Eric Rasmusen’s Weblog

One dimension of ecclesiology is whether to put power in individual congregations, groups of congregations, or th top of a hierarchy of the entire denomination. A separate one is whether to give laymen power. It seems that both presbyterians and episcopalians do this. It is one of the defining features of presbyterianism. Anglicans have the Sovereign at the top of the church, and at one time at least, had laymen (lords of the manor) appointing ministers. American Episcopalians have laymen on church committees that have power.

This last came up when a conservative candidate for a bishopric was denied the position by the veto of the laymen’s committees. Is it odd that he got past the liberal pastors but was stopped by the laymen? No. It makes sense that the lay leaders would be more extreme than the professionals. The professionals have made church leadership their career. They went into it influenced by career concerns, and their success in their careers is influenced by how much they make themselves disliked. Thus, both the carrot and the stick make them less likely to want to purge the church of what they view as heresy. Lay leaders, on the other hand, become lay leaders because they either don’t care at all but were asked, or because they are passionate in how the church should be run. And if they do make enemies, it doesn’t matter much, because they can turn to some other effort in life easily enough.

Thus, I predict that lay leadership will be more extreme theologically than ordained. In the case of Episcopalians this would make them more liberal; in the case of the PCA more conservative, and in the case of the PCUSA, extreme in both ways more than the pastorate. Is this prediction correct?

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 1:08 am and is filed under Economics, Thoughts-New, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.