Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Accountability
Denominations Provide Accountability for Churches and Church Leaders
This lies at the very heart of why I remain Presbyterian. Most of the other points Mark raises can be handled in some fashion, maybe not as well, but reasonably, by an independent or conventional system, but the only viable systems for accountability that I have found are the Presbyterian and Catholic models.
Clearly Acts establishes something we can loosely call "apostolic authority." Independent churches claim this authority for thier leaders on an individual level. The result is almost invariably one of two things. Either the leader abuses the power, ending up in David Koresh kinds of situations, although usually on a more limited scale. The other is that when the leader ceases to lead through retirement, death, or some other means, the church ceases to function. Oh sure, sometimes it takes more than a generation, but it happens. The point is that the members of the church end up focused on the leader, not the Lord.
Many would argue that the same happens with the Catholic model - and indeed it has historically - it is even complicated by the immense worldly authority the Roman and Orthodox churches have wielded, but in the end I think the Catholic model functions better than the independent. The sheer size of the Catholic churches forces politics and balance into play in ways not possible on a simple congregational level. The fact that governments no longer consider themselves accountable to the Church has also changed things considerably. While far from perfect, and full of historical abuses, if forced to choose between the independent model and the Catholic model of exercising apostolic authority, I'll take the Catholic one.
I firmly prefer the Presbyterian model for reasons Mark describes pretty well, but if I had to put in in a nutshell, the reason I prefer the Presbyterian model is that apostolic authority resides in collective wisdom and not in any individual, and the collective is quite a broad one. As sinners we are all prone to mistakes, but it is pretty hard for a large group of us, when fully committed to Christ and His ministry, to join together in a sinful stance. Needless to say, it happens, but it is much harder than for an individual, or a small group.
I really like being a Presbyterian and I really like Mark's take on this specific issue.
Related Tags: PC(USA), Presbyterian, apostolic authority, denomination
