to abuse, as is evidenced by history.
The next two chapters are devoted to further explication of these principles, while the following two chapters examine how they affect our understanding and practice of church polity. At this point, however, it may be of benefit to examine the most popular models of church polity.
Primary Polity Models
A brief survey of the main polity models is in order. Perhaps a disclosure regarding a limitation for this section needs to be made first. The scope of this segment is limited to a survey. It is a survey because, with the number of writing theologians boasted by each tradition, it is not possible to cover every single nuance in their respective literature, nor is this the focus of the present work.
What follows, therefore, is a representative sampling that is designed to examine closely some of the larger elements that make each tradition’s exposition of church polity distinctive. With that in mind, perhaps the following will suffice as the simplest list of views available: (1) episcopal polity; (2) presbyterian polity; and (3) congregational polity. What is perhaps most striking about the wide variety of Protestant views on polity is that, whether in part or as a whole, they point to the Scripture as their source. In the words of Henry Craik, a nineteenth-century theologian in the Brethren tradition,
there are passages in the inspired writings that seem, to some extent, to favour a species of Episcopacy; others that may appear to support Presbyterianism; very many, again, that uphold Congregationalism, and others, as clearly teaching what may be described as less systematic than any of the above organizations.42
Below is the more in-depth examination of the three ecclesiastical structures.
Episcopal Polity
The episcopal group is made up of those denominations that emphasize a distinct role for the episkopos.43 Among their number are Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopal, Methodist,44 many Lutheran45 fellowships, and some Holiness and Pentecostal denominations.46 For the purposes of this study, we will consider the Anglican/Episcopal ecclesiology to be a fair representative of the episcopal group and examine it next.47
Modern Anglicans believe that there is no blueprint in the New Testament for the polity and government of the church.48 Thus the Anglican form of church government, in the words of Peter Toon, “is an attempt to conform in general terms to the pattern in place in the early church in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries.”49 Prior to Toon’s “mature” version of Anglican ecclesiology, earlier Anglican divines derived the basic idea of church polity from the presupposition that the church was not a new organization on this earth, but “only the Jewish church perfected and enlarged.”50 This link between the two “churches” allowed the Church of England to model many of its governmental structures after the Israeli religious hierarchy: a high priest, with lower priests under him, and Levites a level below.51 As to the explicit support for the office of a bishop enjoying a “seniority” over that of presbyter/elder in the New Testament, it is generally recognized that a third office distinct from presbyters is not found there.
Advocates of the episcopal polity sometimes use the following arguments in support of their view. First, there is the historical development that resulted in three orders of ministers—deacons, presbyters, and bishops—as early as the middle of the second century. Second, there are passages where, according to the adherents of this model, implicit support for hierarchical government may be found: The Bible documents Paul and Barnabas “appointing” elders in each church (Acts 14:23), James exercising a special leadership role in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13), and Paul instructing Titus “to appoint Testament Elders in every town” in Crete (Titus 1:5).
The bishop is the key to the functioning of church government within Episcopal polity.52 He inherits this centrality of position from the apostles themselves, according to the Anglican understanding of the apostolic succession.53 Richard Hooker, in drafting his great treatise, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, in the late sixteenth century, forcefully argues for the office of the bishop:
A thousand five hundred years and upward the Church of Christ hath now continued under the sacred Regiment of Bishops. Neither for so long hath Christianity been ever planted in any Kingdom throughout the world but with this kind of government alone, which to have been ordained of God, I am for mine own part even as resolutely perswaded [sic], as that any other kind of Government in the world whatsoever is of God.54
Thus, episcopal polity has historically built itself upon the diocesan bishop, who is regarded as successor to the Twelve in an unbroken succession.55 Hooker confirms this:
From hence it may happily seem to have grown, that they whom now we call Bishops were usually termed at the first Apostles, and so did carry their very names in whose rooms of spiritual authority they succeeded.56
The succession of bishops held by the Anglicans constitutes the channel of grace whereby the life of the church is sustained.57 Cyprian first enunciated this principle in the significant statement, “Ecclesia est in episcopo.”58
Within Anglicanism, the duties of a bishop include the ordination of priests, the placement of priests in pastoral assignments, the confirmation of the baptized, the preservation and teaching of true doctrine, and the exercise of discipline.59 The main basis for the Anglican Church’s teachings regarding its leadership is a logical derivation from a comparison to the way things work in civil government, as well as the duties assigned to the Old Testament office of a priest. In response to a more congregational government, Anglicans claim that the powers exercised by the officers of the church are of such a nature as can only be derived from God, or those who act by his special commission, namely, the apostles.60 For further support, they cite such ministers as Timothy and Titus, who seemed to enjoy a higher level of authority than that of deacons or elders/overseers.61 In the case of Titus, Potter points out that he was ordained and appointed to his office not by the people’s choice, but by Paul, who had converted the Cretans to the Christian faith,
and by virtue of his appointment he was empowered to teach all degrees of men, and to exhort and rebuke them with authority; to take cognizance of heretics, and to reject from his own and the church’s communion, such of them as did not repent upon the second admonition; to set in order whatever St. Paul had left wanting. Lastly, to ordain those whom he himself should approve to be bishops and elders.62
Moreover, in considering who may be ordained for different church offices, Anglicans recognize Scripture’s
