"Hierarchy is the skeleton of the church"

I don't get the benefit of going to a nice divinity college like Duke because I am not smart enough to hack it.  I barely limped along as a Youth Ministry student at a small struggling Bible school in glorious Redding, CA.  But I DO get the benefit of being married to a brilliant scholar who is currently attending Duke's Divinity program.

Julie said she had a class that discussed the hierarchy of the church as being its "skeleton of love."  The hierarchy helps to focus our love- to retain it from "going out of control."  She gave an example of a time before the canon was formed in which a man who called himself a Christian wanted to scrap the entire Old Testament altogether and leave it out of the Bible.  To be honest, it might be a whole lot less confusing to only have 27 books to read and study instead of 66 (or 73 if you're Catholic?), but I guess I am glad that they punted that guy.  The Old Testament shows so much of the rawness of following God, the way God moves throughout different cultures in different lands, and the way He has stayed by His people despite the numerous times they have betrayed Him.

BUT MY POINT is that some people view a church's hierarchy as being one of gentle, loving, protection against heresy, and I do not find it as such.  Maybe on the sunniest of spring mornings, with the fresh smell of flowers and the angelic sounds of birds chirping in perfect harmony-- perhaps only then could I see a Christian hierarchy fitting that description.  On its more typical days, hierarchy is like a medieval knight of the round table's clunky suit of armor that constricts and limits any sort of true love or discipleship.

Granted, I am a West Coaster- we tend to be a little flighty, a little less distrusting, a little more "follow your heart", yada yada.  But I just can't seem to shake loose those scenes with Christ when people come up to him and try to get him to nail down a pecking order or a system of dogmatics or ANY SORT OF ORGANIZATIONAL THEME and he instead takes their mind for a spin.  Remember James and John's mother trying to get on Jesus' left and right side in heaven (he said no)?  Remember the whole "working on the Sabbath" fiascos (Jesus destroyed the contemporary church leader's rules)?  Remember all of those "The Kingdom of heaven is like ..." that mentioned nothing in the way of Elders or Bishops or overseers?  Or how about in the Old Testament when Israel wanted a religious King to lead them like the other countries nearby and God said, "No, you shouldn't do that" but they wanted it anyway and so God said ok and they elected Saul cuz he was the tallest and he basically turned into a raving lunatic that tried to kill his successor?

It is my humble and boisterous opinion that the hierarchies that Christian men and women have made for themselves have sprung up out of fears of the unknown and desires for control over one another rather than a "loving skeleton."  Love that is based off of a skeleton is just that: DEAD.  Too many good men and women have been trampled by these skeletons of hierarchy.  Too many children have suffered under its veils of secrecy and "don't question the Lord's church!"

The strongest argument against my views is someone who says, "yeah, but you're suggesting total chaos!  There has to be some kind of order!!"  And to that I nod and say, "Okay, here's an order that is approved by Christ: The last is first and the first is last."  The POINT IS THAT IT DOESN'T OFTEN MAKE SENSE, especially when we are focused on the wrong thing.  If we are serving side by side and witnessing the saving, redeeming power of Christ, who needs someone to say, "Yeah, but who is the servant who gets to tell all the other servants what to do?"  or "What happens when somebody doesn't serve as much as the others?  Who is going to tell him to serve more??"  These questions, as silly as they might seem, are very real fears of today's church and I say that they are merely instruments of Satan rather than the whisperings of the Spirit.

Hierarchy may be helpful in times of confusion, but more often than not it is confusing in God's timing and Kingdom.