Something that I have thought about quite a lot in recent years is the matter of voting in church. I have heard people say that a vote revealed God's will in a situation, but it hasn't always seemed that way to me. I guess my feeling is that a vote doesn't reveal God's will unless the vote is unanimous. I never figured that God was 78% sure that he wanted someone to be a pastor or a deacon. I always figured that God was 100% sure. So, it seems to me that votes reveal the will of the people who are voting. If they are in one accord, then the vote would almost certainly be close to unanimity, and if they are all seeking God fervently to find His will in a situation the vote would express God's will, but what I have experienced is that votes by their very nature create winners and losers. It seems strange to me that we invite the atmosphere of competition and winners/losers in the Body of Christ. I think that our fixation on the secret ballot is due to the idea that our democratic processes have served our nation well, and we live in a so-called "Christian nation", so the democratic processes should naturally work well in the church. What we forget, however, is that the democratic process is inevitably argumentative and divisive. Motions are argued and amended, candidates are examined and critiqued, and razor thin majorities tied to loyal voting blocs are the order of the day. The losers don't accept the defeat and go along with the majority; rather they regroup and work to enlarge their consituency and live to fight another day. We see this dynamic in the church when the democratic process is embraced too closely when deciding spiritual matters.
I know the arguments for the democratic process in the church. I know them because until recent years I embraced and defended them. There is the dread that one person or a small group will force their will on the congregation. There is the feeling that by not voting we deny the "right of the people to be heard". And there is the fear that there will not be sufficient accountability or transparency; therefore there will be a loss of integrity. And finally, we will not be able to remove the "bad pastor".
However, I have seen several models in churches here in the states as well as in churches in other countries which have a high degree of integrity and accountability without opening the door to division that is inevitable when there is too much voting going on. There can be a healthy respect for spiritual leadership with an inherent trust that the spiritual leader is speaking what God has truly laid on his heart. There can be true accountability for the spiritual leader through spiritual eldership which does not involve subjecting himself to the power of popular opinion.
What do you think about this? (I'll write more about the model of spiritual eldership in a future post.)
3 comments:
I agree entirely. The democratic process can easily impoverish a church by being divisive and polarizing. It promotes suspicion rather than trust in leaders, making submission to the leaders and ultimately obedience to the Lord more difficult. The democratic stance is largely a defensive stance, whereas the stance of the Christian should be arms open, ready to embrace God and others. However, in an age of seemingly ever increasing abuse of authority (spiritual and otherwise), accountability is of paramount importance. The problem though, is that democracy creates accountability to people and not to the Lord. God is entirely unconcerned with what is popular. He is consumed with what is just and good. This leaves us in a difficult predicament: how then do we foster accountability to the Lord? Transparency to every degree possible and, above all, mutual submission and love between a Pastor and his or her flock must be fostered for genuine authority and respect for authority to thrive. After all, the greatest leader--and Christian for that matter--is chiefly a servant.
I'll look forward to hearing your elaboration on a model of spiritual eldership which aims for this type of dynamic, and appreciate your courage to voice what can be an unpopular opinion among church people and Americans for whom democracy is a cherished institution (in most cases, for very good reasons).
Randy,
You're right, I think, that by adopting the democratic process we've unwittingly imbibed a competitiveness that continues to poison and fracture our communities. How many people have been estranged from church (if not from Christ) because of their experience of church? This is not to say that any and every other form of church government is better than the democratic. As a matter of fact, I don't think there exists anything like the right form. In these matters, there is no short cut. If we do not see and treat one another with humility and grace - i.e., Christianly - , then no form of church government can save us from ourselves! That being said, any form of government that doesn't make it easy for us to become divided and divisive is at least marginally better than a form that does, right?
Thanks for these excellent comments. You have both pointed out the importance of spiritual authority over legislative authority in the church body. You have also made a good counterpoint. Just as there is nothing inherently wrong about democracy, there is nothing inherently right about any other form of church governance. Both can succeed or fail according to the spiritual level of the people (both clergy and laypeople)involved. You can not "straighten up" a church with a better constitution and bylaws. Neither can you put a church on track by relinquishing total control to one senior pastor. As it was pointed out, unless we "love our neighbor as ourself" we will have strife and turmoil as each person or group seeks its own desires.
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