I think in terms of church culture, it may be helpful to remember the era in which it was created. The "Western World" of the day was making the shift from a polytheistic world, towards monotheism, often adopting the Jewish model which had been around for a long time. The polytheistic model was rife with "levels," within the gods, to the civil leaders (often seen as lesser gods), to any number of social layers. There's no shortage of allusions to this in the gospels (Jesus "dared" to eat with a tax collector, or a prostitute, or touch a leper?) So I'm not surprised that there are echoes of that in the early church. What IS saddening, is that church leadership still clings to that.

Ultimately, so much of what we're seeing in our own society today is a rebellion against the echoes of that within our society (racism, sexism, elitism, etc...) Once again, society leads the church.  Jesus taught that real power wasn't in "position." A message not warmly by religious leaders, then and now.