Two Questions

I’ve been in the church for my whole life, and I’ve been involved in ministry for most of that time. There are many, many questions that interest me, but a few that I keep coming back to time and again. Chief among them are these:

1. What does it mean to live in submission to the Bible, to respect the authority of an ancient text?
2. Why is good Christian leadership so hard to come by, especially in a world saturated with leadership resources?

The first question can lead to an endless set of objections about reason, interpretation, realism, tradition, culture, etc., etc. I have looked into all of these, and while I’m not expert in any one of them, I am confident that the Bible is true, that it bears God’s authority, and that He expects normal people to be able to understand and respond to it.

The second question has occupied more of my time in the years since seminary. It’s easy for me to become overly critical of someone’s doctrine or practice, elevating matters of personal conviction to the level that I’m willing to fight for them, but that’s my problem. God works through all kinds of imperfect people and systems. (There’s hope He may yet even work through me!)

But most of the problems I’ve seen aren’t technical. They are interpersonal. Leaders treat brothers as enemies, hide their plans and maneuver behind the scenes, say one thing and do another, or settle matters by force rather than by principle and persuasion.

I sometimes wonder if fundamentalists (and their children) are worse about this because they tend to value willpower over reason, and strong leaders over godly examples. Maybe everyone feels this pull, I don’t know. And there are a million different ways to fall; no denomination is free of those. But do we create and perpetuate a culture where we distrust others too easily and work around them when we should be addressing conflict directly?

Power is always tempting. Commands are easier than persuasion. Ejection is cleaner than reconciliation. And sometimes a strong hand is necessary. But I see these broken scenarios over and over again.

As a Baptist, I take seriously the need to study the text for myself and respond to it. But teachers are not mere advisors; God has given the church teachers to guide and equip. We must take them seriously. All the same, teachers are themselves accountable to the Word and false teachers are accountable to the congregation. So there is a kind of mutual submission in play. When the desire for control by any party outweighs the desire to submit to Scripture, trouble ensues. When circumstance or status protects someone from being questioned, trouble ensues.

Maybe it’s idealistic, but I believe that people who live in submission to the Bible and are committed to one another should be able to work things out far more often than they do.

Perhaps by properly addressing the first question can we begin to heal the second.