An enquirer once asked a priest to define the position of a layperson in the Roman Catholic Church. The priest replied succinctly, "The layman has two positions. He kneels before the altar; that is one. And he sits below the pulpit; that is the other."
Adding substantiality to this story, in his book Lay People in the Church Father Yves Congar wrote, "Lay people will always be a subordinate order in the church." 1
Congar says that the theology of the laity raises the whole question of ecclesiology.
Though I disagree with his constricted view of the role of the laity in the church, I agree with his relating these two topics. But if--as those in this narrow Catholic tradition maintain--the ministry constitutes the church, it is difficult to see how the laity can play any other than a very minor role. Under these circumstances they constitute a kind of appendage, and the apostolic succession of the ministry is the sole guarantee of the existence of the church. Then the clergy are the rulers, and the laity the subjects. Is there not a richer and more worthy ecclesiology than this?
The definition of the church most common among Protestants affirms that the church is the whole company of those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and who evidence their faith by their manner of life. This definition has the advantage of directing attention to the person, faith, and vital obedience of the Christian, as well as that of plainly stating that Christians are a company, a fellowship. These things must always be central. But this definition of the church is defective in that the place it gives to Christians and their faith may overshadow that of God and the salvation that He offers.
In this respect the concept of the church as the body of Christ has undoubted advantage. It draws attention to Christ as the head, and brings to mind the fact that He is the life of the church and that the church is always His church. The church, then, is the community in and through which Christ is bringing His redemption to bear on people's lives. "As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you," said Jesus to His disciples (John 20:21).
There is no ground for regarding this commission as given only to the 12 or to those who are ordained. The commission belongs to the whole church, and indeed in the early centuries it is probable that it was laypeople who did most of the preaching of the gospel in new fields. It is a startling thing to read such a statement as that Congar cites from Bonaventure: "So the cleric is distinguished from the layman as having the charge not only of living by the faith and upholding it, but of imparting it." 2 On the contrary, imparting the faith is the task and privilege of the whole church--without differentiation. The church is always a people with a mission: by words and works to make the name of Jesus Christ known to the ends of the earth.
A Protestant cannot help being struck by the pitiable place assigned to the laity in Roman Catholic theology though in fairness to the Catholic Church we must note that there is much contemporary thinking in its ranks that accords the laity a more active and less passive role.
Trying to upgrade the position of the laity, Congar himself wrote: "During the last few decades Roman Catholics have made a veritable discovery of the crucial truth that lay people are fully 'of the church.'" To this end he also quotes a cardinal: "Lay people are not outside the church. They cannot be looked on as a kind of addition to the church, as if she comprised only the hierarchy."3
As for Protestantism, we may wonder whether in practice the average layperson in its churches does much more than sit below the pulpit and kneel at the holy table. But teachers, doctors, nurses, farmers, ministers all are called to and should be involved in carrying out its mission; the ministries of all should win men, women, and children for God. When the mission of the church is being considered, anything like clericalism is wholly out of place.
The ministry—part of the church
So then there are many ministries, and among them is the ministry of oversight (which is sealed by ordination). But the church encompasses the ministry, not vice versa. It is the church that gives the ministry its being--not the ministry, the church. The ordained minister fulfills a representative function within the church.
The question of the right relationship between ministry and congregation is the central question. The ministry is derived from the congregation and exists for the congregation, yet this does not mean that the congregation controls the ministry. The congregation should recognize the ministry as called of God to their office and should recognize that their primary function is the preaching of the Word. It is preaching--rather than the conduct of public worship and the exercise of oversight--that is the hallmark of the ministry (though these other two functions properly belong to the preaching ministry as well).
The priesthood of believers is the vocation of the whole church to intercede and witness. Here again we are dealing with a major theme. The duty and privilege of intercession belong to the whole Christian community. When ministers conduct public worship, they are leading the congregation, not doing something in place of them. Wherever the church is alive it expresses its vitality in prayer without ceasing. Such prayer opens the way to the ministries of care and compassion without which the church could never be the church. Though these tasks belong to the whole church, it is plain for all to see that the laity can here find unlimited scope for the exercise and expression of discipleship.
We have an unequaled opportunity to develop the concept of partnership in the service of Christ. This is no day for suspicion between ministry and laity. The whole task of the church is the task of the whole church. It is not a matter of rulers and ruled, teachers and taught, but of the people of God receiving all that God purposes to give and passing it on to a needy world. In order that this shall be done, the great army of laypersons must be instructed in the faith and given all possible guidance in translating this faith into action in the differing circumstances in which they serve. But no witness can be ultimately fruitful unless it issues from a life that is consecrated to God through and through. This is the supreme vocation of the whole church.
Ministers and laypeople are partners in an enterprise that is as wide as humanity. Their task is to bring the fullness of Christ through the fullness of the church to the whole human race--and the time is short, and the business urgent.
1 Yves Congar, Lay People in the Church
(Madison, Wis.: Bloomsberry Press, 1985), p. xxiii.
2 Ibid., p. 13.
3 Ibid., p. 49.
