From Community To Clergy-Laity

RE-READING OUR HISTORY AS A CHURCH

One Community in the early churcha highlighting of what Christians share in commonThe sense of being one community of faith is uppermost in the testimonies of the first Christians

One Community in the early churchThe whole church is called and missioned.The church was a genuine samahan where there is sharing, partnership and communion

Power threatens unityJesus scolded them when they are like the king of the Gentiles who lord it over others (cf. Lk. 22:24-27).Paul also alludes to this threat of one-upmanship and reminded them that no one part of the body should claim to be better than others. Banta sa magandang samahan ang paghahariharian.

The development of a clergy and a laity in the church

The theological distinctionFrom a situation of being a despised and outlawed religion, it became honored and privileged.Membership in the church somehow grew as a consequence but living the Way of Jesus weakened.The dissatisfied preferred a more disciplined manner of living the Gospel and began to be called ascetics (Greek, askesis meaning exercise, training, discipline).

The theological distinctionRise of monastic life as holier than the lives lived outside the spiritualInfluenced by dualism a philosophical thought which presented the spiritual as good and the material as evilThe church was considered a spiritual reality, while the world was consigned to the realm of the material.

The theological distinctionChange of understanding of laikos and kleros led to a princely perception of the clergy and a lowly status for the laity.A difference not found in the New Testament started to exist within the church. For the first time the church began to have a spiritual clergy that was superior in holiness and a materially immersed laity that was inferior in following the Gospel.

The social distinctionWith the state discriminating in favor of the clerics, the distinction and separation between them and the laity increasedSocial privileges were accorded to clerics because they were believed to be holierPreferential treatment and consideration are more often than not accorded to the clergy in contrast to how ordinary people would be treated.

The educational distinctionMonastic institutions established by St. Benedict and others, with their libraries and scriptoria, preserved learning in general and the Western cultural heritage in particular.As a result the church historically started to have an educated clergy and an ignorant laity even though this situation was never intended.

A pyramidal churcha church that over-emphasized the significance of the clergy at the expense of the laity.As an institution it had become rigid, combative and defensive.further exaggeration of the clergys importance in theology was evident (incarnate angel and alter Christus)

A pyramidal churchPriests carried out their ordained responsibilities of teaching, sanctifying and governing the laity.The net effect of this long theological development is the actual psychological (not just theological) sense of superiority by the clergy and of inferiority by the laity.

Was Jesus a priest?Jesus was a lay person when considered in his cultural and historical contextthe use of priest and priesthood in the letter to the Hebrews is metaphorical rather than literalJesus as priest was one such title given to Jesus in a cultural and historical context where Temple priesthood was intelligible and meaningful.