Local & Personal, National & Impersonal
Love one another.
The church is constituted as a body characterized by the dynamic of interpersonal love. Love succeeds or fails in personal, face-to-face relationships. In the local assembly, it is no deep mystery whether or not the people love one another. When you share life with someone, you find out quickly that you must forgive and you must love.
It seems clear, however, that regional and national church bodies simply cannot operate by the law of love because it is just not possible for people who are separated by significant distance to have much of a personal relationship. So our regional church assembly has a much less personal, relational nature than our local Session does. And our national assembly becomes even more impersonal. It can't be any other way. "Love one another" has a very limited expression with those who are essentially perfect strangers.
I guess I'm just trying to make sense of national church politics again. If "love one another" is not the dynamic of our national church, what is? Well, it seems to me that the farther you get from the local assembly, the less the basis is personal and relational, and the more the basis becomes confessional, or programmatic, or merely organizational. Thin gruel. I don't know what else it could be.
So here's a man, and his elders love him and support him. His Presbytery knows him and finds no fault. (three times) But hundreds of miles away, there are those who have no personal relationship with the man, no experience of his ministry, and no knowledge of the health of his church, but they are sure he must not be endured, so a national commission is thrust into the matter with a Book of Order and in no mind to hear those who actually know him say "we find no fault in this man."
I'm just trying to understand why it works this way. Why do the ones who know and love him least have the most power?
The church is constituted as a body characterized by the dynamic of interpersonal love. Love succeeds or fails in personal, face-to-face relationships. In the local assembly, it is no deep mystery whether or not the people love one another. When you share life with someone, you find out quickly that you must forgive and you must love.
It seems clear, however, that regional and national church bodies simply cannot operate by the law of love because it is just not possible for people who are separated by significant distance to have much of a personal relationship. So our regional church assembly has a much less personal, relational nature than our local Session does. And our national assembly becomes even more impersonal. It can't be any other way. "Love one another" has a very limited expression with those who are essentially perfect strangers.
I guess I'm just trying to make sense of national church politics again. If "love one another" is not the dynamic of our national church, what is? Well, it seems to me that the farther you get from the local assembly, the less the basis is personal and relational, and the more the basis becomes confessional, or programmatic, or merely organizational. Thin gruel. I don't know what else it could be.
So here's a man, and his elders love him and support him. His Presbytery knows him and finds no fault. (three times) But hundreds of miles away, there are those who have no personal relationship with the man, no experience of his ministry, and no knowledge of the health of his church, but they are sure he must not be endured, so a national commission is thrust into the matter with a Book of Order and in no mind to hear those who actually know him say "we find no fault in this man."
I'm just trying to understand why it works this way. Why do the ones who know and love him least have the most power?
Labels: church
posted by Keith | Tuesday, January 22, 2008
2 Comments:
I know all denominations face this to one degree or another. Would the Assemblies of God be doing something like this? Maybe so, but certainly on different issues. The EPC and the RCA seem to get along fairly well, but many Baptists groups don't. Is there a way to maintain doctrinal precision w/o being litigious jerks when we don't see eye to eye? Certainly a right use of the process goes a long way in keeping those far away from trumping those nearby. It would also seem like a good idea to put at least one or two people on any committee who know the people or issues first hand in order for those far away to be better informed.
I understand your point of view that those who know a person most should have some say. However, it is also useful to have people who can look at something from a distance and be able to say "Wait, I think that's not right," when those who are close may let some things slide.
Some things just don't always get handled well. This, unfortunately, is something that happens in a fallen world. And God's purpose is at work through this, even though I couldn't even guess at how...
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