My friend John gave me a CD by a Christian man named Norm Wakefield focused on equipping men to be faithful and strong disciples of Christ. I found many encouraging and helpful ideas in Mr. Wakefield’s talks, which spanned many hours, and I also found several errors in his statements based on his understanding of the faith through his Evangelical Protestant tradition (or lens).
One important point he makes, which he spends a long time on, is the idea of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction, in Mr. Wakefield’s parlance, is equated with authority. He rightly points out that we men, as head of our families, have authority given to us by God the Father and that we must accept this authority and use it to help lead our families in a Christ-like way. I couldn’t agree more.
Then he makes several other statements about authority which are very interesting, and I will respond to them in this post.
But first, notice how we all have human authorities in our lives? At home when we were children, our parents were our authorities; at school our teachers and principals were.
In civil society, we have authorities at many levels: city council, mayor, county leaders, state legislators, federal legislators, and ultimately in our nation the President of the United States (currently Pres. Barack Obama). Do they really have authority over us though? Yes. We see this if we break a law because if it is found out then the police come and give us a ticket or worse arrest us and judges and a jury try us for the crime and we may go to jail for decades or even be executed!
At work, in business or academia, we have authorities over us: I personally have 6 levels of people in the authority chain going right up to the top of my company. Anyone of those people could tell me what to work on, tell me to quit wasting time, reassign me to a different group, etc. If I don’t do what I should, I could be demoted or fired.
But what about in the Christian faith? Ah, here it is different, is it not? Here, surely, we have no authority over us except Jesus Christ who is God Himself? And that is exactly what hundreds of millions of Christians say. “I accept no authority over me except Christ” when it comes to their Christian beliefs and their church. Is that the way Christ intended us to be as Christians?
Let’s now see what Mr. Wakefield has to say about authority (jurisdiction):
“Pride will destroy a jurisdiction.”
“Don’t trust Mohammed: who gave him jurisdiction? Nor Buddha. Why should I listen to him? He doesn’t have jurisdiction.”
“Where men do not submit to their elders, there will be destruction and disorder in the church.”
“If a man won’t listen to the elders, to the church, if he won’t submit to their jurisdiction, Paul says ‘I will deliver such a one to Satan’ and his jurisdiction.”
Bold words, no?
He also mentions that (St.) Peter tells Christians to submit to the government, superiors in the work sphere, human institutions, and authorities for the Lord’s sake.
Three questions immediately pop into my mind:
1. What does Mr. Wakefield mean by “church”, and which “church” has authority from Christ?
2. What does Mr. Wakefield say to the hundreds of millions of Christians who submit to authority in every area of life except for in the “church”, where they claim Christ only is their authority?
3. What authority does Mr. Wakefield have that I or any Christian should listen to him?
He says that “pride will destroy a jurisdiction” and “where men do not submit to their elders, there will be destruction and disorder in the church.” Yet he utterly fails to see that Martin Luther and the leaders of the Protestant revolts did not submit to their elders, the bishops of Christ’s Church, and that did indeed lead to “destruction and disorder” in the Church. It led to schism upon schism and a thousand splinterings afterward in Christ’s Church, explicitly against Christ’s command in John 17 and St. Paul’s in 1 Corinthians 1: “I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.”
So what exactly does Mr. Wakefield mean by his statements? He seems to mean “church” in the smallest sense possible: i.e. the group of people that meet at Pastor Joe’s home or who rent space at the local school on Sundays or who have a church building (e.g. Pecan Street Baptist Church) and meet there. The “elders” of the “church” are presumably whoever founded it and became pastor and whomever he chose as assistant pastor and as “deacons” perhaps.
Mr. Wakefield again: “If a man won’t listen to the elders, to the church, if he won’t submit to their jurisdiction, Paul says ‘I will deliver such a one to Satan’ and his jurisdiction.”
So when and how many times has this happened in Christ’s Church through history? How about the Manichees? The Monophysites? The Docetists? The Arians? The Nestorians? The men who chose to reject the elders of Christ’s Church and their authority must have been delivered to Satan and his authority.
Well then when exactly did it become okay for a Christian to throw off the yoke of authority of Christ’s Church and follow their own ideas of what is true? How about the 1500s? Did St. Paul’s words cease to apply once we reached the 1500s and Martin Luther rejected the authority of Christ’s Church? Where is it written in the Bible that St. Paul’s words, which Mr. Wakefield affirms here, would quit being true during the year 1517 AD?
Without one, apostolic, and universal Church that Christ established and which teaches truth in faith and morals, following the jurisdiction of someone within the “church” makes little sense. And in practice what really happens? A person who disagrees with the “elders” just leaves and goes to the church down the street or founds their own church in which they are the elder! “Now it says in the Bible that people have to listen to me otherwise they are handed over to Satan! Now I am the elder.” We see how ridiculous these verses become if Christ has no Church but only a thousand individual, contradictory and divided “churches” with a thousand different “elders” who were never given rightful authority within the Church in the first place.
This demonstrates the need for apostolic succession. Christ gave his apostles authority, which all Christians agree on, but then of course that authority didn’t evaporate after 100 AD. No! This authority was passed on by the apostles to their successors, by God’s grace and intention and the laying on of hands by the apostles in the sacrament of Holy Orders. These are the true elders of Christ’s Church, the bishops in union with the bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter himself.
Christ is the Rock on which the Church is built, but that does not preclude Him also building the Church on Peter the rock, and on the “foundation” of the apostles, as it says in the Bible.
In this post I wanted to challenge the widespread notion amongst Protestants that God has given us human authority in every area except for the Church, and then to challenge the notion that Mr. Wakefield states that the Church is just the local church apart and disconnected from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
Thank you for reading; I welcome your feedback, challenges, and ideas. You can read a follow-up to this post here: What if the Elders are Wrong?
Devin,
Excellent post. Thanks.
KB