Over the years one of the greatest defences of "denominations" has been accountability. So we need to see what the bible says about "denominations" and then try and scratch our heads and see whether they are biblically good or not.
"11For I have been informed concerning you, my brethren, by Chloe’s people, that there are quarrels among you. 12Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, "I am of Paul," and "I of Apollos," and "I of Cephas," and "I of Christ." 13Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" 1 Corinthians 1:11-13
And again
"1And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ. 2I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, 3for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? 4For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not mere men?
5What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one." 1 Corinthians 3:1-5
In both of these passages we see that the people within the church were starting to organise themselves under different names. This is the root of denominations, "I am not of that name I am of this name." Now, you can put whatever name you like in there. If we are recognising ourselves by any name other than Christ then we are quarrelling and acting like mere men of the flesh, like spiritual babies. That is the clear message of these passages. It is wrong to label ourselves as evangelicals, charismatics, Calvinists, Arminianists, Lutherans, Baptists. You name it - it's wrong! Let others call us names, but let us call our selves "of Christ" and that is it.
So, we have hopefully seen that hierarchical structures of men were not given authority by God to rule over or govern the church. We have seen also that we should not be aligning ourselves to any particular sub-division of the Christian faith by name.
What then do we make of issues such as accountability. Let's have a look at the first accountability powerhouse that developed and from where all others get their origin. The Catholic church. In the Catholic Church the idea is that the people are not very worthy to know right from wrong spiritually, therefore they have priests over them to guide them, who they can go to for wisdom. Over the priests the next layer up have to be seen as less imperfect than those below, and the next layer less imperfect and so on until you reach the top where you have to say that you have reached "infallibility!" That is basically the root of a hierarchy, the top has to be infallible. If they are no less infallible than the rest of us then why do we need them?
OK, let's have a look at denominational accountability. Let's say there have been murmurings in the lower ranks and these have reached a point where a decision needs to be made. Let's say, for arguments sake we are talking about the ordination of women within the Anglican church, or more recently the ordination of practicing homosexual bishops! These decisions will be made in the very top layers of the organisation yet they affect every single church within the organisation. If and error is made at the top it effects every church within the structure. If women should be ordained, then why weren't they before? Because the Bishops decided that they shouldn't be! So, accountability within a denomination is actually not the safest option.
If you have independent churches, then if one church goes into error, then it only affects one church. The members of the churches near by would certainly try and warn them. Also, in bible times the apostles would travel from church to church, these guys would have the ministry of laying good biblical foundations, but at the end of it all everyone has the same bible in their hands and using that as final authority can judge for themselves what they believe to be right.
The system works in a way the each church is its own cell (not to be confused with cell church which has a hierarchy attached to it) that cell takes in its food and throws out its waste. In the same way that blood moves past each cell, so the apostles bring food as they pass. If there are things happening within the churches that shouldn't be and are not being addressed internally then visiting ministers should be able to pick it up. As well as this, as I have said, those who know the people from other churches will hear about what is happening and will want to warn them.
The idea here is that the church is not meant to be a great power structure that becomes immovable. It is supposed to remain family and friendly and approachable. Let's say you are an Anglican and they vote for something you don't agree with, what can you do about it? If you are part of a small group and they are discussing something you don't agree with then you at least have a voice. If they vote against it and you decide it is an issue which stops fellowship then in both cases you are free to leave. However, if they are functioning by consensus then you are able to vote for what you feel is right.
Many churches have gone into error, denominational hierarchy hasn't done anything to stop that happening, we only have to look at the Catholic Church to see that. To put our faith in a hierarchical structure is to put our faith in mere men. That is the crux of what Paul was saying. If we say we are of Paul, then isn't he a mere man, a mere messenger?
As a foot note, let's consider something like the Calvinist - Arminian debate. Are there quarrels between these two beliefs? Yes. Is it right? No. Both camps are aligning themselves to the teachings of two dead guys above what scripture teaches concerning all being of Christ. I have heard that within both side people have gone to lengths to prove that those in the other camp are not actually "of Christ!" It gets crazy. Instead of this approach we should simply know what we believe. It is not essential to make sure we are part of a team all singing the same song, obviously if anyone is totally out with scripture then sure, but if two people read the same bible and come to different conclusions we are told not to quarrel , not to divide but to maintain the unity that we do have, we both accept Christ. That is far too simplistic for some, I can hear them banging their gums, but I see it as too unscriptural to get involved in heated scriptural arguments!
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5 comments:
Tough stuff. Thanks for addressing this. I'll be chewing.
It is tough, there's no denying it, it isn't what we were handed down. SOmething that was on my mind to put in but forgot in the nd, was about "chinese whispers" I don't know whether you call them that, but it is where you all sit in a line and someone whispers something and then they whisper it to the next person and so on and then at the end you see how the message got changed. Well that is tradition really, every generation makes little changes to what was handed to them and then pass it on. Sometimes they are big changes. For example the ordination of women. Those coming after us will not be receiving what we received.
But there is something wrong with that picture, now imaginge the line of chinese whisperers and as the whispered message gets passed along the original message that was written down also gets opassed along! Each person that hears the message has a chance to look at the original and decide whether to [pass on what they heard or what is written down!
Occassioanlly, people have tried to pass on what is written down, but people keep gravitating to the verbal message. It is a crazy set up. But what can we do! As a new Christian I had it drummed into me that "you do what the bible says!" I know my heart is for a biblical picture of church. I want to marry Rachel, I worked 7 years for her and go Leah, can I have Rachel?
A thought occurred to me this morning. I don't know if this really goes along with the topic, but maybe.
Here in America we seem to have a lot of cults. At least they make the news often. Just a few weeks ago a group in Texas was busted up for child abuse - they took away 400 children (who didn't seem to know which adult was their parent). They did DNA testing on them to figure it out.
We are so spread out that any power hungry, sex crazed, "religious" freak seems to be able to sneak away with a handful of followers and build his empire into hundreds and hundreds in no time at all. (The Mormons are in the millions)
Until they finally get caught breaking a law (weapons or child abuse) and the police move in and then usually someone dies. Sometimes a lot of someones.
Anyway, I'm going to play devil's advocate and say that one benefit of denominations is that you often know what you're getting. It is a kind of protection. "Oh, these people are methodists in the blah blah group, I know what they believe, yes I'll visit them." Or "no, I don't want any part of them."
The denomination acts as a letter of reference, I guess.
Now I'm not saying that I like it that we are split up into denominations - I think it's very sad.
I'm going to go think some more.
You are definitely thinking about it!! Good advocacy!
The Anglican church of Canada had so many reported incidencies of child sex abuse in it's church run care homes that if every case got the amount of compensation they asked for the church of Canada would have been bankrupt! Now that was the "safe Anglicans" the same is true of Catholic Priests, there have been untold claims of child sex abuse against them. How many do not even get to the media but are hushed up?
We get the news of the cults in America and the documentaries of those who haven't actually broken the law. There is no protection at all. There is no "security." Men are men, it doesn't matter how you dress it up. Some people will say that at least if you are in a denomination like the Anglicans then they have accountability. But, like I say they also have had the ability to exercise greater power than these cults in hidding their own bad rubbish. We are all accountable to the law of the land, whether we are Catholics of individual churches. I could give two possible safeguards for the individual church autonomy idea. One is that cults tend to grow big and gain power through there sheer size of numbers, biblical churches are small and when they grow divide into two new churches, if they were being truely biblical they would not be cult like in there secrecy and set up. But obviously, as now, there is nothing to stop a cult forming.
The other thing is that there was a list made of what defines a cult. 5 signs that what you are in is a cult, this list, I think, was created by evangelical Christians and others. One of the signs is a self appointed single leader. Now I wouldn't say that has to be the case for abuse, but this is the definition of "a cult." In the biblical set up, no one is self appointed, the elders are alected by the body because the body recognise their skills, so would be cult leaders would stand out a mile in insisting they are voted for. The qualities of the leader are written out so we wouldn't choose someone who doesn't fit the bill. And of course there should be more than one. One of the reasons I left the last church was because there was such a strong leader. He was effectively self appointed as far as I could see. even though he had been voted in. But he was such a strong leader that no one else dared to stand for eldership. There was a constant idea buzzing around that no one else was good enough. That smacks of "gone bad" to me. Eldership is not about "good enough" it is about the qualities in the lists. for example "apt to teach" doesn't mean a Phd in theology, it means able to comounticate what you believe. Sorry, rambling off the point now!
Your question reminded me of the thing that said 6s look for security instead of faith! I'm not having a go, I think your question is a genuine one, but I don't see that there is any security. We have to have faith that we will recognise and deal with situations as we find them by God's grace.
When I was in the bath this morning I was thinking about what to put for the next post, I thought of some bits that draw out more of the same theme of denominations and hierarchies and so on, but I have forgotten them now!!
Anyway, I think that's good discussion for now!
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