BLOG 2.11.13: ONE POPE … OR 1.2 BILLION LAITY?

BLOG 2/11/13. ONE POPE … OR 1.2 BILLION CATHOLIC LAITY?

The news that has broken, and become worldwide headlines, is that Pope Benedict XVI is resigning because age and declining energy. Any of us that age can identify with the reality. But as the readers of my Blogs probably have discerned, I am one of those champions of the true ministry of the church (Roman Catholic, Protestant, etc.) which is the ministry of all of God’s people for the 150-160 hours a week that they are not in gatherings with other Christian folk, but in ministry to the stranger at the gate, to their fellow workers, to neighbors, students, social friends, patients, students, artists, etc.

It is in those hours and in those places that the church (or, all of God’s people) becomes the incarnation of “the radiant display of the divine nature”—or the glory of God—visible to the real persons at the grassroots of this world. Such a conception of, what I have called elsewhere: “the church on Thursday afternoon” … opens up the reality of every believer’s participation in what God is doing in the world.

So this news about the pope is, of course, interesting and will cause some interesting in-house politics within the Roman Church. But stop and think: there is one pope but there are something like 1.2 billion Roman Catholic communicants. There are about 120 cardinals who will meet in the Sistine Chapel, out of sight and communication, to choose the next pontiff.

But there are 1.2 billion (that’s billion with a b) across the world, who may be curious about the new pope, but whose lives and ministry day-by-day in their workplaces, families, and neighborhoods will be essentially untouched by what transpires in Rome.

The missing piece is: that Paul in his letter to the Ephesians teaches that all of God’s people are to be formed into maturity, into the image of Christ, into self-reproducing persons, as they are equipped in four clearly stated dimensions by those possessors of specific gifts: 1) apostle, or the missionary gift, or missionary church-planter since every one’s home or dwelling place is to be a potential church plant (whee!); 2) prophet, or ability to discern the cultural and social setting of one’s life and incarnation, i.e., cultural analysis; 3) evangelist, the capacity to communicate effectively in conversation (or however) with those who are still outside of the family of God; and 4) by a teaching shepherd so that they are thoroughly conversant with the word of Christ so as to be formed by it and able to minister it to one another.

The tragedy is that whenever the church creates a form of church leadership (pope, clergy, etc.) that obfuscates this thrilling role of equipping every one of Christ’s people for the mission, then it misses its purpose. There is no Biblical mandate for a church hierarchy, Catholic or otherwise, but there are in the church’s history those who took this equipping priority seriously, and the church grew exponentially.

I gotta quit for the moment, but I’ll come back to this. And, by the way, my book in which I wrestle with this theme was released last week by Wipf and Stock Publishers under the title: The Church and the Relentless Darkness.

Peace!

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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