Unity

So after numerous posts documenting what I consider to be weaknesses in the state of Evangelicalism at the beginning of the 21st century, and enumerating a number of divisive incidents which have caused me to rethink my association to the evangelical movement, the question could legitimately be asked of me, does any of this rambling contribute at all to unity in the church, and if so how?

And I would suggest as an answer that I am not suggesting any magic fix to disunity in Christianity, but I am seeing a path toward it.

Unity cannot be achieved by the power of the human will. Nor can it be achieved by constantly reinventing Christianity with each generation. It cannot be achieved by blindly and legalistically insisting on the distinctives of a particular denomination or movement. It is not achieved through a particular organizational structure.

Unity begins by listening to a single voice. What is clear and undisputed among Christians of most all stripes and backgrounds?

The Succession of Bishops - Part 5

After wrestling with the question of leadership in the church and examining oft cited quotes from the early fathers, I felt it necessary to gravitate away from the view that the local church is completely autonomous and that leadership is something which merely arises out of personal giftedness and and local church elections. Clearly the early church did not function that way. A few summary thoughts:

1. The key role of the church leader is to defend, teach and preserve apostolic truth. Whatever authority he possesses is for that purpose and that purpose alone. Of course other responsibilities go with that key role, but the teaching of the apostles is the absolute foundation of every ministry, every program, every initiative. To fail on this point is to erode the stability of everything else.

The Succession of Bishops - Part 4

An additional issue related to the “succession of Bishops” is the strongly held belief that there is a unique spiritual continuity that is ceremonially carried forward by the act of consecrating bishops and presbyters. Both Catholics and Orthodox refer often to the “unbroken succession” of bishops from the apostles to the present, sometimes displaying the particular lists which connect a particular bishop to the past. Apostolic authority is, it is believed, granted through the ceremonial “laying on of hands” of one or more bishops consecrating a successor.

The practice of laying on hands is found in numerous places in scripture. In some cases it is not related to a transfer of authority, but rather a transfer of sin. Leviticus 16:21 says of the Hebrew priest Aaron, that on the day of atonement, “He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task.”

Quote of the day

Quote of the day.

"A tolerance which allows God as a private opinion but which excludes him from public life, from the reality of the world and our lives, is not tolerance but hypocrisy. When man makes himself the only master of the world and master of himself, justice cannot exist. Then, arbitrariness, power and interests rule."
Pope Benedict XVI

The Succession of Bishops - Part 3

I have argued thus far that it is not tenable to hold that the concept of a succession of bishops is a fourth century corruption of an earlier congregational model. Clearly, the ideas that there were bishops and that those bishops held their office as a result of a “passing along” of authority from the previous bishop existed in the first century and was firmly in place by the end of the second. It is also clear that this succession was seen as a key to the unity, authority and doctrinal fidelity of the entire Christian church very early in church history.

I have also argued that there are aspects of the selection and retention of bishops that do not fit a purely authoritarian model. It is suggested by more than one of the early fathers that the selection of bishops is done by the “suffrage” or at least with the consent of the people and that there was the possibility of removing those bishops who strayed from their responsibilities either in doctrine or morals.

It is not difficult to see why there is a difference of opinion regarding church government. Those who accept apostolic succession argue strongly for the authority of the bishops. Those who see no such authority explicit in scripture can find support for their views even in the church fathers.

Succession of Bishops - Part 2

While it is difficult to dispute that from the latter part of the first century to the Reformation the entire church was governed under an episcopal structure and that a succession of bishops was seen as a sign of the unity of the church and apostolic teaching, there were significant reasons why the Reformers grew uncomfortable with apostolic succession as it had come to be practiced in the medieval Roman church.

Some of the problems were pure historical accident. As the Roman empire faded in power and faced outside threats, people looked to the bishop of Rome for leadership and some of those bishops acted admirably under pressure. But the result was that the Bishop of Rome became a political as well as spiritual figure and as a result, much intrigue surrounded the selection of successors to the office.

The Donation of Constantine, a document which purportedly gave the Bishop of Rome full authority over significant lands held by the Roman empire and over all other bishops, did cause papal power to be consolidated. Unfortunately, the document was exposed as a forgery in the 15th century, just prior to the Reformation. And not all who ascended to the chair of Peter were necessarily worthy of the role or title to say the least. When coupled with the indulgence controversy, the well known abuses of power by bishops and popes, it is not difficult to see why suspicion of apostolic succession grew to a rejection of it.

But it is also possible that the succession of Bishops as understood by the early church is somewhat different from the view of succession that had grown in the middle ages. If so, rejection of the latter view does not require rejection of the former.

In the first place, Paul gave Timothy very clear guidelines for who should be allowed to assume leadership in the church in I Timothy 3:2-7. Such requirements as - being the husband of but one wife (not necessarily celibate), not greedy, not a new convert, able to teach - cannot be applied to many who have held ecclesiastical office in general, much less the papal tiarra. The sins that plagued the Papacy in the middle ages are well enough documented, not the least of which was the divided papacy between Rome and Avignon and the violent intrigue that surrounded it. Whatever the early fathers meant by succession, it could not have meant the power struggles and corruption that marked the papacy during much of the middle ages.

Succession of Bishops Part 1

After nearly thirty years of experience in evangelical congregation churches, I came to a conclusion that as evangelicals, we are certain we know what legitimate authority is not, but are far less sure we know what legitimate authority is. As I wearily asked a few members of the church I called home for fifteen years, "who, in a congregation church, is the congregation accountable to?" None of us had a good answer. But I was gradually coming to a conclusion.

For three to four years I had dabbled in the study of early church documents. I owned Bettenson's "Documents of the Early Church" and Pelikan's "Emergence of the Catholic Tradition". I bought Jurgen's "Faith of the Early Fathers - Vol 1" and poured over quotations on the internet. I read apologetics from Catholic converts like Scott Hahn and Thomas Howard as well as Orthodox viewpoints from Frank Schaeffer and Kalistos Ware. What I discovered challenged long held assumptions and forced me to alter my views.

It is an unexamined assumption of most in the American Evangelical movement that an Episcopal form of church government - that is - a structure of churches governed by Bishops, was a corruption of the early church pattern that originated after Constantine legalized Christianity and the church became entangled in the politics of the Roman empire. It is generally assumed that the early church was made up of local churches governed by councils of elders and that, on occasion, regional councils of elders would gather to debate and decide larger issues. Any notion that there was significant authority in the Episcopal office was an "unbiblical" corruption that may have existed here and there, but never became the norm until the Roman church was corrupted by power in the fourth or fifth century.

Unfortunately the evidence militates against such a view. I "discovered" what should have never been lost, that by the end of the first century a significant view of the authority of Bishops was already present and by the second century a strong argument for a succession of Episcopal authority was in full force. What is more, such a view was held and argued by many and was essentially unquestioned throughout the history of the church until the Reformation. (This does not necessarily mean that no embellishments have crept into the Roman or Eastern church over two-thousand years, but that is for another discussion).

The oft quoted statement of Clement, who died in 99 A.D. makes it clear that some sense of authority being passed through a succession of Bishops was assumed in the church by the generation which lived immediately after, if not contemporary with, the apostles.

"Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry" (Letter to the Corinthians)

It is Irenaeus, in the second century, who is most often associated with the notion that true authority in the church is passed along in some sort of succession from bishop to bishop.

"It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about" (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).

Tertullian, Gregory, Cyprian, Gerome, Eusebius and Augustine could all be quoted, and often are, as clearly articulating a pattern of apostolic succession. Cyprian, in particular makes a statement that ought to raise the eyebrows of anyone in a purely independent congregational church. Arguing against the heretic Novatian, he appeals to the unity of the church, as evidenced by both consistent teaching and structural continuity through the office of Bishop. One cannot assume leadership in the church, according to Cyprian, unless one is a successor to a previous leader:

"...Novatian is not in the Church; nor can he be reckoned as a bishop, who, succeeding to no one, and despising the evangelical and apostolic tradition, sprang from himself. For he who has not been ordained in the Church can neither have nor hold to the Church in any way" (Letters 69[75]:3 [A.D. 253]).

It would seem to me that anyone claiming authority simply on the basis of a subjective "call to ministry" who is not in some way willing to submit to the authority of the larger church would be summarily dismissed by most of the early fathers. But this does not mean that apostolic succession was an authoritarian arrangement. Gregory, echoing the Didache makes mention of the appointment of the bishop "by the vote of the whole people, not in the evil fashion which has since prevailed, nor by means of bloodshed and oppression.." suggestion that Irenaeus' concern about "strife over the office of the episcopate" was well founded, and it was apparent that certain methods of selection of bishops included an idea of consent. The whole church was involved, not just those who held office. This is echoed by Jerome, Cyprian, and Clement