Western Philosophers and Authority

Among the contributors to the misunderstanding of authority are the western philosophers of the past few centuries. They have contributed through our secular school system. While the church did precious little to stop them, schools have graduated people for over 250 years who were taught to question authority. These graduates joined our churches. Eventually they ended up in a church which most closely lined up with their learned "lack of any authority" position. While a few churches still preached God’s Word as the ultimate authority, very few churches insisted upon being biblical in their authority structure. Most simply adopted the authority structure of their governments and their military organizations. For example, some American church members view their pastor as the "President." They view their elders as the "Senate" and their deacons as the "Congress." They understand these people to be "checks" and "balances" for each other. I once had a man who had been "elected" as an elder tell me, "I was elected by the people, for the people to protect the people from the pastor!" Imagine, if this is a commonly held belief of church leadership, what must members believe?

Even governments are being influenced by this misunderstanding of authority. The U. S. News & World Report magazine in its July 28, 1997, issue contained an article about how the Jewish group, Haredim, are causing resentment within the Israeli population. The Haredim comprise 10% of the Israeli population but have 47% of their group on welfare. The Haredim do not want to work. They only want to study the Talmud. This places them on welfare. On page 37 the article says, "Many secular Jews would like the country to be a Western, pluralistic democracy typified by Tel Aviv’s American-style culture, with a Jewish influence as light as that of Catholicism in Italy. Ultraorthodox Jews, including many in Jerusalem, initially shunned the very idea of an Israeli state, believing that Jews should gain sovereignty only during a Messianic age. They now accept the state’s existence but want to govern it with laws based on principles of Judaism, not Locke or Rousseau. And if they perceive a conflict, they believe God’s law supersedes any passed by legislation."

Jean Jacques Rousseau, the 1712-78 French philosopher, wrote Emile in 1763 which expounded the theory that education should emphasize the freethinking of students as "expression" rather than being "repressed" by tutorial authority. He is among those who gave rise to the "questioning all authority" in schools. John Locke, the 1632-1704 English philosopher, argued that authority resided in the people not the state. He further held that revolution was an obligation not a right. He is the one who advocated a "check and balance" system in the government which must comprise three branches! Does this sound familiar in the United States? Add to these two, Voltaire, the 1694-1778 French philosopher. Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire is his assumed name) wrote many anti-Christian works. In one, Candide, he says that the problem of evil in the world is that religion has heaped its "woes" upon the world. (Madelyn Murray-O’Hare often quoted Voltaire.) Voltaire’s opinion of religious authority can be summarized by his often used phrase: ecrasons l’infame ("let us crush the infamous one"). He often referred to religious authority with this phrase. From these and others like them came the questioning of corrupt, non-biblical religious authority. However, instead of correcting corrupt religious authority with God’s Word, church leaders have chosen to blindly follow the philosophers’ "Age of Reason and Enlightenment."

Authority and Declining Church Membership

Whether the Israeli government and its population agree on which authority will rule, or, likewise the church and its membership, something must be done to return to biblical authority. If not, the church will continue to have declining membership. Is there a connection between departing saints and the form of church authority? People are leaving the western church. Why? William Hendricks in his book, Exit Interviews, says on the cover, "There is a dark side to recent reports of surging church attendance in North America. While countless "unchurched" people may be flocking in the front door of the church, a steady stream of the "churched" is flowing out the back. It’s estimated that 53,000 people leave churches every week and never come back!"

Is there a connection between members leaving and abusive non-biblical expressions of church authority? Posterski and Barker in their book, Where’s a Good Church?, speak of a woman who stayed seven years too long out of a total of twelve years in a church. On page 49 they report Margaret as saying, "I finally reached a point where I realized that all I was getting from that church was ulcers." She reportedly wanted to leave but did not know she could nor how! The authors said of her on page 49, "Today she looks back at her own religious history and wonders why she stayed so long in a church that abused her. . . . She is more like a victim of a bad marriage." Leaving a church has become like a divorce? Why have we replaced biblical authority with the philosophies of Rousseau, Locke and Voltaire? Why has our authority structure patterned itself after governments and not God’s Word?

When a church adopts a non-biblical authority structure, it unintentionally replaces relationship with membership. Many believers have been faced with this replacement when asked to "join" a church. Many "reasons" are given the initiates as to why they should join. They are promised voting rights and more say in church policies. However, Watchman Nee in his book Spiritual Authority correctly noted on page 37, "The obedient follow faith, not reason." We follow Jesus not Voltaire! We follow Jesus and His Word alone. Membership? I ask, "How can one join something one joined when he/she was born-again?" People join churches wanting relationships not memberships. According to Reginald Bibby in his book, Fragmented Gods (p. 248), people join churches for "the key reason: the centrality of relationships, of family, friends, and love." Posterski and Barker in Where’s a Good Church? (p. 55) state, "One of the key conclusions of our research into effective churches is that Christians bring to church a set of spiritual and social needs which must be met. If those needs are not being met, they will find themselves asking ‘where’s a good church?’ " The improper expression of church authority is a dynamic which causes people to leave their church. Posterski and Barker go on to say on page 57, "Though the decision-making dynamics aren’t always explicitly understood, the power of the family is stronger than the leverage of the church."

People are asking, "Should I leave my church? Should we leave our family’s denomination even if their authority structure is more governmental than biblical? Should I find a small independent fellowship?" In the October 6, 1997, issue of Christianity Today, Tim Stafford made an important statement about these questions on page 30. He said, "Sociologist Tony Campolo notes that over half of the American Christians now attend an independent church, . . . Nonetheless, even independent churches retain one tool for resolving conflict . . . namely, a real community. It seems that correct authority flows out of relationship not dictatorship." Unfortunately, some independent churches have turned to dictatorships to combat the other forms of non-biblical authority. They simply tell unhappy members, "We are right, you are wrong and must submit to everything decided by our leader." Something must be done. It must be said by someone that the church should return immediately to biblical expressions of authority. We can no longer afford "church authority" being a synonym for "dictator" or "hierarchy." The church is not a democracy. We can no longer afford any church insisting that its theology alone is correct (a form of expressing authority). Nor can we wait while some churches pontificate and debate. Thousands are leaving the church! Does anyone care? Do those who leave get any calls? Should ABC’s Nightline TV program adjudicate our brothers Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart?

Why is "leaving the church" an important ecclesiastical issue? Some would say, "Aren’t we better off without those troublemakers?" I say no! Let us all stop to realize that "leaving the church" is not the problem. It is only pointing to the underlying cause. Something is different about the thousands of believers leaving today’s church. They never intend to go back! The day of the carrousel movement from one church to the next is over. The day of looking for a better authority structure at a new church is finished. The day of the non-tither moving from church to church is behind us. Those leaving the church now are taking their checkbooks with them.

How Denominations Deal With the Exodus

How has the "system" status-quo church dealt with this exodus? Most have ignored it. But some have seized a good new word used widely in the church called "networking." However, in their case "networking" is code for "merge." We are seeing an unprecedented movement within dying church groups toward merger. Marginal churches are going bankrupt because their financial support is disappearing. Their "authority" figures were hired and put in place when the money was there. It has now gone. This has resulted in church groups with entirely different authority structures and doctrines now considering merging. Why? Money (one of the real gods and subsequent administrators of authority in the Western church)! James Beverly in his article Dialogue with Rome, in the magazine Faith Today (Canada’s Evangelical News/Feature Magazine) says on page 31, "Alexanian (the director of the Seminaire Baptiste Evangelical du Quebec) suggests that there is something ironic in that secularism in Canadian society has marginalized both Catholics and Protestants to the point that they are willing to talk together out of common frustration." Memberships are declining because the secular world has marginalized the church? Baptists who are democratically controlled talking with the Catholic papacy? In The Charlotte Observer newspaper, Saturday, August 9, 1997 on page 3G, Ed Briggs, religion editor, wrote, "The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination, may be about to change a way of life. At the Churchwide Assembly in Philadelphia that runs through Aug. 20, the 5.2 million-member ELCA will be asked to approve agreements with the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ. . . . The Roman Catholic Church–an old adversary that has become a friend if not yet a partner–is looking on with particular interest. The ELCA will vote on an international statement of belief that could lead to Lutherans and Catholics wiping away a 450-year-old Reformation-era anathema that split the two."

Going back to Rome is not the answer if one is looking for correct biblical authority. The Western church is dying because of those non-biblical forms of authority structures. The Western church is dying and so are its institutions, those very institutions which were founded upon Western governmental and military principles of authority. The Western church is also dying because it is irrelevant and holds to non-biblical manifestations of authority to perpetuate leadership jobs. It has completely digested Platonic philosophy and can only regurgitate what it has eaten. It has abandoned biblical life-style in order to adopt its "belief" systems. Some in it have even abandoned faith in God for "faith in faith." All the while, Bible-believing church members are leaving. Why? Partly because believers have been studying and are now able to see that their pastor is no longer "explaining it" but has been "explaining it away!" Believers want God’s Word lived out not just "preached."

Finding Answers to the Authority Issue

It is time to listen to writers who are warning us all about the alarming decline in the church! Frederich Buechner is his book, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, says on page 32, "In the last analysis, you cannot pontificate but only point (to Christ)." The conclusion of Posterski and Barker (p. 217) is "Rather than depending on contributions of the past, the church of the future will have to carve out a present-tense credibility." Jim Rutz points out one thing that happened around 325 a.d. to bring us to this crossroads. He says on page 2 of his book, The Open Church, "Lay men found themselves stripped of initiative and power, like newly-captured slaves." Ezekiel says in chapter 37:7-10, "Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than my flock, therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.’ " The sheep are fulfilling this prophecy as you read this article. How? By leaving the church.