"The ordained Ministry is as it were the `bones' of the body giving it shape and form and direction. It is true that there are bodies without hones - but they are jellyfish! The Church may sometimes look and act like a jellyfish but it is meant to have bones. The purpose of bones is to help the body be what it should be. The basic reason for the existence of the ordained Ministry is to help the Church be what it should be. That is not to say that the bones must do the work of the body: quite clearly they can't. They are to provide the framework within which the body can function as a body. The bones by themselves would be like Ezekiel's bones - very dry (Ezekiel 37). The Church exists in the world to be the Body of Christ and the essential function of the ordained Ministry is to help the Church be just that." [Quote in Booth p.7]
"The question now is how far ... inherited patterns can be retained in their traditional shape in a situation where the Church is relegated to the periphery of society. [Quote p.5]
"it is the Church itself that must decide when it is being true to the gospel." [Quote p.8]
"the real question is not about ministry at all but about the difference between ministry and ordained ministry. The thing that properly needs clariftcation is ordination." [Quote p.9]
"Mission is what the Church is and does in relation to the ambient society; ministry is that service done by the Church to its own members and to the ambient society in the name of Christ; presbyteral priesthood is the principal [sic] of order in the Church that gives shape to the Church as a functioning body ... The ministry of the nonstipendiary clergy is nat in dispute but questions may properly be asked about the meaning of ordination in this context. ... Ordination ... has to do with order as the word itself indicates even if we wish to avoid the historic sense of being put into an order i.e. being given rank or status." [Quote p.9]
"a theology of ordination rests on the understanding of the nature of the Church and that itself cannot be understood in isolation from the way in which the Church is thought of as existing in and acting upon society." [Quote p.9]
Of British society: "by 1900 to be religious was fast becoming the private option of the individual. In New Zealand the situation was not greatly different except that politically citizens had a free choice of religions (and therefore by implication of no religion at all) from the 1840s. ... active participation in a church is now for better or worse a private option of the individual. We live in a manifestly pluralist situation and in a society that is secular in that the bases of socio-political action have no overt religious or church affiliation." [Quote p.10]
"The Church with the exception of some sects that understand entry into the Church as an exit from the world wishes to affirm both its own identity as a corporate body as well as its responsibility in and for the world." [Quote p.10]
"on the surface it looks as though this leaves the Church with no option but to endorse the sociopolitical status quo which from the very fact that successive governments have failed to bring in the kingdom of heaven it is disinclined to do." [Quote p.11]
"[The Church has] two possibilities. One is to be a sect basically indifferent to the secular world. The other solution and the only acceptable one as far as I can see is for those who affirm their Christian commitment to take seriously their corporate life and by their worship their life-style their internal relationships their proclamation of the good news and their ministry in Christ's name to affirm their belief in a different order of things and their commitment to its validity and truth." [Quote p.12]
"The Church should not even assume that it is the only agent God has for building the kingdom but nevertheless it is the agency that overtly claims to align itself with that task. ... The Church exists to provide a support base for those who commit themselves to this ministry a place where the vision of the kingdom can be affirmed and reaffirmed where forgiveness for failure and strength for renewal can be found." [Quote p.12]
"The lines of demarcation between the Church and the world are unclear and in practice such lines are drawn not by the Church but by the individual as he or she consciously chooses to endorse his or her involvement in the Church." [Quote p.13]
"[Consider] Augustine's City of God book XIX. For Augustine the Church that peculiar but God-given mixture of wheat and tares (even down to each individual) is on pilgrimge towards the city of God. On its earthly pilgrimage this city is entwined with the earthly city and therefore of necessity uses its structures; but here there is no abiding city." [Quote p.14]
"we cannot now return to a less institutional situation as in the primitive Church and yet take with us something called ordination or priesthood which is essentially institutional and use it as we like in connection with various ministries." [Quote p.16]
"by 'presbyter' is meant one who is set in a relationship of oversight to the Christian community and who therefore presides over the community's cultic acts and helps the members of the community to identify and be equipped for their ministry. ... to build up the Church of God in worship witness and service faithfully proclaim the redemptive message of God's love teach the Faith of the Gospel and administer the sacraments according to the usage of the Church." [Quote p.17]
"Ordination takes place within the corporate institution of the Church; ordination is by definition an institutional act." [Quote p.17]
"A worker-priest ... has no real connection with presbytership as outlined above. In my view the experiment with worker-priests xested on a mistaken idea that the Christian presence is more real and the witness more effective if done by an ordained person than if done by a lay person. ... Witness mission and prophecy do not require ordination for their legitimation. If they did every Christian should ideally be ordained." [Quote p.18]
"Does ordination add anything to an effective local ministry and if so what ?" [Quote p.18]
Of a community priest -"What is ordination in this context? Is it for the sake of the local community? Is it for the personal authorisation of her personal ministry? Is it for empowering to administer the sacraments? Is it for defining her task in the ordering of the Church's ministry? Failure to tackle some of these questions simply leaves traces of unresolved tensions in her account. ... A group now peripheral to society cannot ordain someone for society as a whole." [Quote p.19]
"That the ordained member of the Church is in some sense a representative of the Church is an important concept but that needs careful qualification. It should never be construed as personal representation as though an ordained person can in him or herself be the Church. It is never to be applied in isolation from the wider body the actual corporate body of believers." [Quote p.19]
"The ordained person presides over the sacraments not because he or she has the spiritual magic but because the sacraments are expressions of the corporate life of the Church and therefore the person who oversees the corporate life and ministry of the Church should preside." ... The dual role of exercising a ministry and being a presbyter in the Church applies in fact to all ordained persons." [Quote p.20]
"the idea of ordaining a person simply to help out on Sundays especially in parishes with several scattered centres needs to be treated with considerable care; not because vicars do not need assistance but because without any clear and specific link with the oversight of the community in a well-defined team ministry the existence of the `Sunday priest' will enshrine a false notion of the relationship of the ordained minister to the community of believers strengthen the idea of the presbyter as purely a cult figure and encourage a quasi-magical conception of the presbyter's role in the sacraments." [Quote p.20]
"Ordination is not the Church's authorisation of a personal ministry to the world as I have seen it expressed in some of the material under discussion; rather it is the giving of responsibility to an individual by the Church for the oversight within the Church of the ministry exercised by the Church." [Quote p.22]