Priesthood of Believers and Ethical Reform

The kingdom of God should be allowed to develop a more concrete presence in-the-world through a priesthood of believers church structure. The present era of commercial Christian ministries preaching to a laity that supports them should be viewed as a temporal stage on the evolution of the church to fulfill the post-millennial eschatology of becoming a majority.

Commercial Christian ministries are separate professional hierarchies viewed today with an implicit conflict of interest in so far as they preach for pay. Ethically speaking business reforms are done to rectify structure to profit. Christian ministries also are viewed as having such ethics too much. Instead of making reforms that might impinge the commercial ministries profit, comfort or power those are set aside. Catholic church reforms to prevent priest child sex abuse just didn't happen until billions were paid out in civil legal settlements and dices closed with churches in hoc. The deeper history of the church shows a history of resistance to reform.

Protestant churches have the same commercial Christian recalcitrance to reform when reform conflicts with priestly power, profit and prestige. While business should reform to profit and not reform to be more moral or fair within capitalist practice-theory today, church ministries should not place profit or morality, ethics or christian concepts. Many churches admitted homosexual marriage to their doctrine in contradiction to obvious scriptural references to homosexuality being sin. Churches losing numbers may have sought to reverse the loss with appeals to homosexuals.

A priesthood of believers would help reassert a Christian moral and ethical presence in society that is in decline as global corporatism increases its stranglehold on national politics and finance in the United States Global corporatism supported homosexual marriage before the corporate proxy Roberts court forced it upon the nation. Pay Pal is just the latest of innumerable corporations and CEO's that have expressed support for homosexual marriage. Business and finance is completely queer-friendly and CEOs that don't support that and say so publicly are terminated. Ordinary people must do business though the beastly business finance structure and the commercial Christian priesthood hasn't done anything to relieve that, nor can they. Instead they continue to support corporate global policy and their political proxies that nominally mention popular evangelical political choices that have little or no chance of reversing the general corporate trend.

Commercial Christian ministries reinforce and vaguely model the global corporate business environment; a priesthood of believers would not..

A priesthood of believers would have two different forms. One in performance of worship and the other in performance of Christian sharing and support networks.

Church worship roles would be equal among believers with roles rotating weekly. Small worship groups of ten or twelve would make it a friendly environment though all could gather for a sing-together. There would be old and new testament readers. A secretary taking prayer requests and concerns, and there would be a reader of a sermon provided by a theological qualified source. Additionally five minutes would be given for anyone to have a say. 

A 'show off' slot for the very gifted sermonizer of ten minutes might be optionally set aside, yet with three functioning ranks of beginner, intermediate and elder with time in rank and tests required for promotion there should be no shortage of qualified people.

Because tithing in the commercial Christian ministry is highly inflated over that of the Old Testament that was one-tenth of a producer's crops to be distributed every third year in three parts; to widows, orphans and non-working priests, that one-percent to priests has risen 900% to ten-percent. That should be changed back to one-percent in the priesthood of believers structure.

In the financial and Christian sharing network support service section of the priesthood of believers a vast Christian presence would develop nationally. Attendance would be kept and participation in worship recorded and available on-line to every priesthood of believers church location. Attending a worship service in Portland Maine would be the same as attending a church in Portland Oregon for the individual Christian. In either case his or her presence would be necessary since he is a professing Christian participant weekly him or herself.

Practical Christian support would entail financial security against emergencies with each individual building up an emergency account of five-thousand dollars. Christians could use that as an alternate to commercial businesses for certain payments and tithing.

The basic Christian believer's account would be filled over time from tithing, contributions above tithing, and from payment for working for Christians. It is not a savings account though. Withdrawals would meet certain peer-reviewed criteria and accounts could not be allowed to surpass $5000. Once one's account was full the tithes could fill the accounts of others if needed for peer-reviewed reasons, go to church expenses and missions.

The priesthood of believers sharing networks could comprise job exchanges with rated values whereby members could receive fair compensation for their account or trade for needed services such as medical, dental, roofing or transportation. The priesthood of believers might also have a member's motel and monastery franchise nationwide growing from bed and breakfast environments. Members that had a history of membership solid enough to reinforce the belief that they are actual members; perhaps a year in attendance and continuing attendance at least monthly would be eligible to use the service for a nominal cost. Such Christian networking and priesthood of believers evangelizing through lifestyle would have a positive ethical presence amidst society greater than the rather dog-without-teeth biting at political issues approach through impotent politicians.