Thoughts on Authority

Been thinking a lot about authority issues lately. I know that I have them -- "issues" (read: problems) with accepting someone's authority over me who in my opinion isn't supposed to have it. Especially among believers this seems to be a problem.

On one of the message boards I sometimes haunt, a poster called "Nice" has this to say: "I wanted to add my thoughts on...the difference between to have authority to do something and to have authority over somebody. I think there's big difference between these two...I think that when authority is being exercised, it’s always in some kind of context; usually an organization that contains some kind of hierarchy. Organizations and hierarchies can be either flat, vertical or both (in it's structure). Such “organization” could be the family, the workplace, the government, an association etc. It is often said that the biblical "organization" is the vertical; most often referring to the order of creation (genesis 1:28 and 1 cor 11:13 and also Rom 13:1 (that last scripture isn’t about the order of creation)).
But I think Jesus, He who himself is the Word of God, adds another perspective when he says

"If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all." (Mark 9:35)

“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. (John 13:14)

“Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” (Jesus talks about himself as if he was” the least” in heaven??) (Matt 11:11)

“The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Jesus identify himself with the least) (Matt 25:40).

Some say those scriptures are about the attitude we should have as christians, and I think that's right. However I do think Jesus turns the human perspective up side down. I wonder if this could mean that there is a difference between “to have authority over …” and “to have authority to ….” if you understand what I mean with that. The first one can only (I think?) occur in a vertical organization. The second may very well be exercised in a flat (and more equal) organization.
For example if you have a spiritual gift, let’s say, to prophecy, than you have a God given mandate to do so. The person who prophecy has an authority to do so, but does he has authority over them who are receiving the prophecy? Hardly. At least I don't think so anyway.
Another example is if you’re a doctor, then you have the authority to diagnose and treat people but you don’t have authority over them do you?

In a marriage, we have different roles. The husband have the authority to be the head but does that mean that he has authority over his wife? Well, not if they are equal. That would seem contradictory to me. The children however, we can say we have authority over because they aren’t adults. When one says women can’t teach men because then they will exercise authority over men, then one must consistently say that women cannot exercise any form of prophesying, teaching or caring or anything else where the man must submit to the woman’s ministry. However, it seems to me that the Bible contradicts that (Luke 2:36, Rom 12:6 fwd, 1 Cor 11:5 )...
We are all to serve each other with the amount of talents ("authority") we've been given. Matt 25:14

And for that to be possible... We must submit to one another!

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ" Eph 5:21

Nice has hit the nail on the head here. She is talking about authority in a marriage, while I was talking about authority in the church, but the basic principle is the same. The pastor does not have authority OVER his congregants. He has authority TO... do what? Serve them. And yet how often does he serve them without lording it over them as well?

That's one of my biggest beefs with the institutional church lately: one person (a man) has charge over the whole group. He's the one who decides who is to speak when, what songs they'll sing, how everything will fit together, and he's the one who does the preaching.

This attitude of one man being in charge of everything is TOTALLY against scripture. As is the concept of one person doing all the preaching and teaching. The Bible tells us that "each of you" is to prepare a teaching, a song, offer a prayer, etc. and then take turns so that everything remains orderly. When's the last time you attended an institutional church where that happened? Even so-called "Bible believing" churches tend not to follow the format for gatherings that is laid out very clearly in 1 Corinthians.

Every believer is anointed, yes. Every believer is also an authority over every other believer, and is also to submit to every other believer.

Re Ephesians 5: I know I've mentioned this elsewhere on this blog, but I'll say it again: I discovered that in Ephesians 5, when it says wives should submit to their husbands, it's a continuation of thought in the previous verse: we believers are to submit to each other! It's not a separate thought at all, as I had been taught: it's the same word. It's not even a repetition of the same word -- that word is used only once, in the Greek, to cover BOTH the submitting to each other AND the wives submitting to their husbands.

That seems to say to me that all believers are to submit to one another -- wives in one way, and husbands in another. Husbands get to be the servant, "point man" and protector, and wives get to be the servant, strong rescuer (gen 2:18), and rule over the household (Prov. 31).

Key point there is that both partners are servants to the other. That is where TRUE authority lies: in serving. Not in taking charge.

The "Covering" Doctrine of Authority

Our church is big into the concept of "covering." We wanted to offer a Crown Financial Ministries small group study to our fellow parishioners a year ago, but when I broached the topic to the pastor's wife (who is in charge of the majority of the ministries there), she took control of the idea. I had been thinking to meet in our home, but she said no, they'd rather have it there in the church meetingroom so they could have it under their "covering." They didn't want to use Crown materials, but instead use "HomeBuilder" materials instead, which apparently has a financial piece to it. She did offer us the chance to lead the finances class, but only in their building and using their stuff, and she specifically said it was so that we could be under their "covering." (Never once did she ask to see the Crown materials that we already had -- it was their way or the highway, it seemed.)

Last summer they did a whole big video series, 3 months' worth, called "Under Cover" by John Bevere. The whole point of it was all about respecting the authority which God has placed over you -- which is all right and good -- but then he said that the church (read: pastor) is the principle authority that God has placed over you.

He said that pastors should be obeyed; the example our pastor came up with was that if he asked all the men to wear Hawaiian shirts to church on Sundays, and they didn't have a spiritual, Biblical reason not to, then they should all wear them. Because he, the pastor, was placed in authority over us, and we owed him our respect and to a certain extent, our obedience.

To me, that smacks of cultism, to be quite honest.

Whatever happened to God's being our authority?

Another thing: I know several pastors and their wives in real life, and they all say that they can't have real, deep, open friendships with people in their congregation. They can't "confess their sins one to another" unless the "one another" is a bunch of other pastors. Why not? Because it undermines their authority for people to think that their pastor struggles with the same sins they do. This is a perfect example of "authority" coming between people. In order to keep their authority, they must show a different face to their congregation than they do to their group of pastor-friends. When they should be concentrating on building relationships (loving your neighbor as yourself), they concentrate on saving face.

People call pastors "shepherds" and the congregation "sheep." But really, isn't the pastor just another sheep and Jesus is the Shepherd? You can't have equality between people when one of them is constantly set up above the other as a spiritual authority. It's one thing if they take turns: If I go to another congregant and ask for counsel, then for that moment she has spiritual authority over me... but at the same time we're still peers, in that I can choose whether to follow her advice or not. AND by the end of the conversation we're back to being peers again. And then she might need counsel from me.

If I go to the pastor for counsel, I go as a supplicant, someone who is constantly "lower" than he is. His advice has the ring of authority to it, and there's usually a strong undercurrent of "you must do *this* to be in the will of God," where the peer would more likely say "you must pray and figure out for yourself how to be in the will of God." And after my counseling session with the pastor, he's still the one in authority over me, and I'm still the supplicant. There's no equality there. He's never going to ask advice from me. There's no submitting one to another there, as Ephesians 5 directs us to do.

Now, a huge part of the church idea of "covering" is also protection, as I mentioned already -- specifically in this case, protection from spiritual error. Yes, the pastor's word will carry the ring of authority, because he wants me to follow his advice and wants to protect me from error...

But isn't it the Holy Spirit's job to protect us from error? And if I have this man, even as a pastor, as a "covering" -- an intermediary between me and God -- it seems as if he is trying to do too much. He's trying to do God's job. If God wants to teach me something that our pastor's ordaining denomination does not believe, then the pastor would actually be protecting me FROM GOD, wouldn't he? (And yes, there are a few issues where I suspect this is the case)

I do agree that we need teachers of the scriptures, yes. But do we need one person who is constantly in authority over us, who can't allow himself to be real with us, and who essentially comes between us and God? Whether it's authority, protection, or whatever, his "umbrella" is still between us and God.

The more I think about it, the more the concept of "covering" seems like

a) control, as in wanting to keep control of the congregation and what is taught and all, and...

b) fear and lack of trust in God -- that God won't be able to correct any possible errors that may crop up.

I see it at our church -- our pastor and his wife are very, very busy people, because they have so many ministries going on. However, they don't delegate as much as they should, because they want to stay in control of what's going on -- and they call it keeping us under their "covering."

Disclaimer: No, I'm not bashing pastors in any way; I know they work hard and can get burned out and most of them do a great job. I'm just complaining about the concept of "covering" that some of them teach. All too often I've heard people use that word when it really meant "control."

(The Baptist church I grew up in called it "male leadership" and was a lot more subtle about it... but there still weren't any women heading up any church ministries.)

It seems as if I am embarking on wilderness journey here, questioning things I've been taught by one church or another. The doctrine of "covering" just strikes me as wrong, in the sense that I've been taught by our pastor and his wife. It's like saying that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't enough; we still need go-betweens, between us and Jesus.

And here I thought the curtain of the holiest of holies had been torn all down the middle -- it really seems as though the "covering" people want to sew it back up again. Whether the covering is supposed to be the husband, for a woman, or the church/pastor/elders, for the husband -- they still get between us and Jesus.

I've also heard it taught (I think I've mentioned this before) that they view it as protection, to help protect you spiritually from demons, from false doctrine, etc. Well, for many many people what it actually protects them from is directly experiencing God's grace and presence!

I have the Holy Spirit inside, to protect me from false doctrine... I have the authority of Jesus' blood to protect me from demons (and again, the Holy Spirit to help with discerning them)... and I don't need anything getting in the way of my access to God.

Covering is starting to sound like a euphemism for "control" to me.

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure the Holy spirit should be the only one in control.