Dear Ken:

You asked me what I know of "Discipleship," 'Authoritarianism," "Shepherdism," and/or "Hyper-eldering."

Well, I could accurately answer that without knowing anything about any authoritarian movement that has arisen in the last 200 years. The basic characteristics have been here from the church's most primitive times; authoritarian oppression seems to be a genetic thing inherent to man. I am certain authoritarian movements will surface again and again throughout future generations just as they have in the past. And there will be followers aplenty to respond, I hasten to add.

Historically this concept began outside-and before-Christendom. The Romans had the custom of placing a clenched fist over the heart and proclaiming something to the effect of, "For Rome." The sense conveyed was "There is something we are part of that is greater than we are and, at al I cost, it comes first." The idea was so all-pervading that no one questioned what the something was.. though a poll might have turned up the information that no one really knew.

The Roman Catholic church became the recipient, inheritor, incubator and promulgator of this Roman mindframe. Every human being who lived in Europe lived in an all-encompassing environment that said, "You give allegiance to the mother church.

"On what basis? On no other basis than the fact that, if you breathed and lived in Europe, the church was your unquestioned mother.

Other movements that have followed the Roman Catholic Church have created this same scenario. Some wittingly, some unwittingly. Some movements were secular, some political, and some religious. We who walk the religious arena are the most susceptible because somehow we get the idea that the all-encompassing something we are caught up in may be of God ... maybe even His central purpose ... and because we love Him we sincerely wish to please Him; and If we don't go along with this something, we may displease Him.

Oh, and another reason! We fallen creatures love to think we are it: "I am in the movement."

Long before this century came along, the characteristics of authoritarian Christian movements were set. Let's look at some of the most frequently found attributes stressed among authoritarian groups of Christians, be they evangelicals, high church Protestants, Catholics, or any other species of Christendom's menagerie.

SPECIALISM:

We are special. We are the only group. . . " Or: " We are not the only group, but we are a very special group in God's eyes. . ." Or: "We are the cutting edge of God's work in this generation. " Or worse: "There is nobody except us who has the truth."

You might think I've just described the motto of the group with whom you have been associated. Not at all. I have just described many of church history's most famous movements. Either presently, or some time in the past, many-if not most-have held this view. (Some groups state these ideas straight out. Others only imply them ... the latter approach being every bit as effective.) Who? Catholics, Lutherans, Church of England, Presbyterians, Quakers,

Baptists, Methodists, Moravians, Waldensians, Plymouth Brethren, Pentecostals, ad infinitum. All these movements have at one time or another presented themselves as the one true movement. I am prepared to believe it is impossible-based on the facts of church history-to draw a large number of people to a Christian movement unless this "we are it" attitude is introduced and avidly promulgated.

"Specialism" is an accepted, yet rarely verbalized, tool of the trade. You'll look hard to find a Christian group that has never employed this tool.

Ken, the truth is not far from this statement: Some of the most powerful, earth-shaking, history-changing movements in the annals of our faith drew their awesome power not so much from the power of the sacrifice of idealist' Holy Spirit as from the enthusiasm, sweat, and IC young people caught up in the dream that they were God's chosen work of that age. Vision plus sweat have done a lot more in church history than brokenness and humility have ever done.

Rare, rarer, rarest is the man or the movement that does not make hay with this tool. Name the men and movements who have impelled me n solely by introducing them to the daily encounters of the riches of Jesus Christ, please. It's a very short list. And why do more men not impel Christians by flooding them with Christ? Why so much dependence on "specialism"? The answer is obvious. Men can't give away an abundance of that which they themselves have only in short supply.

Unfortunately, this state of affairs will continue if we can judge any of the future by all of the past. "Specialism" will be part and parcel of future movements if for no other reason than inexperienced young people believe that the small morsel their leaders are giving them is an unprecedented feast. They conclude, therefore, the movement they are in must be "it" because it has so much light and life, not realizing that most of what they are getting is borrowed, something old.

Let us hope that one day there arrives on the scene honest men who will not traffic in these counterfeited goods ... and who will dispense Christ. Christ, with no "movement" salesmanship added in. And let's hope those men have Him. . . in abundance. Broken men are needed; men-and women-with no ax to grind, no movement to trade in, but Christ alone as their center and circumference. Also needed are a people who will respond with all their hearts and souls, without exclusiveness being part of what motivates them.

I add one word. Head for the door when a man or a people declare: "We are the work of God for this generation." Mind you, there are groups that are God's work that is. Years later, in retrospect, history will declare it . . . but that comes at least 100 years later. In our own lifetimes we simply cannot know! The man who declares the movement that he is in to be the work of God in his generation is either a fake, a fortuneteller, or . . . oh well.

The second most frequently found ingredient in authoritarian movements in any age is the call to oneness in the body of Christ:

THE NEED FOR UNITY IN THE BODY OF CHRIST:

In a way, this idea is brand new. In another, it is one of the oldest tools employed by the hidden hearts of men.

The Catholics held the western world together with the concept of unity for well over a thousand years. Some potent idea this! Who can fault it? I cannot. Unity in Christ's body must surely be the dream even of angels. Unfortunately, I cannot recall ever encountering any sizeable group that employed this appeal with pure motives. The Roman Catholics, for instance, used torture chambers to "keep the unity" of the body of Christ.

Today, this tool is being overworked, especially by some of the movements-I am grieved to say-who are outside the religious system. Using the theme of unity to build a movement is a sad spectacle to watch. Of all places purity of motive in the matter of unity should be, it should be among Christians who are outside formalized Christianity.

In the last few years, the methods and skullduggery used under the guise of unity have become a science. It goes like this:

Taking the prayer of Christ to the Father, a Christian worker begins calling for unity in the body of Christ. Each time he-or his group-stumbles upon a little band of Christians struggling along in their small meetings, the worker begins to meet with them and speaks to them on the unity of the body of Christ "in these last days." The struggling little group responds to this call and joins the larger movement. The idea is oneness in all the body of Christ. In practice though, this is but a method, growth by absorption. Others in this movement catch on to this effective, yet undeclared, approach to growth. They start doing the same thing. Soon one of the highest hopes of the Christian heart-unity in the body of Christ-is reduced to nothing but a dubious method to increase the size of the movement. I might add that any men who use that method in order to increase the size of their movement are-perhaps unknowingly-undercutting their conscience and taking a giant step toward learning Christian worker dishonesty.

Frankly, I have a much higher regard for the out and out sheep stealer than the worker who courts other groups in a call for unity. A Scriptural case can be built for justifying outright sheep stealing, you know. (See Paul turned loose in a synagogue!) A left-handed call for unity in the body of Christ is somehow taking advantage of a thing too dear to all our hearts for what is really only a thinly disguised method for numerical growth.

One last observation. An unusually large emphasis on unity accomplishes two things dear to most any worker, though he may not necessarily mention them. First, a call to unity keeps down trouble and dissension. (No one wants to bring disunity to the church.) Second, it keeps up membership. (To leave is to divide the body.) People are afraid to "break the unity."

As I said, this is some potent tool. To sum up, in this generation, beware the worker bearing an inordinate dose of unity.

THE NEED OF A CHRISTIAN GROUP TO HAVE HEAD COVERING:

This call is the twin brother of the one just mentioned. Instead of calling for unity, the worker approaches a struggling, independent little group of Christians on the grounds that "all men need to be covered."

"God's people in this group need to be covered by local elders. . . but the elders need to be covered too. They need to be covered by ________________." (What word fits in this blank? Bishops? Apostles? Overshepherds? Pastors? Workers? It depends on the vocabulary of the particular movement.)

"Those at the top," he tells us, "are covered by Christ, and Christ is covered by God."

If you think this is something new under the sun, you underestimate the ancients in being as sagacious as modern men in thinking up schemes to increase membership, preserve unity, keep down problems and in general scare the wits out of us. This concept is as old as Roman Catholicism's centuries-old call to return to the Mother Church, the Pope and the Cardinals. And such a call works. Amazingly. Groups as divergent as Roman Popes, all the way over to Christian workers who are outside the religious system, use this same unscrupulous and unscriptural method to preserve a movement's unity.