Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: bcsaic!carroll@beaver.cs.washington.edu (Jeff Carroll) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Ordination in general Message-ID: Date: 2 Sep 90 04:05:43 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Boeing Computer Services AI Center, Seattle Lines: 76 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article gross@dg-rtp.dg.com (Gene Gross) writes: >I am not impressed with the professional clergy class that has grown up >around the denominations. Nor am I impressed by the denominations >themselves. Understand that I'm not going to call for the end to the >professional clergy and denominations--through them the Gospel has been >preached and many have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. For >this I praise God! But I also think that we imbue the clergy and the >denominations with too much power and control. I also think that often >people abdicate their own obligations and responsibilities to the >clergy. Witnessing is left to the clergy and lay-leaders, but we are >responsible for doing this. Many things are left to the clergy (or >missionaries) that each individual Christian is responsible for doing. A congregation which leaves responsibility for its witness entirely to clergy and lay leaders is a spiritually dead one. I agree that too many individual church members fail to bear witness to the faith of the Church in their daily lives, but it's not clear to me whether this is simply because they have abdicated their responsibility to do so. I would contend that it is rather likely because the faith of the Church is not being effectively communicated to those people. By the same token, the individual failure of each of us to witness effectively to the Gospel is due at least in part to our failure to fully comprehend it. >Paying others to fulfill our obligations and responsibilities smacks of >selling indulgences. There is no room for substitutionary fulfillment >of our responsibilities and obligations as Christians. I know of no part of the Church which claims that its clergy is intended to fulfill this role. Those of us who belong to churches who have "priests" have them because we believe that they are used of God in the delivery of His grace through the sacraments. We do not have them because we expect them to fulfill our religious obligations (although one occasionally finds a church member with this view). >The Apostles were not ordained of men but of God. Whose ordination is >more valid? The Apostles were not called of men but of God. Whose >calling is more valid? I submit that the calling and ordination of God >is more valid and of preeminence over anything that man can devise. We hold that the ordination of our church *is* the ordination of God. Supplying objective proof of this claim is obviously problematic - as indeed is substantiation of any sort of claim that Person X is "ordained of God", though Person X be not ordained by the Church. To suggest that there is an "ordination of God" different from the ordination of the church is to accuse the church of heresy or worse. >The only point I'm not quite in agreement on is the baptism being the >sole requirement for membership in the Christian faith. I submit that >the sole requirement is acceptance of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice >upon the Cross for our sins. Baptism symbolizes our faith (pistis) in >Jesus Christ and His sacrifice and our salvation. The Methodists, for example, admit to communion anyone who is repentant and "in love and charity with your neighbors", regardless of whether he/she has received water baptism. (I left the United Methodist Church long enough ago that I don't remember the exact words anymore.) In the Episcopal Church we require water baptism of communicants; but this is the only requirement (formally, I believe, the baptism must have been performed using the trinitarian formula), and is easily fulfilled for anyone who has not had it. I can't think of a reason why anyone (except the Wicked Witch of the West) would object to water baptism. [On the comment about the ordination of God, I should note that all of the churches that I know require that its full-time clergy have a "call". That is, they must be called by God to a full-time witness for him. Thus it is intended that our clergy should be the modern equivalent of the apostles and other leaders in NT times. It is obviously difficult for anyone else to judge whether someone is called, and no doubt there are some mistakes made, but every attempt is made to help the candidate prayerfully consider whether they have a true call. There are many clergy whose ministry over the years makes it clear that they are in fact called. --clh]