Definition of "nonclerical" [nonclerical]

• Not part of the organization of a church; lay (adjective)

Wiktionary.org : Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

• "Like him, these ideologues were nonclerical veterans of the 1980s Iran-Iraq War and were often far more politically and theologically uncompromising than many clerics."
• "Two prominent antagonists were Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, representing hard-line clerical authority, and sociologist and activist Ali Shariati, representing, according to John Esposito, "a more nonclerical, innovative, creative reformist approach.""
• "Tierney, Farmer, and Graen 1999 found that among 191 nonclerical employees in R & D, those with higher LMX scores earned higher ratings for creativity from their supervisors, submitted more high-quality “invention-disclosures,” and did more research reports."