Organized Religion

Our culture seems to want to label pretty much anything as some sort of an institution. We refer to the government, most types of business, education, medicine—in fact, pretty much everything from marriage to the mental hospital—as an institution. We seem to like the security of having things organized, with no surprises, a reliable order, and an almost boring predictability. We like to brag when we “saw that coming,” and if we break an established pattern or habit, it just feels wrong.

In the dictionary, an institution is defined as something established or organized, and also as a society or corporation that has a public character or a mission of public service. Certainly this definition applies in part to the Church; it was established on the day of Pentecost and was given by its Founder a clear mission of service to all mankind. This same Founder, through the Holy Spirit, also established among the first generation of the Church a modus operandi for this new expression of the people of God on the earth. Each local church had elders or presbyters who handled the day-to-day life and work, and extra-locally there were apostles who traveled around either visiting and checking up on the local churches or establishing new ones.

But now, just about all churches in Western society operate according to much different structural models. These vary from denomination to denomination, and often within a denomination they differ from church to church. The many obvious differences between these models and the plain example of the scriptures cannot be justified by their proponents without some very limber interpretive contortions which come complete with a heavy lacing of cryptic theologian-ese. Any subsequent attempt to cut through the baloney and point out the superfluity of their additions to the Biblical pattern is usually met with one of three reactions: you are either a poor, ignorant layman who would never understand without further training (that is, indoctrination), or you’re a rebel who won’t submit to proper authority (that is, to any of their artificial hierarchical constructs), or the thing you need to see is that the Bible actually isn’t really all that specific about the topic of structuring churches, and so we have a lot of “wiggle room” and are encouraged and expected to fill in the blanks on our own (that is, whatever is right in our own eyes).

As the defining force for the Church’s thought slowly shifted to the apologists, philosophers and theologians, the role of the genuine apostle gradually shifted into the background. The speakers, writers and debaters became the big-name stars, and therefore were the ones the people followed. From this grew various schools of thought, each as unique as its proponents, which gradually became more and more difficult for those in legitimate leadership to correct, monitor and coordinate. The Roman system of roads proved to be a mixed blessing—it was easy for the apostles to travel throughout the empire, but it was just as easy for errant ideas to be spread. Previously, a primary reason for the apostles’ ministry was the strengthening and encouraging of persecuted believers; but now they had to take on the additional task of standardizing the things they believed, and then making sure the churches kept the pure faith. This redirection of energies and purpose became a forerunner of the later idea that the role of the apostle had ceased to be needed once the Church had been established, the Scriptures had been written, and the original twelve Apostles had died, thus taking the title and ministry with them.

A sudden force for further change came from a most unexpected place. In the year 312 the Roman emperor Constantine was at war and found himself surrounded by enemies. Reportedly, he saw a vision of a cross, and underneath were the words (in Latin) “by this sign, conquer.” He went on to win the ensuing battle, and took that as an omen that the Christian God had helped him. Most Church history scholars are skeptical about this story, wondering whether such a vision actually happened. Some contend that his actual conversion came some time afterwards; and even then was still heavily mixed with the mythology and superstitions of the previous mythological system. No doubt the debate about the salvation of Constantine will continue for a long time to come. In any case, Christianity was soon declared the official religion of the empire.

So with the decline of the original role of the apostles, along with the ease of movement the Romans afforded to those who traveled on their system of roads, and with the adoption of Christianity as the state religion, the idea naturally followed that there would need to be a centralized point from which the faith could be directed and maintained. And of course, this place would have to be Rome, because Rome was the chief city and the seat of the empire’s government. And since efficiency was a key element in Roman rule, an efficient system for church management became a priority.

If a religion is going to be a partner with the state, it is going to need to adopt a government-style authority structure. So in order to be compatible with the hierarchy that had ruled Rome for centuries, the Church eventually came to consider the Roman bishopric as its highest seat of authority. Several churches in the vicinity of Rome also attained a level of extra importance, coming to be known as “cardinal” churches, and thus the leaders of these became the beginnings of what later became the College of Cardinals, a quasi-equivalent to the Roman Senate.

Many subsequent theologians sought ways to find justification in the Scriptures for this and for their many other innovations. Some theorized that Jesus had elevated the “inner circle” of Peter, James, and John above the other nine apostles, and from there went on to assert that Peter, by virtue of his verbosity, was the top banana. Soon many of the new ideas were being linked to various scriptures, which then resulted in a conglomeration of readily proof-texted additions to the hierarchy which could then easily accommodate any number of minor officials/ministers.

In order to further validate such authority, a system for creating a ministry class which could serve (rule over) the masses of the faithful was needed. A prototype for a clergy-laity system had been in place in most of the local churches for quite some time, so it was reasoned that by strengthening such a system, it could be used as a conduit for this type of structure. Then if the bishops were educated to perform the approved ministry, this would separate the common people (“laity”) from the ministry class who were the literate or trained ones (“clerics”). Since the central authority needed to keep control of the training of its leaders, unique schools were formed to educate these specialists so that they would comprise what we might call the middle-management layer; and this left the poor, ignorant, rank-and-file laypersons to be de facto second-class Christians. So finally, the Church was as “top-down” in its structure as the government of the empire that it was in league with.

Where once there was thriving fellowship between the saints, there was now a cheap facsimile consisting of a common experience in worship led by a trained and aloof professional following a prescribed rubric passed down from the higher ranks in their ivory towers. After all, this was the trustworthy thing; this was what was given through the chain of command. And God forbid if some poor, uneducated layman were to offer ministry in any form without the strict supervision and approval of his leader!

The Church throughout its history has done a remarkable job of preserving the basic doctrines and concepts concerning the mission of Jesus from the days of the original Apostles. So why have we not taken such care with preserving their structural elements for the Church’s common life? Besides, what does it matter anyway, if these matters are only superficial to begin with, and if we have taken good care of the most important part—the message of the Gospel?

Two points need to be considered here to answer these objections. First, the hierarchical system does little to encourage and foster relationships between people on the same level of its system. The emphasis is instead on the relationships between the levels, focusing on what the leader does for me and expects of me, and assumes that my equals have little to offer except perhaps a superficial camaraderie. Jesus was talking to a group of people, not an organization, when He said, “by this shall all know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another.” (John 13:35) The essence of our witness to the world requires our loyalty to and involvement with all of our fellow believers; and for the expressions of love that rise to such a level that there is plenty left that can spill over onto the world.

Second, our message calls Jesus Lord, meaning that as such He is our Director and Leader in all things, including the structural matters of our assembly. We would be wise to inspect our ways and determine if the hand we see guiding us is the hand of God or the hand of man. If we see our own fingerprints on any particular innovation, it would indicate that there is a need to re-examine our motives for making it a part of our activity. And more importantly, we need to remain constant in prayer to determine how each idea needs to be altered, re-thought, or perhaps removed.

Some important indicators of the need to reconsider keeping any methods or means of ministering would include a dependence on by-laws or specific rules of order or conduct, a bland predictability of procedures, or a sense of territorialism of activity by those in charge. These are but a few of the symptoms of the de-personalizing that the Church tends to put itself through when organization becomes the primary factor in its common life. Once we learn to carefully guard the essence of people-affirming relational ministry in all our ways, the drift toward stifling institutionalism can be arrested.