'Christ, the Head of the Church?' : authority, leadership and organisational structure within the Nkhoma Synod of the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This dissertation has as its title: 'Christ, the Head of the Church': Authority, Leadership andOrganisational Structure within the Nkhoma Synod of the Church of Central Africa,Presbyterian. This study affirms the statement that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church, notingthat this statement of faith entails various assumptions: First, the church has only one Head,that is, Jesus Christ. Secondly, only Jesus Christ must be exalted and have the pre-eminencein the church. Thirdly, this prohibits anyone or any governing assembly to lord it over anotherone or exercise authority other than the authority from Jesus Christ. Fourthly, Christ is morethan the head of the department or the head of any organization in whose absence the churchwould still be able to function.In line with these points, in this study the thought of Christ being the Head of thechurch or the confession of the headship of Christ over the church refers to His leadership,highest authority, and position of superiority and sovereignty. There are many references tothe concept of the Headship of Christ in the Bible, confessions of faith, catechisms, andchurch orders. In light hereof, the question is asked whether the affirmation of the Headshipof Christ has found sufficient form in the church polity discourse and practice of the CCAP -Nkhoma Synod. The answer to this question requires an ecclesiological study including thecritical examination and evaluation of the Church's Confessions, Catechism, Church Order,Constitution, Newsletter, and Minutes of its official meetings. Given this, the dissertation isstructured as follows:Chapter 1: The topic and title are introduced, then the research questions andhypothesis. At the heart of this chapter is the question of the understanding of the NkhomaSynod of Christ's rule through office-bearers, whereas it omits in its Church Order that Christexercises his reign and dominion through his Word and Spirit. In the discourse on theChurch's polity this discrepancy has resulted in a tendency of identifying the power andauthority of office-bearers with that of Christ. Consequently, the office-bearers can easilyclaim to have unchallengeable possession of Christ's power and authority. As a result theauthority of Christ's direct rule through His Word and Spirit is excluded and transferred to theoffice-bearers who constitute or represent the highest ecclesiastical authority.Chapter 2: The social-political, economical, religious, and ecclesiastical contexts aredescribed, in which the Nkhoma Synod has found itself. Although church polity and churchgovernment are subject to what God has revealed in his Word, which is systematically summarized in the confessions, we conclude that in the Nkhoma Synod church polity andchurch government are sometimes dictated by the existing social-political, economic,religious, and ecclesiastical milieus.Chapter 3: Definitions of 'Reformed church polity' and 'church government,' areoffered and then the distinctiveness of Reformed church government is described togetherwith some suggestions for present-day Reformed church polity.Chapter 4: This chapter studies the Church policy sources of the Nkhoma Synod, i.e.the Belgic Confessions of Faith, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dordt. Thequestion is asked whether the Nkhoma Synod used these documents as sources from which itdeveloped its church polity.Chapter 5: This chapter focuses on the sources for the practice of Churchgovernment in the Nkhoma Synod. Special attention will be given to the concept of theheadship of Christ and how the Church's understanding of this notion impacted on its churchpolity discourse.Chapter 6: Some important church-political developments within the NkhomaSynod from 1889 to 2007 are discussed, focusing on issues of authority, leadership, andorganizational structure. The question is discussed whether and how the concept of theheadship of Christ described in the Zolamulira negatively influenced the Church's practice ofchurch government.Chapter 7 draws conclusions from the rest of the chapters. A call is made for acritical-theological examination and evaluation of the church polity discourse and practice ofthe Nkhoma Synod in the light of remarks made on the preamble of the Zolamulira, as wellas in the light of the ideas of John Calvin, the Reformed Symbols of Unity, and otherimportant sources from the Reformed tradition.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University