Of Pastors And Popes

John Ball writes:
The Roman Church intends to declare that a recent Pope is a 'saint'. They wish to 'venerate' one of their chief bureaucrats, a man who spent his life sucking up to those in authority, whether in Communist Poland, or in the American dominated West, all the while sucking out the autonomy of ordinary people.
Back in the fourteenth century the official church in England was the Roman Church. At the top of the Roman Church was their Pope, and after him were cardinals, archbishops, bishops, archdeacons and priests.
The Roman Church was a pyramid of power.
At the bottom of this pyramid was the poor peasant, who watched and paid.
At the time of the Reformation the Church in England dispensed with the Pope, but managed to keep hold of its bishops. No bishop, no king, said the voice of Authority.
In the Roman Church people are told to call the priest 'Father', but God is my Father, not some heretical slave to the false god of power.
Once the Bible was available for everyone to read, many people wanted to taste the freedom of living in Christ.
They knew, as we Lollards knew before them, that when Adam delved and Eve span there were no gentlemen.
Groups of Dissenters or Nonconformists grew up not just in the towns but in the countryside too.
These independent congregations were usually served by a minister.
A minister is someone who ministers to, that is serves, both the congregation and God.
A minister does not go before the congregation, he is a humble servant. Ministers were sharply different to the Church of England vicars, with their fancy dress vestments and their enormous vicarages and their servants, little gods within their parishes.
Today, most of the Dissenting congregations have withered and died. Only small clusters of the faithful survive.
The growth in the Protestant Churches is in the dynamic Charismatic Consumer Christian sector.
These churches don't have ministers; they have pastors.
But a pastor is a shepherd. Some jumped up performer is not my shepherd. The Lord is my Shepherd!
The people want shepherds to follow, and the pastors want to be leaders. The pastors want followship, but Christians need fellowship.
From an early age people are detained in day prisons called school. There they learn obedience and passivity. In their work they think it natural to be servants.
It never occurs to them to be free, so drenched in slave mentality are they. And so the pastor becomes a boss, a mini Pope.