“The early brush arbor churches were, shall we say, rather remarkable in that the laiety elevated one of their number to lead the service. Such formal structure as they had was purely derived from the Bible itself.”
Oh yes. No structure in the church in Acts, whatsoever.
You might want to check that again. The Apostles were the leaders of the Church, and the Apostles appointed new leaders. Pretty clear to me. Priests, yep. Deacons, yep. Bishops, yep. All there in the bible.
I was referring to the structure of frontier brush arbor churches, BenKenobi. They were not Catholic, therefore there were no priests. There was oftentimes little close involvement by any denomination, as contact with more settled areas was infrequent at best.
Catholic leaderships isn’t even biblically qualified.
1 Timothy 3:2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; 3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; 4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; 5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)