CHURCH GOVERNMENT.
Meaning of the Expression (§ 1). The Reformed Church Government (§ 2). Fundamental Differences of Lutheran View (§3). German Reformers not Opposed to State Government (§ 4).
State Government Accepted in Luther's Time (§ 5). Actual Views of Luther and his Contemporaries (§ 0). Influence of the Idea of the Common Priesthood (§ 7). Modern Development of German Church Government (§ 8).
[The following article is a condensation of the article Kirchenregimcnt in the Hauck-Herzog RE ; for more general discussion of the subject see Polity.]
Church government in the speech of to-day denotes that particular conduct of the ecclesiastical community which is not effected by means of the spiritual administration of word and sacraments, but by means which on occasion may be of civil constitution. Prior to the Reformation the pastor was called rector, and regere ecclcsiam (" to govern the Church ") indicated his spiritual care over
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Church of God Church Government
the congregation through the word and sacraments. Church government is thus, originally, the pastoral, though logically also the epis-
1. Meaning copal, and, in the last resort, the paof the Ex- pal cure of souls ; because the bishop
pression. is properly the pastor of his diocese, and the pope — at all events according to the doctrine of the curia — parochus mundi (see Cure of Souls). However, the divinely given authority for the spiritual control (potestas ecclesiastica; see Authority, Ecclesiastical) embraces, according to the theory then in vogue, every regulative function, whether in a proper sense spiritual or not; that is, certain functions not within the direct sphere of word and sacrament, provided only the same appear expedient to the bishop or pope, as the case may be, with relation to the cure of souls. Hence prior to the Reformation church government was regarded as part and parcel of the episcopal, or ultimately papal, cure of souls. It was only after the establishment of the Reformers' principle, that this theory conflicts with Scripture, and that the ecclesiastical authority which is to be exercised by the spiritual office in virtue of divine commission comprises rather the sole administration of word and sacraments, and not, in addition, external control, that the institution of church government as a power by itself could become developed and was actually developed. The idea of church government in this sense is Protestant; the Roman Catholic Church, in so far as it has continued upon the pre-Reformation basis, still construes the matter as falling within the spiritual province of ecclesiastical authority.
Of the two Protestant Church bodies in which, upon the basis of the aforesaid Reformation doctrine, a scheme of church government has taken shape distinct from the spiritual economy it is pertinent to consider first the Reformed Church; and in fact its Calvinistic branch is of exceptional interest in this connection. The task of organizing the Protestant Church in France was
2. The Re- complicated at the outset by the hosformed tility of the government. In the Church face of this enmity, the Church had to Govern- organize as an independent association.
ment. Starting with Calvin's tenets that the church organization described in the Acts of the Apostles and the pastoral epistles is ordained by God to be directed by a college of elders, and that this Church is an example or article of faith for every particular congregation, it developed this assumption, following Calvin's interpretation of Eph. iv. 11 sqq., Rom. xii. 7, and I Cor. xii. 28, into the doctrine that in accordance with the aforesaid divine arrangement there are two kinds of elders; namely, not only bearers of the teaching office — who, in agreement with the Lutheran Church, were held to be restricted to teaching and the administration of the sacraments —but also " ruling " elders, who were regarded as filling the spiritual, but not the teaching office (Calvin's "Institutes," IV., chaps, i.-v., xi., xii.). Pastor and ruling elders together constituted the governing body of the congregation (Fr. consis-
toire, cf. K. Rieker, Grundsatze reformirter Kirchenverfassung, Leipsic, 1899, pp. 102 sqq., 141 sqq.). Then there came together from the congregations, comprising a definite group, certain delegates of the consistoires, both teaching and ruling officers, to form committees (" synods "), through whose agency the corresponding church circuit was governed, the same as the congregation by the agency of the consistoire. Further, the French Evangelical Church as a whole is governed by a general synod (cf. G. von Polenz, Geschichte des franzosischen Calvinismus, 4 vols., Gotha, 18,57; G. V- Lechler, Geschichte der Presbyterial- und Synodalverfassung, Leyden, 1854, pp. 64 sqq.). The essential basis of the [Reformed] church government is thus clearly apparent in the main, even though now and then its lines of distinction coalesce. It rests upon divine authority just as in the pre-Reformation Church; save that this commissioned authority is not imparted to the teaching elders, but only to the ruling ones. Yet the former take part, and indeed as weighty personages, in the sessions of the governing bodies, though this is only because they administer the orJc r of salvation, and because all church government, in the nature of the case, has no other object than to render possible and make sure the order of sah'ation; hence the teaching presbyters enjoy their influence upon church government not as retainers of a divine commission to rule, but as expert representatives of their divine commission to teach; so much so, for instance, that in questions of doctrine the non-spiritual members of synods have no voice. These fundamental ideas of the French constitution of presbyterial-synodal church government have undergone, in the course of time and in connection with their development in German territories, various alterations an account of which properly belongs to church history.
Two fundamental points differentiate the Lutheran theory of church government both from the pre-Reforraation and Roman Catholic theory and from the Calvinistic-Reformed the- 3. Funda- ory. In the first place, the Lutheran mental Church does not assume that there Differences is any form of church government of ordained by divine commission, coin- Lutheran cidently with the institution of the View. Church, but rather esteems every form of government admissible by whose operation sufficient provision is made for the rightful administration of word and sacraments. Hence there is no Lutheran dogmatic basis of church government; and Lutherans accord to the claim of the Reformed that there is no such higher dignity than that of a theological opinion. The second point is the fact that the Lutheran Church, when, in accordance with the imperial decree of 1526 at Speyer, it developed the State Church polity, virtually from the very start placed church government in the State sovereign's hand. In consequence of these two differences the question of Lutheran church government is much more complicated than that of the pre-Reformation Church, or of the Roman Cathohc or of the Reformed Churches.
It has been asserted that the Reformers' ideals
Cbiirch at>vemmeiit