Forbidden Magic, Fantasy Religions, and other Thoughts

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

Having the upper echelon of the church decide who gets the PI seems unrealistic in the vast majority of scenarios for most types of belief, with something like Belief in Authority being a notable exception. As you describe it, the power itself comes from the combined belief of the faithful and not exclusively from the leaders, so the leaders have no actual say in who is empowered. Even so it is likely that whomever gets access is inducted into the leadership ranks.

Not all churches will go along with such things.

In early Christianity, there was a belief called Donatism. It held that if you were faced with martyrdom for your faith, and accepted it, and then were saved, you had proved your faith and thus were automatically a priest—in effect, you were a living saint. It was declared a heresy.

On one hand, the church wanted to have control over who became a priest; they made priestly office a function of the church administration and not of inspiration. On the other hand, Donatism tended to inspire the idea that priests had to be, well, holy, and the church wasn't prepared to be put in the position of having to guarantee the spiritual status or moral character of its priests. So it went in for "you salute the habit and not the man."

Such issues seem likely to arise if there is a way to be empowered, either by God or by the faith of the worshippers (which in Christian times might be identified with the Holy Spirit, which of course is part of God).