Following up on my post from yesterday: “I Have No Authority Except Jesus”.
One possible objection to my earlier post would be something along the lines of: “Yes, obeying your church elders is all well and good when they teach what is true, but if they teach something false, then it is imperative for you to disobey them and do what is right, even if it means leaving that church for another one or starting your own.”
And perhaps even further: “You see, that is exactly what happened in the Reformation. Martin Luther rebelled against the authority of the Catholic Church because the Church was teaching lies.”
There are two possible scenarios here:
1. There is no Church which has completely true teachings
2. There is a Church which has completely true teachings
Let’s take the first scenario first, which is generally the Protestant belief. There is no church (or “denomination”) that is uncorrupted in her teachings. If that is the case, then we all have a problem following the command to “obey the elders of the church” because guess what? the elders of every denomination are teaching some things that are false! They are teaching baptismal regeneration is true when really symbolic-only baptism is true (or vice-versa). They are teaching that abortion is always wrong when really abortion is sometimes okay (or vice-versa).
So if the first scenario is indeed reality, it is impossible to follow this Biblical command!
I am Joe Baptist, but when I read the Bible, it seems clear to me that when Jesus said “Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body” he meant it literally. But that is definitely not what my Baptist church teaches.
Or I am Episcopalian and the Episcopalian church teaches that women priests are valid and that people who suffer from and act upon same-sex attractions are not committing sin. What do I do? Since there is no Church which has completely true teachings, the best that I can do is find another church, maybe the Lutherans or Anglicans or Methodists, which I agree with on more of the teachings than I do the Episcopal church. Or I decide that women’s ordination is the most important issue, and so as long as I can find a church (except the Catholic Church heaven forbid) that does not ordain women, even if I disagree with that church on many other things, I will go to it because I really believe this issue to be vitally important.
Either way, when I go to the new church and my elders find out that I don’t believe in, say, infant baptism, then once again I am in a bad state because I am disobeying the teachings of the elders of the church, since I think “believer’s baptism” is the only valid kind.
In answer to the second objection regarding Luther, if this scenario is the reality then there is no big deal because the Catholic Church had corrupted teachings for however long and so Luther came and established his own church with, presumably, teachings which were truer. People then came after Luther (and are still coming after him) and broke from him because they said many of his teachings were false in this or that area, and what we have left is the current situation of thousands of divided churches, none of which teaches the fullness of the truth.
So let’s take scenario 2 now:
2. There is a Church which has completely true teachings
Now we have two possible sub-options:
a. I am in full communion, that is to say united, with this Church, or
b. I am not in full communion with this Church
If I fall under option “b”, then that means that I am going to some other church that does not have uncorrupted teachings, in which case I cannot always obey my elders. However, I now have the option of entering full communion with the Church that teaches the truth on all matters of faith and morals, or I could go to another church which has corrupted teachings and end up right where I started.
If I fall under option “a”, then how happy I am! This Church has been preserved from error in her teachings by God, and I can fully and faithfully follow the Church’s teachings because I know that they are all true! I can follow the Biblical command to obey the elders of the Church.
In answer to the second objection regarding Luther, if this scenario is reality then Luther broke from Christ’s Church and in doing so disobeyed the legitimate elders of the Church, establishing his own church which has errors in its teachings. Others came after Luther and did the same, compounding his errors and creating new ones. We are now in a situation where there is still the Church preserved from error in her teachings but also there are innumerable other “churches” or ecclesial communities where some of the truth is taught but also where errors are taught as truth.
You all know which scenario I think is the reality. I ask you to consider these arguments in thought and prayer and thank you again for reading my thoughts.
Devin – When Ed and I were discussing the “problem” of wicked, wrong, mistaken men in places of ecclesiastical authority, and what Ed described as the “bare claims to authority” of the Catholic Church, I reminded him of what Jesus had to say in Matthew about the Jewish religious hierarchy of his day:
Matthew 23:2-3 (King James Version)
2 Saying “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat:
3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.”
I followed that quote with my own two cents:
“As we have seen already above, even in the worst of times under the Old Covenant structure, Christ prohibited such rebellion (Matthew 23:2-3). There is no indication that he advocated such rebellion under the New Covenant Apostolic ecclesiastical structure that He put in place.”
“The Reformation was a well intentioned movement that should have remained “in-house” and recognized lawful authority, even if some of the practices of the Church at the time were troublesome. ”
There is an awful lot of presumption that is required of Protestants in order to justify the schism of the 16th century, and following. It is irrational, if nothing else. In truth, it is much worse than just irrational.
Thanks for another very helpful post.
Blessings and Peace
KB
Interesting post Devin. The matter is more unworkable than you indicate. The question of how do you know when you are right and the elders are wrong? Personally, I always think I am right but I know I can be wrong. So I am a lousy judge of whether I have erred or the elders have erred. I will always think it is them.
Then there is the question of whether the matter is worth leaving a church over. How do I decide that? Where do I find that answer in the bible? You say one might feel women’s ordination is important. But I need to know from scripture where it ranks in the hierarchy of truths. Is that in the apendix or something?
Good points, Randy: You’ve hit on even more problems with this Protestant approach to authority.
The first problem you point out demonstrates that I made the assumption that the person always thinks they’re right, but as you conceded (and I do as well), “we’ve been wrong before and yet thought we were right, so how do we know?” And the short answer is, we don’t.
The second problem is easier, however: The information about the hierarchy or priority of importance of issues or teachings are found in the “Book of Hesitations,” a book unfortunately written by the apostolic author using invisible ink (doh!). (I speak in jest of course–this is an unsolvable problem as well.)
Thanks Randy.