The Trouble with Church Authority
If you’ve ever been to a Christian service, there’s a good chance it involved the recitation of the Nicene Creed, the 4th Century profession created by Christian bishops at the behest of Emperor Constantine. There are plenty of reasons why having a creed makes sense, and for the Christian Church the most pressing reason was the rise of Arianism and the controversy that it spawned. There was a clear need, at least in the eyes of Church leaders at the time, to delineate the orthodox faith from the heretical. And thus, after much debate and with the backing of imperial authority, the Church had its first and most foundational creed.
But here’s the odd thing about the Nicene Creed: The church that made it was the “Great Church”, the unified church of Eastern and Western Christianity prior to the Great Schism in 1054. The Schism of 1054 would see the clear beginnings of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches after the Bishop of Rome (the Pope) and the Bishop of Constantinople (the Ecumenical Patriarch) excommunicated each other from the Church. What this means, however, is that the Nicene Creed is a product of the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, two churches that plenty of Christians today do not consider authoritative. And yet, the widespread belief that the Nicene Creed must be believed in order to claim the title of Christian remains.
More than that bit of dissonance, however, the part of the creed that frustrates me the most is that there is little Biblical basis for it. When Christ teaches us in the gospels what we must do, it is always precisely that - what we must do. At no point does Jesus rattle off a list of “I believe” statements that must be adhered to, nor does he explicitly expound on anything that could reasonably be considered the Nicene understanding of Trinitarianism. Neither does Paul or any other epistle writer simply list off a series of “I believe” statements which we must affirm or else risk finding ourselves outside the love of God.
And regardless, even if there were a Biblical basis, what would that really matter? The authority of scripture begins and ends where we say it does. “But all scripture is God-breathed!” you might say. Sure, but even then it is we who decide what counts as scripture in the first place. The Biblical texts did not fall from the sky. They were written, compiled, and argued over for decades (and sometimes even centuries) before ending up in the form we have today. And what of differences in scripture amongst Christian churches? Protestants mostly use a 66-book canon, but Catholics use 73 books, the Eastern Orthodox use 76 books, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church uses a massive 81-book canon. Which of these is correct? Even ancient traditions cannot agree on the books that are or are not scriptural. And what of epistles in the New Testament that reference the Book of Enoch? Jude 1:14-15 directly quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 and scholars point to allusions to Enochic literature throughout multiple New Testament writings. So, these writings are scripture, but the texts they quote from and allude to are not (with an exception within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church which actually does include Enoch)?
Ultimately, I’m really only here to muddy the waters, bring things to light you may not have known before, and hopefully make you think. I am not a seminary-trained theologian (And thank God for that! Far too often we obscure God behind the academic obstacles of “proper” theological thought), so I’m not here to make an in-depth argument for who or what we “should” believe. My point, as will often be my point in discussions about the Christian Church, is that authority does not ultimately rest anywhere outside of the believer. This church or that may claim authority over doctrine, but we can always find reasonable arguments against that authority. A priest or other minister may claim leadership, but we can always find ways in which their thinking is flawed. Someone may appeal to great Doctors or Fathers of the church and you might still rightly affirm your right to say, “I don’t care what Saint so-and-so had to say about that.”
But please do not read this as an out-and-out rejection of spiritual traditions and church authorities. There is great benefit to be found in spiritual communities of shared traditions who speak of and understand God through the same terms, traditions, and hierarchies. These things give the world order and give us meaning and belonging. There is nothing wrong with that. Even I greatly enjoy going to Catholic mass when I can, and have visited numerous different faiths and denominations to experience their worship services. What I want to get across is not a blind anti-clericalism, but rather the idea that even if you submit yourself to the authority of Rome or Constantinople or the Southern Baptist Convention, you still must answer to yourself and for yourself. And you must realize that the authority we give these people and organizations is always ours to take back.
Ultimately, all ecclesiastical authority is arbitrary and we are not beholden to any one system of belief, regardless what the magisteriums and theologians may say. God is the birthright of all people, and you do not need a middleman in order for the two of you to meet.
