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 When
a fellow is particularly interested in a subject (and current
circumstances have given me a special interest in this) he may
overemphasize the importance of his "pet"; so read
this with caution -- but read it!
Few
students of church history deny the devastating effect of
changes in church government. All know that the acceptance of
diocesan elders -- oversight on a scale larger than that of a
single local church -- marked the beginning of ecclesiastical
hierarchy and its attendant curses. But our own brethren, who
support multi-church projects, deny that such super-elders are
being made by their arrangements. They still call the
overseers of current church-hood projects "elders",
and these men still serve as overseers of a single church, so
they can not see a violation of principle.
But
a team of horses can not be worked with a single harness.
The size or scope of oversight, the scope of the organizational
structure, must equal the size of
scope of the overseen. When two or
more churches are linked together in any project (act
collectively) the elders who direct the project must act
as double or multiple harness with respect to
that project. Calling them "local elders", as
indeed they may be in one capacity, does not alter what they are
doing in their role as overseers of the larger working unit. Nor
have we changed what they are doing by
giving them this position "voluntarily."
So
we have changed God's plan for government or polity. We
have made diocesan elders -- rudimentary, it is true, but still
diocesan elders.
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And
when we assert our right to alter God's plan of oversight --
from strictly local (the flock among you, 1 Pet. 5:2) to
something larger (some collective project of two or more
churches, no scripture) we establish the clime for
asserting our right to make other doctrinal changes as well.
And
those changes will be made, if not in this generation, in
the next. Our own history, and that of many others, clearly
testify to this.
The
outward "form" of the new idea may not be accepted for
some time -- and the unashamed acknowledgement and new name for
the change will come last of all (A look at any handbook of
denominations will show that much full-fledged denominational
machinery still wears the name of former practices.) But our
children's children will have lost our reluctance to call a
missionary society a "missionary society." They won't
even know why their parents objected to the terms.
All
of which suggests to me that apostasy starts with the
well-intentioned doing of something for which we have no
authority. When our action is recognized for what it is, and is
called to our attention, then pride and sectarian attitudes
prevent our reversing the action; and precedent is established
for more changes.
Brethren
do not "go to do" wrongly; they simply do not see
proper applications of principle to actual cases. But WHAT THEY
DO is there, to be denied or warned against; and to divide.
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