The Felt Need for Authority
On the felt need for authority, the questions in structuring a new denomination, and the dangers in becoming an independent church
This past Sunday I preached on the story of Jesus cleansing the temple in John 2. It’s a pretty wild story: Jesus is making whips, flipping tables, and acting as if he owns the place (“my father’s house”, he calls the temple). The people in the temple, fully aware of just how audacious Jesus is acting, rightly ask him this question:
“What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” (John 2:18).
It’s a good question, one that Jesus will spend the rest of his ministry answering, right up to the moment after his crucifixion when God raises him from the dead. He can wield the authority he has, John teaches us, because he has proven it through his glorious defeat of death. The resurrection reveals that Jesus is Lord.
The Thorny Problem of Authority
The story, though, has once again made me consider the thorny problem of authority, particularly as I read about the many faithful folks in the Global Methodist Church praying and working to summon a new denomination into being, a lot of it being hashed out online, some of it healthy, some of it heated. The various discussions are about polity structure, how to nominate and vote for bishops, how to disperse power wisely between parts of the church, and what it looks like to honor and follow people in positions of leadership. All important questions! But underneath all of them, really, is the question of authority:
Who do we trust enough to give power to in the church, and why should we? Or maybe, who has the authority to flip tables, when tables need flipping?
Authority is a rabbit hole of a question, and I’m not sure how far down, really, we want to go. There’s a certain point where we get to questions that don’t have definable answers, that have been arguments within the Christian tradition since the day of Pentecost two thousand years ago, arguments between the letter and the spirit of the law, about who’s in and who’s out, what scripture permits, and what it forbids. We agree that Jesus is the true and final authority. But..
How do we know his will and follow it?
What combination of worship, prayer, scripture, tradition, creed, leadership, doctrine, and promptings of the Spirit can lead us to the best way to do this?
How does this process inform us as we figure out how to live as the church?
And what do we do when we (gasp) disagree on who this table-flipping Jesus is and what he calls us to do?
What authority can stand in as referee between various Christian groups and peoples when this inevitably happens? Scripture? The creeds? An authoritative interpretation of scripture from a church body (a conference or council) or a leader (a bishop or pope)? Our own conscience, as a group or an individual?
The Reformers believed scripture could serve as that referee, and yet it is obvious that the more we read scripture the more interpretations of Christianity we come up with. Who, then, has the authority to say this interpretation is better than another? Is the individual the final authority for how to interpret scripture?
And if that’s not right, then who do I trust enough to correct my own, personal interpretation of scripture?
These are just some of the questions about authority off the top of my head. And let’s not pretend like these are easy questions. They are the ones that have kept up many a faithful Christian over the years, sincerely working to bring unity and peace to the Church, and baffled at how to do it. And each of these questions become especially sharp if you find yourself wrestling with the best way to structure a church or denomination—how do we have access to and then yield to the authority of Jesus?
I came across an essay the other day by the late priest and theologian Richard John Neuhaus that speaks a bit to this question; Neuhaus was a minister in the Lutheran Missouri Synod who famously converted to Roman Catholicism. In his essay on his conversion, “How I Became the Catholic I Was”, he writes:
“My reception occasioned some little comment, including the observation that I and others who make this decision have a “felt need for authority.” This is usually said in a condescending manner by people who believe that they are able to live with ambiguities and tensions that some of us cannot handle. Do I have a felt need for authority, for obedience, for submission? But of course. Obedience is the rightly ordered disposition toward truth, and submission is subordination of the self to that by which the self is claimed. Truth commands, and authority has to do with the authorship, the origins, of commanding truth. By what authority? By whose authority? There are no more important questions for the right ordering of our lives and ministries. Otherwise, in our preaching, teaching, and entire ministry we are just making it up as we go along, and, by acting in God’s name, taking His name in vain.”
- https://www.firstthings.com/article/2002/04/how-i-became-the-catholic-i-was
Neuhaus here puts into words what I and many of us protestants feel but aren’t sure how to express: a “felt need for authority.” Though I have not heard it put in quite that way, it clarifies what I am longing for as a protestant and newly as a Global Methodist. I want solidity, form, shape. I want something that is firm and strong, something I can be tethered to. Instead of being on my own plank of wood, floating in a vast and at times miserable ocean, I want to be in a ship that will weather the storm. I want to stand upon what others have built as the waves come, roaring and crying in the shrill urgency of our present crises.
Authority, as Neuhaus puts it, “has to do with the authorship, the origins, of commanding truth.” This is what I am after: a solid understanding of the truth that commands my life. Who is in charge? Who is vested with authority? And when we discern this, how do we follow this authority as Christians, how do we submit, obey, and follow it?
And trust me, I get that the words submission, obedience, and authority are jarring to people. The language of submission has too often been used to prop up a patriarchal hierarchy in marriage and society. The language of obedience can imply an unthinking, uncritical acceptance of the status quo. Authority has similar negative connotations: authority figures in our imagination are held up as villains to be questioned and held suspect, as opposed to leaders who should be followed and respected.
And yet, submission and obedience to a rightful authority is the vision Jesus gives us of who the Church should be. In the Great Commission, the risen Christ says:
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mathew 28:16-20, NRSV)
Note that the authority granted to Christ leads to a community of baptized believers who obey everything that Jesus commanded. In other words, we see that the faithful and wise response to true authority is obedience, what we in our prayer of confession call joyful obedience.
On the choice to be an “independent church”
And this all leads me to my concern, at how many congregations who left United Methodism are now choosing to be that great oxymoron, an “independent church.” Though I understand that decision on an emotional level from those who have wounds from denominational leaders, and even if I understand it on a short-term practical level, I think it will prove to be a disastrous choice for the long-term spiritual health of those congregations. A church absolutely needs to live under the authority of the Bible for its faith and life! No question there. But in time the church will need an authoritative referee as various interpretations of the Bible inevitably crop up.
A congregation will need an authority beyond the personality of its pastor and beyond the scriptural interpretation of its pastor.
A congregation will need doctrine that is not up for a vote.
A congregation will need accountability for when it strays, and encouragement for when faith gets difficult.
By having a historical, embodied, real connection with other churches who have committed themselves to look after one another and hold each other accountable to the gospel of Jesus, a congregation will have a much better chance of sustaining a community of orthodox faith in Christ.
By yielding to a greater authoritative body beyond the local level, be it vested in a conference or a bishop or a denomination, a church will have a much better chance of leading lives of scriptural holiness in the long term. I see the Global Methodist Church as providing a beautiful vision of what that kind of body can look like, while still retaining a lot of flexibility and control within the local church.
Here’s my worry: the more detached we get from one another, the less we will be able to hear the voice of Jesus. I fear that the more we cling to the illusion of control that independence might bring, the more deaf we will become to Jesus’ calling for holiness. In lonelier waters, we may only hear our own voice, echoing against the sky; or we might only hear the whimpers and cries of those around us, calling us to a thousand different places, sometimes shouting together in a mob-like unison, all leading to nowhere in particular.
Is it possible that there are some things Jesus can say to us only if we are committed to a dependent, connectional life?
Is it possible that a humble attitude that assumes a posture of learning and correction from others is the gate for a real and vibrant holiness of heart and life?
Is it possible that we should be a little more skeptical of our own hearts, and recognize a felt need for an authority beyond ourselves, to correct in us what we cannot see?
These are just my rambling thoughts in the current moment. My hope is that Jesus, as the one vested with all authority, is able to make up for our divisions and errors, our mistakes and our sins, and work through his divided and yet somehow united-in-him Church. I also understand that every congregation has a different context, and may come to different conclusions than I have drawn myself; if so, then I want to give you my blessing and my prayer that God would use your congregation to bring more souls to Christ.
But I also pray that your congregation would find a greater body to join with, work with, and be accountable to—we just are not meant to follow Jesus alone. I hope, especially for those in the Methodist world, to retain a life connected with one another, yielding to one another, watching over one another in love. It seems to me the Wesleyan, the biblical, and above all, the most Christlike way.
If you’d like to support my Substack financially, here’s a way to do it: click here to buy me a coffee!!