From:  (Nigel B. Mitchell)
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Denominations
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 02:20:12 GMT
Organization: iiNet Technologies
Message-ID: <>
References: <360FF3E9.6CC70> <> <> <> <> <>
Reply-To: 
NNTP-Posting-Host: tango20.nv.iinet.net.au
X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.0.82
Xref: newsreader.mira.net.au aus.religion.christian:37871

In <>,  (Graeme) wrote:

>...  When a pastor is
>called to a church he is, according to the scripture, the final
>authority in that congregation and should remain so unless the
>congregation decides they want to be rid of him for some reason. 

Graeme, two things interest me about this statement.

First, you say "according to the scripture...". Could youplease give a
reference or two to support this. (Not 400 lines of exegesis, just a
reference or two that I can look  up in my Bible, please).

Secondly, it seems that there is a contradiction in you argument. If
the pastor is the ultimate authority, how can the congregation can
hire and fire the pastor without usurping that authority?

>>Think about how this would apply in the real world.

>Thta's plain silly. We are not talking about the "real world" we are
>talking about spiritual principles related to the Word of God. 

Reflecting on our recent discussion on another thread, I suspect that
the point where your ideas come to grief are precisely when they are
applied in the "real world". In the real world, academic
qualifications, denominational ordination, pastoral oversight (whether
by a Bishop or a pastoral board) are all methods of testing and
guiding the pastor. In the real world such things are needed, because
without them any person could pop up and say "God has called me to
ministry"; and nobody could gainsay them. 

Academic qualifications ensure that a pastor has the knowledge base to
teach and minister to a congregation. Ordination is a public
acknowledgement from both the local and wider Church that a person has
a call which has been accepted and tested by the leadership of the
Church, and pastoral oversight protects both the pastor and the
congregation from abuse of power and lapses into unorthodoxy. Of
course none of these things work perfectly all the time, but the
potential for disaster without them is infinitely worse.

>That brings up another point. If we are worried about what others
>think, then we are not free, we are subject to what everyone else
>thinks. If a pastor is such a wimp as to worry about what everyone in
>the congregation thinks he is not doing his job. He is in the puplit
>under divine authority. His job is to do his job of teaching as unto
>the Lord, not according to what a lot of kooks whom he is teaching
>thinks. 

If a pastor thinks that the congregation are a lot of kooks, that
pastor should opt for a career change.

>He is the expert, he knows the word; that is why he is
>teaching them. 

To amplify my point above - who says that the pastor is the expert?

>If they nuck the tiger they are rejecting divinely -
>given authority and will be liable to divine discipline. 

Pardon, but 'nucking the tiger' is a new term to me. 
Is this an Aotearoan colloquialism?

>To take this
>even further, even if the pastor is wrong he still has the authority.

If that is what you think, the I hope no-one ever tries to apply your
ideas to the "real world". The history of the Church is sadly littered
with pastors and church workers who have behaved wrongly, abusing
their power for personal advantage, financial gain and sexual
misconduct. The damage to the church has been exacerbated in far too
many cases because of the idea that "even if the pastor is wrong he
still has the authority". 

>So don't fight city hall! Bucking authority is no different from the
>Exodus generation who died in the desert because they rejected the
>authority of Moses.

Have a look at the following passage:
(Gal 2:11-14 NRSV)  But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to
his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people
came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they
came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the
circumcision faction.  And the other Jews joined him in this
hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.
But when I saw that they were not acting consistently with the truth
of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, "If you, though a
Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the
Gentiles to live like Jews?"

Paul had, in the verses before these, takent issues of doctrine and
practise to the central body of the Church, of which Peter was one of
the acknowledged leaders, for judgement. He was pleased with the
outcome, but in the passage above he goes on to opposed Peter to his
face, denouncing him for his hypocrisy.

Isn't that 'bucking authority'?

(BTW - if you respond to the passage of scripture above, please do so
in just a paragraph or two.)

>If a congregation or a person cannot accept the authority of the
>pastor there are two options. An individual can leave the church
>(quietly, without any fuss and without taking anyone else with him). A
>congregation can meet and vote a pastor out if it has a sizeable
>majority.

So let me get this straight. According to you, even if the pastor is
wrong, the pastor still has authority. "Bucking authority" or leaving
the congregation are the only alternatives.

In the "real world", moving to another congregation is seldom as easy
as you describe, especially in rural areas. That is why, in the "real
world", the Church has developed methods of accreditation (academic
qualifications, ordination) and oversight (Bishops, pastoral boards)
to keep the pastor on the right track

Surely you can see that guidance is a better response than rejection,
when a pastor wanders from the right path?

<snip>

>No, personality hasn't a thing in the world to do with it. If you want
>to be taught and you are an objective person you do not bother about a
>person's personality if you wish to learn. All you are concerned with
>is what he teaches. To worry about the pastor's personality is
>juvenile, subjective, and indicative of someone who wants his hand
>held all the time. Such a person will never grow spiritually and
>probably needs about five years in the army. 

Once again, in the real world, Christian ministers are expected to
pastorally care for their congregations. _How_ the pastor teaches is
at least as important as _what_ is taught. 

A pastor with all the knowledge in the world would be completely
ineffective if they started calling people names every time someone
asked a question or expressed a different point of view.

>>Likewise there would be some people you would exclude from pastoring
>>_some_ churches, but not others, on the basis of personality, aren't
>>there?

>You've got to be kidding.

In the "real world", inner city congregations, suburban congregations,
chaplaincies, rural parishes, and congregations with different
demographic profiles have different needs, and need pastors with
different skills. A person who is a very good pastor in a small rural
congregation may well be hopeless in a large city church, and a person
who is a good military chaplain may be useless in a suburban parish
with many young families.

The same is true of Denominations, which is where this discussion
began. In the "real world" there are many different ways of
understanding and expressing the Christian faith. This side of the
Parousia, we are unlikely to ever know which, if any, is _the_ true
faith. It is my belief that all contain some truth and some error, and
the best we can do in this world is to find a Church and/or
congregation which teaches and practises what we believe, whilst
remaining in respectful fellowship with those who think and act
otherwise. I believe that God has given us the different denominations
of the Christian faith because God's truth is wider and more inclusive
than any single Church can be.

Cheers


N+

Nigel B. Mitchell