This monograph was written in 1977 by Rev Al Hoogewind for the Chaplains Committee of the Christian Reformed Church. I knew Al well prior to his death in an auto accident in 2014. He wrote this to encourage my denomination to seriously consider supporting men and women in their desire to take the ministry of the church into the workplaces of our nation. I have made no attempt to update the use of gender specific language. So please read "he” when referring to the chaplain as a generic "he” which refers to both men and women. This study is very well written and is a copiously footnoted and includes a significant bibliography of works available in 1977 on the subject of a chaplaincy for the "industrial” situation. I would also encourage you, my students, to understand that the term "industry” or "industrial” would be stated in terms of the "business world” in 2016.

An interesting, to me anyway, aspect of reading this carefully written work from 1977 is the realization that in the past 40 years in the United States we have moved so far from an industrial based economy to a service based one. (A recent study showed that in 434 of the 435 congressional districts in the United States, over 60% of all jobs are service jobs. See https://www.serviceworkerscoalition.org/)Many of these ideas are still very applicable to the service oriented business place as in the industrial setting. In other countries where you, our students, reside and minister, the industrial base may still be a dominant sector of the economy.   Bob Zomermaand

 

 

INDUSTRIAL CHAPLAINCY

by Rev. Allen Jay Hoogewind

 

Our world has been greatly changed by the Industrial Revolution of the last century. This is an age in which people are overwhelmed by structures and organizations bigger and more powerful than they are. The machine and automation has done much to improve the lives of people. However, dehumanization, injustice, personal disintegration, and moral decay has been part of the price our society has paid for industrialization. Even more significantly, the secularizing influence of the Industrial Revolution is a barrier which stands in the way of many having a redemptive, fulfilling relationship to God in Jesus Christ.

These problems present opportunities and challenges for the church of Jesus Christ to minister to people with the Good News of a crucified Savior and ascended Lord. Here the fullness of the Gospel can and must address itself to people at their critical need. Simply put the need is the fragmentation of life as a result of sin and the Good News is the redeeming and life fulfilling love of Jesus Christ. Our Calvinistic understanding of the wholeness of man, the completeness of salvation, and the sovereignty of God pervading all of creation calls us as a church to face these challenges which the Industrial Revolution has brought to the twentieth century.

George McLeod speaks most clearly to the relevancy of the Gospel to today's world.      

"I simply argue that the cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace aa well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town's garbage heap; at a crossroad so cosmopolitan they had to write his title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek..,. at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died for. And that is what He died about. And that is where churchmen ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about."

Industrial chaplaincy is one way in which the church can meet the challenges for ministry in our industrial world. But it is only one way and not the only way. The "Industrial Mission" concept of ministry is another way to minister to our Industrial world. Local church evangelism and social concern is another. I will speak to these avenues of church ministry later in this paper. I am convinced, however, that Industrial Chaplaincy is a necessary and viable ministry which the Christian Reformed Church should endorse. In this paper I will raise and explore many questions with which our denomination should wrestle as it considers this new venture of ministry.

I. WHY INDUSTRIAL CHAPLAINCY?

Why should our Christian Reformed Church endorse and ordain men (and possibly women) for this particular kind of ministry in the many industrial complexes of our society? This question must be faced immediately because It is foundational to ever establishing this kind of ministry in industry. The question suggests at least three foci that must be addressed. One is the ecclesiastical questions of the nature of "church" and "ordination". A second is the relationship of the local church's ministry and industrial chaplains. And a third is industry's need and response to Industrial chaplaincy.

A. Does the nature of "church" allow for "ordained" persons to serve in spheres outside the communal body Christians where a life of mutual nurturing can continue? Very simply, do ordained, full time chaplains have any Biblical-theological justification to be in industry? I can better raise the question than answer it. Let me share some of my thinking on it, however. The Church is made up of Christians whose sins are forgiven and whose lives are dedicated to growing in and serving Jesus Christ. At this level distinction between "clergy" and "non-clergy", "ordained" and "non-ordained" are not significant. Each member of the church is to share in the ministry of the church. Each member is to be supportive of the others' life and ministry in the world -- which for many today is an industrialized society.

"And God called "some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry for the building up the body of Christ „. ."(Ephesians 4: 11,12). This Scripture catches the importance of the ordination of some people who are called, prepared, equipped by God, commissioned, and blessed for specific ministries which in turn equip saints and challenge sinners to repentance. Ephesians focuses on the inward direction of "ordained" persons to the body members of Christ's church. Matthew 28:18-20 and many other similar passages points to the outward "making disciples" focus of ministry as well. The prophets of the Old Testament and the New were heralds of God's truth and justice. Says Louis Berkhof of the Old Testament prophets, they were "ministerial monitors of the people, interpreters of the law in its moral and spiritual aspects. Their duty was to protest against mere formalism, to stress moral duty, to urge the necessity of spiritual service, and to promote the interests of truth and righteousness." (Systematic Theology , p. 358.)

Existing Industrial Chaplaincy models have stressed prophetic, evangelistic, or pastoral emphases depending on the particular chaplain and his place of ministry, but each has a ministry from the church to the world and from the Lord through the world back to the church. In my judgment an Industrial chaplain is then one who in his ministry to the industrial world equips Gods saints in industry for ministry in their setting and challenges sinners to repentance while calling attention to injustice, immorality, and sin. The Industrial Chaplain is the Prophet-Priest-King "Man of God" who speaks God's words of judgment as well as comfort, righteousness as well as love.

And this same Industrial chaplain as an "ordained" Man of God has a ministry back to those within the church, if he is to equip the saints for ministry. His understanding, interpretation, and evaluation of the industrial society's need is shared by pastors, consistories, discussion groups, mission committees, etc. so as to be better equipped for ministry in this world.

The question can then be raised: does this perpetuate a notion of "church" where paid professionals called "Clergy Chaplains" minister in the name of Jesus and the "non-ordained office of believer" Christians can sit back? Why do we need more "spiritual specialists"? The question alerts us to the ever present danger of making the church the body of clergy and the 'non-clergy" spectators to the work of the church, a more Roman Catholic notion of "church". To this my response is that the Industrial Chaplain does indeed carry on a specialized ministry in our industrial society, and his ministry must be viewed in the same way as other "ordained" ministries of the Lord. There is the reaching out aspect and the reaching back to equip the saints for ministry. It is my personal conviction that the church needs desperately today those whom God has called, prepared, equipped, and commissioned who then can interpret, educate, and facilitate the church in further ministry in our industrial society.

B. This then raises the second dimension of the question: why have Industrial Chaplains? What is the relationship of the Industrial Chaplain to the Local Church? Or put the question in another way, should not the local church be doing this ministry? I will assume that the local church is NOT doing an adequate job in ministering to the real and felt needs of Its members. This assumption Is not warranted in every situation. In Hamilton, Ontario the churches of the community have come together regularly to understand their industrial city's needs and respond to those needs in ministry. With some individual churches in Southeastern United States pastors and non-clergy persons (men and women) are volunteering time in part-time non paid ministries within industry to speak and minister relevantly to people in industry. Other pastors volunteer their services as police and fire chaplains and as hospital and emergency room chaplains to minister significantly In the urban-industrial world.

But for the most part we are still searching for what it means to minister effectively to an Industrial world from the local church. The Industrial Chaplain is the extension of the local church's ministry into society. "The chaplain is a colleague of the local minister -- not a competitor. He supplements and complements other forms of community ministry. No attempt is made to duplicate or to take the place of the local pastor or the more traditional means of worship and pastoral care. His approach is non-denominational, with primary concern for the individual and whatever concerns he has as he comes to his job" (Rev. Lowell Sodeman, Business and Industrial Chaplaincy, p. 19)  On the local church level the interdenominational character of the Industrial Chaplain's ministry must be stressed and not the ministry of one given church who extends the call for this ministry. An Industrial Chaplain, like other chaplains, ministering as an extension of the church's ministry, must serve his own church and denomination as well as others in communicating the needs and skills required to meet the needs of sinful people.

We might ask? why should we single out the arena of world and say that, the church has a ministry here? Should not "ordained" persons also be ministering in recreation, entertainment, social work, criminal justice, mental health, ... ? The question of whether an "ordained " person should do these kinds of ministries is an ecclesiastical one (Is the ministry " spiritual" in character?) and one which  our church must wrestle with. But the question of whether Christian ministry should be carried on in those areas of life is most affirmative as I read the Word of God.

G. This leads to the last focus of the question: why have Industrial chaplains? What is there in industry itself that calls for ministry by Industrial Chaplains? Many people are NOT eager for representatives of the church to enter the secular "jungles" of industry. "The church does not belong here. It will get eaten up alive. Separation of church and state. We need no one to make corporation ripples,” are some of the cries against industrial chaplaincy. Advocates of the labor force and advocates of management become suspect by the other group. The loneliness of Industrial Chaplaincy work is a determent which must be faced squarely. In other words, the industrial society is not begging the church to place chaplains in ministries in Industry.

However, individuals within the industrial world are calling to the church to respond to needs they see that church can fulfill. Nearly every Industrial Chaplaincy program has its list of industrial executives and laborers who wholeheartedly endorse how significant their industrial chaplain has been to them. Of more Importance than those who shout loudly for or against Industrial Chaplaincy is a look at the needs found within the business and industrial world which call for a representative of the Lord to address.

Personal problems, family problems, death, illness, accidents, employer-employee relationships, these all present opportunities for counseling.  Rev. Lowell Sodeman in describing the Business-Industrial Chaplaincy model he is committed to and oversees as the Associate Director of Industrial Chaplains in the Southern Baptist Church says this: "Business-industrial chaplaincy is a non-denominational counseling oriented service to persons in business and industry. The focus is on the individual, his problems and his needs. Among these are such  things as occupational discontent, boredom, apathy, alcoholism, drug abuse, tension rooted in insecurity or emotional disorders and financial, domestic and legal problems. Chaplains indicate that marriage and family counseling is a major part of their work. (The Chaplaincy program's) primary purpose is that of ministering to people at the point of their personal concern, at the place where they may determine to do something about it."(Sodemen, Business and Industrial Chaplaincy , P. 6,7)

Another kind of need has us consider Industrial Chaplaincy from a slightly different perspective. Racial and sexist injustice, institutional and structural injustice, immorality, poor job performance, dehumanization .... present opportunities for the prophetic Word of the Lord. Industry is in need of the critic, the Medieval "court jester", or values clarifier; or really the Old Testament prophet who is involved in the life of industry. The contribution of Industrial Mission of church ministry (see below for more details) has been to raise the awareness of Industrial leaders to its blind spots in justice and righteousness. An Industrial Chaplain who has developed his Biblical and theological understanding of industrial ethics, values, and people integrity is needed.

Opportunities exist for an Industrial Chaplain to respond educationally in developing human self-awareness, relational abilities, ethical and spiritual maturity, leadership abilities. The Industrial Chaplain as a facilitator to equip saints for ministry is a crying need in our industrial complexes. So that even though industry itself is not begging for Industrial Chaplains, the need is there.

 

Last modified: Monday, December 13, 2021, 12:36 PM