Tired accusations churches pagan/bureaucratic

I have to write a quick posting, one that’s going to use just some fast examples rather than either a scholarly or a contemporary language discussion with analogies. I’m spending some time reading a blog where a Christian scholar is picking apart another in the series of “anti-institutional church” books that pop up in order to confuse and divide the body faithful even more (if that’s possible, and obviously I guess that it is). The authors of the book claim to have done all sorts of church history, but apparently all that they cite is either misinterpretation or cherry picked to attack churches for being bureaucracies and institutions as being “un Biblical.” It’s like the needle stuck in the record groove how many times we have to listen to that over and over and over again. The blog I was reading was doing a great job of analyzing and refuting (while exposing the bias) points taken directly from the book. You can see the agenda supporters kick in, however, in some of the comments. All I can say is that people who continue to take on those who try to pick apart the “institutional church” are doing God’s work.

Apparently the authors rarely reference the Catholic liturgy or institution except to make the usual swipes about innocent folks being persecuted by the Church. They actually seem to be mostly “against” non-Catholic institutional churches as being un-Biblical and the usual “not what Jesus said or would have wanted.” But rather than that meaning that the Catholic Church is getting a pass on this, apparently the Church is not even mentioned because it is supposedly so totally indefensible that it is off the wall “un Biblical” and “not what Jesus said or would have wanted.” Sigh. So rather than dive into this whole mess again, which I tire of the game, but because I am fuming, I want to get three points out for my readers to use to keep their bearings when they are exposed to back and forth such as these.

1. Music and singing is attacked as being “un Biblical” and “not what Jesus would have wanted.” Here is my answer from the Catholic point of view, from which the music tradition of the post reformation Christian churches spring.

The Catholic Mass should be viewed as imitating what Jesus taught and what is in the Bible, and grew in complexity for this reason over the years, not because of a desire to become more “bureaucratic” and being “more pagan.” Church founding fathers and their descendants added Biblical elements to the liturgy to make it more Biblical, not less. One of the main hymns of the Catholic Mass, the Sanctus, is not only taken directly from the Bible, but it is in the Mass in order to actually imitate the very angels in heaven word for word in their singing of God’s praises. Early Catholic liturgists examined the Old Testament text and rather than be “pagan” or “bureaucratic,” they eagerly took the very words of the angels from their lips in praise of God and made it one of the essential segments of the liturgy. St. John the Apostle, the Apostle loved by Jesus and the longest living Apostle (100 years old) wrote the Apocalypse, otherwise known as the Book of Revelation and this is what he observed.

Revelation 4:1, 6 After this I had a vision of an open door to heaven...

The four living creatures, each of them with six wings, were covered with eyes inside and out. Day and night they do not stop exclaiming:

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty,
who was, and who is, and who is to come."

Catholic Mass: At the end of the preface he joins his hands and together with the people, concludes it by singing or saying aloud:

Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might,
heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

What could be more reverential and Biblical than that? And if you are worried about all those "new songs" that are in the liturgy besides this one that has "the Biblical stamp of approval" read this:

Revelation 14:1-3

Then I looked and there was the Lamb standing on Mount Zion... The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. They were singing what seemed to be a new hymn before the throne...no one could learn this hymn except the hundred and forty four thousand who had been ransomed from the earth...

Clearly even at the End of Days when Christ returns, there is a "new hymn" that is a sign of the redeemed faithful. So we are supposed to think that if a new hymn demarks the end of times and is thus obviously pleasing to God, that songs of worship while the earth still exists are "pagan" or "bureaucratic?"


2. Use of incense is not bureaucratic or pagan leavings, but as with the music example, a desire to make the Mass as biblical as possible. This cannot be dismissed as saying, "Oh, well the Jews used incense but the Temple was destroyed and there is nothing in the New Testament that says incense is 'what Jesus would have wanted' or Biblical." Oh yeah?

Revelation 4:1 After this I had a vision of an open door to heaven...

Revelation 8:3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a gold censer. He was given a great quantity of incense to offer, along with the prayers of all the holy ones, on the gold altar that was before the throne.

Catholic Mass: After the people have assembled, the priest and the ministers go to the altar while the entrance song is being sung.

When the priest comes to the altar, he makes the customary reverence with the ministers, kisses the altar and incenses it.

Apparently St. John observed first hand that God likes "a great quantity of incense" and it is placed in a "gold" censer no less. So much for those who say that Jesus would prefer that God be worshipped with a rattan place mat bought at a dollar store.

3. The accusation that the Church hierarchy is "un Biblical" because Jesus said all of the Apostles were equal is incorrect and totally ignores St. Peter and what Jesus said to them as if that part of the New Testament is written in invisible ink. Oops, I guess it's invisible ink that the Catholics seem to have been able to read, but not anti institutional church critics.

John 21: 15-18

Read that verse carefully. The RESURRECTED Jesus Christ singles out Peter to be questioned three times as to his love of Jesus, and therefore his exhortation to be the earthly shepherd of the flock of Jesus. Jesus didn't hold a hippie vote or ask that they manage by committee. He selected Peter. A few verses later Jesus makes a further distinguishing among the Apostles. He indicated that all would be martyred except John. Peter questioned why this was and Jesus said to him "What if I want him to remain until I come? What concern is it of yours? You follow me." Jesus is explicitly indicating a sequential order among his "rock" Peter, who must follow him, and John, who will follow Jesus only when Jesus "comes for him" (a natural death).

So it is false to portray the Apostles as all "equal." All men and women are equal, but Jesus clearly assigned roles and sequences of events through both statement and prophecy. And indeed Jesus sent an angel to take John to heaven and witness what he writes in the Book of Revelation. John "got the job" of living a very long natural life, training many Christian followers, and "writing the last chapter" in what would be, through the Holy Spirit's guidance, the Bible. Peter "got the job" of being the martyred rock, the Bishop of Rome and therefore the first Pope, upon whom Jesus built his Church. How can anyone say that a hierarchy of different roles and sequences of events is un-Biblical or done for "pomp and bureaucracy?" It's really outrageous.

Anyway, keep these three examples in mind whenever you feel attacked or uncertain about the solid Biblical foundation for an institutional Christian church structure and formal sacred required liturgy. One blindness and stumbling block that those type of people have is that they confuse Jesus being definitive regarding not being personally worshipped and pointing all worship back to God with Jesus now saying it's "what the heck" regarding sacred worship. That is incredibly far from the truth.