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This started as a reply to @PloverWing in the thread on altar guilds, but as I continued to explore the question of church hierarchy I decided that this needed to be a new thread.
I do beg your pardon, but I fear you inadvertently made me uncomfortable, because the way you quoted me in the previous post struck me as being unwittingly selective and out of context, making it look like I am opposed to altar guilds, when my prior post, I do sincerely believe, made it very clear that I was not.
As far as there being an “element of control” in my language, all I can say is, I hope there is; when I was in school, as far back as fourth grade, we were consistently taught to be neither passive, nor aggressive, but assertive, and in divinity school, we were taught to speak clearly and with authority. We were also taught to be concise, which given the length of this post, I think I failed at in this instance, but in my defense I have never preached a sermon lasting more than 15 minutes.
Now, it is my view that the bishop, priest serving under a bishop, pastor, presbyter, or teaching elder in Congregational parlance is ultimately responsible for the spiritual wellbeing of his flock, as their loving shepherd; it is ultimately the responsibility of the pastor in every church, with or without an altar guild, to ensure that the altar area is clean, appropriately furnished, and fit for divine service, and that the Holy Table has on it that which is necessary for what the Orthodox call “the Holy oblation,” “a sacrifice of praise” and a “mercy of peace.” It is also the duty of the pastor in the extremely unlikely event that the altar guild placed something inappropriate on the Holy Table to remove it and gently correct them. I never had to do this, but I have heard of clergy in the mainline churches having to remove, for example, an idol of the Buddha, and also distressingly, other clergy allowing the Buddha to remain.
Your own Episcopalian parish of St. Gregory of Nyssa* has some very questionable iconography and altar furniture, for example, an icon of the Kangxi Emperor, who ordered the mass-murder of all Christians living in China for the very petty reason that he found the doctrinal disputes between the Dominicans and Jesuits to be annoying. But that parish is really a case of top-down control, so I don’t blame the altar guild at all. If the altar guild makes a mistake, it is the fault of the priest for failing to provide them with well-catechised, pious members and proper instructional material, such as the book The United Methodist Altar, or for use in Anglican churches in the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, and possibly Canada, The Parson’s Handbook by Rev. Percy Dearmer.
While it is ultimately the responsibility of the parish priest or elder, as John Wesley preferred to call them, to ensure the altar is properly furnished, a point driven home in the Eastern Orthodox church when a bishop visits a parish for a hierarchical liturgy, at which time the bishop will inspect the altar area and also closely inspect the antimension (a corporal with a relic sewn inside, signed by the bishop, which in the EO tradition is required for the celebration of the liturgy, and which can also be used on multiple services, for example, some priests might have their own antimension for use on altar tables in non-Orthodox churches and for use in hospital rooms and chapels), any rebuke delivered to the altar guild should be made only in the event of a dire mistake, like placing on the holy table a Buddha idol or a crucifix that depicts Christ as a woman,** and even then it should be delivered in humility. In this particular case, if I were the elder of that UMC parish, I would simply say to the altar guild “it looks nice, but you forgot the cross, so please make sure you place it in the center of the altar based on the instructions in the copies of United Methodist Altars I gave you.” That’s it. No meanness, no snark, no Gordon Ramsay style abuse; anyone who would treat their lay volunteers like that should be defrocked.
Unfortunately, the Episcopal Church has a very strong hierarchy, as the thousands of excommunicated-and- trespassed former parishioners of St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach,*** St. Luke in the Hills Episcopal Church, and hundreds of other congregations which felt morally compelled to leave for the ACNA or other, greener pastures can attest. It would have saved the Episcopal church a lot of money ($40 million in legal fees according to multiple reports) to have gracious dismissal like the PCUSA and the ELCA, which have allowed disaffected Presbyterian and Lutheran parishes to join ECO, NALC or other such churches.
The UMC in preparation for its schism is also planning on offering gracious dismissal, although as I have expressed elsewhere I disagree, at a minimum, with who they intend to offer gracious dismissal to. Unfortunately for the former parishioners of St. Paul’s UMC in Anchorage, Alaska, this is coming a bit late, because after their congregation complained about the elder that was appointed to them, the Bishop in charge of their Conference closed their parish and liquidated the building, the construction of which the congregation had paid for itself.
Fortunately, the congregation was able to afford a replacement and continues to thrive, while if memory served the UMC building became a carwash. The details of this sad case can be seen here: Concerned Methodists - St. Paul's UMC
There have also been many cases of modernist Roman Catholic bishops who have fought tooth and nail to obstruct the rights of Catholics to use the Tridentine mass granted by Pope Benedict XVI under Summorum Pontificum, and who do other things that seem to be calculated to infuriate traditional Roman Catholics.****
There are two forms of church polity I really like, and those are Congregational and Episcopal polities (I believe Presbyterian polities are also Biblical, as there is some evidence to suggest some of the early churches were run this way, with the Episkopos serving a role somewhat like a Presbyterian Moderator as Primus Inter Pares). All of the early churches really started out as a form of Congregational church (albeit without the specifics of ruling elders and teaching elders, which came about in the Protestant Reformation) and wound up over time, as more parishes were opened under the authority of the local bishop, becoming Episcopal. Since we are now in a new missionary era due to the moral collapse of Western society, the Congregational polity is relevant, and I am thankful the UCC is congregational, as it has allowed the remaining traditional parishes to be traditional ( the Faithful and Welcoming group ) while also allowing those congregations which felt a moral obligation to leave.
I have also seen three cases where Episcopal leadership was not firm enough. In Southern California I visited a beautiful former parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia the members of which became outraged when ROCOR in 2007 healed its 75 year schism with the Moscow Patriarchate*****. Unfortunately, the parish won a lawsuit to take control of the building necause ROCOR failed to file a reply on time, and I say unfortunately because the parish was taken over by a cult masquerading as an Old Calendarist group, but a cult nonetheless.
However, it would be foolish of me if I were to suggest that the Episcopal Church and the other great Anglican, Moravian, Methodist and Lutheran churches with bishops, and the ancient Roman, Orthodox and Assyrian churches cast away their bishops, most of whom are exceptionally pious and humble, and become Congregational. In fact, I don’t think there is a Congregationalist alive in the US today who would want that (although there are some other churches that use congregational polity which are fiercely anti-episcopal, although many of them, such as the Calvary Chapel, lack the democratic checks and balances of true Congregational polity). Rather, I think there is a delicate balance to be found between a strong hierarchy that can enforce Galatians 1:8 and keep parishes out of trouble, while providing protections so that a parish like St. James Episcopal Church or St. Paul’s in Fairbanks is protected from the unilateral and unexplained, Kafka-esque shutdown experienced by the latter, or from having to endure what the congregation can obviously perceive as a Galatians 1:8 violation in the case of the former.
What I wish ACNA and some of the continuing Anglican churches would do is seek to future-proof their relationship with their parishes so that no congregation could be evicted from its parish building because it rejected any new doctrine, doctrinal definition or liturgical material, or, based on such innovation, felt compelled to seek communion with a different church (with an important proviso being that if the diocese the parish wanted to leave had paid for or contributed to the costs of acquiring and/or building the church, the diocese would be entitled to reimbursement or to collect a reasonable monthly rent). Indeed, I think such a model would be ideal for all churches with episcopal polity. The Orthodox could certainly apply it, since no substantial changes to the Orthodox liturgy are ever supposed to occur******.
St. Ignatius of Antioch, the glorious martyr who wrote “birth pangs are upon me...suffer me to become human” to the church in Rome to persuade them to not attempt to rescue him from the arena where lions would ultimately devour him, also wrote something very important for all Christian laity: “Let nothing be dome without the bishop.” In Congregational and Presbyterian churches, this can be interpreted as referring to the senior pastor. Using this powerful Patristic statement to guide our interpretation of Sacred Scripture, a strong hierarchy is required by Galatians 1:8, but Galatians 1:8 also requires a way to remove that hierarchy when it becomes abusive. However, when we consider that traditional Episcopalians were unable to petition the Roman Empire to convene an Ecumenical Council in 1979 or 2003, the practical solution is to provide a means of departure, because ultimately, the tens of millions of dollars spent by the Episcopal Church in legal fees far exceeds the value of the properties, especially when you consider that most departing congregations expressed a willingness to pay rent, and the money saved on lawyers and earned from renting church buildings that would otherwise have to be sold, could have been put to very goof use by the excellent charity operations of the Episcopal Church, which along with those provided by the Roman Catholic Church and the Salvation Army, represent the three best and most comprehensive charitable operations in the US.
I do beg your pardon, but I fear you inadvertently made me uncomfortable, because the way you quoted me in the previous post struck me as being unwittingly selective and out of context, making it look like I am opposed to altar guilds, when my prior post, I do sincerely believe, made it very clear that I was not.
As far as there being an “element of control” in my language, all I can say is, I hope there is; when I was in school, as far back as fourth grade, we were consistently taught to be neither passive, nor aggressive, but assertive, and in divinity school, we were taught to speak clearly and with authority. We were also taught to be concise, which given the length of this post, I think I failed at in this instance, but in my defense I have never preached a sermon lasting more than 15 minutes.
Now, it is my view that the bishop, priest serving under a bishop, pastor, presbyter, or teaching elder in Congregational parlance is ultimately responsible for the spiritual wellbeing of his flock, as their loving shepherd; it is ultimately the responsibility of the pastor in every church, with or without an altar guild, to ensure that the altar area is clean, appropriately furnished, and fit for divine service, and that the Holy Table has on it that which is necessary for what the Orthodox call “the Holy oblation,” “a sacrifice of praise” and a “mercy of peace.” It is also the duty of the pastor in the extremely unlikely event that the altar guild placed something inappropriate on the Holy Table to remove it and gently correct them. I never had to do this, but I have heard of clergy in the mainline churches having to remove, for example, an idol of the Buddha, and also distressingly, other clergy allowing the Buddha to remain.
Your own Episcopalian parish of St. Gregory of Nyssa* has some very questionable iconography and altar furniture, for example, an icon of the Kangxi Emperor, who ordered the mass-murder of all Christians living in China for the very petty reason that he found the doctrinal disputes between the Dominicans and Jesuits to be annoying. But that parish is really a case of top-down control, so I don’t blame the altar guild at all. If the altar guild makes a mistake, it is the fault of the priest for failing to provide them with well-catechised, pious members and proper instructional material, such as the book The United Methodist Altar, or for use in Anglican churches in the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, and possibly Canada, The Parson’s Handbook by Rev. Percy Dearmer.
While it is ultimately the responsibility of the parish priest or elder, as John Wesley preferred to call them, to ensure the altar is properly furnished, a point driven home in the Eastern Orthodox church when a bishop visits a parish for a hierarchical liturgy, at which time the bishop will inspect the altar area and also closely inspect the antimension (a corporal with a relic sewn inside, signed by the bishop, which in the EO tradition is required for the celebration of the liturgy, and which can also be used on multiple services, for example, some priests might have their own antimension for use on altar tables in non-Orthodox churches and for use in hospital rooms and chapels), any rebuke delivered to the altar guild should be made only in the event of a dire mistake, like placing on the holy table a Buddha idol or a crucifix that depicts Christ as a woman,** and even then it should be delivered in humility. In this particular case, if I were the elder of that UMC parish, I would simply say to the altar guild “it looks nice, but you forgot the cross, so please make sure you place it in the center of the altar based on the instructions in the copies of United Methodist Altars I gave you.” That’s it. No meanness, no snark, no Gordon Ramsay style abuse; anyone who would treat their lay volunteers like that should be defrocked.
Unfortunately, the Episcopal Church has a very strong hierarchy, as the thousands of excommunicated-and- trespassed former parishioners of St. James Episcopal Church in Newport Beach,*** St. Luke in the Hills Episcopal Church, and hundreds of other congregations which felt morally compelled to leave for the ACNA or other, greener pastures can attest. It would have saved the Episcopal church a lot of money ($40 million in legal fees according to multiple reports) to have gracious dismissal like the PCUSA and the ELCA, which have allowed disaffected Presbyterian and Lutheran parishes to join ECO, NALC or other such churches.
The UMC in preparation for its schism is also planning on offering gracious dismissal, although as I have expressed elsewhere I disagree, at a minimum, with who they intend to offer gracious dismissal to. Unfortunately for the former parishioners of St. Paul’s UMC in Anchorage, Alaska, this is coming a bit late, because after their congregation complained about the elder that was appointed to them, the Bishop in charge of their Conference closed their parish and liquidated the building, the construction of which the congregation had paid for itself.
Fortunately, the congregation was able to afford a replacement and continues to thrive, while if memory served the UMC building became a carwash. The details of this sad case can be seen here: Concerned Methodists - St. Paul's UMC
There have also been many cases of modernist Roman Catholic bishops who have fought tooth and nail to obstruct the rights of Catholics to use the Tridentine mass granted by Pope Benedict XVI under Summorum Pontificum, and who do other things that seem to be calculated to infuriate traditional Roman Catholics.****
There are two forms of church polity I really like, and those are Congregational and Episcopal polities (I believe Presbyterian polities are also Biblical, as there is some evidence to suggest some of the early churches were run this way, with the Episkopos serving a role somewhat like a Presbyterian Moderator as Primus Inter Pares). All of the early churches really started out as a form of Congregational church (albeit without the specifics of ruling elders and teaching elders, which came about in the Protestant Reformation) and wound up over time, as more parishes were opened under the authority of the local bishop, becoming Episcopal. Since we are now in a new missionary era due to the moral collapse of Western society, the Congregational polity is relevant, and I am thankful the UCC is congregational, as it has allowed the remaining traditional parishes to be traditional ( the Faithful and Welcoming group ) while also allowing those congregations which felt a moral obligation to leave.
I have also seen three cases where Episcopal leadership was not firm enough. In Southern California I visited a beautiful former parish of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia the members of which became outraged when ROCOR in 2007 healed its 75 year schism with the Moscow Patriarchate*****. Unfortunately, the parish won a lawsuit to take control of the building necause ROCOR failed to file a reply on time, and I say unfortunately because the parish was taken over by a cult masquerading as an Old Calendarist group, but a cult nonetheless.
However, it would be foolish of me if I were to suggest that the Episcopal Church and the other great Anglican, Moravian, Methodist and Lutheran churches with bishops, and the ancient Roman, Orthodox and Assyrian churches cast away their bishops, most of whom are exceptionally pious and humble, and become Congregational. In fact, I don’t think there is a Congregationalist alive in the US today who would want that (although there are some other churches that use congregational polity which are fiercely anti-episcopal, although many of them, such as the Calvary Chapel, lack the democratic checks and balances of true Congregational polity). Rather, I think there is a delicate balance to be found between a strong hierarchy that can enforce Galatians 1:8 and keep parishes out of trouble, while providing protections so that a parish like St. James Episcopal Church or St. Paul’s in Fairbanks is protected from the unilateral and unexplained, Kafka-esque shutdown experienced by the latter, or from having to endure what the congregation can obviously perceive as a Galatians 1:8 violation in the case of the former.
What I wish ACNA and some of the continuing Anglican churches would do is seek to future-proof their relationship with their parishes so that no congregation could be evicted from its parish building because it rejected any new doctrine, doctrinal definition or liturgical material, or, based on such innovation, felt compelled to seek communion with a different church (with an important proviso being that if the diocese the parish wanted to leave had paid for or contributed to the costs of acquiring and/or building the church, the diocese would be entitled to reimbursement or to collect a reasonable monthly rent). Indeed, I think such a model would be ideal for all churches with episcopal polity. The Orthodox could certainly apply it, since no substantial changes to the Orthodox liturgy are ever supposed to occur******.
St. Ignatius of Antioch, the glorious martyr who wrote “birth pangs are upon me...suffer me to become human” to the church in Rome to persuade them to not attempt to rescue him from the arena where lions would ultimately devour him, also wrote something very important for all Christian laity: “Let nothing be dome without the bishop.” In Congregational and Presbyterian churches, this can be interpreted as referring to the senior pastor. Using this powerful Patristic statement to guide our interpretation of Sacred Scripture, a strong hierarchy is required by Galatians 1:8, but Galatians 1:8 also requires a way to remove that hierarchy when it becomes abusive. However, when we consider that traditional Episcopalians were unable to petition the Roman Empire to convene an Ecumenical Council in 1979 or 2003, the practical solution is to provide a means of departure, because ultimately, the tens of millions of dollars spent by the Episcopal Church in legal fees far exceeds the value of the properties, especially when you consider that most departing congregations expressed a willingness to pay rent, and the money saved on lawyers and earned from renting church buildings that would otherwise have to be sold, could have been put to very goof use by the excellent charity operations of the Episcopal Church, which along with those provided by the Roman Catholic Church and the Salvation Army, represent the three best and most comprehensive charitable operations in the US.
