Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Debelak
Igzy:
I don't want to put words in MacDuff's mouth, but I follow his argument. He is arguing a LOT of "Christianity" is the product of the creation of human norms and mores wrapped in the language of the Bible. Yet this sort of "faith" doesn't actually require "faith."
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Okay, that's true sometimes. But I'm not addressing that. I'm addressing the fact that his theorizing never reaches a practical conclusion. He offers no solution.
I'm not "shirking" anything. All I'm doing is asking people to present a positive alternative of Christian groups, aka churches, that actually works.
I don't believe in making the good the enemy of the best. Idealists often do that. They wax theoretical about perfect church, but never seem to get around to actually rolling up their sleeves and jumping in and being part of a church with all its imperfections and working to somehow make the thing work.
For all our theorizing about how church is supposed to look, the fact of the matter is the structure of church has always been manifested pretty much the same. Some are recognized as leaders and some follow those leaders. That's not going to change. All that will change is the spiritual awareness of everyone and of how God uses the realities of human group dynamics to further his plan.
We can argue all day about what the church should look like, how much authority leaders have, and how much liberty members have. But at the end of the day all we are probably going to be able to say is that they all have "some." Leaders' authority is not absolute. And followers' freedom is not absolute, at least in the immediate context of the group they happen to be in. They can leave the group, but they don't have the authority to stage a coup. Leaders can't micromanage members, but they do have certain authority in the context of the group. A simple example might be the leaders have the authority to call a meeting of the entire church, but it would be inappropriate for an individual member to do that without checking with the leaders.
We should try to be cooperative group members as much as possible. Obviously there are going to be times that we have to do others things. For example, the leader of your church asks everyone to help clean the grounds of the property the group owns. But you decide you can't make it. That's your discretion. But suppose you never help and your attitude is:
I don't think church leaders have any authority over me. I don't have to help if I don't want to. You could back that attitude up with verses, I guess. But in the end, what kind of attitude is it?
We have to cooperate in a group. We have to recognize who the leaders are and respect that. Arguing endlessly that the Bible never tells us to obey church leaders is to me just wrong-headed. Of course at some level they have authority. Otherwise, how could they be leaders?
To me it's pretty simple. Everyone should submit to each other. In that context, the gifts of leadership will be manifested. At some point, because that's just the way things happen, certain more human protocols come into play. The bigger and more complex a group becomes, the more human protocols are important. Division of labor takes place. Rules, schedules, definitions, and positions are put into place. That's simply necessary as the thing grows. The Bible never says those things are in themselves bad. God can and does use those things.
Those who pine for the "genuine" NT church often lose sight of that. They make the good the enemy of the best, the best at least in their minds.