Still writing something on Connectionalism. It is controversial in a few circles, but is generally accepted among various denominations, especially the United Methodist Church. Before writing my thoughts here, I should say at the outset that I do respect this group for looking to outside models and doing their homework. The article does represent some hard work and careful study.
The Gang of Nine have shown the direction they are heading, and it seems that they are going to head in a direction similar to the UMC. The Sothern Baptist Convention is slightly different - they have conventions and regional groups, but those groups can not appoint clergy in its member churches. Under the UMC model, the regional bishopric hires, fires, and moves around staff in member churches. The Central organization also sets policy and doctrine, though in recent years they have opted for very little mandated doctrine and more policy.
Despite good arguments to the contrary, connectionalism is presented as a biblical mandate. This is based mainly on the argument that although there are no apostles today, the needs exist for the role of an apostle. This is a consistent hermenutic in our church history, mainly that all the offices of the first century church may not exist, but the need for the role remains. (This is also used in reference to prophets.) What I will say at this point is that the authority of the apostles is stressed, while the other roles of the apostles are not. In many writings of apostles, their primary role seems to be one of planting churches. Second, strengthening them. Their authority in other churches seems to have derived from either Jesus himself (the 12, Matthias, Paul) or from planting a church (Paul, Silas, Barnabus).
As far as the critique of the ‘mainline’ Churches of Christ, the comments are accurate according to those that are asked. Various groups exist to facilitate training and missions work, but members of the CoC debate their effectiveness. However, there is an example of maintaing local church leadership and co-operation that appears to be working. Namely, the Independent Christian Churches. There are regional groups, but the one hallmark is the NACC. Another organization, Stadia, has been working to plant churches with good success. They have planted over 100 churches, with many more planted recently, including ones planted by CoC and Christian Church members.
As I suggested, we should have a missions society similar to Stadia, or we should simply use Stadia. We have people all over the country itching to plant churches, my own minister is doing just that. There is success is forming groups without ecclesatical authority to plant churches, so why not? There is not a lack of people willing to take part. My concern is that had regional bishoprics been in place, this church might not have been planted.
Authority is a thorny issue, especially amongst Americans. Our society is fiercely independent and values independent thought. As a whole, Americans have an unhealthy attitude of authority and hide behind the proverb ‘power corrupts’ as an excuse to disparage any authority. It is a shame, really. We claim to submit to no one but God, all the while trying to tell Him what to do. I personally believe in local authority and I submit to it. I do not work to undermine the authority in my church locally.
There are those that puport to be leaders regionally, nationally, and globally. As with the apostles, I do not think they should be accepted on their word alone, but on a demonstration of the Holy Spirit. I am a cessationist, so how does the HS manifest itself today? See Galatians 6
. Like the Bereans, I also went to the Scriptures to see if what they say is true. I have found that half is true, the other half is specualtive. Is the role of an apostle needed today? Ephesians 2:20 and Revelation 21:14 lead me to believe the apostles came to lay the foundation of the church. As such, their role is no longer needed.
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3 Responses to “Something soon”
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- toeteaknow: well, since it was a post, the answer I guess is ‘yes’ and not ‘maybe’….. …maybe not? ttk
- pinakidion: what rock said
- Rock: “Is Pinakidion ever going to post again?”
- salguod: Is that an answer to a question that I missed?
- xray342: How’s this for cryptic? $ echo ‘pinakidion’ | md5 16da6556b9ba8a411a6f4251591eae2b
from the UMC website is the following glossary definition re Connectionism:
Connection
The principle, basic to The United Methodist Church, that all leaders and congregations are connected in a network of loyalties and commitments that support, yet supersede, local concerns.
My concern would be if we took this as our definition as it sounds a great deal like what we had a few years back. FWIW, the salary for a Methodist Bishop is, I think, currently set at around $109,000 plus a residence. Not bad work if you can find it I guess!
I particularly liked this sentence from the article:
Quite ironic, don’t you think?
As for the rest, I don’t know. It seemed like a lot of words saying nothing really. Maybe I’m just tired and I ought to read it again before midnight. Did they say more that “we’ve thought about it and researched it and think we ought to not be too autonomous and we need to work together. More later.”? Maybe I’m just too cynical.
As to the quote, yes, quite ironic. I actually agree. No man is an island. However, I think what I consider to be ’same beliefs and heritage’ is not what they consider it to be. Same belief and heritage to me means ICoC, Independent Christian Churches, progressive CoCs, and some community churches. I think I’ve seen a big deal made about CoC, ICoC, Christian Churches… Oh yeah, I think it was in Abliene.
You’re not the only one that thought it was overly wordy. Although the pendulum swing analogy is based on a logical fallacy, you could say that we swung the pendulum from gross oversimplification to overexplaining and carefully crafting our words.