In Persona Christi

I recently wrote an article on the woes of clericalism.  This article will continue the theme from a specifically liturgical perspective.  As I have been working through (read: struggling with) this topic, a few particulars have stuck out.  The epitome of the clericalism I am bemoaning is the concept known as in persona Christi.

Now, like many concepts, this doctrine has been explained differently by the various traditions that hold some form of it, which can make it more difficult to define or examine.  In persona Christi, which literally means "in the person of Christ," essentially teaches that the priest stands in the place of Christ when officiating the sacraments.  As this First Things' article states it, "The priest stands in the place of Jesus within the Church's sacramental life."  When the sacraments are being administered, Christ is the one administering them through the agency of the priest.  When the Eucharist is being consecrated, Christ is consecrating it.  When a child is being baptized, Christ is baptizing her.  When the priest is declaring that your sins are forgiven, it is, in fact, Christ Himself who is proclaiming such forgiveness.  

This view is held in one form or another by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and some Anglicans.  I, as a Reformed Protestant, reject it wholly and unequivocally.  I do so for at least three reasons:  

Firstly, this doctrine turns the priest into a mediator.  In persona Christi places the priest between you and God.  The priest mediates your relationship with God.  The means of grace are inaccessible (or at least not wholly accessible) apart from him.  Christ is in some way unavailable to you without the priest.  This is unbiblical and unhealthy.  

The Bible presents a vision of the presbyter (elder) as a mature, Godly leader who helps to organize, teach, and discipline the Body.  He is not the Head, nor are we given any indication that he represents the Head liturgically.  He is no way a mediator between the Body and the Head.  The individual believer's relationship to God is never mediated through another mere human being, but through Jesus Christ, the God-Man, alone.

Secondly, this doctrine detracts from the reality that the Church is the Body of Christ.  Everything we do in the liturgy communicates something.  Where is Christ to be found in the liturgical gathering?  It is not in the priest, but in the congregation as a whole.  We are His Body.  He is our Head.  When we gather, He is present with and within us.  

Just as liturgy communicates theology, so does architecture.  Most Evangelicals (at least "traditional" ones) are used to hearing the worship space described as the sanctuary.  High Church traditions will insist, however, that the sanctuary is limited to the area directly around the altar (the "front" of the church building).  That is the holy of holies.  It is where God dwells.  It is no mistake, conversely, that the entire worship area became known as the sanctuary in Protestant churches.  We insist that the Triune God does not simply dwell in the front of the church building where the clergy and their acolytes may roam.  He does not dwell above an altar or even a pulpit.  No, He dwells in His gathered people.  The sanctuary is wherever two or three are gathered.

In persona Christi leaves laymen languishing in the nave, looking for Jesus somewhere up at the front of the church building.  Christ would have us looking for Him in the midst of the congregation.  In persona Christi violates Paul's command to discern the Body.

Thirdly and finally, this doctrine encourages clericalism.  In persona Christi fosters and unhealthy distinction between the people of God and those called to lead them.  Perhaps this sounds redundant, but allow me to clarify.  This doctrine encourages not only a liturgical, but also an existential, separation of the clergy from the laity.  Not all traditions that hold this doctrine view the priest as ontologically different, but they do view priests (as well as bishops and even deacons, to some extent) as a separate class of Christians.  This is not to say that they view them as superior, but as separate.  Priests are not members of local churches, but of a diocese.  Like military personnel they have separate channels of accountability.   They are liturgical specialists who belong to a separate caste or order.  

As a Reformed Protestant, I am wary of anything that causes Christians to view "the Church" as an institution separate from the people of God themselves.  The Church is not a building or a hierarchy, but a Body.  St. Cyprian famously insisted that a Christian cannot have God as his father without having the Church as his mother.  This is well and good if we take it to mean that there are no "lone ranger" Christians.  Certainly the New Testament envisions the individual Christian life being lived in communion with the Body.  We must not, however, interpret this in a way that conceives of the Church as an external structure or administrative class.  The Church is not the hierarchy; it is the people of God, the Body of Christ.  In persona Christi encourages congregants to view the Church as an institution to which and through which Christians go in order to access God.

Proponents of this doctrine will insist that it actually humbles and limits the priest.  He is merely a vessel--Christ is the active agent.  In a perfect world that might be true, but it still wouldn't be Biblical.  It still assigns a role to a priest that no human being, our Lord excepted, was designed to fill.

In closing, it is only fair to concede that the Protestant rejection of this doctrine has often had unintended consequences.  Not only have they often fallen into the mire of the cult of personality, but their rejection of the agency of the priest has sometimes led to rabid individualism.  This is equally unhealthy.  Individual Christians should never exist apart from the Body of Christ.  As the Westminster Confession of Faith affirms, "The visible church...is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." (XXV:2)  

Our unity with Christ necessarily unites us to other believers.  The New Testament expects that individual Christians will live in a community of fellow-believers who will encourage them and keep them accountable.  Christians, therefore, do play a role in each other's sanctification, but this privilege and responsibility belongs not just to clergy, but to all Believers.  God works through His body, not just the priest.