Hacker Candidates

Two postings at presbymergent got me to thinking about where the church must go. 

David Williams comments here about candidacy and its similarity to academic credentialing.  Neal Locke writes here about hacker culture and its possible relevance to theology.

I'd like to take this a further step. I find freshly-minted pastors prepared for the intellectual and to a large degree pastoral demands of ministry.  I'm encouraged, unlike I was ten years ago, by the quality of men and women who are joining the ranks of the clergified.  However, what I think is missing is an understanding of the changes that are taking place in organizational theory. The candidacy question is just one area of many where a past form or structure is no longer adequate. 

If we borrow the hacker/open-source paradigm, what we'll see is the theology of the church not determined by experts in the academy, but by practitioners in the field. They do so in conversation and collaboration with others, whether they are ordained or not. 

I'm not opposed to ordination.  I am opposed to seeing it as a privileged position of authority that elevates the pastor above the flock.  In our tradition, we counter that with the equality of eldership.  Yet, I think we have wound up with so many churches in decline because we have lost the essential meaning of the Holy Spirit speaking through individuals within the context of the church. We have chosen to set the standard as high-concept intellectualism.

An open-source hacker approach to doing church would mean that every member has a responsibility to be a theologian and a practitioner.  That they are to speak and contribute to improving and changing the system that operates the church. As we have it now, that is left to the pastor and the elders.  I'm sure many members are glad that they do not have to be responsible for changing the church. 

That is not how I read the book of Acts.  Everyone shared, and officers were elected to address specific needs.  Apostles were commissioned to share the Gospel.  And each believer was responsible for their own contribution to the community of the church.

For us today, the day after Pentecost, it is important to remember that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer, not just those who have been ordained. 

Therefore, we are wise, as pastors, to listen.  It reminds me of something Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together. And I'll end with this.

But God has put this Word in the mouth of men in order that it may be communicated to other men. When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. He needs him again and again when he becomes uncertain and discouraged, for by himself he cannot help himself without belying the truth. He needs his brother man as a bearer and proclaimer of the divine word of salvation. He needs his brother solely because of Jesus Christ. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother, his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Harper & Row, 1954, p.22-23.)