Andrew did a very comprehensive post on the Kingdom of God a while ago and I wanted to jump off from his fifth point:
5. As the last point implies, the clergy, which share the fallibility of the church, were instituted to have slightly more authority (and therefore responsibility) than the lay, but can ultimately be corrected by laypersons on the basis of what the apostles taught.
Sounds straightforward and, in theory I am sure that it is sound. The sticking points come, and I think Andrew would agree, comes when we try to implement something like this in practice. How do we know when the laity needs to correct the clergy? What is a doctrinally essential, and on what can we agree to disagree?
Here’s a great sticking point all by itself, I mean, what some consider doctrinally essential others don’t even have a doctrine on. Some battles which the church has long considered over are now being refought (google “oneness pentecostalism” if you doubt me). So when does the laity step up, appeal to the apostles/scripture to correct those in authority.
The reality for most Protestants is that we do not have an episcopal system where one can go to the bishop or some statement by the leader of the denomination if one thinks that there is a problem. So on what basis do Protestants make an attempt to correct the clergy? Their own personal interpretation of the Bible? Appeal to some creed or other document of the faith? A book by a popular Christian author? YouTube clips?
If we grant that the pastor in this scenario isn’t totally incompetent, it should be fair to assume that most of what a layperson would bring up should be on the pastor’s radar (well, maybe not YouTube clips). So what if the pastor says, “oh yeah, I know about that, but on the basis of this and this I think you’ve misinterpreted it” to the concerned layperson?
The stock answer at this point – at least since Luther – is to insist on going back to the Bible itself. This seems like a good idea, but in practice many of the topics that people find contentious in the church are found contentious because there are differing interpretations or apparent differences in what the texts say. So back to the exegetes we go, what does all this mean? And now it’s just a contest over which theologian one prefers without some kind of authoritative rendering that might clarify things.
“So on what basis do Protestants make an attempt to correct the clergy? Their own personal interpretation of the Bible? Appeal to some creed or other document of the faith? A book by a popular Christian author? YouTube clips?”
If they are classical Protestants, then their own personal interpretation of the Bible. It’s either that or their own personal interpretation of some other person or document. And the Bible is supposed to be top dog.
“This seems like a good idea, but in practice many of the topics that people find contentious in the church are found contentious because there are differing interpretations or apparent differences in what the texts say. So back to the exegetes we go, what does all this mean? And now it’s just a contest over which theologian one prefers without some kind of authoritative rendering that might clarify things.”
It’s not a coincidence that along with sola scriptura the Protestants also emphasizes the claritas of scripture. It’s only if the scriptures are ultimately unclear that Protestants will be forever condemned to “a contest over which theologian prefers”; if they are clear enough that people with sufficiently proper motives (search for the truth above all others, even acknowledging there will be others, but succeeding in subordinating those to the quest for truth) and sufficient education (knowing grammar and history, etc.), then it is still possible to decide who has the better argument. If we give up on that, we give up on Protestantism.
Sorry, several typos there… include “one” after “a contest over which theologian…” and include “can understand them” after “subordinating those to the quest for truth)…”.
I suppose you’re correct, but I was trying to look at the actual practice as opposed to a sound theory. When I do that, what I see from a lot of lay people is a sort of ipse-dixitism wherein arguments are presumed true because a particular theologian or preacher holds to them – be that anyone from Brian McLaren to Doug Wilson – whom the layperson already admires.
Andrew,
As an admin on here, you should be able to edit your own comments. Goodness knows I sure do that with mine often enough
Well, I won’t deny the phenomena you are mentioning. There are at least two ways you could look at it.
Optimistically, you could say that the people who agree with McLaren/Wilson do so because they think the exegetical arguments given by said theologians are persuasive. Or at least, you could say that they agree with them because, based on persuasive exegesis on other matters, the followers agree because they trust the exegetical judgment of those two. Pessimistically, you could say it’s just hero-worship or something. I’m sure in reality it’s a mixture.
My instinct is that this may be how this actually works out, but the limits of human scholarship and the fact of human imperfection mean that it does not follow that a theologian with a good, well-reasoned, thorough theology of, say, the eschaton would have a good theology of, say, how church leadership is organized (to pick two totally random examples).
Well, it doesn’t follow with deductive necessity, obviously. But, one also has to consider that the same basic exegetical skills are required to answer both questions (eschatology vs. ecclesiology), so the “trust transfer” is not unreasonable. Ultimately, I think in discussions like this we have to account for the fact that people are ultimately evaluated on their reasonableness by God according to their ability and context. Some people (the single mom who works two 8 hour shifts a day with 5 kids) are probably not required to check to make sure if their pastor (say, Wilson) has equally good arguments for his ecclesiology as he does for his eschatology (which, for the sake of argument let’s say, she has found time to evaluate). On the other hand, a postgraduate theology student in Wilson’s congregation is probably expected by God/morality to make some more independent/reflective judgments on Wilson’s arguments without swallowing them whole. But even then, there are more variables than I’m taking into account in this hypothetical, which affect responsibility.