Published by LT on 14 Nov 2008 at 02:12 pm
What is legitimate authority?
Are church leaders appointed by people or God?
In Covering Theology all legitimate leadership is appointed by God. This is an application of Romans 13:1-7. It gets difficult to sort this out, especially in protestant/evangelical churches.
Imagine Pastor Tom gets hired by Faith Community Church, an average evangelical church that follows the typical congregationalist approach to leadership. In this approach the congregation votes to affirm pastors and council members. The local church is largely autonomous. Pastor Tom starts teaching covering theology and because he is in authority he starts telling everyone they should come under his authority. He is in authority because all authorities have been established by God. How he became leader, whether he was voted in by the congregation or appointed by a denominational official, is irrelevant. He is in a position of authority so God must have put him there. The congregational approach of the church gives way to more autocratic decision making.
If everyone in authority is God’s delegated authority couldn’t anyone in the congregation gather a following and get appointed as a leader and become God’s delegated authority. Some would say no, because that person arrived at their position through a rebellion against God’s authority for that congregation. What if that group split off 3 years ago and the rebel leader quit? Would the next pastor be a rebel or God’s delegated authority? What if you went back fifty years or a hundred years or even five hundred years? The reality is if you are an evangelical your church is the descendant of some rebel somewhere. Take the Free Methodists for example. The Free Methodists broke off from the Methodists who broke from the Anglicans who broke from the Roman Catholic church.
If all this belief about God’s delegated authority is taken to its logical conclusion the reformation probably shouldn’t have happened we should all fold back in to the Roman Catholic church. They have an “apostle” with church tradition and apostolic succession to back his claim. In the New Apostolic Reformation we have C. Peter Wagner. Wagner, an author and retired Fuller Seminary professor somehow became the “convening apostle” over the “reformation” which will sweep the church and restore God’s authority. If I believed in a pope I know which one I’d follow.
In a curious little anecdote, Dutch Sheets, a prominent figure in the New Apostolic Reformation and C. Peter Wagner’s pastor just declared that the election of Barack Obama wasn’t God’s will. Perhaps not all authorities are instituted by God after all.
Shouldn’t it strike us as terribly arrogant to take one person from our midst and proclaim them as God’s representative? A humbler approach would be to recognize that God speaks through his whole body, not just the leadership. Christ was given authority and he hasn’t given it to anyone else. We seek to follow His authority together.
Jolyn on 05 Dec 2008 at 3:32 am #
These issues also remind me of the arguments between those in the early church who were fighting over who they were following (1 Cor. 12-13).
Cindy on 19 Jan 2010 at 9:12 am #
Pardon my verbosity, I have a lot on my heart right now.
Tragically, I really LOVE God, and I desperately want to be in fellowship with believers. The cost of fellowship in Southern California seems to be giving my life over to someone who has no vested interest in me – my future or my maturity in Christ. About half the believers I know have left the church because of pastor-wounds. Unfortunately, I am about to leave my church, but have selected another with fingers crossed that it is not another “false hope.”
In my current church, the pastors used to say they did not believe they should control us or manipulate us, that they believed we were able to hear from God ourselves. Now that is changing. The sermon last week on “rebellion IS witchcraft,” also covered Aaron and Miriam’s “uprising” against Moses. Again, I go back to the shepherding cult I was in during the 70’s, where I first heard that teaching. (Incidentally, I was asked to leave this cult because of my “rebellion” against God.)
In this cult, we were often reminded of the punishment God meted on those who questioned Moses’ authority. Every time someone brought that up, I would secretly think to myself:
AND YOU, SIR, ARE NO MOSES.
If anyone had done in my presence HALF the things that Moses did, culminating with God Himself speaking from a mountain TELLING ME that they were his chosen prophet, I would be REALLY inclined to follow them. (So far, no takers. Which is probably a good thing.)
Jesus himself said that it was better that he should leave, so the disciples would be given the Holy Spirit, then that he (undoubtedly the best leader ever) should stay with them perpetually. He was their “trainer,” not their “forever parent.” When the time was right, he cut them loose. (To be honest, it does not SEEM like they were terribly mature yet!) Where did they turn? Acts 9:31. The church was strengthened by the Holy Spirit. Just like Jesus said.
According to Ephesians 4, the purpose of the five-fold is to bring Christians into maturity. Maturity presumes independence. Ironically, covering tehology demands dependence and therefore immaturity.
It seems like the pattern of the New Testament was “train and release.” Interdependency, not co-dependency.