Hierarchy and Holiness
In 1996 when Commissioner (later General) John Larsson was about to conclude his term as Territorial Commander in New Zealand, he kindly invited me to arrange the annual Executive Officers’ Councils as a training seminar. With his approval I engaged Gerard La Rooy, a Heinz-Watties executive and management guru, to lead sessions on “Flatter Structures” in management. By citing awful examples from the realm of business and expressing astonishment at the laughter as the officers recognised the same scenarios as found in the Salvation Army, he led them to consider how the work might be enhanced by flattening out some operations of the hierarchy. Some “participative decision-making” might have been involved. They got as far as drawing up suggestions for change – all pretty minor but likely to improve efficiency – and nominated a working party to continue developing the theme in the coming weeks. Then it all went quiet. After some weeks I asked the Chief Secretary, Hillmon Buckingham, “What happened?” “Ah,” he replied, “For the week after the Councils I had a succession of senior officers come to my office saying, ‘We might have got a bit carried away with this flatter structures business… I think we should be a bit careful…’” And so we were. Even the slightest tinkering with the structure of hierarchies can produce severe symptoms of insecurity.
And the truth is that no structure can ensure that we love our neighbour – whether our senior in the command structure or our subordinate – as ourselves. That leaves our attitudes. The 2002 text of Servants Together made one other suggestion:
· Teach leaders to be servants by modelling it.[24]
That was also deleted from the 2008 edition. I
guess it was too much like Jesus, or Paul… in a word, subversive. Too often,
the mantra “Servant Leadership” is an oxymoron. Servant is as servant does. To
model servanthood is the only suggestion most of us can aspire to implement,
but it is also the most important. And where opportunity affords, to name and
challenge its antithesis, its shadow, which is the abuse of power.
Because power is at the heart of the
matter. Money, sex and power are said to be the three pitfalls for clergy, but
the first two are usually only means to, or expression of, the third. Hans Rudi
Weber wrote that “Jesus transforms the love of power into the power of love.”[25] Sometimes
we get it the wrong way round. Power, like steroids taken by an athlete,
may enhance performance but exact a long-term cost.
Over the years the doctrine of the Trinity has been presented in such a way as to support a hierarchical conception of both God and the Church. Here is a medieval Swedish Gothic representation of the Trinity. You can see who is in charge.
But there is another tradition, of what is termed the perichoretic trinity. Here is an ancient icon. Who is in charge here?
So, is there a way in which Hierarchy may be Holy? If so, the Hierarchy may not look like we expect. Paradox is involved. Colonel Janet Munn, being interviewed last month, spoke of the paradox in Jesus’ combination of humility and boldness (by contrast with the frequently found human combination of arrogance and cowardice). She noted that “Servanthood requires humility; leadership demands boldness.”[26] Jesus in fact deconstructed leadership along these lines: “I do not call you servants any longer, because a servant does not know what his master is doing. Instead, I call you friends...”[27] Mind-blowing it may be, but he is inviting us to gather round that table. The implications for both hierarchy and holiness are worth considering.
_______________________
[25] Hans-Ruedi Weber, Power, Focus for a Biblical Theology (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1989) 167.
5 comments:
And so we see again change is seen as useful but does not happen, as much about patch protection than anything else.
I saw this on a Salvation Army history website:
'From the very beginning the Salvation Army was in favour of a world made up of bosses and bossed. Its own organisational setup reflected this love of authority, with a military structure complete with uniforms and an army band. Control of the Army passed from Booth to his oldest son and stayed there until high-ranking officers pulled a coup. The organisation’s basic dictatorship stayed untouched, with little power at the grassroots and almost total control at the top.'
This hasn't changed, has it? And I don't believe it's going to move in the right direction anytime soon. TSA leadership has too much to lose.
I don’t know if the following makes any sense, but they are my thoughts on this issue:
Having trawled through many websites seeking enlightenment, what I have learned about TSA is disturbing indeed. In the comments on Part 1 of this series there is a telling reference to Jeremiah chapter 2 which I believe bears scrutiny to SA activities in the world of business.
TSA is such a huge organisation, though, that I can't see that anything but a hierarchical structure is practical - the whole setup is hugely complex.
But hierarchy for the local church does not work, and as I see it, in its place for SA corps we have the 'officer' tier, a leader who works largely (as far as the IHQ hierarchy will let him) with the local people to run the corps according to scriptural teaching and local needs. This is more like the NT teaching of the early church, with several people 'doing the business' in various strands of service, ie. the pastoral care committee, finance locals and musical leaders etc.
But we have to ask ourselves what is the purpose of the members of the IHQ hierarchy. Are they called to serve the SA church, or SA social work? I know it’s both, but the criteria for leadership of each wing of TSA is diametrically different. Maybe that is why we aren’t really confident in the spiritual leadership at this time, especially in the wake of the situation with Zimbabwe (the hospital issue). Are they ‘tainted’ with the compromises TSA has to make in order to maintain their business links? (There are many of these compromises on different websites). In such cases, the lines for both moral and spiritual judgments could have become blurred.
I'm not sure if we aren't trying to marry two opposites in TSA - the social wing and the spiritual corps, especially as the ‘social’ wing is so involved in high-powered business deals that really have no place within a spiritual environment. The conditions for these deals are assurances that we do not proselytize, and we are, these days, told to forsake our SA identity in order to win the contracts etc.
Once we remove God from our work, that’s when we lose the vision – what we gain materially is at the expense of further spiritual dilution, and this has no place in a ‘God-raised, Spirit-filled’ Army.
Thought provoking, Harold, as usual. Can holiness redeem a hierarchical structure? The personal holiness of a leader can infiltrate a system to a certain extent, especially over a long period of time. Yet a hierarchical structure, by its very nature, allows for power to be contained in the hands of a few without the needed checks and balances. If we were to start from scratch and design a structure that would reflect the holiness of God in the interconnection of the Trinity, and the 'all things in common, all of one accord" people, would it look like the structure of TSA? Don't think so.
Another very good blog entry from Harold Hill. Can holiness redeem a hierarchical structure? Good question. I believe the answer is no because the hierarchy has many tiers and at every level of leadership there has to be that rare combination of smarts and integrity. In an organization it is unrealistic to expect to find this throughout the organization at all the levels of leadership and even if it started that way (which I doubt is possible), 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely'. It is an inappropriate structure for a Christian movement - sacrificing many Christian values in the name of efficiency.
But you know stopping for a minute to compare how the Army's leadership acts compared to large corporations in the business secular world, I see more humility in the latter often than in the Army's leadership. Corporations can blame the CEO if things go awry - who does the Army blame? God? Once you claim your decision making to be directed by God then you can't admit you have made mistakes. Who goofed - you and your colleagues at the top or God?
Add the God factor to the vulnerabilities of a hierarchical system and it becomes an impossible combination to work with and deal with. It's something like the divine right of Kings.
Canadian territory
Well said.
Post a Comment