Fired Clergy

Important day today. Rev Sylvester Stuart of the New Testament Church of God won the right to take his case for unfair dismissal to an Employment Tribunal. I suppose it is another stage in a sort of lost innocence of the church – rather as today people were being nostalgic about the gentlemanly [sic] ways of the Stock Exchange in the days before the Big Bang – 20 years ago today. So out here in Blogstead Episcopi, we mourn the loss of the days when Mr Quiverful sought a living which would enable him and Mrs Q to bring up their little pledges of affection. But, whatever the nostalgia, I think anything which brings clarity to a muddled area of life [and episcopal management task] is to be welcomed. Although clergy may find that it is something of a two edged sword as people apply [as they are already doing] the same standards of accountability to clergy as they experience in their own workplace.