"By the Working of the Holy Spirit": The Crisis of Authority in the Christian Churches

Disagreement upon what constitutes the supreme authority within the Christian temple is an obvious obstacle to unity. Analysis of the claims made about authority by dint of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Windsor Report reveals a certain number of of the logical and pastoral puzzles that have contributed to the not absent crisis of authority in the one and the other churches. Thomas Aquinas has a firmer grasp of the ne to soil all talk about the house of worship upon an account of the working of the Spirit of Christ. This enables him to appeal to multiple authorities without asserting a single chief authority other than Jesus Christ in the blessed Spirit. Furthermore, his theological manner clearly displays his reliance on the Spirit's working. Aquinas's faith in the not absent governance of the church by means of its Lord suggests some possibilities for reconceiving authority and addressing the near crisis.

The phrase, "by the working of the hallowed Spirit," comes from the next to the first eucharistic prayer of the Roman Catholic mass. The connection of the phrase is the following:

All life, all holiness

come from you end your Son,

Jesus Christ our Lord,

by the working of the sacred Spirit.

From age to age you gather

a tribe to yourself,

so that from east to west

a completed offering may be made to

the glory of your name.

The Roman Catholic liturgy, then, understands the working of the hallowed Spirit to include the gathering together and perfecting of the meeting-house so that it may be in deed and visibly the body of Christ journeying upon the way to the Father. The Spirit s working is the church's conditio sine qua non. The divine concursus races alongside and raises up our have efforts beyond their natural capabilities in the way that that we may indeed make that finished offering.

Something like that is said, as we know, by means of every Christian church. All the churches acknowledge that they ne the active vicinity of the Spirit if they are to become really members of the body of Christ.

But I am not entirely convinced that this consensus is adequately throw backed in our efforts to make a finished offering to the Lord. And the inadequacy is perhaps greater still when we talk about those efforts, when, that is, we mirror theologically upon the church's being and action. Back in 1946 Karl Barth unimpaireded out a warning about of that kind reflection: "Woe to those who think they can speak about the meeting-house without grounding it entirely on the working of the set apart Spirit."1 Barth also complained that theologians in those days spoke too a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of rather than too little about the temple and I think he would find things considerably worse today.

Having said that, I must confes that I shall completely ignore Earth's complaint and will indeed discuss the house of worship throughout this paper. I will begin with the question that immediately tread in the steps ofs from the church's belief that the Spirit is working among us. Where is the Spirit working? Certainly-and please remember that I have said this-the Spirit works in and end the customary institutions, offices, and makes of the churches. But the Spirit's workings are not always obvious; and what may look to be obviously the working of the Spirit may not be, upon closer inspection. After all, the Spirit is God; and the creator is free. Although all our workings always ne the Spirit for them to be efficacious, the Spirit is not bourn to what we do and can also work elsewhere and in other ways. for a like reason one of the most important tasks of the house of god in its search for fact and perfection, is to discern the working of the Spirit. For there are false spirits everywhere at work, too, the powers and principalities who still lord it above this world.

This brings me finally to my subtitle, "The Crisis of Authority in the Christian Churches," for the discernment of spirits is individual of the primary functions of house of god authority. And here I must take a bit of time to clarify by what mode I shall be using more [i]or[/i] less words. By "authority," I mean sum of two units different things. An authority, in the first faculty of perception is a person or a clump of people authorized by the temple to make judgments and decisions, including the discernment of by what means and where the Spirit is working. Authorities, in this faculty of perception are those who have been given a leadership function. like authorities come in different forms, of course: bishops, for Episcopalians; the olders of the congregation, for certain kinds of Baptists; or the majority of the congregation, for a certain number of Congregationalists.

Traditionally, and logically, too, the special exercise of any leadership authority must be based on a second sense of "authority," single used more in earlier centuries than today. That kind of authority is, roughly any accepted source of formal and material norms and criteria upon the basis of which single can make sound theological wisdoms Scripture is, of course, single very fundamental authority in this faculty of perception Reason, tradition, the visible outpouring of the set apart Spirit, conciliar canons, and the sensus fidelium are among the many other authorities.

Some house of worship leaders may have power in addition to their authority. That is, they may have the means to impose their mother-wits about the working of the Spirit by dint of coercion, whether physical or, say, financial. Coercive power is not at all identical to leadership authority, for power can be used without or in exces of legitimate authority, as we know all too well from the tragic facts of the twentieth century; while upon the other hand, a leader may be a genuine authority yet avoid any coercion whatsoever, as the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth paradigmatically-and authoritatively-illustrates.