THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

October 19, 2002

Most people just go to the church they "like." Maybe it’s close to home. Maybe their best friend goes there. Maybe the pastor is "nice." I know I made my decision that way for a lot of years. I am and have traditionally been Presbyterian, but as I grow older I have become consciously and purposefully Presbyterian. I think it is important to spell out why because I think it is instructive about how churches operate.

Most people think of church government on the larger level, that is to say how the local congregations are connected to each other and controlled, or not controlled from above. My experience has taught me; however, that any given form of higher church government contains within it a number of good and bad congregations. In other words it is not that higher government that makes one’s experience of attending and participating in a church a good or bad thing.

Based on that experience, I have found that how each local congregation is governed from within is really the place where the differences are really made.

Virtually all Protestant churches are governed by some combination of pastoral leadership and lay committee. How they are related to each other is where things really get interesting. It is important to remember all forms of such government were created in reaction to the Roman Catholic model, so that is where we should probably start the discussion.

In case you do not know it, the Roman Catholic church considers itself to more or less be the old Roman Empire and its forms of government have their roots in that ancient state. Essentially the Pope utters a command and it comes to pass down through the ranks. Most interestingly, the average member has nothing to say about what is happening. You attend and you experience, but you have no voice.

Such a method of organization is bound to produce a great deal of corruption. History has seen this, repeatedly. It really is the old cliché, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." Thus the Protestant churches have been designed and are designed to purposefully limit the power of the clergy and to give them checks from the laity against such corruption. It is possible to put the various denominations on a line from the Catholic model all the way to the extreme Quakers that have no clergy at all.

Presbyterians are far more towards the Quaker end of that scale than they are on the Catholic end. That fact, combined with the intellectual traditions of Presbyterianism, is why I am a Presbyterian. The Presbyterian system is based on a clergy/lay board model, like most Protestant churches. Most people think of such things like a corporation with a Board and a Chief Executive. Many Protestants operate on exactly that model. Presbyterians are different though. For Presbyterians the Board, known in the parlance as "the Session" is the executive and charged with running the church. The Pastor has certain carefully defined and controlled roles, including "moderating" the Session, but the Pastor is not intended to be the chief executive of the church.

This model is falling apart throughout the denomination, and may be functionally dead even as I write, but before we go there, I want to talk about what I like about it. First of all, as a sometime member of the Session, I like having a real ministry instead of rubber stamping someone else's. Secondly, I have written at great length about the inherent possible corruption of the clergy, and I think this system guards against that as well as any system can, save not having clergy. But most importantly, I think this model is reasonably close to the New Testament church.

"Acts" is remarkably quiet about how the newly forming churches managed themselves, but it is apparent that the presence of a professional religious class was minimal, and those that did exist were of the itinerant hand-to-mouth type, not the priesthood of the Jewish faith. I often wonder about the necessity of a clergy, and go back and forth on it, but this much I know for sure -- the church should be designed to minimize their power, and limit their role. I think Presbyterians do that pretty well.

I also said I like the intellectual traditions of the Presbyterian Church. The formal office of a pastor in the Presbyterian Church is "Minister of the Word and Sacrament." That means that their primary function is to preach and administer the sacraments of communion and baptism, which are the only sacraments Presbyterians recognize. This is what makes me lean towards having a clergy when I do; I like having someone who has read more than me and studied more than me tell me things that I can learn and stimulate my thought. It is remarkably difficult to be a well-read, well-thought Christian on a part-time basis.

Now, I have said that I think the Presbyterian model is breaking down rapidly. More and more the Executive/Board model is taking over. There are, I think, two primary reasons for this breakdown. First of all, people in church are less and less willing to put in the time and effort it takes to function as an elder. Even that is a large commitment and in general people are less willing to make it. Secondly, since Pentecostal churches seem to be where the success is these days, and any given pastor is driven to "succeed," they are doing less and less to encourage and develop elders that really do fill the role properly, since Pentecostals operate on a clergy/'yes' man model. (In case you missed it, set your sarcasm monitor on full.)

Let me now put the preceding paragraph to you more directly. THE primary function of a "Minister of The Word and Sacrament" is to enable spiritual growth in members of the congregation. It seems logical to me that such spiritual growth should produce people who are in fact willing to make the commitment necessary to serve as an elder. If people are not willing to make such a commitment, where does the fault lie? More importantly is the correct response to abandon the model, or redouble the efforts at spiritual growth?

Here, I believe is where the door to corruption is opened. It is in these circumstances that a pastor can lose his commitment to his real calling and start simply trying to build a church. Once he has crossed that threshold it is much smaller steps to "serious" corruption like financial or sexual malfeasance. I don’t think any pastor gets into the business just to use the church as a money tree or the congregation as a harem. I do however, think that once they are robbed of the checks and balances the temptation can often become overwhelming.

Several things need to happen:

1. We need to erect higher barriers to ordained service both and clergy and elder. I would rather do with fewer genuinely committed people than a "full slate" on minimal commitments.
2. Currently serving elders need to forcefully reassert their authority. Simply put, start doing more checking and balancing and less approving.
3. Congregations need to renew their commitment to spiritual, not church, growth.

If we fail, if the Presbyterian system is allowed to wander away, I have little hope. While all the apparent church growth is in the Pentecostal area, I believe it is inherently doomed to corruption and failure; the temptation is simply too great. Nothing can squelch a revival faster than to have its leadership exposed as corrupt.

I am a Presbyterian for a reason…now if I can just find a Presbyterian Church.

With Love,