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"It’s frightening to be in a place you’re not familiar with and be completely in the dark. Case in point—have you ever planned to go camping but got to the site in the dark? It’s hard to get your bearings, you’re setting up a tent in the dark, and because you’re in the wilderness, it’s just eerily quiet and black. You go to bed with one eye open and hope for the best."
"The next day, you wake up tired and unzip your tent, and you’re amazed at the beauty around you: water, mountains, tree-lined trails, and cute little animals abound. There’s nothing to be afraid of—you soon forget last night’s anxieties, and you move about your day. What were you so worried about, anyway?"
"The only difference between these two scenarios is light—it’s the same place, and you’re with the same people with the same gear. This is what people experience when decisions are made for them. When you are in the dark, intentionally or not...you may as well be setting up camp in blackness...No recourse, no trial period. It’s a done deal. That’s a tough pill to swallow because we’re not children or dependents; we’re adults...."
--Bradberry, Travis; Jean Greaves (2009-06-13). Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (pp. 209-210). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
The problem with entrenched capitalist, dualist, oligarchical and hierarchical cultures like ours (top-down government/church, business profit/efficiency approach) is that when some are in static "positions" of power over others, people's opinions are not viewed equally. What often ends up happening is going through the motions of pretentious patronizing and alienating.
Acting like you want feedback and involvement after deciding what you will do, or when only a few will actually decide, is behaving like benevolent dictators and benefactors--not equals. Pretending to be superior while involving the inferior is insulting and further divides a community. "Feedback" and "involvement" become methods to draw out scapegoats and identify targets.
The reason this is so, I think, is because oligarchies and hierarchies are about maintaining and increasing power over others, and because it is believed chaos would result otherwise. This is not true. What happens is that symptoms are temporarily and hastily treated by "officials" and people are alienated. Division within a community is ever increasing because "growth" in this system is increasing in and/or desiring more power over others. This will always be the case when there are inherent inequalities of "position" in a group's system. We should expect this in the world, but not in the church.
Hierarchies/ Oligarchies divide people because they are a product of man, not God. Just look at the history of nations and the church. If the worldview was that there was no power over others to covet, then real solutions could be achieved (Matt. 28:18). This goes against the grain in our culture, however, the church is to be counter-cultural.
This is why the worldview of dualism is so harmful. There are no real alternatives to the world. The church behaves as a religious version of the state attempting to operate through the state's political parties and top down methods rather than be it's own community of equals governed by Christ and His love carried out by consensus. Changing our worldview would attract people who want to know God and live godly lives.
"The next day, you wake up tired and unzip your tent, and you’re amazed at the beauty around you: water, mountains, tree-lined trails, and cute little animals abound. There’s nothing to be afraid of—you soon forget last night’s anxieties, and you move about your day. What were you so worried about, anyway?"
"The only difference between these two scenarios is light—it’s the same place, and you’re with the same people with the same gear. This is what people experience when decisions are made for them. When you are in the dark, intentionally or not...you may as well be setting up camp in blackness...No recourse, no trial period. It’s a done deal. That’s a tough pill to swallow because we’re not children or dependents; we’re adults...."
--Bradberry, Travis; Jean Greaves (2009-06-13). Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (pp. 209-210). Perseus Books Group. Kindle Edition.
The problem with entrenched capitalist, dualist, oligarchical and hierarchical cultures like ours (top-down government/church, business profit/efficiency approach) is that when some are in static "positions" of power over others, people's opinions are not viewed equally. What often ends up happening is going through the motions of pretentious patronizing and alienating.
Acting like you want feedback and involvement after deciding what you will do, or when only a few will actually decide, is behaving like benevolent dictators and benefactors--not equals. Pretending to be superior while involving the inferior is insulting and further divides a community. "Feedback" and "involvement" become methods to draw out scapegoats and identify targets.
The reason this is so, I think, is because oligarchies and hierarchies are about maintaining and increasing power over others, and because it is believed chaos would result otherwise. This is not true. What happens is that symptoms are temporarily and hastily treated by "officials" and people are alienated. Division within a community is ever increasing because "growth" in this system is increasing in and/or desiring more power over others. This will always be the case when there are inherent inequalities of "position" in a group's system. We should expect this in the world, but not in the church.
Hierarchies/ Oligarchies divide people because they are a product of man, not God. Just look at the history of nations and the church. If the worldview was that there was no power over others to covet, then real solutions could be achieved (Matt. 28:18). This goes against the grain in our culture, however, the church is to be counter-cultural.
This is why the worldview of dualism is so harmful. There are no real alternatives to the world. The church behaves as a religious version of the state attempting to operate through the state's political parties and top down methods rather than be it's own community of equals governed by Christ and His love carried out by consensus. Changing our worldview would attract people who want to know God and live godly lives.
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