Tyrants, shepherds and priests

The toppling of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, whatever happens next, shows the awesome power of persistent popular protest, there is no greater force than the coherent, consistent actions of the Third Estate. It was wholly different from the sanitised clashes that we are used to - between leaders of political parties, trade union general secretaries, heads of think tanks or charities or campaigning organisations, journalists and Prime Ministers, and so on.

It was a clash between the people and an institution occupied by an individual. There were no leaders, no committee, no single spokesperson. Does this mean it was messy? Mal-coordinated? Did not do itself justice? Lacked leadership? One of the most exciting, inspiring aspects of the protest was its corporate unity. Human beings not simply carrying out their function within a hierarchy or structure but acting as part of a whole. So do we need leaders?

My university's Defend Education group, currently fighting the cuts to public services being carried out by the Tory government in the UK, also operates without a leader or even a leadership committee. Instead working groups were formed, each in charge of a different part of the organisation and reporting back to the entire body, which took all major decisions, planned future action and organised the campaign. It was, at root, the realisation of the kind of direct democratic control that has never been fully adopted at a national political level. It was fair, open, inclusive, effective and productive. Finding a collective voice or an efficient route to a solution could be challenging, of course, but the result was always the stronger for it - the means justified the end and the end, the means.

Could religions work like this? The Catholic and Anglican churches, among others, have rejected the possibility, choosing instead to set apart a small number of the congregation, targeting resources at these few people; giving them special training, special powers in the performance of the sacraments and a more-or-less monopoly on teaching, preaching and service leading in the church. The ordained priesthood has become bound up with the traditions of the church, an in-built aristocracy of those 'called'. Both churches are active these days in emphasising the calling of the laity, but not, of course, to preside over the sacraments, and only rarely to preach, teach, carry out 'official' pastoral work, or lead a service.

Most priests are not, of course, called to carry out all these tasks and often struggle to fulfill each to a sufficiently high standard. The natural end point of this thought is, of course, that perhaps no one person is called to carry out all this tasks but instead are each called only to do one or other of them. So why group them together and give them to individuals? Why neglect the teaching, preaching and sacramental abilities of so many members of the church?

Imagine a church where the whole congregation carried out the sacraments, the teaching, the preaching and the pastoral activities in turn and according to the skills and interests of the members. Those gifted at teaching could teach, while those gifted at caring could care, and those gifted at both could do both. Training, resources and special powers could be given to all those who will need it to carry out their activities. This would not be the end of the priesthood or the Church but its widening to include the whole of the religious body.