Try these questions.
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: independence or respect for elders?
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: obedience or self-reliance?
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: to be considerate or to be well-behaved?
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a child to have: curiosity or good manners?
Or maybe we could replace them with ‘church member’?
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a church member to have: independence or respect for elders?
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a church member to have: obedience or self-reliance?
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a church member to have: to be considerate or to be well-behaved?
- Please tell me which one you think is more important for a church member to have: curiosity or good manners?
I appreciate that we might want to answer ‘both’ but answering it with ‘more important’ is very challenging. I came across these questions in an article at:
I have deliberately not given the title of the article as we would be tempted to read it either because we want the person to be exposed or tempted not to read it if we react to such a title. The article is much deeper than just the geography or the political candidate that is the subject.
I have to say that if I had come across the questions without the article I might have struggled with my answers, whereas having read the article I knew what the ‘correct’ non-authoritarian answers should be!
We live in the ‘real’ world (theological word is ‘fallen’) so appreciate that our way of living (‘politics’) is one of compromise not the way of idealism, but the gospel demands that we do not simply live as though there is only this ‘real’ world. We live as though there is a new creation with incredible hope and faith. It is hope and faith that has to counteract fear and we know that the only antidote to fear is the love that we express to others (perfect love is not some manifestation of love from heaven to us, but how we express it to others – 1 John 4:12).
The article ties together an extraordinary rise of the appeal of an authoritarian figure when a fear narrative dominates. As gospel-shaped people there are a few things to consider concerning the set of questions from above if we were able to direct them to God. The inevitable conclusion is to question how authoritarian God is.
My conclusion is God is not authoritarian and I guess this is because s/he is not driven by fear at any level. There are consequences to going the wrong way, there are boundaries in place to protect, but the government of God is through distributed authority. It has its goal as:
In those days there was no king in the land and everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
Yes that Scripture – like so many – cuts both ways. In the writer’s view (pro-monarchial) it is a negative statement about the society, but in the eyes of a gospel-shaped reader (OK my bias came out here but I do think this bias is a correct one!) it a statement of the hope we live for, the substantial manifestation of the new creation that we already see around us.
The Western world is in crisis, there are so many signs around. The people movements, the recurring and increasingly regular boom and bust cycles of the past 20 years, the polarisation within politics, the centralisation and counter-pulls for independence to name but a few. A way of being is disappearing and as Rudolph Bahro said:
When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure.
If there is a new creation reality that we have been birthed into then, let me suggest a few minimal points that we as believers should consider for ongoing repentance:
- resist the fear narrative
- embrace change – the current status quo has to give way
- resist authoritarianism and our desire to be authority figures
- resist the desire to be on the right side and have authority defend our rights
- look to defend the rights of those who are marginalised
- actively find the ‘other’ and listen
- acknowledge that there is no good / bad line that separates us from others – it is running right through us all.
I suggest now a reading of the article.