"Lay" membership from David Weihe on 1998-07-24 (Glorantha Digest Vol 06)

From: David Weihe <weihe_at_eagle.danet.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 19:38:06 EDT

> From: Jeff Richard <jrichard_at_cnw.com>
> David Dunham responded to a comment of mine regarding "lay members":
> David, this is yet another one of my irrational hatreds - I despise the
> term "lay member" as an awkward artificial term. In common use, the laity
> is the overwhelming majority of the population which has not taken clerical
> or monastic vows - I can see how that was analogized to the "initiated" v.
> the "uninitiated" but it is a clumsy analogy at best.

Part of the problem is that "lay" is the least clumsy term available, but is being misused compared to the RW definition. I think that the correct RQ term for RW Christian laity would be "initiate" and the correct RW term for RQ2 "lay member" is something like catacumen (sp?), which I ran across the one time that I attended an Orthodox service, where the stage right before communion was "Removing the Catacumens". Basically, it is either the unbaptized or those before First Communion, I'm not sure which. I didn't see anyone leave then, anyway.

Another part of the problem is that the standard descriptions have only one level of initiation, which is a bad match for any but the simplest cults. It strikes me that a callow youth who has just been initiated into Barntar (the apparent first step in the process) probably shouldn't be able to successfully act as Orlanth Lightbringer (seemingly the deepest level of their religion) anymore than a brand new Yelm the Warrior initiate can pass the Ten Tests.