She liked art museums; he enjoyed hunting and fishing. She preferred French provincial furnishings; he liked early American. She tuned into the classical station; he liked—you guessed it—country. This relationship was a bad mistake from the get-go—a serious mismatch.

But contemporary culture has produced a more devastating mismatch. The philosophy of the hippie movement was expressed in the slogan, “I have a right to do my own thing.” These sentiments capture the central practical implication of the existential orientation that gripped our society in the 60s and has dominated our culture since then. This cliché lays claim to total rights while omitting any attendant responsibilities. That is a mismatch far worse than classical versus country.

Hippies now morphed into yuppies have become the predominant shapers of contemporary American culture, with its hallmark of rights devoid of responsibilities. Students are assigned the right to do their own thing, but if they fail it is a teacher’s fault. Though no doubt some inhabitants of New Orleans were unable to evacuate before the arrival of Katrina, many stayed as an exercise of their right to do so. However, when the situation turned bad the government was responsible for their safety.

A major principle, perhaps the major principle, of management is that rights and responsibilities must match. If a business manager is given the responsibility to balance the budget without the right to control the expenditures, he finds himself in an impossible situation. Or conversely, if he is given the right to spend without the corresponding responsibility to balance the budget, the company will soon be in financial trouble. Organizations can only be healthy and people can only do their jobs effectively if rights and responsibilities correspond.

Therefore, our current existential orientation that asserts rights but rejects responsibilities is untenable. In fact, most of the problems in our society could be fixed if people who were assigned rights were held responsible.

The priesthood of the believer was a significant teaching of the Reformation. This principle assigns to every believer the right to interpret and apply the Scripture for himself. However, along with that right goes the responsibility to develop a working knowledge of Scripture so that this priestly function might be performed effectively.

The previous posting depicted the contemporary evangelical trend toward Bible-lite, the current failure of evangelicals to study Scripture seriously, the tendency toward spiritual fast food. In keeping with the current culture, evangelicals are quick to assert their priestly right to interpret and apply Scripture without assuming the attending responsibility of doing the necessary study to qualify them for the position. The church has also failed in not conveying this responsibility and not providing the necessary programs for its fulfillment.

What a difference it would make if evangelicals would take their priestly responsibilities seriously, if they would engage in systematic Bible study for the purpose of developing a working knowledge of Scripture. Wouldn’t it make a tremendous difference if churches would develop something equivalent to an ordination exam that each leader in any capacity would be required to pass and each believer would be held responsible to strive toward?

Of course, the ultimate objective is not knowing Scripture, but doing Scripture. Nonetheless, knowing Scripture is the first step toward doing Scripture. It is this lack of knowledge that has prevented evangelicals from detecting the errors in many popular psychological concepts, which in turn has resulted in weakened Christians and unbiblical living. Believers asserting priestly rights without meeting priestly responsibilities constitute a marriage not made in heaven, but one that unleashes the forces of hell in the lives of individuals, personal relationships, and churches. An evangelical reformation requires a trained priesthood.