In order to work their way around the new Fair Work legislation protecting pastors, the framers of the new Spiritual Agreement policy were going to have to use their imagination and borrow from the art of propaganda. They didn’t disappoint.

One of the greatest weaknesses of Christians is gullibility. We are gullible due to our innate sense of trust in the goodness of people. We believe someone before we disbelieve them. We tend to believe our leaders as well, because they are after all closer to God. Aren’t they?

As someone who has worked behind the scenes of national and State denominational leadership I can assure you that everyone is human, and the people who appear the most spiritual often are the most human. Sometimes humans do whatever is needed in order to achieve an outcome, irrespective of their office or calling, or the ethical dictates of their stated beliefs. Although its not openly stated, at times the end definitely justifies the means. The policy has that written all over it.

An alcoholic,” the late comic Robin Williams once remarked, “is someone who can violate his standards faster than he can lower them.” So can a Christian leader, clearly. The new ‘Spiritual Agreement’ policy for QLD pastors is a violation of the ethics, biblical principles and pastoral responsibilities that you would expect from a church denomination. You would have thought that by 2024 as a denomination we would have contemporary standards of fairness, justice, protection and generosity in how we deal with employing people. Instead we are winding the clock back.

The Straw Man

In order to sell the idea of spiritual agreements the architects needed to create a straw man, and that straw man is the bad, horrible, ugly, unspiritual ’employment contract’. In an effort to bifurcate between the two options offered up by QB (Queensland Baptist), ‘spiritual agreements’ which are bright, angelic, spiritual, relational, pure and heavenly – are juxtaposed against the evil straw man of ’employment contracts’.

^{[From here on in ‘spiritual agreements’ are SA’s and employment contracts are EC’s].}

The first document sent out contained comparison tables tnat outline the supposed fundamental differences between SA’s and EC’s.

According to QB, in an EC, the relationship is one of employer / employee which includes the concepts of subordination, control and direction. [Note the loaded language].

Whereas in a SA’s the role is

“focused around the spiritual nature of the calling, rather than on a list of duties or tasks and because of this fact, there is broad liberty and freedom granted to a Spiritual Appointee to act out their calling as they feel is appropriate. A spiritual appointee is not considered to be an “employee” as they do not have an employment contract and so the body of employment law does not apply to them.

They are paid a stipend, which is not related to output or expertise, but is a payment voluntarily made by the church to ensure that the minister has sufficient income to live by so that they are not required to find another source of income and compromise the appointed role.”

So the money given to the pastor under a SA is simply a voluntary gift so that they don’t leave and do something else that earns money. It’s definitely not in relation to their ‘output or expertise’, wink wink, nudge nudge. I’m also pretty sure that these ‘voluntary’ gifts made to the pastor are not indexed against the QB pastors stipend guidelines. Of course not!

The briefing document which was supposed to be a neutral summary allowing churches to make their own minds up repeatedly creates a false equivalence between an SA being a role centred on relationship and spiritual ministry (as opposed to duties and tasks) – and an employees role being defined by terms and conditions not relationship.

“The role is clearly focused around the spiritual nature of the calling, rather than on a list of duties or tasks” Page 2.

“The relationship provides freedom and autonomy to the pastor rather than defining relationships that involve subservience, control and direction of the pastor.” Page 6.

“Relationship based rather than contractual.” Page 8.

In EC’s “the relationship is defined by terms and conditions not relationship.” Page 7.

“The engagement is defined by terms and conditions rather than relying on a healthy and functional relationship”. 

“High chance that there can be a misalignment with personal (emotional and spiritual) values.”

This briefing document reaches its propagandistic apotheosis when it paints an alarming scenario where pastors (employed under an employment contract) can refuse to work outside of normal hours and a scenario where pastors refuse to work on a public holiday. It asks the ridiculous rhetorical question

“Imagine if a pastor refused to work Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.” Page 5.

In a table (in the original briefing document distributed to churches) listing the disadvantages of EC’s, the document lists protection for unfair dismissal (or other issues requiring protection) as a disadvantage. Read that again. The ability of Fair Work to protect a pastor who has been unfairly dismissed is a ‘disadvantage’.

Mercenaries, Misfits and Missionaries

To their credit, the Director of Movement (don’t ask, it’s a QLD thing), and the Director of Church Services were generous with their time, which was greatly appreciated. I always make an effort to talk directly to the key people concerned first. The people involved in drafting this are good people, with plenty of experience and talent. But that’s not in question.

Notwithstanding their generosity, I’ve been around long enough to know that talking turkey to them wouldn’t result in much. Once a course of action has been begun it’s rare to see radical changes.

The higher up a person is in an organisation often the more removed they are from their policies being challenged. In a denomination as small as ours many talented pastors are locked into the system by way of full time job, part time denominational job, or having a need of one kind or another from the denomination – that ensures they keep silent. At the end of the day they have mortgages to pay and mouths to feed. The result is that policies that would not normally survive scrutiny do so because the people closest to the decision makers want to keep in their good books.

An undertaking was made after these meetings to change aspects of the original document but the current edition is in essence the same, it just has the most embarrassing and damning aspects of the original one deleted or reworded. As a document that was meant to be a neutral comparison of two options available to QLD Baptist churches, it’s pure propaganda designed to push the Frankenstein hybrid model stolen from a different context and stripped of its protections.

The original document contained a summary which stated:

Here at QB, it is our view that these fundamental misfits of employment conditions for Pastors come about because at its heart, the relationship with a church ought to get back to being a Spiritual Appointment rather than one of Employment. 

The current document summarises:

“But in some very fundamental ways, a pastoral role is incompatible with being an employee.”

It’s simply disingenuous to claim that the document is a neutral summary for the benefit of churches. I lived in Darwin in the Northern Territory where people are divide into three possible origins: mercenaries, misfits and missionaries. I definitely fitted into the latter. According to QB employment contracts with their minimum standards, rights, protections, fairness, allowances, etc are a ‘misfit’ for the church.

So rights and protections such as superannuation, recreational leave and sick leave go from standard to optional and not guaranteed. A salary or stipend goes from standard to being an act of ‘grace’ by the church. Throw in some Charles Dickens, add some Thomas Hobbes then mix in with some good old Queensland contrarianism and walah! – we have ourselves a very unique policy.

Splendid Isolation

In my meetings with the Director of Movement and the Director of Church Services it became clear why QB was going out limb in order to protect pastors from the dastardly employment laws that every other Australian enjoys: that great Baptist distinctive of autonomy.

It was also explained that the document isn’t necessarily a reflection of how pastors in an EC relate top their church leaderships, but rather, that is a summary of legal standing of each position. That doth not butter any parsnips for me I’m afraid. The average reader would understand that to be a summary of the two different policies. the document isn’t a legal brief for a court case, its a summary helping churches to decide whether to abide by Fair Work legislation or find a way around it.

You see autonomy isn’t just something Baptist churches jealously guard in terms of being independent from the Union (denomination), it’s autonomy from government as well.

The explanation given to me as to why not being able to unfairly dismiss a pastor with impunity was a disadvantage, was because any intervention into church matters by the government is a bad thing.

I beg to differ. If there is any need for a government authority to reach into a church due to dealing unfairly with a pastor then I welcome whatever punishment is coming to the church. Sometimes something of seismic proportions needs to happen in order for churches and denominations to be frog marched back to their values.

I make a distinction between outside interference in what a church teaches and observe terms of beliefs and intervention on behalf of pastors who have been unfairly and egregiously dealt with. If an agency like Fair Work has to intervene in a situation where the wrong thing has been done to a pastor, it should be a matter of great embarrassment for us as Baptists and cause for deep reflection.

Alternative Reality

Across the rest of Australia Baptist churches are doing just fine with employment contracts. Unlike the pathetic caricature of pastors trapped in a slave like relationship of subservience, fulfilling mere chores and responsibilities, there’s absolutely nothing about a fair employment contract that somehow affects the relationship between a pastor and a church. To the contrary, a fair contract with protection, rights, fairness and generosity enhances a relationship.

It’s demonstrably false to claim that somehow an employment contract can result in a misalignment with personal (emotional and spiritual) values. Quite the opposite. For me, being lumbered with an SA that provides myself and family with no protections, rights, entitlements and the potential of being dealt with unfairly would be a ‘misalignment’.

I could well understand if the paper put out to churches gave two options, and each option was covered fairly so that churches could make their own minds up. I would support that. However, that isn’t what happened and the position taken by QB is very strong and certain.

Strangely enough, not everyone involved in promoting this is on an SA themselves. No names, no pack drill.

Inverting Spirituality

The most staggering aspect of this policy is the title it has been given: ‘Spiritual’. Imagine thinking that stripping away rights, protections and entitlements is somehow ‘spiritual’? Except I don’t for one second think that’s what they think.

When you conceive of a stinker of a policy like this you may as well continue in the same vein as you wrote it by choosing a title that is as detached from reality as the body of the text is.
Let’s just call it the Pineapple Policy, where as you guessed, pastors only ever get the rough end. It doesn’t sound very spiritual but unlike the current title it’s true.

I checked if the policy document exists in the public realm first before including it here. Click on the document to view this Frankenstein hybrid creature for yourselves.

In Part 3 we will look at how this policy will continue a long tradition of trauma in pastors, their families and in church members within congregational governance settings.