Your discussion section has just invented a brand new religion (congratulations!). It's called Jacobsism (catchy!).

A lot of the elements are already in place: you're going to be monotheists and you have a set of sacred scriptures that tell the story of your people and contain some rules and regulations.

But now you have to figure out who is in charge. Factions have developed among you, who favor the following methods for determining authority in the religion:

1. Family business. "We think the leaders of our religion should be from the same family line, descended from the Founding Fathers of the group."

2. Trained experts: "We think the leaders of our religion should be people who have studied God and the scriptures and understand them best."

3. The call: "Some of us have special gifts--like prophecy or insight into God's plan--and feel the call to lead: we should be in charge!"

4. Good folks: "We all know who the most trustworthy people are--the good spouses, entrepreneurs, parents, and friends: we trust them, let's give them religious authority!"

4. No leaders: "We think the spirit of our religion is autonomy and democracy, so every person should decide for him or herself how best to conduct their religious life: no authority figures!"

Each group carefully presents its reasons to the rest for why their mode of authority should prevail in this new religion. Some of your group's reasons may be attacks on the other groups, but you should also have some good, substantive reasons why your system is best. It's probably a good idea to relate your leaders' form of authority with existing elements of Jacobsism (such as the belief in one God or the sacred scriptures). Some groups may also have to come up with some kind of process for determining who possesses the desired form of authority.

In the course of deliberations, one or more of you may break apart from your group and pick your own method for determining authority: you may then argue it to the group as a whole.

No one leaves until you've come to a consensus (or agreed that consensus is unnecessary), or else Jacobsism fails!