The Case for Caste
Is the American church a religious caste system? Consider: seminary students do not teach what they learn in seminary to congregants. In fact, those who do are ridiculed for doing so. Secondly, why are American parishioners so dumbed down theologically? Are the first two questions answered in regard to a higher knowledge that only pastors can understand? In Reformed circles, elders state openly that they are gifted to understand things that parishioners are unable to. Point in case: New Calvinist Dr. Devon Berry: Elder Preaching is Infallible .
Academic degrees have become the primary qualification for a pastor in our culture. Who would deny that? In pulpit committees, any resume that states less than a Masters degree gets file 13 immediately. But yet, academic qualifications are nowhere listed in the biblical qualifications for an elder. Also consider: how can the laity obtain degrees while supporting a family, serving their local church, and working full time? While 90% of all doctrinal error is coming from seminaries, the laity is deemed less qualified. The salaries being paid to heretical sheep abusers is 80,000 per year on the low side. And I might mention that what I have learned in the past five years through independent study would have never been taught to me in a seminary, No way. Not even close. Seminaries are maintaining the status quo.
Parishioners are living from a steady diet of materials published by the academics and not their own Bibles. Who would deny this? Why? Because they are supposedly critical to understanding the higher knowledge that the laity cannot understand. They interpret for us. What is more obvious?
Why do well-known leaders turn a blind eye to the abused laity? Why is John MacArthur Jr. completely indifferent to what his pal CJ Mahaney has done to people? Simple, the value of the laity and where they are in the caste system strata.
Why is getting justice for the sexually abused ABWE missionary children like pulling teeth from a leopard? Easy, Donn Ketcham is high on the strata; the missionary children are low, and of less value to the organization. The caste system protects the organization that cannot be destroyed over justice for the lowly. Besides, the lowly are expendable for the pleasures of the upper crust. Absurd notion? Then why do GARB churches continue to support ABWE en masse? Where is the outcry for justice? Why does the money continue to pour in?
Though the Bible instructs the church to publically rebuke elders that sin, this is NEVER done. Pastors get a pass while parishioners are disciplined and excommunicated routinely. Again, value is the issue.
The New Testament is replete with examples of Christ and the apostles contending against religious caste systems—formal and informal.
Following is my pictorial thesis:
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
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we’re just supposed to sit there in complacent, compliant and ‘complicit’ silence as they ‘feed us’ with the swill they’ve been force fed, just so many willing and submissive ‘butts in the seats’ and ‘bucks in the basket’ for them to rely on for their support.
i say ‘Buck’ them all… If they are so ‘faith based’, let them do away with their salaries, perks and pensions and just freely serve out of the ‘gifting’ they have been freely given while working with their own hands in their own jobs to support their own families.
Jesus never ‘took’ up an offering
Paul sometimes ‘refused’ to recieve one lest he be a burden
most of the apostles, deacons, leaders in the early church were ordinary working men who never took a dime for their own support, but recieved such summs for the benefit of ‘others’
-mike
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Mike,
In the early church, lay elders were supported by the local churches. Thing is, what is the contemporary Christian upper-crust really doing for anybody while they make like, a 100 grand a year?
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“Thing is, what is the contemporary Christian upper-crust really doing for anybody while they make like, a 100 grand a year?”
What most of them are REALLY doing is telling the people in the seats that they need their pastor to tell them what to think and do because the Holy Spirit is not capable of being the Helper that Jesus said he would be in the believer’s life.
BTW – are some leaders taking the place of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life? I would call that heresy of the greatest magnitude . . . “trust what we (some leaders) say — but don’t try to understand the scripture for yourself.”
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Mike and Brandy,
Paul was very serious about taking up a collection for the persecuted church in Jerusalem. It is mentioned several times in the NT. If you notice, most mention of money is about Christians taking care of other Christians. Such as we see in Acts and why “deacons” were assigned dealing with that task because the Greek Jewish widows were being left out.
I am not convinced that elders were completely dependent on the local church. I know many bekieve that to be what is being taught. Paul seems to encourage them not to be dependent with his own testimony while at the same time encouraging the church to offer some support. As with so many things, people forget the balance Paul gives on many things. Slavery is another example where there is a balance, a tension. Same with women preaching. (They were prophesying in the Corinthian church)
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