Hirelings

I want to start by saying I have no quarrel with the Lutheran church though I did leave it for several reasons. I didn’t trust the priesthood anymore and that’s why I left. Oftentimes it seemed to me that the priests were just going through the motions in the liturgy like robots automatically doing what they had been programmed to do. Just going through the motions. I had also found a radical new alternative: The Quakers who could be spontaneous and gave everyone a chance to preach during meeting for worship. The Quakers seemed like a more attractive choice and I was disillusioned with church authorities since I had studied history and church history is so full of misuse of power that it’s overwhelming. All the violence done in the name of Christianity is disillusioning. I wanted a fresh new alternative Christianity that doesn’t have a history of violence and oppression and it seems to me that the Quakers have not been oppressing anyone at any time. Except for a few bad Quakers in the beginning who owned slaves but the bad Quakers are the exception not the norm, there were for example no Quaker inquisition cracking down on Jews and “Heretics”, no Quaker crusades slaughtering Muslims and so on. Pacifists don’t start wars or oppress natives in America. Generally Quakers take responsibility for their own actions even if they are misguided people like Richard Nixon they are expected to carry the burden of responsibility for their own actions on their own. They cannot argue that a Quaker authority demanded that they should choose a certain course of action since there is no Quaker hierarchy. No Quaker pope is encouraging crusades. That's in short why I left the church, it's ancient history by now, water under the bridge and so on. I have several friends who are priests and I guess they will find George Fox' anticlerical attitude problematic.  

George Fox talks about  priests as hirelings quite frequently. “And keep your testimony against the hireling priests, and their tithes, and maintenance.”[1] He means the priests of the Anglican Church. They were, and are still, preaching for money. The choice of words is inspired by the Gospel of John where Jesus says “ I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.” Joh 10:11 – 15 George Fox likens the priests to the hireling shepherds who didn’t genuinely care about the sheep enough to lay down their lives for the sheep. This is contrasted to Christ who genuinely cares about the sheep and lays down his life for them. A hireling is a person who performs a certain task for pay, they are hired and their work is for hire. Just like the priests in the church they perform their duties for pay and can, according to George Fox, not be expected to genuinely care about their task. What is missing from the hireling’s performance is genuine commitment.

"Hireling" priests are mentioned in the Bible in a negative light. “They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us. Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.” Micah 3:10 – 12 The Lord does not approve of priests who teach for hire or prophets who divine for money. God’s gifts are not for sale as is illustrated in Acts chapter eight: “Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, Saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.” Acts 8:17 - 23 The gift of God cannot, according to Peter, be purchased with money. 

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[1] A Collection of Many Select Epistles to Friends, of That Ancient, Eminent, and Faithful Minister of Jesus Christ, George Fox <http://www.hallvworthington.com/Letters/gfsection11a.html> 05.03.2017.