Hierarchies

 

When Jordan Peterson explains that even lobsters have hierarchies, this proves he is a fascist.

Friend Xerxes claims that the early Christian church had no leaders. He quotes as evidence Saint Paul saying “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” All was rainbows and unicorns until the “’Fathers of the Early Church’ did their best to re-establish a hierarchy with bishops and priests, all male, running the church.”

This is not a tenable reading of the Bible. Jesus had thousands of disciples; yet he designated only twelve, all male, as apostles. When one, Judas, defected and committed suicide, the rest saw the need to select a replacement. This was plainly an established hierarchy, and established by Jesus himself. He shared some things only with them, speaking to others in parables.

"To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that 'looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.'" – Luke 8:9-10.

He gave them specific commissions. Notably, what they bound or loosed on earth would be bound or loosed in heaven. That is a remarkable level of authority.

I recall giving a Bible course in Korea, and the students at first balking at my observation that there was a hierarchy in Heaven. Wouldn’t everyone being equal be an aspect of heaven? They resisted the idea, but then realized that it must be so, and that the Bible says it is so. There are ranks of angels e numerated in the Bible; there are elders sitting closer to the throne; Saint John is greatest of all on earth, but less than the least in heaven—so there is a “least” in heaven. And so on.

Life can’t be a pass-fail course. There must be some reward for heroic virtue.

Are you upset at the thought of a heaven where others would be greater than yourself? Then you are guilty of envy, and probably will not make it to heaven in the first place. This is the sin of Cain.

As to there being no Jew nor Greek in Christ, no male or female, this is the doctrine that all men are created equal, which is not the same as democracy, and democracy is not the same as having no hierarchy or leaders. It means we all have an equal chance at salvation, based on our own merits—“in Christ,” not necessarily in the secular world. No fellow Christian is to be judged by the colour of their skin, or their role in reproduction, or their parentage, but by their character and their own merit. It does not follow that each of us has an equal right to declare ourselves a doctor and practice medicine, say. There is indeed a difference in moral worth between, say, Charles Manson and Mahatma Gandhi. And it is right to make that distinction.

And there do indeed need to be leaders, just as there need to be doctors. Having no leaders is anarchy, not democracy. Democracy means we elect our leaders. Democracies have hierarchies: municipal, provincial, federal. Local member, cabinet minister, premier.

There is nothing immoral or inherently wrong about a hierarchy.