I’ve been thinking a bit more about the Pilgrim Church quote that I took from Gerard W Hughes’ God in All Things in this post. The thinking was helped by the comment that Martin put on the post, but also by some other thoughts I’ve been having for a while now.
Weber’s concept of the “Iron Cage of Bureaucracy” seems to be at work here. Weber put forward the idea that any organisation (and humanity in general I think) gradually puts in place a set of systems that protect the organisation at the expense of those it was created to serve. In a very simplistic way, if we look at the history of the Church and the various splits that have happened down the centuries within it, they are often to do with people being frustrated at the system that has conspired to stop them doing what they feel they should be.
I don’t think that its that the Church purposefully set up structures to put barriers between humanity and God. They have simply built up over the centuries as we have been battered by the rubbish that the world throws at us. We seek to reduce the damaging effect of the many battles and consequently have allowed temporary fortifications to become bases out of which we may make the occasional foray behind enemies lines.
This is why we need to be careful when we question the structures of the Church, because for many people they are extremely important and they see them as being part and parcel of their walk with the Lord. For a few these structures actually create the order they need to connect with God in an extremely deep and amazing way. This shows the value that structure can be for our lives.
The problem is though that, in majority of cases, these self same structures actually prevent most of us from connecting to God in the way that He wants us to. Many don’t even realise this is happening and may simply think that the shallow existence they go through is what Christianity is like, and that the privileged few are, at best, spiritual giants or, at worst, spiritual ‘nutters’.
How do we deal with dilemma? How long will it be before the new models (or vintage models) of Christianity start building up traditions that will in the end confine them?
Well there is another angle from which you can look at it, and that’s the angle of stability. St Benedict argued that committing to a certain stability creates the conditions in which we can grow in holiness. Argument has raged and continues to rage over just what that stability is, but location is the main feature in the Rule of Life. I (and others) also add, and explore, relationships, types and ways or places of prayer, and possibly denominational affiliation and vocational direction.
When we sat down to think about it, we concluded that most of the saints we’ve known have led very stable lives - either as monastics, or people who have had stable marriages. They have tended to remain anchored, either within the charism of one denomination or in one location for long periods, and have tended to have stable relationships - they haven’t left a trail of broken relationships behind them. Their vocation may have evolved, but it has not been ’scatty’. So this immediately raises the panic of does this mean one should resist change - well obviously not. St Benedict would have been appalled at stagnation in any form, or at change resistance in the church where change is needed to make the church relevant, the ministry more effective or the message communicated better. And it is clear that structures in the church can need transformaation after conflict, just as church culture can sometimes need to find transformative pathways - for example where people have long swept conflicts under the carpet, or where there has been entrenched poor communication. So stability and change exist together in tension in the church, in paradoxical relationship. But neither excludes the other.
One of the problems is that we find the roots of our stability in different ways. But perhaps by exploring together where our rootedness is, we can not only come to understand the underlying questions beneath the superficial arguments, but we can build trust and mutual commitment to find resolutions together?
Another little note to that whole discussion would be that religious orders have a long history of being somewhat ‘outside’ and yet also ‘alongside’ the more formal church structures. Orders have allowed differing streams of tradition to exist alongside each other in the same denomination quite successfully through the centuries.
Reflections welcome! I hope you find your trip to Sunbury Court fruitful. Rather you than me! I’m apparently now coming to the end of the novitiate, so a decision is due on my life profession.
Eleanor n/TSSF
Eleanor, thanks for such a comprehensive response.
Those members of religious orders that I have met (and I met a number during my time working for the Anglican Church, especially at the Lambeth Conference in 1998) have always struck me as being some of the most rooted Christians I know. These are some of the people I was talking about when I mentioned that the structures of the church help them to connect to God in a deeper way.
I think one of the problems though is that as humans we look for stability in the wrong places. The construction of the ‘institution’ becomes the stabilising force in our lives and becomes the foundation for our pilgrim journey of faith. This is why change to the church becomes so threatening to many Christians.
Taking your example of the Religious, I have found that those I know have their faith firmly rooted in a personal relationship with Jesus and seek to follow Him in everything that they do. Whilst their lives are structured by the order to which they belong, this structure is more about freeing the individual to pursue their journey of faith, than it is about restricting them to conform to denominational requirements.
Maybe this is the path we need to take across the Church. Maybe we need to accept that there are many different ’streams of tradition’ that need to exist alongside each other, rather than continuously trying to exert our individual preference as the only true way.
Interestingly, several years ago now the idea of an order within The Salvation Army was floated at Roots. Called Credo, it was the idea of Geoff Ryan, Phil Wall and a number of others, and the initial concept seemed to have a great deal of value. I’m not sure what happened to it, but it seemed to disappear, possibly because the time was not then right.
Thanks for the comment about Sunbury. I pray that you will be able to find a way to continue your walk within The Salvation Army as I believe you have a valuable ministry within its ranks.
God bless,
Graeme