Is Hierarchy Possible in a Church of Equals?
April 14, 2005 Posted by Amy Hall
There are many who might read my last post and conclude that there should be no hierarchy in the church at all. In fact, lately I've been hearing often that all hierarchy in the church ought to be done away with. I suppose it depends on what you mean by “hierarchy.” If you mean “people in charge who are valued more than the others and take advantage of the others' lack of power,” then yes, I completely agree. But if you mean “overseers, pastors, and teachers,” then I have to disagree.
Let's look at the early church. It was Paul who spoke of the concept of the church as the “body of Christ”–people working together with equal necessity and value. And yet, we know that Paul established overseers in the church (1 Timothy 3:1-13). The purpose of having these leaders and teachers was to protect the church from false ideas–preserving the purity of the message (Titus 1:5-16), and to manage the operations of the church (1 Timothy 3:4-5). How do these two ideas–equality and hierarchy–fit together?
The key is to remember the concept of the body from 1 Corinthians 12:12-26. Just as the head (let's say, leadership) cannot say to the hand (the other parts of the church), “I don't need you” or “I don't value you,” neither can the hand say to the head “I don't need you!” God has given certain people the gift of leadership, and they are told to “govern diligently” with that gift (Romans 12:6-8). If we remove all hierarchy from our churches–if we dispense with designated pastors, teachers, and overseers, then we are cutting off a part of our own body. We're denying people the opportunity to use the gifts that God has given them for the good of the whole body.
Does this necessarily mean there is inequality among the parts of the body if a hierarchy is in place? Not at all! “Differing roles” does not mean “differing values.” This is Paul's point. We are not allowed to say one part of the body is more important than the other, and the more visible parts (the leadership) must be careful to honor the less visible parts. Those in leadership honor and value the rest of the body by being a part of the body and not above the body. Think of the example of the company from my last post. There were leaders heading up projects, but everyone was available to everyone else–the newest employee could talk to the most experienced employee because they approach each other as people of equal value, though their functional roles (in terms of hierarchy) are different.
The trick is, how do we have designated leaders and teachers in the church and still maintain a sense of active participation among the rest of the body? I'm interested in hearing ideas on this. I think the burden falls on the leadership to humbly give honor to those with different gifts, treating all members of the body as necessary and equal members of the Kingdom, supporting people as they seek to creatively use their gifts (not just telling everyone what to do), and refusing to attempt to do everything themselves. I think my pastor is a great example of this, so I know it's possible.
Here's another question: why have we begun to assume that our value is dependent on our roles such that we think that having a designated teaching pastor means everyone is not equal? What philosophy is at the root of this?
Related posts:
- EFBT: What Does Biblical Hierarchy in Marriage Look Like?
- Lessons in Creativity
- EFBT: An Argument for Hierarchy
- The case for church membership
- Could God Blogs Bring Men Back Into the Church?
- Is Church Necessary?
Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Main Page, Religion (General)
content rss
April 14th, 2005 at 1:57 am
This is a great post Amy. You hit the ball right out of the park. Another area of theology this hierarchy problem effects is the difference in roles between men and women. Complimentarians, such as myself, see that the Bible teaches a hierarchy between the two- that husbands have a divinely instituted authority over their wives. Many hear this and automatically think this means men and women aren't of equal worth. As you articulated so well, hierarchy does not equal diminished value or worth, instead, it reflects God's decrees for how we can be one (one flesh in marriage, one body in the church).
In regards to your last question, I'm currently at a church where the leadership sometimes talks like it's equal with the congregation, but in reality there is a distinct us/them relationship (and even though I'm a teacher I'm still just one of the sheep). I've heard numerous comments by the leadership that reveals their ideology- the congregation is too dumb to understand anything, or to run anything, so thank God we're here! Over time they closed the doors of the consistery meetings, so even members of the church can't be present. Now they don't even tell us when they're meeting. I know of a few elders and deacons, but only because I know them personally. There's no public list of the consistery.
I'm sorry to go on about this, but I think it's a prime example of inequality in the body of Christ that is, frankly, unbiblical. I only have a faint idea as to why this is… They believe God has personally called them to their positions; and since God hasn't called anyone else, they're obviously special.
April 14th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Maybe the answer is to not get a new Pope.
Han
April 14th, 2005 at 1:32 pm
Murdock, you're right, this does also relate to issues of men and women working together. What it all comes down to is, are we–in the church body–different? Are men and women different? If we are, then we should not usurp the position someone else is gifted for, nor should we deny those who are gifted from fulfilling their purpose. Not everyone has the same gifts. It's not “unfair” if some get to be gifted in one thing, and some, another. I suspect this idea of the necessity of making everyone the same comes from Marxism, but I'm really not sure about this.
The issue of men and women in marriage and in the church is difficult. I don't think the idea of men in leadership is arbitrary or merely an expression of power and domination. As I've said above, I think the question is whether or not men (in general) have specific strengths that specially gift them for leadership, and whether or not the specific strengths of women make leadership more difficult in general. (All these are generalities, since men and women vary along the whole scale of abilities.) I've thought long and hard about this because obviously, as a woman, I'm affected by the truth of this matter. My goal is not to grab at “rights,” but to work together with men in the most effective way possible for the good of the church (or a marriage). Ultimately, this means my gifts will be used in the best possible way as well.
Something happened on “24″ last week that illustrates my point about men and women and the abilities necessary for leadership. It was something men have explained to me before about the way they think. If anyone can figure out what that thing was, you'll get a big “kudos!” from me.
The problem is that we seem to be so caught up in emotionally reacting to “being told what we can't do,” that we don't stop to think about how we can work *with* our strengths to contribute in a way that's best for all involved.
April 14th, 2005 at 3:18 pm
I'm guessing it had something to do with that guy and his wife with splitting up the football, but I was flipping between that and “The Italian Job,” so I didn't catch every detail. I will say though, I liked this episode of 24 more than the other one I've seen.
April 14th, 2005 at 3:48 pm
In reference to “24″, i definitely have to say it was when the “football” was split between the husband and wife. The man saw the great good in suffering in order to save the rest of the country. His wife couldn't see past her husband's suffering, to see the greater good in protecting the “football” from falling into the wrong hands.
Back to church leadership, I think there tends to be a need to maintain and grow one's influence and position when in church leadership that overshadows the greater good for the body. It's only human nature to want to have power and influence.
I definitely think that one's view of being “called” by God to a certain position puffs one up to think that they are the only one properly suited to “lead” in any certain area.
The problem I've seen in my own church, which I'd like to address, as far as church leadership goes, is paid staff vs volunteer. It's been my experience, in order to 'save and protect' one's job and livelihood, that paid church leadership falls into protecting their role from someone who may be more equipped.
I see this all the time at our church. Leaders don't let others who may be more effective in teaching, leading worship, organization, for fear of losing their salaries and/or housing.
Often I believe that all church leadership should be “volunteer” to facilitate an ease of leadership movement.
That was the beautiful thing that I understood from the business model in the previous article. Leadership wasn't driven by salary. And once a project was complete, the “leader” would go back and join the ranks until they were either rejuvinated/rested, or passionate about another project/mission.
April 14th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
Actually, Hannibal and Murdock, that wasn't the part I was referring to, but that works too! It certainly illustrates how empathy, a great strength of women, can be a liability when it comes into play where it shouldn't. (Just to prevent misunderstanding here, I think men have strengths that can be misused as well. I've found, though, that we women are less likely to recognize that our gifts *can* be misused–for some reason, we tend to think our way is always the right way and the male instinct always wrong. Heh, heh…sorry about that.)
Back again to church leadership, I've seen the kind of competition you describe, Mark. Everyone loses out when that happens.
Any other guesses?
Having only volunteers would solve that, but then that creates another problem. We all have to make money in order to live, but we need our teachers to be able to devote the kind of time they must to learn and give us sound teaching. Likewise, this is the case with any intense service that requires time to prepare. I would *love* to spend more time in ministry, but there's that pesky problem of rent. I don't want my pastor to have to work two jobs–something would suffer.
But maybe you've hit on something that would be radical, but might actually be pretty effective. What if we, as a church, paid people the way they were paid in the article? As a group, they decided what to pay people based on their contributions, but their salary wasn't set in stone. If we used this in the church, people could come and go in positions of leadership (but remain part of the church) and do more or less as they were driven by time and passion. That wouldn't be their main source of income, but the income would be there to compensate for their time so they could spend more of that time on ministry. That's an interesting idea.
April 14th, 2005 at 7:35 pm
Jack and the girl at CTU. She was being all emotional and he told her they needed to do their jobs. Of course, I have no idea what they were talking about
April 15th, 2005 at 12:30 am
Bingo! She wasn't being overly emotional, just concerned about Paul and the whole situation (understandable!). Jack said he had to put everything aside and just do what he had to do, and Audrey said she couldn't do that. It's true.
I've had guys try to describe this to me before, so I recognized it. This is probably why fathers are better at disciplining older children. Mothers can get a little too sympathetic, but fathers do what they have to do. I've had more than one guy tell me that he regrets the fact that his mother wouldn't let his father discipline him.
April 15th, 2005 at 12:33 am
To be fair, I should mention that Tony couldn't see past Michelle's suffering last season.