The next three items in my “blog-about-this” pile all have to do with the same thing: the abuse of power. I only just noticed that this morning — what are the odds?
The first item on the stack is Kingdoms in Conflict by Chuck Colson. (Yes, I’m only now getting around to reading it!) The other two are Days of Fire and Glory by Julia Duin, and a book review in my undergrad alumni magazine entitled The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr.
On the surface the three subject matters couldn’t be more different. Colson’s book was written in the aftermath of Watergate and examines the tensions between spiritual life and political life. Julia Duin’s book examines the rise and fall of an international ministry brought down by sexual and financial scandals. (Nothing new there? Consider that the movement was led by an Episcopal priest, was characterized by Charismatic worship and communal living, was a unique bridge between right and left, conservative and liberal, and the author was a member of the movement and so writes “from the inside”.) And the book review, which is a bit thin on the book’s content, nonetheless implies that ‘virtue’ in the Clinton vs. Starr case was lacking on both sides.
On the surface, different… but underneath, all three tell of the abuse of power.
These writings are helpful. They help pinpoint what it is that goes wrong. The abuse of power is not like greed (the abuse of money) in that… well, money is something we’re all familiar with. We know how to make it, save it, spend it, hoard it, waste it, share it, give it. But power is a bit tougher to pin down. Where does it come from? How does one increase it, use it, waste it, share it? On the other hand we know what it is to suffer when someone else is abusing power. Sadly we know that all too well.
Maybe the best I can do is to allow the authors to speak for themselves.
In the case of Julia Duin’s charismatic community, power was what brought it together in the first place: the power of the Holy Spirit.
“One of the men brought to a meeting some newspaper clippings about ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’… They had just began to pray when [he] felt a sensation he had never felt before. It was emotional and powerful. He felt bathed and loved and cleansed…”
Shortly after that the pastor leading the group also received Holy Spirit baptism. Healings began to happen as people came forward to receive communion. Inspired by these miracles, people began to share their belongings, their homes, their lives… and a radical new form of Christian community life was born. A community in which people owned only what was needed, shared most of what they had, and worked together to transform a violent neighborhood and a failing public school into a place where people wanted to live and raise children.
So what went wrong? A psychologist might say that a number of people leading the group had not dealt with past hurts in their family backgrounds. Or that things began to go wrong when what was once given freely to the church community began to be expected and then required — as grace morphed into law. A visitor to the church a few years later noted that “people seemed overly preoccupied with submission, authority, and leadership… But what disturbed him was the lack of a servant mindset…” At the same time there started to be subtle shifts away from Scriptural teaching that anyone trained in Scripture would immediately find alarming.
But I think the author finds a deeper answer than all that:
“…[the churches] had started out as charismatic. Now their pastors were all concerned about control. I could hardly blame some of them, because what got loosed during a spiritual outpouring was often way too powerful. Any church that became in the least bit involved in the charismatic renewal soon found itself deep in battle against an entrenched principality that hates worship, priests, and marriages, and that delights in disobedience, deceit, and perverse sexuality.”
“It was community that made… powerful charismatic fellowships… what they were; it was community that allowed the Holy Spirit to move so quickly; it was community that birthed the music and the worship, that encouraged the spiritual gifts, that created an undefinable quality of love that drew thousands… People gave generously because they had been loved generously by God…”
Days of Fire and Glory ends on a cautiously upbeat note. The author acknowledges the failures in the leadership, but notes that the most effective leaders were not those who kept strict rules or led with heavy-handed authority but rather those who stayed in the background, coaching and encouraging, stepping forward only when direction or instruction were needed. Abuses of power can be avoided… and that’s good news.
Chuck Colson, in his book Kingdoms in Conflict, looks at the difference between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of humanity. He writes:
“I had always read the term kingdom metaphorically. […] But the Kingdom of God is a rule, not a realm. It is a declaration of God’s absolute sovereignty… That this Kingdom is not of this world, as Jesus later explained, and that it is spiritual rather than temporal makes it no less authoritative […] Jesus was not working magic to gather crowds; nor was He showing His power to gain credibility. He was demonstrating the reality of His rule […] [People] missed Christ’s message because they, like many today, were conditioned to look for salvation in political solutions.”
Colson points out that talk of God’s Kingdom makes non-Christians nervous because they see it as an excuse Christians use to “cram absolute orders from their God down others’ throats.” Although Colson does not say so directly, this is another example of abuse of power. He goes on to say:
“When Christ commanded His followers to “seek first the kingdom of God,” He was exhorting them to seek to be ruled by God and gratefully acknowledge His power and authority over them. That means the Christian’s goal is not to strive to rule, but to be ruled.”
(If anyone reading these words has ever been victimized by an overly zealous religious person trying to tell you how you should live your life, or if you ever overhear someone doing the same, please refer them to the above quote.) He underlines this by going on to say:
“When Jesus announced the Kingdom, He did indeed set forth radical standards by which its citizens are to live. […] Christ was not suggesting, however, that the obedient Christian would be able to usher in the Kingdom of God on earth. Only Christ Himself would do that when He returns.”
On the other hand, Colson also warns of the State over-reaching its power when it discourages religion:
“Religions had been assaulted before but always in the name of other religions. With the French Revolution, Tocqueville noted, “Passionate and persistent efforts were made to wean men away from the faith of their fathers… Irreligion became an all-prevailing passion, fierce, intolerant, and predatory.” The French Revolution was a conscious effort to replace the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of man. But the state must have some moral justification for its authority. Thus France’s irreligion was soon replaced by a new faith — man’s worship of man.”
He continues:
“What might be considered the modern phase in church-state history has emerged in our century. […] The rise of totalitarian regimes has brought back the kind of persecution the church experienced in early Rome; like Herod, modern dictators tolerate no other kings. [… …] One of the most startling commentaries on this century is the fact that millions more have died at the hands of their own governments than in wars with other nations — all to preserve someone’s power.”
When human beings are seen as the only permissible objects of worship, ever-increasing abuse of power is inevitable.
Just a collection of thoughts on a problem that seems to be on the increase. It doesn’t begin to touch on the abuses of power perpetrated daily in business and personal relationships — another post for another time, perhaps. For now, enough to know there is an alternative. Peace out.
This could have been a series, Peg! Where to start?
For now, I’ll just point you to a comment from a few days ago over at iMonk about the abuse of power among Christians:
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/a-simpler-emerging-way#respond
Look for a comment by Therese on August 20, 3:46 PM, and some of the follow-up comments. She was in an “intentional Christian community” that didn’t turn out so good.
Power really is a different animal than Mammon. They are often related or co-dependent, but power is sometimes all by itself.
If you start “believing in” any ..ism or …ology or evangelistic leader/priest/pastor or “community” to the point that it becomes more important than Jesus, you’re worshipping the wrong god. In that case, you have lost your way. I like simple. My idea is to
know Jesus,
love Jesus,
and follow Jesus.
Anything that helps me do this is the right thing. Anything that does not help me do these things is the wrong thing. Reading Thomas a Kempis and Brother Lawrence are helpful in finding the right direction, but they are only means to the end,
to know Jesus, love Jesus, and follow Jesus.
Ted — I was thinking the same thing (“series”) as I was writing and decided there just wasn’t time. “Better to get it all here in sketch form and flesh it out later if possible.”
Meanwhile… iMonk and I are tracking *again*?!? His article is fantastic and I’m glad to have a link to it. To kind of sum up a good portion of what he said, “small is the new big”. Totally.
The story Therese tells is, unfortunately, all too common. I have been thinking the past couple days about what it might take to start a recovery ministry for people who have been abused by church and/or paraministries. I think there’s a real need.
And I think you’re right, *power* is a horse of a different color. Something I never really gave much thought to and probably should spend more time with.
Dave — Amen brother! Keep preaching and I’ll turn the pages! I like your quote: “know Jesus, love Jesus, and follow Jesus” — sums it up very nicely. Like you I prefer to keep it simple… my jumbled brain can’t handle much else. 😉
Aw, shucks. I didn’t invent that; I stole it from St. Richard of Chichester, his prayer.
When I say that all of these “new ministries” and “New Monasticism” efforts eventually lead to Jonestown, it occurs to me that you may not know/remember the reference. Here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
When you threaten to “start a recovery ministry for people who have been abused by church and/or paraministries” you may have found a true need and purpose. A quick thought about it says “Get rid of as many isms and ologies as you can and talk about Jesus.” Most of the people who say they are done with organized religion have been abused by people and their application of the unbending rules. These same people are hurting from separation from God.
By the way, as soon as the “Rule” or “Law” demands full obedience to that group, it’s on the wrong track. The church group as pipeline should promote full obedience to God, not to itself or it’s earthly empire or minions.
Phew! I do run on.
Dave — I must be older than you think. 😉 Yes I remember the tragedy of Jonestown, and it’s an excellent (and horrific) example of the abuse of power in religion.
Somehow back in the mists of time — the early middle ages perhaps — the Monastic movement was an amazingly positive force in the church and especially in the British Isles. Not that there weren’t abuses of authority — I’m sure there were — but on the whole the men and women who took part in it seemed to be very healthy and well-adjusted. They adhered to a basic ‘rule of life’ which was usually fairly strict but would vary from monastery to monastery and abbey to abbey. (ie., one might have vows of poverty where others would have vows of evangelism or vows of service… etc…)
I think today’s “new monasticism” (or “intentional communities”) have some difficult hurdles to get over from the outset, including: (1) they tend to be reactions *against* society’s excesses rather than leading towards a positive vision; (2) there tends to be a lack of knowledge of historical monasticism and what made it work; and (3) we live in a society that has little understanding of what the words “life-long commitment” mean.
Having said that, some of them do seem to be working out, and I think the Church is richer for them.
And also having said all that, I think I will do some looking around into what kinds of ministries are already out there for people abused by religion and churches. If I find anything worthwhile I’ll post it.