacy
Nigel Peyton and Caroline Gatrell
Bloomsbury £17.99
(978-1-4411-2125-7)
Church Times Bookshop £16.20 (Use code CT471)

THE thought-provoking book Managing Clergy Lives emerged from a doctoral dissertation, and is co-written by the doctoral candidate and academic supervisor. At the time of undertaking the research, the doctoral candidate brought "insider knowledge" of the clerical profession, then as an archdeacon, now as a bishop. The academic supervisor brought "outsider perspective", shaped within a Management School and by research interests in sociologies of health, work, and family, and in gender studies. This combination brings a freshness to clergy studies, but also some vulnerabilities.

The co-authors bring to the book two key resources: original qualitative data and a conceptual framework within which to locate these data. The original data were generated by the doctoral candidate, who interviewed 46 rural deans (14 women and 32 men) across the 42 mainland dioceses of the Church of England. The precise focus of these interviews is expressed on page 9 as: the content and morale of their ministry; community expectations, recognition, and professional status; their key relationships and boundaries; their work-life balance; and their priestly authenticity and endurance (elsewhere the focus is nuanced differently).

The direct citations from these interviews are illuminating, and I would have welcomed even more. The key conclusion from these data seem to be that "Church of England clergy remain largely confident in their faith and committed to ministry," and not particularly vulnerable to burnout. The mistake of earlier studies, they argue, has been to focus too much on the dark side of ministry. This study redresses the balance by focusing on managed ministry.

The questions that I raise against this conclusion are these. Are rural deans really representative of the parish clergy, or are bishops wise enough to appoint wherever possible the more resilient and the more promising candidates? Does the evidence really support this view? What about Colin the "jovial workaholic", or Roy whose "manic ministry style" precipitated a series of life-threatening heart attacks, or Pauline who felt "intellectually understretched, out of sorts with the leadership and personally very lonely . . ."? I am not quite convinced enough by this analysis to give up on my established quest to understand the pathology of clergy lives.

The conceptual framework (within which the data are located) focuses on the three notions of obedience, sacrifice, and lost intimacy. Each of these themes is set up in the style of an ideal type.

Obedience. According to Peyton and Gatrell, for priests who took part in their research, ordination initiated a lifetime engagement with the rules of an entire supervisory system, always under God's watchful eye.

The source of this observed obedience is explained in light of Jeremy Bentham's ideal of the "panoptical" prison, in which prisoners are always under surveillance. Likewise, clergy obedience is driven by the fear of being watched - watched by God and watched by people. This is an intriguing account of the priestly life which may be open to energetic critique from practical theologians as much as psychologists of religion. But it does set up a hypothesis worthy of proper scientific investigation.

Sacrifice. According to Peyton and Gatrell, priests believe in an all-seeing God who will see past the apparently obedient body and will discern instances where sacrifice and service are not genuine.

The authors discern from their data that the motif of self-sacrifice (putting God's needs before the respondents' own) was common to both male and female clergy. If this really is an accurate insight into the souls of the Anglican clergy today, this raises intriguing theological questions regarding the kind of God in whom the Anglican Church believes, and intriguing psychological questions regarding the mental health and psychological care of the clergy. Again, it does set up hypotheses worthy of serious scientific investigation.

Lost intimacy. According to Peyton and Gatrell, many of the clergy, married or single, struggle to enjoy private relationships uncontaminated by public ministry: they experience a loss of intimacy, coping with varying degrees of loneliness and frustration.

The authors trace these issues arising from their data across the themes of personal relationships, friendship, being single, being married, being gay, family life, vicarage living, and the struggle to find sanctuary from surveillance. If this, too, is an accurate insight into the souls of the Anglican clergy today, a serious health warning really does need to be printed on the Letters of Ordination, and the Church needs to feel as responsible and as vulnerable as the tobacco companies.

The Revd Dr Leslie J. Francis is Professor of Religions and Education, and Director of the Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit in the University of Warwick; and Canon Theologian and Canon Treasurer of Bangor Cathedral.