No "end-run" by the pastor should be made to restrict what a member reads. This is cultic behavior and beyond the bounds. AMR
Here I disagree, I think. The focus should not be on whatever statements, creeds or covenants parties have signed off on for membership of a local church. The bottom line should always be, What saith the Scripture?
If a fair hearing within the church finds the concerns or criticisms to be baseless, then the members in question have a choice: either drop their criticisms or leave. Conversely, if the church tests some aspect of its teaching or practice that's found unsupported by or contradictory to the Bible, then other decisions need to be made by everyone. But the Word is to be the focus, not human bylaws and such.
By enlarge, I agree that the pastor needs to cause as little offense as possible and focus on equipping the saints and teaching the flock how to handle the Word. But the OP assumed something when it asked if the pastor had the "authority" to do what he did. My initial responses were not intended so much to say the pastor did the right thing (honestly, I don't know) but in trying to generalize situations like this, one runs in to having to navigate "ought", "should", "might" and the differences between them. If one wants to push the issue, one could make the case that the pastor has every latitude because the soul of a man is in the balance. Paul, after all, said that all things were lawful to him but not all were expedient. I know he was talking about food (and went on to say he wouldn't be brought under the power of any) but here's the conundrum that is answered in two very different ways by different people. Does one avoid being submitted to what seems to them to be excessive pastoral authority to avoid legalism (and possibly abuse) or does one take the position that the authority is there by God's institution and thereby honor it as one honors God? We do the same thing with earthly authority - obeying it as far as possible and only disobeying when it directs us to disobey God.
So when Paul says what he says in I Cor 6:12, remember that he is saying it as a leader of the church - one endorsed by God as an apostle. Since a pastor carries similar authority (though not the same office), it isn't a stretch (in my mind) to say - generally - that as the one who has the responsibility to look out for the souls of the congregation, any means necessary so to do is (potentially) valid.
This may be a little tangential, but the parable in Luke 16:1-13 suggests to me that God has a similar view. Did the accused servant overstep his authority (or misuse it) in cutting the debt of the master's debtors before he lost his job? Certainly, one would say that he at least had questionable ethics in so doing. But the point that Jesus made was that he used money to a profitable end (the end that money ultimately serves being temporal) even if it was not "fair". He used his position (while he had it) wisely - to obtain a further end. Now, if the pastor's goal is to serve the congregation by (among other things) protecting them from undue outside influences, then for him to possibly overreach in terms of what some may think proper - when a man's soul is at stake - do you think the Lord will be more upset that the pastor overstepped his supposed authority or that he did all he could with the temporal resources he had to effect a more eternally beneficial end? Isn't that at least part of what Jesus was saying here :
And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
Luke 16:9
Isn't the contrast to use the temporal things by whatever means possible to obtain a better eternal result?
So when you use the term "authority", I see that man before God on his own (isn't that what Stam is really saying?) answering primarily for the souls of those put in his charge. And if you want to say he doesn't have the authority to do whatever, then that authority is dictating his actions. And if that authority (the Word of God) reasons that man is autonomous in Him and so another can't have that authority over him, then what are we to do with the commands we are given to obey them that have authority over you? Is God divided? That - as I see it - is partly why churches have boards and confessions and creeds etc...(and I grew up largely in churches that did not). They are there for the safety of the congregation and the pastor. Not as substitutes for the Word of God. And I do agree that sometimes they can stifle (possibly even encourage) things that may be contrary to what is called for in the situation. But the difference is they have safety in numbers that the "loners" don't have. Both groups may be wrong at times, but the committee approach certainly seems more wise.
The church is not a bunch of self-directed sheep. And if one or two do get in trouble.
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
Acts 20:28
Are there no more overseers now that the apostles are long gone?
An added thought (sorry for going on longer than intended) :
Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?
Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.
But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;
And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;
The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,
And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 24:45-51
Two points here :
1. If a man is made ruler over things (which one can't help but see that it includes people when speaking of our Lord's "things"), is he just offering suggestions?
2. Consider that the "smiting" of verses 48-9 implies (in part) mistreatment by NOT ruling properly but being lackadaisical in duty towards the flock. The natural outworking, then, is a church that identifies with the world ("eat and drink with the drunken"). Could it not be that the pastor fearing for that association in his church would try to prevent such influences in it?
I'm not saying that Cloud was wrong in this situation (I don't know and probably can't). But the fact that this is based on an assumption of authority implies a border to that authority. If a pastor is limited in acting in the best interests of the flock under his charge - simply because of a limitation of authority (didn't Christ say all authority was given to Him?), then at the very least, the issue of the eternal destiny of the sheep is taking second place to man's self-will (be it right or wrong).
If the pastors have some degree of rule over the flock, then this verse should give pause to those that want to assert their autonomy:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
Luke 19:27
