Maallikot vs. papisto

Olen jo aikaisemmin todennut muutamaan kertaan, että eräässä kirkkomme piirissä käytävässä ajankohtaisessa keskustelussa on vaikea löytää oikeita vastauksia, koska itse kysymys on väärä. Tässä yksi lainaus, joka ei käsittele ko. aihetta mutta joka toisaalta iskee sen paljon tärkeämmän asian ytimeen:

Historically the church seems to have fallen into a model that eventually developed a sharp distinction between the people themselves (laity) and the professional ministry (clergy), reaching its sharpest expression in the Roman Catholic communion, but finding its way into almost every form of Protestantism as well. The net result has been a church in which the clergy all to often exist apart from the people, for whom there is a different set of rules and different expectations, and a church in which the "gifts" and "ministry", not to mention significance, power structures, and decision making, are the special province of the professionals. Being "ordained" to this profession, the later tend to like the aura that it provides, and having such ordained professionals allows the laity to pay them to do the work of the ministry and thus excuse themselves from their biblical calling. ...

The problem for most moderns, of course, in coming to the biblical texts, is that we tend to presuppose our resultant form of church to be theirs; we therefore carry both different agenda and a different experience of the church back to the documents. But history and tradition have had their innings. Even though it is arguable that we have genuine continuity with the New Testament church in many ways - especially our experience of grace and the Spirit - our experience of the church itself is so far different from theirs that seemingly ne'er the twain shall meet.

- Gordon Fee kirjassaan Listening to the Spirit in the Text

Oleellinen kysymys on, hyväksymmekö seurakuntamalli(e)n ja seurakuntaelämän jatkuvan muuttumisen ja kehittymisen kulttuurien muuttumisen ja ajan myötä, vai onko meillä UT:ssa jotain sellaista, jota kohti pyrkiä. Jos haluamme seurata UT:a, niin kyllähän sieltä esim. papisto selvästi löytyy. Sen sijaan maallikoita ei esim. Paavalin perustamista seurakunnisa löydy ja siksi minäkin haluaisin päästä niistä kokonaan eroon.