Who Runs the Church?

Zondervan, Paul E. Engle, Steven B. Cowan

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780310543527
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Churches have split and denominations have formed over the issue of church government. While many Christians can explain their church's form of rule or defend it because of its "tried and true" traditions, few people understand their church's administrative customs from a biblical perspective.

Who Runs the Church? explores questions such as: What model for governing the church does the Bible provide, and is such a model given for practical or spiritual reasons? Is there room for different methods within Christianity? Or is there a right way of "doing church"? And, finally, how (and by whom) should the church be governed?

Four predominant approaches to church government are presented by respected proponents:

• Episcopalianism - represented by Peter Toon
• Presbyterianism - represented by L. Roy Taylor
• Single-Elder Congregationalism - represented by Paige Patterson
• Plural-Elder Congregationalism - represented by Samuel E. Waldron

As in other Counterpoints books, each view is followed by critiques from the other contributors, and its advocate then responds.

Chapter One: EPISCOPALIANISM

EPISCOPALIANISM

Peter Toon

While those who hold to an episcopal church polity encompass a wide theological spectrum, what unites them is the use of the term “bishop” (Greek, episcopos) to describe a subgroup within the totality of all of its ordained pastors or ministers.

For some, “bishop” is used of the pastor who, in the hierarchy of clergy, is above the deacon and the presbyter (= priest) and constitutes an altogether different and higher order of ministry. In this understanding bishops are seen as belonging to the historical episcopate and of being “in apostolic succession.” The Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Eastern, Old Catholic, United (e.g., Church of South India), and Anglican churches, as well as a few national Lutheran churches (e.g., in Scandinavia) ascribe to this view.

In other denominations, including those of a Methodist and Lutheran origin, “bishop” is used of the clergyperson who is the superintendent of a given area wherein are multiple parishes and pastors. However, as bishop-superintendent, he or she is not considered above other clergy in terms of holy hierarchy, divine order/appointment, or unique relation to the apostles and the apostolic age.

Because Anglican Christians are called Episcopalians in America, because I worked among them within the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States for eleven years, and because I have worked within the Church of England for a much longer period, I shall focus my discussion on episcopalianism with special reference to the Anglican Communion of Churches, of which the American Episcopal Church and the established Church of England are members. In doing so, I must note that the noun “episcopalianism” is seldom used by members of the Anglican Communion of Churches, which trace their origins to the Church of England (ecclesia anglicana). Instead, Episcopalians in America and Anglicans worldwide usually speak of the historic episcopate to indicate that the order of bishops is found through time and across space since the early centuries of the Christian church.

Thus in this presentation I shall take “episcopalianism” specifically to mean “the church government/polity of the thirty-eight member churches of the international Anglican Communion of Churches,” noting that the names of these member churches vary from “Anglican” to “Episcopal” to “the Church of [a country].” To put it another way “episcopalianism” is used as an alternative to speaking of “the Anglican Way.” As I proceed, I shall make contrasts between the Anglican Way and other Ways that come under the general heading of episcopalianism.¹

I proceed by making four basic and preliminary points.

PRELIMINARIES

The first point: in this Anglican jurisdiction of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, bishops are not solely in charge. Certainly they have responsibilities and duties which are uniquely theirs—e.g., ordaining presbyters and deacons, caring pastorally for them, and defending the faith from error—but the dioceses and provinces are governed by synods, and the parishes by vestries/local councils. Thus it is preferable to speak of synodical government rather than episcopal government. Asynod consists of a house of bishops, a house of clergy (presbyters and deacons), and a house of laity. Major decisions—e.g., a change in rules for church marriages—have to be supported by all of these houses. In contrast, lower clergy and laity do not have the same full participation in church government in either the Orthodox or the Roman Catholic churches where a synod consists only of bishops.

The second point: by virtue of the Threefold Ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, the Anglican Way has definite similarities to the Orthodox Way (of Constantinople, Antioch, Moscow, etc.) and the Roman Catholic Way (of the Vatican in Rome). However, in the Anglican Way, while archbishops serve as the titular heads (= presidents) of the college of bishops in a given province, there are no patriarchs or popes. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the first among equals, not the patriarch of the Anglican Communion of Churches or the head of the Church of England. In fact, the Anglican Way claims to be “reformed Catholic” as against Eastern Catholic or Western/Roman Catholic or Medieval Catholic.

The third point: each of the member provinces of the Anglican Communion of Churches is an independent entity which freely chooses to be within the Communion. The Anglican Church of Uganda does not take orders from the Anglican Church of Canada and vice versa. Yet instruments of unity are in place to seek to keep the Communion stable and walking together. Obviously, these instruments of unity do not always work well, especially when some member churches in the West seek to embrace modern sexual innovations and do so without full consultation with their partners abroad. For that reason, the instruments of unity—the See of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, and the Primates’ (or Archbishops’) Meeting—have major problems to solve and healing work to accomplish in this new millennium.

Indeed, much of the turmoil within the Anglican world over the past thirty or so years has been the product of imbalances in the episcopal form of government, usually due to one of the partners (bishops, clergy, or laity) attempting to overmaster the other two. By analogy, the situation is rather like what happens in marriage when the husband or wife decides to move beyond the theological order of the home (as envisioned, say, by the Book of Common Prayer) to a simple dominance by power over the other. These struggles for power are not reflections of the underlying polity, but only of fallen human nature.

The fourth point: since the Reformation of the sixteenth century, the Anglican approach to doctrine, worship, discipline, and polity has been deeply influenced by the commitment to norms found in the patristic period of the early church. This commitment has been put simply in terms of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. The Anglican Way rests upon one canon of Scripture with two testaments, three creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian, summarizing the essentials of the catholic faith as found in Holy Scripture), four ecumenical councils (from Nicea in AD 325 to Chalcedon in 451, setting forth dogma, doctrine, and canon law), and five centuries of historical development (of polity, canon law, liturgy, etc.)²Thus any exposition of Anglican polity or church government is always an exercise in the use of Scripture and tradition. The full authority of Scripture is not in question or doubt, but the way in which it is received and interpreted is significant.

In contrast, the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, while embracing the patristic era, also give equal or semi-equal weight to the developing tradition of the following centuries in West and East; the Methodist and Lutheran churches give much less weight to the tradition of the first five centuries.

PATRISTIC ORIGINS

Those churches which maintain the historical episcopate claim that their polity is based upon that which developed in the providential guidance of God from the apostolic age through the first few centuries of the Christian church. For them, this means that it is both wholly in accord with apostolic teaching and takes into account the practical results of the evangelization, church planting, and teaching of the apostles, their fellow workers, and their successors.

Thus the Anglican form of church government is an attempt to conform in general terms to the pattern in place in the early church in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries.³ That is the church which actually decided, under God, the content of the canon of the New Testament; established the first day of the week as the festival of the Resurrection or the Lord’s Day; created major feasts/festivals (Easter, Pentecost, etc.); and set forth the dogmas of the blessed, holy, and undivided trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and of the one person of Jesus Christ, made known in two natures, divine and human. In contrast, the “episcopalian-ism” of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches took much longer to develop, needing more time for their special characteristics to become explicit (e.g., the emergence of the papacy and its claim to be the successor of Peter, the head of the college of bishops and the vicar of Christ on earth).⁴

Returning to the patristic era, we have to accept that our knowledge of the church and how it was actually organized locally is minimal from the apostolic age until the end of the second century. In the Letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch, written early in the second century, a clear differentiation is evident among bishop, presbyter, and deacon, but this distinction may not have existed in all city churches. Apparently, however, by circa AD 200 such hierarchy was in place virtually everywhere. In the scope of the Threefold Ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, the bishop was the chief pastor and teacher of the flock as well as president of the college/meeting of presbyters. Elected by the church membership, the bishop was usually ordained/consecrated by existing bishops. (Records exist that show lists of bishops for each church were kept, including the names of bishops by whom they were ordained and consecrated.) And as city churches (with their one bishop and several presbyters) established missions in nearby towns, presbyters went to the smaller churches to serve as pastors, and so it was that bishops came to have multiple churches in their care and presbyters came to be pastors of individual churches. From this process developed the diocese.

Naturally the larger congregations in the major cities exercised greater influence because of their resources and strategic position in the Roman Empire. The bishop of such churches was likely to be given the title of archbishop or metropolitan or, in a few cases, patriarch, and to function as president of the meetings of bishops in a given area.

To be more specific, we may say the following in terms of the developing concept of “apostolic succession.” For Ignatius of Antioch (circa 105), the bishop was the center of the Christian congregation, its true celebrant of the Eucharist, and the guarantee of its apostolicity. For Irenaeus of Lyons (died c. 200), some six or seven decades later, the primary emphasis was upon the bishop as holder of an apostolic see and thus the sign of continuity in apostolic faith and teaching. Crucial to his understanding as he faced a vast array of Gnostic sects was the publicly known succession from an apostle of Jesus Christ. Thus he included in his writing a list of those apostolic men who had held the major sees. Fifty years after the death of Irenaeus, the chief concern of Cyprian of Carthage (who engaged in controversies with Decians and Novatians) was the unity of the catholic church. For him, succession to the office of bishop was central.

From the first part of the third century we possess in The Apostolic Tradition, usually ascribed to Hippolytus (died c. 236), copies of the ordination services used at Rome and elsewhere. The Threefold Ministry is the norm and all ordinations are performed by bishops. Only bishops ordain a bishop; a bishop ordains presbyters, with presbyters assisting; and only a bishop ordains deacons. It is to be noted that the consent of the congregation was essential to the ordinations. And ordination is seen both as giving authority to act as the minister of Christ and of giving the power/gift of the Holy Spirit for particular tasks of ministry.

It may be useful to note that “episcopacy” as used theologically, and not as a form of ecclesiastical organization, refers to the office of oversight within the body of Christ, the household of God, the seat of authority, and the fount of ministry. That the episcope of the church in the earliest times should have settled in the form of monoepiscopacy (rather than in the form of presbyteral episcopacy) is a fact that one cannot set aside. As a minimum we surely have to say that it was allowed, if not directed, by the Holy Ghost.

From the second century on, church governance was chiefly through bishops’ decretals (disciplinary letters), local regional councils, and (from 325) general councils. The latter expressed their determinations and rules for public conduct of clergy and laity in the church in terms of “canons.”⁵These were then enforced by the local bishops. In time these canons were gathered together (e.g., the Dionysiana of 514 by Dionysius Exiguus and then the Decretum of Gratian in the mid-twelfth century).

To commend and defend the emerging polity of the early church, as classical Anglicans do, is not to claim an infallibility for the church in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Obviously, the church erred and was imperfect in many matters, as The Articles of Religion makes clear. Yet it is difficult to believe that Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, would have allowed the church in its formative years of growth and expansion in Europe, Africa, and Asia to go so seriously wrong as to make a major mistake in terms of its general polity and church government.

Obviously there were weak and bad bishops (just as there were many holy, wise, and learned ones) and obviously there were theological developments in the late patristic period concerning the role of certain bishops—especially that of the bishop of Rome—which seemed to go way beyond that which is in harmony with both the letter and the ethos of the New Testament. Even so, the general institution of the Threefold Ministry and of the principle of one bishop with one diocese seems to have been specifically what God in his providence both purposed and allowed.

THE SCRIPTURES AND THE FATHERS

In the preface to the Ordinal (“The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating Bishops, Priests, and Dea-cons”) are these words:

It is evident unto all men, diligently reading Holy Scriptures and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there had been these Orders of Ministers in Christ’s Church—Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Which Offices were evermore held in such reverend estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by public Prayer, with Imposition of Hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful Authority.

So let us visit the “Holy Scriptures and ancient Authors” to verify this claim.

The New Testament (against the background of holy hierarchy in the Old Covenant) suggests the seed if not the full flower, the principle if not the full concept, of the differentiation of ordained ministers. Consider: the Lord Jesus Christ commissioned and sent out not only the Twelve but also the Seventy (Luke 9–10); the relation of the apostle Paul to those who assisted him (e.g., Timothy and Titus); and the relation between Timothy and Titus and those whom they ordained and appointed. Note also the intriguing references to “them that have the rule over you” (Heb. 13:17), to them who “are over you in th...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• CONTENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER ONE: EPISCOPALIANISM
• CHAPTER TWO: PRESBYTERIANISM
• CHAPTER THREE: SINGLE-ELDER CONGREGATIONALISM
• CHAPTER FOUR: PLURAL-ELDER CONGREGATIONALISM
• CHAPTER FIVE: CLOSING REMARKS
• CONCLUSION
• DISCUSSION AND REFLECTION QUESTIONS
• ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
• ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
• SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS