2. An Alternate View

In the priest’s view, as presented earlier, it was argued that the Christian church as a whole, and especially the Orthodox Church, is disintegrating because its very foundation -- the doctrines -- have got corrupted and defiled. Such corruption is happening mainly because the doctrines are handled by unauthorized people.

The writer of that message, who is a prominent priest amidst us, asserts that the Bishops, priests, and deacons are the only ones authorized by God to keep the doctrines in safe custody and to transmit them from generation to generation. In his view, the lay people are not authorized to teach, and so they should not teach. The priest in his message, nevertheless, admits that those who are authorized to be custodians and purveyors of the doctrines are often unprepared to do their job satisfactorily.

That prompted me to look at the issue from a slightly different angle, which brought me to a different conclusion. And, that was for the bishops, priests, and deacons to see themselves as leaders of a cooperative team of learners rather than as custodians of knowledge. Let me illustrate this insight through a snippet from history.

Before the invention of the printing press in 1450 CE, reading and writing were specialized skills that only a small percentage of the population could master. Scribes, as the professional copy-writers, laboriously copied documents and books.

Proficiency of reading was an essential requirement for a priest because during public worship services it was the responsibility of the priest to read the scriptures to the congregants. Scripture reading was thus incorporated as an essential item of public worship, for that was the only opportunity for the illiterate laity to learn from the scriptures. As time went on, scriptures got translated from the original languages to the native languages of the peoples. Even within the same spoken language, the words and expressions changed their meaning over time. Hence, the role of the priest was not only to read the scriptures but also to interpret them to the people. Hence, the priests were considered as the custodians as well as interpreters of the word of God.

Once the printing press was invented, ordinary people began to learn how to read and write. Scriptures and their commentaries were now directly accessible to them without the help of priestly intermediaries, and they could read the scriptures in their own homes or in libraries and gain spiritual insights.

Today, with the advent of electronic technology, information is at the finger-tips of people, and this makes people fully independent in accessing spiritual wisdom from the past. Whatever anyone wants to read can be now brought to the screen in front of him/her with a few clicks of the mouse.

In such a world, a priest does not have the role of a custodian or transmitter of wisdom, although that was the main role of a priest before the invention of the printing press occurred. Let alone a priest, even a school teacher does not have that role today. Even in elementary grades, the students may have more knowledge at times than their teacher about a lot of things. Most students nowadays acquire knowledge from all available sources and media, and they are no more dependent upon their teachers for knowledge.

Today a successful teacher acts more as a leader who coordinates the gathering of knowledge than as an information provider. In the past, when a student asked a question, a teacher was expected to provide an answer right away because a teacher was supposed to be a custodian or a storehouse of knowledge. Today a teacher is often likely to respond thus, "Let me help you find the answer," and the teacher shows the student where to look for the answer and, and how to evaluate it to see if it is the right or reliable answer.

Likewise, today the bishops, priests, and deacons may have to act as coordinating leaders rather than as providers of correct information. They have to encourage and help people to ask questions and to find answers to their own questions by asking them to join the clergy in “learning together". They need not and should not act as the exclusive or only custodians of spiritual knowledge.

Let the Church become a venue for joint learning of the laity in concert with their bishops, priests, and deacons who will serve as leaders and facilitators, and never as the final arbiters of what the correct interpretation of a scripture is or was.

We need to accept that God is our only definitive teacher. God alone knows the truth, and God alone is the source of all wisdom. The bishops, priests, and deacons must earn the authority to lead the people in seeking spiritual wisdom from God. That role of “leadership” will naturally be conceded to them by the parishioners if and when the latter perceive that their bishops, priests and deacons have demonstrated through their conduct their abilities to lead the laity.

At the same time, those among the laity who come forward and are willing to contribute to the processes of joint discovery of divine wisdom should be encouraged. A good act remains a good act even if it is done by a Samaritan. It is obvious that the Good Samaritan had to do the kind deed because a priest and a Levite refused to do what they were supposed to do.

In conclusion, if Christianity is disintegrating, its primary cause, in my view, is leadership crisis. It appears that the blind sheep are led by blind shepherds. Not only that the shepherds are blind, but they are not even aware that they are sightless. They think that they have twenty-twenty eye sight. Hence, the sheep, being obvious of their defective vision, seldom listen to them. Sometimes the clergy are even ridiculed by the sheep. The solution is for all people, including the flocks  and their shepherds, to admit that at times they are all blind, and that jointly they must  approach God seeking divine wisdom through the joint study of  the sacred tradition and scriptures which have been handed down to us by posterity.

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