Church democracy

In a previous post, I referred to two Christian denominations that seem to have a lot in common with one another but which are governed according to two different models--the Catholic Church, which uses a top-down model, and the Episcopal church, which is more democratic in structure. Although I belong to neither church, I made no secret of my sympathies for a more democratic approach, because, first, I believe that theology can best flower to its full potential when it is liberated from authoritarian control, and secondly I believe that church decision-making rightly belongs to the people and not to a self-appointed hierarchy. Part of this viewpoint stems from my understanding of religion as something other than an unchallengeable dogma handed down to humanity on a from above, but rather as a continual human process of grappling with the ultimate meaning of our lives in the framework of an deeper cosmic framework. The key word in that conception, I think, is process. Process means that theology is always in flux, it is always about dialogue, discovery, change, communication, struggle, and a recognition that any and all of us can be prophets. Hierarchical control never serves those ends.

Democracy has its problems, to be sure; but if you see theology as an ongoing process, then real theological growth and reform can only happen if members of a religious community are free to engage in an open dialogue with themselves and with God. The authoritarian model of a magisterial thought police and the use of a denominational soviet-style politboro to select a leadership lends itself to both theological rigidity and to abuses against those who don't toe the party line. ( Just ask Matthew Fox and Hans Kung about that.)

That being said, democracy is clearly no guarantee of tolerance and theological openness in a religious community. There can be reactionary forces within a denomination or church who will use the procedural methods of that very democratic process to resist progressive change; these same forces will operate to persecute or hound progressive theologians and clergy, and promote exclusionary or oppressive doctrines towards women , sexual minorities or others. Sometimes, the tyranny of the majority prevails. But I would take the possibility of failure in a democratic process over the tyranny of a hierarchy any day of the week.

One clear example of this problem can be found in the very Episcopal Church that was the subject of my earlier posting. Despite its generally progressive reputation, it certainly has its own powerful and organized reactionary elements, as do many other Protestant denominations. It has a process for selecting bishops which, though fairly democratic, also has its checks and balances and procedural rules that can end up biting progressives in the ass. This came out recently when organized opposition successfully opposed the nomination of Kevin Thew Forrester for the position of bishop of the diocese of Northern Michigan--because he was apparently deemed too heretical for certain tastes. (A San Francisco Episcopal rector gives a pretty good analysis of this situation here and here.)

In this particular case, the usual suspects from the Episcopal Right were very much involved in opposing Kevin Forrester. Greg Griffith, for example, of the Stand Firm web site, launched a predictable broadside against him. (Griffith, I might recall, once quoted extensively from one of my own blog postings in order to attack progressives in the Episcopal Church, even though I am not an Episcopal myself. Griffith also once engaged in a sexist exercise of displaying his wife as a trophy and comparing her looks to that of a more progressive female Episcopal priest--thus showing how low these people will sometimes sink to pursue their agenda.)

Obviously, this problem exists not just within Episcopalian politics. The Presbyterian Church, to cite another example, has also had its own thought police who have busily rooted out heretics. Robert Jensen, who was not even a member of the clergy, faced an inquisition from members of his Presbyterian church for having unorthodox views and having the temerity to publicly express them.

You don't always get what you want as an end result in a democratic process. Christianity has been a two thousand year long journey among humans, and the broader religious project itself goes back to the very emergence of modern humans tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the point is that religion is not about the end result, but the journey. Religions have had a history of getting things wrong--it just seems to come with the territory. The Bible is a pretty good reflection of sometimes flawed morality that lies side by side with the most sublime beauty. Maybe there is value in the communal self-examination that takes place in the debates, even if they sometimes end up very badly at times. There has been a struggle within religious history for greater inclusiveness versus greater exclusion, and a struggle between those who seek to dethrone those who wield power versus those who insist on maintaining their control. Sometimes religion takes a few steps forward and then a few steps back. Jesus sought to subvert the religious authoritarianism of his own time, and yet the core message of inclusiveness that Jesus preached was largely subverted in the centuries after his death as new hierarchies and new acts of gate keeping emerged to define who was "in" and who was "out". Instead of "scribes and pharisees", we have seen magisteria, consistories and inquisitions. Meet the new boss--same as the old boss. So is the Jesus project some sort of failure? I don't think so. Many people remained inspired by his core message over the centuries, despite all that has gone perverse. We see in the modern world many Christians who have taken the principles of inclusiveness to their natural next steps, in ways once not thought possible--and thus we see female and gay clergy, for example, in many denominations.

The Jesus project thus goes on, but I think real change must come from below, from the grass roots of religious communities. Humanity is still trying to grope its way towards the Divine. It has taken us millenia to get this far. We still have a long way to go.