I apologise in advance for entering this thread and then not answering the Paladin question. But the good discussion earlier in the thread about the anture of church hierarchies and class was useful.
My own Shattered World setting doesn't make use of gods and so no clerics either. The Theurges, who fill in for the Cleric and Druid classes, nevertheless play like Clerics of No God, and their are plenty of organisations that represent a wide variety of philosophies about how to live life and what to do, so many of the same considerations apply as a standard church structure. Perhaps it is divorcing the matter of theurgely power from divine mandate, but because of it, I have never during my 3e play had any problems with the idea of having organisational power and 'priestly' power divorced. Various groups have been led locally and at higher levels by Experts and Aristocrats, ambitious people who have developed the right sort of abilities to be selected for such posts, or can manipulate their way into such positions. After all, time spent developing 'magical' power is time spent away from leading people and making connections, assuming that that power requires at least some devotion from the worshipper, and isn't just a mantle dropped onto him or her.
Nevertheless, the older versions of the game still hang heavy on our play, and it certainly appeared to be D&D tradition in the past that the church hierarchy mimicked exactly the level hierarchy - Bishop Goodbody was always higher level than Pastor Niceman who was higher level than Acolyte Smallperson. That was part of a general notion that Level stood in for Power in all its aspects - so the local Baron was a higher level fighter than his guards, and the Mage Guild Master was a higher level Mage than the rank-and-file. We (that is gamers) long ago realised that this produced some very strange and stilted worlds. I like to think that we've moved beyond that now, and this restructuring applies as much to church hierarchies as any other grouping or organisation. But its lure is very powerful, and it's easy to slip back into that way of thinking (oops - that magical school is led by the highest level Wizard - why?). Still, of we plan a little as DMs we can avoid it.
As a little footnote, I will also remind people that this is 3e, where multiclassing is much easier to use. When we say 'Cleric' or 'Expert' or 'Aristocrat', we are really saying a person whose outlook is most coloured by having levels in that class. But it need never be the only class, nor even necessarily the highest class. I try to remember to put plenty of multiclasses into organisations - there's nothing wrong with Cleric/Experts and Cleric/Aristocrats to represent a division of effort and time, and they are all still priests.
Anyways, now I am rambling. I guess I am really saying that yes, we probably ought to be more flexible in how we structure organised religion, and in the names we call things. Unless we want them to be so, game mechanics are tools to represent game world reality. They are not the reality itself.
