ABSTRACT
With these words from the first of his three great Reformation tracts of 1520, Luther, with characteristic forthrightness, undid the neglect of centuries and restored to the centre of Christian thought the biblical doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. In our own secular and sceptical age, almost 500 years after Luther’s fundamental questioning of the nature of the church, the doctrine is again being reconsidered and accorded a new prominence in Christian thought. Yet the present context seems to encourage a certain distortion of its original meaning. In an increasingly individualist society, which demands professional expertise and specialization but displays deep-seated distrust and dislike of professions and their monopolies, the concept of the general priesthood often appears to be construed as a vehicle for asserting the rights of the individual believer against the pretensions and restrictions of the ordained ministry. Nor have modern attempts to widen the range of those involved in ministry removed the sense of two conflicting groups. Despite the apparent blurring of the lay-clerical boundary achieved by the growth in part-time vocations, the concept of non-stipendiary ministry has been dismissed by at least one commentator as a device for closing the church’s mind to the general priesthood and for creating the impression that a vocation to the ordained ministry is superior to any other.2
