Peg, an episcopalian seminarian over at Get Started blog, wrote a great, very insightful post on the concept of apostolic succession. Here is a juicy tidbit:
Here’s the problem: the purpose of apostolic succession is to refute heresies, to guarantee the purity of the faith being passed on to the next generation. Today, 2000 years later, apostolic succession is used to confer clerical authority, too often without regard to the state of the inductee’s faith. And so we have bishops and clergy in different parts of the world who deny the Trinity, don’t believe in the God of the patriarchs, make public prayers to Sophia, and so on.
I believe such an apostolic succession is utterly counterfeit. It disregards both the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and it makes a mockery of the church tradition it claims to uphold. I believe true apostolic succession is — and must be — spiritual, not physical. IF an ordained person truly loves and obeys Jesus, and acknowledges the scriptures and creeds as true, then he or she is legitimately a part of the succession. If not, then they have removed themselves from the succession by their denial of the faith.
I think her idea of apostolic succession being SPIRITUAL rather than physical or hierarchical is brilliant thinking, not to mention good theology. Go read the rest yourself.
