An Additional Thought on Anarchy

As I was further thinking about your post Mike, you brought up a point about how people in the church can be, making life very difficult for their pastors. But I wonder if people act or react in terms of power in the church, not too generalize too much here, because leadership has acted in "power" to shape and control the ministry of the church. Could it not be people, in order to protect themselves or their interests, react in power as well -- what often happens, people have more power than their pastor or leaders.

I see this happening over and over again in many places. But what if we as pastors begin to minister according to a different paradigm - that refuses to resort to power, but seeks out not merely the interests of others (Php. 2), but that which the Spirit of God desires to do in each life. It may take some time, involve some pain, require some turning of the other cheek -- but in the end, what kind of Christians do we desire for them to become -- doing God's work in the midst of power issues, or in the dunamis of the Spirit?

I am attaching a somewhat lengthy quotation from Brian McLaren from his book, The Secret Message of Jesus, about the way of the kingdom in contrast to the way of the world.

"The story is familiar: the religious and political-military powers collaborate and negotiate and reach an elegant final solution. Jesus will be crucified as a rebel. He will be nailed to a Roman cross--the visible symbol of the power of the Roman principality and power, the instrument of torture and execution that is the end of all who stand up against Rome.

They crush him and his movement. And it appears that Jesus has failed.

This is the scandal of the message of Jesus. The kingdom of God does fail. It is weak. It is crushed. When its message of love, peace, justice, and truth meets the principalities and powers of the government and religion armed with spears and swords and crosses, they unleash their hate, force, manipulation, and propaganda. Like those defenseless students standing before the tanks and machine guns in Tienanmen Square, the resistance movement known as the kingdom of God is crushed.

But what is the alternative? We really must consider the question. Could the kingdom come with bigger weapons, sharper swords, more clever political organizing? Could the kingdom of God be a matter of what is often called redemptive violence? Or would that methodology corrupt the kingdom of God so it would stop being 'of God' at all and instead become just another earthly (and perhaps in some sense demonic) principality or power? Perhaps the kingdom could come with flawless, relentless, irresistible logic--a juggernaut of steamroller counterargument to flatten every objection. Or would that mental conquest be as dominating as military conquest, reducing the kingdom of God to a kingdom of coercive stridency?

What if the only way for the kingdom of God to come in its true form -- as a kingdom 'not of this world' -- is through weakness and vulnerability, sacrifice and love? What if it can conquer only by being conquered? What if being conquered is absolutely necessary to expose the brutal violence and dark oppression of these principalities and powers, these human ideologies and counterkingdoms -- so they, having been exposed, can be seen for what they are and freely rejected, making room for the new and better kingdom? What if the kingdom of God must in these ways fail in order to succeed?" (McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, 68-70)

Question: What if we had a similar attitude in enacting the way we lead in the church? -- Not leading in power, but leading in the way of the Spirit?

Roland