A question of Hierarchy

Post Reply New Topic

I should be most interested to hear how other believers here - no need to limit it to Christians, though rants from ranters would be inconvenient - see the utility or necessity of a class of trained, ordained, licensed and empowered clergy, whether priest, minister, rabbi, imam, lama, whatever.

Unusually for me - I will state my position at the outside instead of being prof moderating the discussion section.

To wit - I see the ritual expert as useful and necessary to a religious ORGANIZATION. In a small group one will consistently volunteer himself or be pushed forward. In a larger more complex unit order and uniformity are desiderata, seminaries and licensing and hierarchy ensue. This is inevitable and is [in my view] a good thing in the sense of God checking his work in Genesis - though I may not like the way a particular hierarch or ritual expert impacts me.

Outside the organization - priesthood of all believers and all that - there is no point in it. Where two or three [I trust non-Christians will not be bothered that speaking for myself I draw on Christian sources] are gathered - not where two plus a priest are gathered. Except for operating in the organization, there is nothing that one trained and ordained can or may do interacting with God that Joe Blow can not or may not.

I think it interesting that Jesus chose as his rock upon which the supreme hick and almost certainly the least educated and socialized in Judaism.

Where a leader is needed, a leader will emerge.

Making things official just makes things overly complicated.

I agree with this, but I question the value of such organizations.

The problem of hierarchy within the church has been around before the church was established. Even when Jesus was still among them his disciples argued about who would be the greatest among them. As I understand Jesus' response it was the greatest would be the one with the least rank. That is apparently a minority opinion.

One of my earliest problems with my religious education was when I was given the analogy that trying to put all the knowledge of God into a human brain is like trying to put the Atlantic Ocean into a bathtub. I can agree with the point but it begs the question: how can anyone working from a position of such admittedly limited knowledge feel so confident in what he thinks he does know?

My experience suggests to me that the more people talk about God, the less they know; and the more you come to know, the more you understand how much you don't know. I think the problem is twofold; some people have too much pride and think they know more than they do, and others are lazy and are willing to pay people to find their answers for them.

Mon, how I am agreeing.

Not even goiing to try to do a point fore point, but we appear to have similar wavelengths.

As for the organizations -

I am hard put to SEE the value.

I assume there must BE a value, adequate to compensate for the obvious negatives.

Why?

Because we are as God made us. A specific mix of cokmponents. And a very large subset of humanity is the folks who need to BE IN an organization and the folks who need to RUN an organization. The two combined is likely more than a 2.3 majority of humanity.

http://www.literaturknoten.de/literatur ... erein.html

The universe is NOT designed for me, or me and my kind. The Gestalt is all - and that apparently - God knows - requires the organizations for which I have no time.

Church hierarchy has been mentioned in another topic and rather than discussing it there I thought I would dig up this old thread that never got much attention.

Two questions should be considered: what function should a religious organization serve and what role should the leadership play in fulfilling that function.

Hebrews 10-24-25

That is the best reason I can find for the church to exist as an organization, I just don't see any need for any leadership at all in order for that to be done.

Well, I totally agree, and am myself the ultimate nolo episcopari guy. Or crazed loner.

Thing is though - where two or three are gathered together, one of them will run for chairman.

In a real human society it is pretty well impossible [subject to nothing shall be impossible] for a group to be a group over time without a hierarchy.