My Adventures with God Ch.46: Rules, Authority & Safety Switches

Ch 46 – Rules, Authority & Safety Switches

I still remember learning machine design back in engineering school. You always had to build in safety devices and I remember the professor warning us: “You can make a thing foolproof – but you can't protect the persistent fool!

Classic case is the operator of an industrial press who finds it slows him up having to pull down the safety fence before the press will drop. So he jams the safety-switch with a bit of wood. Yes it is faster – until the inevitable day when he forgets to pull his hand out from under the press before he puts his foot down on the 'start' button!

I believe this applies to church organisations as well.

And if you tell me you want religion without some sort of organisation all I can say is: “Get real! In this world communally shared religious belief handed down from one generation to the next simply does not happen without some sort of organisation. Sociology 1.01 !”

Given that “organised religion” just is; what can we say about it?

Like everything else in this world it will always tend to go wrong! Doubly so because of: a) the Second Law of Thermodynamics” b) human fallibility & sin.

If you say “Oh no! REAL Christianity won't go like that” I say: “Try reading your Bible!”

Old testament: just a very few highlights: Exodus 32: the episode of the golden calf. 1 Samuel 2:12 ff – the priests become so wicked that God wipes out his sanctuary at Shiloh where all Israel had been worshipping. Amos 7:10ff Organised religion is so corrupt that God has to recruit a total outsider to carry his message – and then the priest tries to stop him. If you say that was the apostate Northern Kingdom – well God was still trying to save them and anyway the Southern kingdom fared no better - Read Jeremiah. Just one incident here – Jeremiah 20. When Jeremiah is giving a message from God it is the priest in charge of God's temple who punishes him. Try Ezekiel: Ezekiel 8 says of the religious leaders that they were worshipping idols instead of God. Ezekiel 13 tells of the “official” church prophets – that they were prophesying lies in God's name.

Gospels: Read John's Gospel! What about the religious leaders in Jesus' time? Were they expecting God to send his Messiah? Yes they were. Did they acknowledge that Jesus claimed to be someone special sent by God? Yes they did. Did they acknowledge that God was working spectacular miracles through Jesus? Yes they did. Did they finally work out that Jesus was claiming to be “Son of God” in a unique way? Yes they did. How did they react? They murdered him.

Rest of New Testament – this is the “early church” people often look longingly back to as some idyllic golden age: it wasn't! Good people there certainly were; but mistaken, false and some just plain bad people also figured in the early church.

Again just a few of the examples you will find in the New testament:

Acts 15: v1ff there were disputes over doctrine. V36ff Even the greats, Paul and Barnabus could disagree so violently that they split their ministry team. But these are both just examples of “good” people being fallible humans. My point here is that the Christian church did not mystically become all perfect.

Then there were the evil ones. Paul described the self-styles Apostles who managed to charm the church in Corinth this way. ((2 Cor.11:13ff) “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen masquerading as apostles of Christ, And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising then if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness”

Later Paul warned the Ephesian elders: (Acts 2028ff) “Even from among your own number men will arise and distort the truth to draw away disciples after themselves.”

John had trouble with a church leader (3John9ff) “I wrote to the church but Diotrephes, who loves to be first will have nothing to do with us. … gossiping maliciously about us … he refuses to welcome the brothers. He also stops those who want to do so and puts them out of the church.” He also delivered a message from God warning the church in Thyratira: (Rev. 2:20ff) “You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols.”

Jude wrote (v.4ff) “For certain men … have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. …. these men are blemishes on your love feasts … shepherds who feed only themselves … they follow their own evil desires, they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage”

Whatever church or denomination you belong to, given time it will be assailed by sinful and or corrupt leaders and practices. Again given time it will have men and women sent by God to try to lead it back to him. Over time every denomination and church tradition will find the historical mark of these reformers in rules, modifications to the organisational structure and so forth aimed at inhibiting this process of corruption.

My own denomination (of choice I should add) the Anglican church has a history as black as any. It also has had godly men and women down the centuries. Sometimes they were persecuted, sometimes they were mocked or ignored, but sometimes they led movements of revival and reform. One of their legacies is a tradition of church governance which recognised at least some aspects of human weakness.

Long before it became a slogan these people saw that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” so they acted to spread power around and not let it be concentrated absolutely in one person or group.

So in the time I am writing about, the constitution and rules of my section of the Anglican church gave authority over different areas to different people and groups.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was called “first among equals” and had honour given him, but he had no power at all over other diocesan bishops and archbishops around the world.

In Australia there was an archbishop chosen every few years to also be “Primate of Australia” but he had very strictly limited power over his fellow bishops. There was a synod (parliament, or legislating council) with representatives from all over Australia, which could make certain rules, but only in very limited areas.

In each diocese there was a bishop or archbishop who had certain limited powers – for instance no one could preach in church in their diocese unless the bishop licensed them.

There was a diocesan synod which could make rules in a number of areas, but not for instance about doctrine.

In each parish there was a priest in charge who was responsible for the spiritual well-being of the congregation, and so had certain rights as well as responsibilities – for instance the right to preach, and to dismiss people from ministry in the parish (appointing generally required clearance from other bodies like vestry and the bishop as well as the priest)

There were Church Wardens who controlled the buildings and property.

There was a Parish Committee, whose first responsibility was to cooperate with the minister in promoting the work of the church. They also controlled the money.

On some issues the congregation as a whole had to vote.

One example of this checks-and-balances approach was the question of admitting children to Communion before “Confirmation” (people in other traditions may laugh at this but please bear with the illustration) Doctrine Commission gave it the all clear. The Australian General synod OK'd it. It passed. Melbourne Synod adopted it. The Archbishop endorsed it. But before any individual parish could adopt the practice, the minister of the parish had to approve, the Parish Committee had to approve, and the whole congregation had to vote in favour of it.

OK power was spread around as a safety measure.

This brings me back to safety devices on machines. We put them there because we know things go wrong, and also humans make mistakes. In any church tradition there will develop “safety devices” aimed at inhibiting bad things that have happened in the past from recurring.

Sometimes old rules need to be updated or even done away with BUT to simply dis-regard the rules without working out why they were put there and what might happen without them is JUST like the press operator jamming the safety switch – one day someone is going to lose their fingers!

In St. Luke's parish Vermont this was a problem I identified early.

Internally within the parish, as I said last post, control was being exercised by people who were not the legitimate person or body to exercise that control. In particular a lady named Shirley seemed to control most things in the parish, yet was not the minister or on any elected body.

In external relations the parish was almost proud of the fact that it thumbed its nose at the proper authority of the Archbishop, regional bishop, and diocese generally (except when the parish wanted some favour from them!). One consequence was that appointments to lay ministry in the parish which should have been submitted to the bishop had not been – not because he was likely to refuse to license them but just out of a sense of self importance and self sufficiency. This may seem trifling, but trifling actions can become habits that give rise to serious things.

So I started to quietly correct this – because I knew about safety switches!