More on calling and gifting
James at “Idle musings of a bookseller” continues to quote from Kung’s book Why Priests? One of his latest posts is called “A calling is the requirement“. He quotes:
…it must be said that charism in the strict sense, i.e., a calling from God in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, stands by itself and does not flow from the institution. It is a free calling to a free ministry in the Church, which the Church leadership can suppress or even worse extinguish only at its own expense. A thoroughgoing direct or indirect “bureaucratizing” of a charism contradicts the New Testament. As the New Testament shows, a charism has no need at all of prior legitimation by a Church institution. On the contrary, there are in fact institutions and representations of institutions who have nothing charismatic about them: for instance, ordained Church functionaries who carry out their ministry mechanically and show no sign of a genuine calling of of the Spirit of Christ.—Why Priests?, page 87
May those of us who are leaders in the church never find ourselves suppressing or extinguishing the work of the Spirit through another believer. May we never seek to build an institution which has nothing charismatic (of the Spirit) about it.