The Story: The conviction of the priesthood of all believers, expressed in the Brush Run Ordination, was developed into a deeply anti-authoritarian theology. A plurality of spiritual gifts and roles necessitated a plurality of leadership. Even the legitimacy of a located preacher was debated for a century—and when it was finally accepted, the terms were clear: the minister was under the elders, and was not even allowed to serve the Lord’s Supper.
The Idea: Our movement is deeply anti-authoritarian, drawing from its conviction of the priesthood of all believers. And the understanding that in the church, God has truly unleashed a wild democracy.
The Thread — the practice that exercises: Governance is where the standing gets spent. No one can decide on your behalf; that is what all the rest was for. And it has to happen in the open, before the assembled body, or it isn’t the priesthood being exercised — it’s an office reappearing under another name. This is the week where the practices stop being expressions of a doctrine and become the load-bearing structure of a church.
The clincher, and it is hiding in the Story above. When the located preacher was finally accepted, he was placed under the elders and was not permitted to serve the Lord’s Supper. From outside, that looks like the pettiest kind of anti-clericalism — a grudging church keeping its hired man in his place. It is the opposite. In the Catholic tradition the altar is exactly what defines a priest; presiding is the power the laity do not have. So the one man in the building who might plausibly be mistaken for clergy was, by deliberate design, the one man kept from the table — precisely so that no one could ever again mistake the table for a professional’s possession. They barred the professional from the altar in order to keep the altar everyone’s. That is not a movement with a chip on its shoulder about ministers. That is a movement that understood exactly what a priest is, and decided that all of us are.
Narrative…
What is beautiful here? What do we carry forward?