I read this book by Charles Merrill Smith years ago, before I discovered that I had become a clergyperson. This is a really funny work on Smith's part. He hits the mark in so many places. The chapter on hymns might be the best though the ones on the minister's car and the minister's wife were very funny and right on target too. The "good hymns" Smith said were not the ones that expressed sound theology and took people to a deeper level but the ones that make people feel good. During my long career I have thought of Smith's comments often. He was often absolutely right and always very funny. His mystery novels with the Rev. Con Randall, a former NFL Quarterback, as the detective were also very good. ( )

I first read this book over 40 years ago. A quick re-read reveals that it is very much dated and not politically correct. Therefore, it likely will offend more people today than it did when it was first on the scene.

The book's chapters give one a sense of the satire throughout:
Introduction - What they don't teach you in seminary.
I - The professional stance, or the techniques of being unmistakably clerical
II - Selecting the clerical wife
III - How to be impresive in the pulpit
IV - The administration of a church, which is a polite phrase for raising money
V - Conducting puplic worship, an excercise in nostalgia
VI - The other minor but unavoidable obligatons (how to live with the Sunday School, hitting it off with the ladies, the art of pastoral counseling)
VII - Geting in the major leagues
VIII - Alternative routes to the top
IX - The last lap

If one has the ability to look past those things that are not politically incorrect (out of date references to races and gender, for example), the book may be of some value.

Interestingly, Smith managed to have three "big names" of the day provide blurbs on the back flyleaf: Bishop Gerald Kennedy, Bishop James A. Pike, and Elton Trueblood.

As a sample, Pike stated: "Throughout history satire has been an effective device for stabbing people awake. Dr. Smith's book is satire at its best--indeed, the book is hilarious--and deals with a topic as to which people need very much to be stabbed awke, namely, the superficiality, false values, irrelevace, and downright wrongheadedness of much of the workings and lfe, of the church in our times. It will help clergy understand themselves and their 'modus operandi,' but even more, it will cause laymen to look more critically at what 'goes on' in many a parish."

Smith states his book is intended for a "young man who has chosen the ministry as one of the standard-brand churches as his life's work and is ambitious to get on as rapidly as possible." He defines "standard-brand" as "Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational and the like--churches with serve the chunk of the population generally referred to as middle-class."

Since the book was published, "standard-brand" churches have continued to decline in membership and influence. For such churches to be better off, one must ponder if more should have read Smith's book, or maybe fewer. Hence, my rating of two stars.

Smith served the Wesley Methodist Church in Bloomington, Illinois at the time of writing the book. He is deceased. ( )