Hierarchy, Bureaucracy, the Church, & You, Pt. 2
Kegahn Hopwood. Recent guest and temporary "king of the world".
Humankind has an unfortunate tendency to take the means to an end and make them the end in and of themselves. For example, the Temple rituals and liturgies of the Old Testament were designed as a means by which the worshipper could worship God. However, as the Temple establishment became bigger, richer, and politicized, the Temple system became an end rather than the means.
Modern day examples abound: we hear all about needing to be compassionate and understanding with the “less fortunate” or with our enemies. But what is the purpose? Diplomacy is, technically, the means by which to advance national goals. Now, instead of advancing national goals, the purpose is to just endlessly engage in diplomacy, regardless of whether or not national goals are met. The same is true of charity and welfare. What’s the purpose? I think initially, it was designed as a temporary measure to help people get back on their feet. Charity, welfare, and the “War on Poverty” have yet to achieve their goals. Why? They stopped being about the goal of helping people become self-sufficient and became about the program. Our new president is all about “fairness” as a means to help the disadvantaged. However, fairness is the end in and of itself. Fairness is a subjective term. And ultimately, even if fairness, as defined by our new administration is achieved (the legal punishment of people who are “rich”, which is also a constantly morphing definition), it doesn’t help those it purports to help. It simply makes the disadvantaged feel better. It doesn’t advance their lives one iota. On a “church-y” front, I’ve often seen devotional times and praise music (for example) cease to be about creating a means to worship God to becoming a means to a different end: control (“Have you had your Quiet Time today?”) and to feel good (praise music). Again and again, the means have become the end.
For each of these things, a bureaucracy was created as the means by which the end goal (worship, self-sufficiency, no poor) was to be attained. Instead, the bureaucracy became the end goal. Bureaucrats do not want to lose their position or jobs. So, instead of empowering people to worship or to cease being poor, layers of bureaucracy were added to keep people from the end goal so that they continued to need the bureaucracy.
Jesus was not popular with the Temple bureaucracy. He was undoing the layers of manufactured dependency the bureaucracy had created. Today, congregants and parishioners frequently get wounded for the same reason: they question the bureaucracy that controls them and the bureaucracy fights back. Now whether that bureaucracy is some committee, the “teaching team”, or simply the senior pastor is irrelevant. How many pastors, or elder/deacon boards, or committees cease to the means by which the church is served and instead become the end goal that is to be served?
To sum up my meandering thoughts, we are constantly in a battle to keep the means from becoming the ends. Hierarchy in the church is not the issue. Bureaucracy that makes itself the goal is the issue.
That is my 38 cents.
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