11/30/2006

The Presbyterian Bishopric

By title, the Presbyterian church distinguishes itself as being ruled by elders (presbyters) and not by bishops (episcopal rule). In the early church, pastors who gained some notoriety and influence in a local area would come to be thought of as bishops in those areas. Same with the papacy - while every bishop was a papa, eventually, the bishop of Rome gained a kind of primacy in the west, even as the patriarch of Constantinople did for the eastern church.

Presbyterianism stresses a democratic type system in which issues are decided by elders, the people, and by councils that occur regularly and are a meeting of pastors and elders. Some hard core Presbyterians view pastors as a kind of elder and put teaching and ruling elders in the same category with regard to their power in the church, further flattening out hierarchy and, some would say, weakening the pastoral office.

The nice thing about episcopal systems is that everyone is upfront about who the influential regional pastors are - they are bishops and have authority and are looked to for special guidance and governance.

In the Presbyterian system, it is no less likely for a pastor to become a kind of spiritual father to the other pastors in his region. He becomes a de facto bishop, being the go-to guy for pastors who have questions. He takes on authority and service - by being a moderator at Presbytery, chairman of this or that committee, or even perhaps moderator at General Assembly - a position that surprisingly has quite a bit of power in the role of deciding committee membership when there is an assembly action to form a committee. Also in the role of influencing the standing judicial commission.

My denomination, the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), has a governmental structure that is essentially like this:

Moderator of GA - executive branch, moderator of legislative branch
Administrative Offices - akin to the federal bureaucracy, set up to manage things
Standing Judicial Commission - judicial branch
By Faith Magazine / By Faith Online - the press
Presbyters - the legislative branch

We find ourselves in the PCA right now in a peculiar position. The same man is moderator of the GA, chairman of the Standing Judicial Commission, and editor of the online denominational press. In the current Federal Vision brouhaha (a controversy about theological positions taken by some ministers), this one person has:

1. Nominated the men who make up the investigative committee
2. Chaired the standing judicial committee that has recently forced a presbytery to investigate one of its ministers because some other presbytery complained about the way that a voluntary investigation of a minister was conducted a few years ago.
3. Decided when to advertise and when not to advertise in the weekly news email the existence of books written by pastors in the denomination based upon the theological content of the books

By controlling the courts, the legislative branch, and the press, this one person has quite a bit of power, to say the least.

Not only does this one example suffice to demonstrate how presbyterianism can very easily become a luscious democratic candy shell on an episcopal chocolate filling, but there are other things we all know to be true that illustrate our de facto episcopal system. Every presbytery has its bishops - pastors that have been around for a while, or who pastor very large churches, or who have personalities that attract people to them, etc. These men can speak at presbytery and sway votes - they can work behind the scenes, communicating in networks to influence the activities in other presbyteries beyond their own. These bishops influence issues in ways that sometimes stretch far beyond their competency in various issues or beyond the consent of the governed. When these bishops are criticized, it is the ones who criticize that are called "divisive."

In the end, the PCA does not have a confessional membership. Meaning, you can't be kicked out, as a member, unless you believe something that is at odds with the barest standards of orthodoxy (like the Nicene Creed, for instance). Thus, doctrinally, the laity have the most power in the denomination. Sometimes it seems that rigorists want to disallow theological development by pastors or seminary professors - as though the only way to influence the theology of the denomination should be from the outside looking in. Only the laity can attempt transformation from the inside, and this continues to be the case.

Because of blogs and the hope for an independent press, the advantages of power become depleted somewhat. If every layperson knew the names and previous publications of the men on the SJC commission charged with "studying" the federal vision controversy, then there would be an outcry. The moderator would be accused of stacking the court.

Think back to the paedocommunion discussion which generated two very fine papers, a majority report (con) and a minority report (pro) on the issue. I wonder what the laity would think if they heard the recordings of the floor debate that ensued after these findings were presented at general assembly... The floor discussion was of a very low calibre, to put it mildly. For all intents and purposes, the assembly really never heard both sides of the story. And now we have a denomination where men who teach at the denominational seminary take a position on the issue that would keep them from being ordained in some presbyteries of the denomination. Wow. And mostly this is because the bishops of those presbyteries keep such men out.

In future posts, I hope to give some more details about some of these matters, explain why I am concerned, and try to dispel some more claims that are often made about this topic.