Totemic headship

Catholic apologists contend that the church requires a visible head, which they identify as the pope, based on sheep/shepherd, head/body type metaphors. There are, however, many problems with that argument.

1.Most Protestants don’t have any objection to church office, per se. For them, churches have elders. The elders exercise visible headship over the life of the congregation.

2.But, of course, the Catholic church is far more bureaucratic. Many layers of middle management. So when a Catholic says the church requires a visible “head,” what he really means is visible “heads.”

So, instead of having a one-to-many relation, which allegedly supplies the unifying principle of one head to many members, Catholics actually substitute a many-to-many relation: heads of heads of heads of heads. Totemic headship–like a totem pole.

Instead of the simple, picturesque metaphor of a shepherd who tends his flock, what the Catholic really means is more like this: every flock needs a shepherd, who needs an overshepherd, who needs a supershepherd, who needs an archshepherd, who needs a superoverarchshepherd.

I’d add that there’s nothing terribly unitive about bureaucracy. Ironically, too much organization fosters disorganization. Duplication. Rivalry. Turf-wars. Pencil-pushers working at cross-purposes with other pencil-pushers.

3.There is also the question of what “visible” headship amounts to in NT ecclesiology. Take churches planted by apostles like Paul. Paul oversaw their congregational life.

Yet what if you asked a member of the First Church of Corinth who was the “visible” head of his church? Would he say St. Paul? There was certainly a sense in which Paul headed the church of Corinth. But how visible was he?

He was absent much of the time. Off on the mission field. Incommunicado. No cellphone. No videophone.

So how did Paul preside over the church of Corinth? By remote control. By writing letters.

Likewise, how did Jesus exercise headship over the churches of Asia Minor? Did he appear to them? Did he come down from heaven and preach ever Sunday?

Remember that Jesus is quite capable of appearing to people, both individually and collectively. He does that after the Resurrection. And he does that after Pentecost. He appeared to Paul and he appeared to John–long after the Ascension.

If the church requires a visible head, that doesn’t entail the papacy. For Jesus is fully able to visibly head his church.

Remember, too, that in Catholic theology, Jesus can be physical present in several different places at once. That supposedly happens all the time when Mass is celebrated around the world. And when the Host is reserved in different chapels around the world. For that matter, Catholics also believe that Jesus has appeared to pious Catholics over the centuries–especially the saints.

So Jesus could personally pastor every Catholic parish on earth. The fact that he doesn’t tell us something about the necessity, or not, of having a visible head of the church. If it were necessary, he could to it himself. And, needless to say, he could do it far better than the papacy.

So how did Jesus exercise headship over the churches of Asia Minor? He dictated letters to John. He remained offsite, and directed the churches through the written word rather than the spoken word. How very Protestant!