The Church is neither a democracy nor a dictatorship. A comparison of the Church to a type of government only reveals a gross misunderstanding of the Church - a dangerous misconception.
What is the Church?
The best way to view the Church is as an escape. It is the new Exodus making its escape on the trail that Jesus blazed through the hostile desert of godlessness from slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh, across the Red Sea of death, to freedom with God and his Holy Family in the promised land.
The hierarchy of the Church is responsible for the logistics of the escape.
The mission that God gave the hierarchy of the Church is to facilitate the escape - not to frustrate it, not to filter it and not to foul it up. Their job is to be grease for the wheels of the escape not an obstacle in its way. Love is the 'grease' that lubricates the wheels of our passage through the Valley of Tears. The Church is supposed to be love.
The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect. Only by making our escape from holy place to holy place that define the escape route from godlessness to paradise can we be sure that we are heading in the right direction. The movement of the escape forms the needle of the compass that always points to God.
The Pursuit of God
The Church offers us a way to pursue God through the Valley of Tears, across the Red Sea of death and into the promised land. It offers us one way. It is not the only way. But, is it the best way? The Church is supposed to be grease for the wheels of the pursuit of God not an obstacle in the way. When the Church becomes an obstacle in the way, the children of Adam and Eve bypass it. We go over it, under it and around it. The Church becomes irrelevant. Winston Churchill said, ‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ .
Is this description of democracy applicable by analogy to the Church? Is there a better way to pursue God?
Bypassing the Church to Pursue God
“Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee” [Augustine, Confessions (Book 1)].
The escape from godlessness to paradise is primary. Nothing else matters. Everything else is secondary. Anything that interferes is suspect.
When the Church becomes an obstacle in the way of our pursuit of God, the solution is not to abandon the pursuit of God. The solution is to abandon the Church. We bypass it. We go over it, under it and around it. The Church becomes irrelevant.
This is what is going on today in many places around the world.
The Job of the Church is Limited
Better to be a pilgrim passing through the toxicity of the Valley of Tears than a settler who has sunk his roots deep into it. The job of the Church is limited. The job of the Chruch is to turn settlers into pilgrims. God's job is to turn sinners into saints. The Church goes off the rails when it tries to do God's job.
The Show
The Church is the usher that shows us to our seats not the star of the show. Jesus is the star of the show. The Church goes off the rails when it starts to think that it is the star of the show. Moreover, the venue of the show is the road from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection.
How do you get there from here? The Church has been helping the children of Adam and Eve get there from here for more than two thousand years. Its experience gives it confidence that it knows the way.