G'day
Presumably the gods give (divine) spellcasting abilities to those people who need them to discharge their duties to the gods, and not to others. This would be just like the Church giving sacramental powers to (ie. ordaining) those people who need to use them, not all of its members. I understand that nearly all abbots are/were ordained at least to the status of priest--only very few receive[d] the episcopal consecration. And mediaeval monks were not uniformly ordained as priests: a few were acolytes and some were deacons, but most were mere porters and lectors, or had taken solemn vows and received First Tonsure but were not ordained at all.
This being the case, I don't see any problem with D&D religious hierarchies employing administrators, almoners, choristers, theologians, teachers, preachers, precentors, sextons, clerks, copyists, and contemplatives without the gods giving them the powers of a cleric. Clerical spells would reasonably be reserved to those people who need them for serving the faithful, dis-serving the unfaithful, and maintaining internal discipline.
This question raises again the issue that D&D is missing a class to represent those [NPC] ecclesiastics whose duties do not require them to develop an expertise with maces and heavy armour, and who do not need quite so many as d8 hit points per level, but who require more pastoral skills (diplomacy, gather information, heal, knowledge (religion), perform (ritual), profession (preacher, pastor), sense motive) and perhaps a different balance in their spell lists.
I am geeky enough to think it would be neat if in D&D 4.0 the pastoral cleric were so designed that the adventuring cleric could be represented by taking alternate levels of fighter and pastor (together with appropriate choices of feats), and perhaps the paladin as a fighter/pastor with more emphasis on fighter and different choices of feats, but that's just me.
Regards,
Agback
[edited to correct glaring stupidity and restore the intended sense]
