Tag Archives: authority

Di-Vesting Authority


General Synod is an addiction for me; I know it’s bad for me and causes me great harm but yet I can’t resist engaging in it!

The latest gathering of Synod, like the recent gatherings before it, was rife with painful discord before it had even begun. As I prepared myself for social media outlets to fall into confusion and bitter rivalries (as it seems to do daily now!) I looked at an item on church vestments and thought

“At least there’s a relatively trivial debate on frocks!”

Having said that, despite the two larger decisions to be passed at Synod, it was this ‘trivial’ one that causes me to reflect most theologically about the state of the Church of England at present. As a mixed tradition mongrel of Roman Catholicism and Charismatic Evangelical I have already thought deeply about my use of vestments and, although many would say I am conflicted in my current practice, choosing to wear vestments at times and at other times not, I do know where I stand on this issue (see my post on vestments here.) This piece of legislation, for me, was going to be merely a naming of my current practice but has caused me to reflect again on that practice and the implications it presents.

My current practice is that for baptism and Holy Communion I robe for anything else I don’t. I’m Roman Catholic for their sacraments, charismatic evangelical the rest of the time! It’s not fool-proof but it’s what I have settled with for the moment. The other thing I’d want to stress is that I am, of course, contextually sensitive; if a context demands or requests I wear robes I do and if they would cause the congregation distraction I don’t.

The reason this decision has caused me to reflect, however, is an ecclesiological one. This albeit minor decision betrays the current confusion and division over the Church of England’s understanding of church and authority. This small, ‘harmless’ legislation again highlights the underlying conflict at the heart of Anglicanism in the 21st century and like the turmoil 500 years ago which caused the Great Reformation and 500 years before that the Great Schism and 500 years before that the establishing of the Great Councils it is caused by a lack of clarity on authority.

The cause of this uncertainty of authority stems from several sources sweeping across Synod and disrupting, distorting and severing fellowship and peace. One source is the individualising of society by our subjective post-Enlightenment libertarian/liberal philosophy. I have written on this so much I don’t want to unpack it anymore (if you’re interested read any other blog post and it’ll be there!) This is truly a massive problem when it comes to our understanding of Christian community.

The second source is, on it’s own, not a negative force (in fact it is quite the opposite): the rise in charismatic evangelical theology of which I am a son.

The charismatic movement began with the Pentecostal revival at the start of the 20th century and came to prominence in this country during the latter parts of the century. One aspect of this theological movement is a more egalitarian ecclesiology. If all God’s people are able to be filled with God’s Spirit, be used by God and receive prophetic words and pictures then power is no longer placed in one specific person but within the Body. The understanding of the priest as a kind of conduit for prayer and worship is dismantled. This is a good and proper challenge for the Church.

The prime time when this is exercised is in charismatic worship/prayer events where the gathered community wait on God and speak out words of knowledge and prophecy, speak in tongues and (often forgotten) interpretation of tongues. To keep in line with St Paul’s deep desire for order in church services there is a suitable place of weighing up words and pictures but ultimately everyone is encouraged to encounter God and share what they hear from Him. All voices are given a hearing. St. Paul emphasises in his important discussion on worship in 1 Corinthians 11-14 the necessity for order and the need for ‘one to interpret’ and to ‘weigh what is said’. (I don’t want to go into the exegesis of the refusal of the female voice in this context!)

In these events the ‘leader’ may well be a lay worship leader assisted by another ‘leader’ or vice versa. That ‘leader’ does not have to be ordained and they become, quite rightly, more of a facilitator. This role is key but is rarely trained with the gravity and import it deserves. People are released to lead these gatherings and imitate others without any rigourous understanding of authority. This enabling of lay leadership is rightly to be encouraged, however, but it is in this context that vestments becomes a potential stumbling block.

Vestments, historically, have sought to be signifiers of authority within the worshipping life of a congregation. The clothing is, in this respects, uniform, identifying the person in a particular role. This has meant that bishops, priests, deacons, lay readers, etc., all of whom have specific roles in a worshipping community have had these visible signs of those roles. In the new context where lay leadership is being encouraged vestments are a sign of restricting power to ordained/licensed individuals. To truly allow the laity to thrive we must, understandably, remove the vestments from the ordained but in so doing we must also remove sole authority too.

The charismatic tradition, particularly when wedded to the evangelical tradition, within the Church has really flourished over the last few decades and is one of the largest growing traditions in the Church in England. I want to stress how indebted I am to this inheritance and believe God is using it for His glory in His Church but…

It is not hard to see that within a culture where authority is placed solely on the individual and their perceived experience of the world the charismatic evangelical tradition has a lot to offer. The evangelical tradition gives, if not carefully taught, a highly individualised faith experience; salvation is for the individual, it is not a communal experience. Mix that with the charismatic tradition where the emphasis is on the personal experience of God we have created worship which is, collective in that it is expressed best with others but the experience remains rooted in the individual. The ecclesiology of the charismatic evangelical tradition is individualised, experiential and struggles to present a truly communal reality.

In his article “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, John Zizioulas outlines the difference between traditional philosophical thought on personhood and the unique Christian understanding.

…Western thought arrived at the conception of the person as an individual and/or personality, i.e., a unit endowed with intellectual, psychological and moral qualities centred on the axis of consciousness.

For the Christian, however,

…being a person is basically different from being an individual or ʻpersonalityʼ in that the person can not be conceived in itself as a static entity, but only as it relates to. Thus personhood implies the ʻopenness of beingʼ, and even more than that, the ek-stasis of being, i.e. a movement towards communion which leads to a transcendence of the boundaries of the ʻselfʼ and thus to freedom. (John Zizioulas, “Human Capacity and Human Incapacity: A Theological Exploration of Personhood”, T.F. Torrance and J. K. S. Reid (eds.), Scottish Journal Theology Vol 28 (1975), p.406)

I have argued repeatedly that the UKʼs capitalist liberal democracy has shaped the way we participate in Christian community, i.e. limited us on the individual participants own experience of God. It is in this view that Zizioulasʼ statement is important.

Zizioulas’ ʻopenness of beingʼ lends itself to the charismatic experience seen in many of the growing churches in the UK. Charismatic theology emphasises the importance of a transcendent experience and is achieved by creating an expectation of receptivity to God’s gifts. The challenge comes when attempting to be open to God, allowing others to be used by God to speak to you whilst remaining an autonomous individual; the central authority in our post-modern philosophy.

Samuel Wells takes this idea of receiving gifts and discusses an improvisational device called ʻoveracceptingʼ as a potential tool for Christian ethics.

Overaccepting is accepting in the light of a larger story. The fear about accepting is that one will be determined by the gift, and thus lose oneʼs integrity and identity. The fear of blocking is that one will seal oneself off from the world, and thus lose oneʼs relevance and humanity. Overaccepting is an active way of receiving that enables one to retain both identity and relevance… Christians imitate the character of God to the extent that they overaccept the gifts of creation and culture in the same way God does. (Samuel Wells, “Improvisation in the Theatre as a Model for Christian Ethics”, Trevor Hart and Steven Guthrie, Faithful Performance: Enacting Christian Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007) p.161)

Within this framework we can go someway in achieving both communion with others whilst remaining unique enough to have an identity. Zizioulas’ further development in his understanding of personhood challenges individualism by suggesting we must de-individualise Christ.

In order that Christology may be relevant to anthropology, it must ʻde- individualiseʼ Christ, so that every man may be ʻde-individualisedʼ too. (John Zizioulas,
“Human Capacity and Human Incapacity”, p.438)

Christʼs de-individualisation is, for Zizoulas, pneumatologically conditioned because it was only ʻof the Spiritʼ that Christ united the human, one individual, and the divine, another individual. In this way the Spirit makes it possible for one to be many and so constitutes, for Zizioulas, the church.

…the mystery of the Church is essentially none other than that of the “One” who is simultaneously “many”. (John Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (London: Darton Longman and Todd) p112)

Zizoulas goes on to suggest that

If the Church is constituted through… Pneumatology, all pyramidal notions disappear in ecclesiology: the “one” and the “many” co-exist as two aspect of the same being. (Zizoulas, Being Communion, p.139-141)

Zizioulasʼ belief that this will ʻremove any pyramidal structutures’, as understood by our current culture, is undermined, however, by his continued assertion of the importance of the presence of a bishop, as representative of Christ, within the community. This order of precedence raises the “one” above the “many” and thus creates, for our culture, a hierarchy. Indeed, it is the role of bishops and, to a certain degree, clergy in general that has been seen as the undermining of the full realisation of an egalitarian, flat leadership encouraged within charismatic theology and the wider culture. It is the vote on vestments that deconstructs further the role of clergy within the church which have held sway over the Church, for better or worse.

Jürgen Motlmannʼs ecclesiology offers us a helpful addition.

The doctrine of the Trinity constitutes the church as a “community free of dominion.” The Trinitarian principle replaces the principle of power by the principle of concord. Authority and obedience are replaced by dialogue, consensus, and harmony… The hierarchy which preserves and enforces unity is replaced by the brotherhood and sisterhood of the community of Christ. (Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993) p202)

Moltmannʼs social Trinity is a communion free from dominion and authority and offers an ecclesiology for our generation who are hungry for the intimacy of community whilst maintaining autonomy of individualism.

Moltmann outlines three different paradigms of the church: The Hierarchical paradigm of God the Father, the Christocentric paradigm of God the Son and the Charismatic paradigm of God the Spirit. He suggests that in the Early Church there was a monarchic social structure seen through the authority of the Father and manifested itself in Papal supremacy. This caused a social rebellion in the form of the Reformation, which replaced such a view with a brotherhood of believers based on the centrality of sola scriptura. Moltmann admits,

Of course, practically speaking the distinction between trained theologians and people without any theological training has taken the place of priestly hierarchy. (Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) p23)

Tony Jones, an ecclesiologist writing about Moltmannʼs theology, suggests,

While Moltmann admits the christocentrism did not entirely overwhelm the hierarchical church, he fails to acknowledge… that hierarchy has been just as prevalent in his own Reformed tradition.(Tony Jones, The Church is Flat: The Relational Ecclesiology of the Emerging Church Movement (Minneapolis: JoPa Group, 2011) p144)

In the last of these paradigms, it is God the Spirit that brings unity whilst encouraging plurality. In the charismatic congregation, Moltmann suggests,

no one has a higher or lower position than anyone else with what he or she can contribute to the community.

In this context vestments become void of any purpose and all symbols of hierarchy and power can be dismissed. This paradigm, however, can be, and, as I am arguing, has been, too easily adopted by the individualism of our age as Moltmann goes on to say,

…all are accepted just as they are…Everyone is an expert in his or her own life and personal calling. (Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness, Arise! God’s Future for Humanity and the Earth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010) p23-25)

 

And there it is: the mantra for the Church at the present time. No one can tell anyone what is right or wrong. All must be accepted and placed as equally authoritative and by so doing authority is displaced and no longer shared.

The Church of England is currently facing a new social rebellion akin to the Great Reformation and again it is about power and authority. The Reformation caused authority to be placed in Scripture and thus power/authority was placed in the hands of any who could read and interpret the text. Richard Hooker, who I would argue is the the architect of Anglican ecclesiology, later stated the need for three authorities: Scripture, tradition and reason, with Scripture having a form of primacy.

I believe we have seen an ascendance of reason as the primary authority under which the others must fall but, with the advent of charismatic theology, there is a need to rightly emphasise the Holy Spirit’s authority in the Church which has morphed intellectual reason to ‘experience’. I would say that the Holy Spirit is in all of these but I understand the move from reason to experience and it comes down to semantics for me. I would argue, however, that this ‘experience’ has been adopted by our individualised culture, abandoning objective truth and making ‘reason’ subjective experience and this is now our sole authority. It is the individualised experience, by way of the charismatic evangelical tradition being allowed to continue without rigorous ecclesiological questions being asked, that is now seen in Synod debates. The vast majority of decisions now are made on the basis of individualised experience which is a distorted understanding of reason and from this Scripture is re-interpreted and tradition is changed.

The decision on vestments opens for us the gaping hole in our ecclesiology and the social rebellion occurring in the church will only end in division if authority is not placed somewhere safe to bring about St. Pauls’ order and decency.

Chapter 71: the brothers ought to obey one another

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The service of obedience is to be shown to all, not just the abbot, for by this road of obedience they shall travel to find God.

Where is authority and obedience placed and how is it used?

Let prefix this post with an acknowledgement: I will be quoting Thomas Merton a lot during this one!

I have a personal struggle with authority and obedience which is deeply woven into my personality and history. Firstly, I am a born and raised Roman Catholic which has undoubtedly influenced me for good and ill in equal measure. I cannot and will not ever shake that influence from me, I can only learn to embrace the good and ask God’s mercy and grace to redeem the ill. Secondly, I am a millennial/Generation Y, my older siblings are the cynical generation X and they have shaped me as well as my peers who, like me have been parented by baby-boomers. All of that may sound like a load of sociological mumbo jumbo but the key point is I’m a product of my culture. Generation Y is also known as Generation Me, for we are, on the whole, a narcissistic bunch obsessed with selfies due to a great deal of pampering by our parents who were the recipients of Thatcher’s ‘booming economy’! These two parts of my social makeup would be enough to create a paradox around the issue of authority but there’s more specific personality traits that create a confusing cocktail of issues for me. (There’s my Generation Y traits coming out; a desperate need to be unique and noticed. Ironic!) In Myers Briggs personality test I am an INTJ

Blindly following precedents and rules without understanding them is distasteful to INTJs, and they disdain even more authority figures who blindly uphold those laws and rules without understanding their intent. Anyone who prefers the status quo for its own sake, or who values stability and safety over self-determination, is likely to clash with INTJ personality types. Whether it’s the law of the land or simple social convention, this aversion applies equally, often making life more difficult than it needs to be.(“INTJ Strengths and Weakneses”, 16 Personalities, April 23 2016, https://www.16personalities.com/intj-strengths-and-weaknesses)

I have a deepening sense of vocation to some form of monastic life. I am a self selected Anglican. I am artistic by temperament and, until ordination, by profession. All of this makes for some paradox inducing internal struggle for me but… it’s what makes me interesting!

I appreciate authority. I desire authority. I know the necessity for authority and even in a democratic country authority is not only allowed it is more needed than ever. Our relationship with authority, as a culture, is interesting to me. After it’s abuses by so many in the 20th century we have allowed the pendulum of social opinion to swing completely in the opposite direction. As my older siblings in Generation X have taken power (often in protesting movements and social activism) a large dose of cynicism towards authority and the status quo has become prevalent too. Figures of authority are routinely mocked and publicly shamed as satire has became increasingly popular so that now most comedians will have some form of pedestal kicking in their acts. I am not suggesting this is bad or unnecessary; I’m just noting it as interesting.

Thomas Merton (here it comes!) wrote to a Marie Byles, a scholar in Japanese religions, on January 9 1967,

You ask about the Catholic idea of holy obedience. What you are really interested in is evidently the ancient ascetic idea of obedience which goes back to the Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount, and so on, is exemplified by the saints, and is analogous to the perfect obedience, docility, and so forth found in other religious ideals. The idea is fundamentally the same: to become free from the need to assert one’s ego, to be liberated from the desire to dominate others, to renounce selfish demands, and so on. Ultimately the idea is that if you renounce your own will you will be guided directly by God and moved by Him in everything… The real purpose of obedience is to obey God and give one’s will to Him. This idea of obedience is somewhat ambiguous in the later legalistic context that it got into, when the religious Orders got highly organized and became big impersonal structures run by bureaucracies. The ascetic idea was pressed into the service of a different kind of ideal, and “blind obedience” was stressed as an ideal since it meant the subject simply submitted to authority and became a cog in a machine. (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 191)

Merton draws out the first issue with obedience and authority and that is: where it is placed.

St Benedict’s original emphasis of obedience in his Rule stems from the expectation that within the monastic community there are personal relationships; monks were known to each other. An abbot knew the monks, personally and intimately. This relationship can’t always have been comfortable for either party particularly in issues of obedience. The abbot would have come from the community and could have been, at one time, a peer of the monks he now found himself in authority over. Within the intimacy of this fellowship of faith and discipleship, obedience is encouraged for it’s original purpose: to practice submission of our own will to God. I acknowledge not just my own personal need to practice this submission but my whole culture to do so.

Obedience, unfortunately, has continued to be associated with big, impersonal institutions and so is baulked at by many in Generation X and younger. Since the First World War and the abuses of the ruling classes that forced the population to fight increasingly failing battles on their behalf became apparent, cultural acceptance of authority began to erode. Throughout the last century, with the rise of fascism, communism, capitalism and many other philosophical and political ideals, humanity has developed a wariness to power and authority. Institutions have one by one shown themselves to be corrupted, or at least corruptible, and trust has been lost (the Church, the police, politicians, government processes, schools). This has been done to such an extent that we are now numbed to scandal and, strangely, we now see political elite and celebrities who are seemingly immune to such challenge.

To focus the issue a little more let me explore authority within the Church of England. I, as an ordained minister, have made an oath of canonical obedience,

I, A B, do swear by Almighty God that I will pay true and canonical obedience to the Lord Bishop of C and his successors in all things lawful and honest: So help me God. (Canon C14, Canons of the Church of England 7th Edition: Full Edition with First Supplement (London, church House Publishing, 2015)

In my case I have sworn obedience to the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu which has, on occasions, been put to the test. There have been decisions that the Archbishop has made which have affected me directly and which I have not agreed with. I have accepted those decisions as an act of obedience to him. This acceptance has not been easy at times as I struggle to obey authority solely because some person of status tells me to and particularly when I don’t believe them to possess all the necessary information of understanding, but I obeyed. My struggle is particularly painful when I am asked to obey decisions that have been made without any form of dialogue or relationship. Merton goes on,

As long as the notion of obedience is implicated in an impersonal power system it will be corrupted by the very things it is supposed to liberate us from- worldliness, selfishness, ambition, and so on… (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 192)

That is not purely to say that just the authority figure, whoever that might be, is corrupted by those things but those in obedience under them also. For the vow of obedience to be renewed and reformed for both parties involved I suggest we ensure it is placed back in the soil of long-term, trusting relationship. The alternative is to either blindly allow it to continue as it is and to be burdened by the struggle or to leave the system altogether (as many who have taken the oath of canonical obedience are doing.)

Thomas Merton, in a letter to a Wilbur H. Ferry on January 19 1967, makes the following heartfelt observation,

Authority has simply been abused too long in the Catholic Church and for many people it just becomes utterly stupid and intolerable to have to put up with the kind of jackassing around that is imposed in God’s name. It is an insult to God Himself and in the end it can only discredit all idea of authority and obedience. There comes a point where they simply forfeit the right to be listened to. On the other hand… If everyone with any sense just pulls out, then that leaves the curial boys in full command of the field with the assurance that they are martyrs to justice or something. the real problem remains the reform of the Church people who remain inside. And if there can only be a little agreement on a more reasonable and free approach, something can be done. (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 322)

Many have asked me why I, as a pioneer minister of sorts and as a creative artist, not only follow the rules but promote the need to stay true to them. It is the key paradox that makes me, me; how does it balance?

I have spoken before about an important moment in my life when I was asked by God to make a decision: was I going to be a revolutionary or a reformer? A revolutionary, in this instance, is one who seeks to overthrow the current system in power and replace it with something else. This revolutionary wants to destroy the status quo which is , in their mind, no longer fit for purpose, in order to create the new workable model. The reformer, on the other hand, is the one who seeks to take the treasures of the old and salvage them to allow the broken parts to either be ‘fixed’ or recycled or thrown out. The job of the reformer, in contrast to the revolutionary, is a long term systematic but thorough process. I made a promise to God some eight years ago to be a reformer and not a revolutionary.

Most pioneer ministers and those involved in the Fresh Expressions movement are revolutionaries. They are tired of the status quo failing, in their eyes, in the mission of God. The Church of England is joke and needs to be radically changed and that change is going to be made from a grassroots movements akin to the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and UKIP (this is not about motivation but solely about approach.) I have promised my God that I’d commit to participate in dialogue with the tradition because I still believe God has built his Church and he has not forsaken it yet. I believe that the Church is the hope of the nation and that God is still in it working through it. Fresh Expressions of church must, in my mind grow out from and remain united to the Church of God.

The Reformation was, in my mind, an unfortunate but necessary moment in Church history. It was unfortunate because it has birthed, out of division, a divisive movement. If you sow in division you reap in division. This has meant that preference has often replaced the deeply held convictions of the reformers and we have the situation where there are so many independent churches. These church congregations are not, in themselves a problem, many are doing wonderful, anointed work and I rejoice with them in the promotion of the life of faith and mission but the ecumenical movement, despite our best intentions of being united, is not full unity. What was begun at the Reformation has created this issue.

It is from this place of commitment to change the system from within that I speak. I don’t believe in complaining about something and not learning why it is as it is and how it or I can be changed to solve the problem. It is in this reformation mindset that I struggle to balance my obedience to authority and work to discern how God is birthing the new things in and through his Church. It is in all of this that I am encouraged by Merton’s letter to Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit and one of the founders of the Catholic Peace Fellowship,

While in fact there are a lot of Superiors who think themselves infallible, and are absolutely incapable of understanding what it means to really find out what their subjects need and desire (they consult only yes-men or people who have made the grade by never rocking any boats), there is a new bunch coming up that sincerely wants to help change things, but obviously can’t do everything they would like to do either. And then there are the good Joes who want to go along wherever the Church seems to be going even if they don’t really understand what it is all about. If all these are treated as if they were purely and simply reactionary tyrants, then there will be a real mess for sure… The moment of truth will come when you will have to resist the arbitrary and reactionary use of authority in order to save the real concept of authority and obedience, in the line of renewal. This will take charismatic grace. And it is not easy to know when one is acting “charismatically” when one is surrounded with a great deal of popular support on one side and nonsensical opposition on the other… In either case let us work for the Church and for people, not for ideas and programs. (Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: a life in letters (New York: Harper One, 2008) p. 272)

Merton draws out here the other issue with authority and obedience and that is: how is it used.

The pain of authority comes when it is, as Merton calls it, “arbitrary and reactionary”. How many of us have been on the receiving end of this approach to power? Often authority is used like this when it lacks the environment of relationship but it can still manifest itself like this even when you are within long term, trusting relationships. Merton knew this personally with his own abbot at Gethsemani where he lived.

The letters and journals of Thomas Merton are full of his personal struggles with abbot James Fox who continually refused Merton the opportunity to become a hermit. these occasions are so numerous and so gradual it is hard to find just one that will sum up the pain he felt as he wrestled with obedience to an authority he no longer respected.

I know he is my Abbot, but I am very much afraid that I have never honestly been able to deal with him as with a “spiritual father” and it would be impossible for me to do so sincerely. (May 11, 1965, Thomas Merton to Jean Leclercq, ‘Survival or Prophecy?: The letters of Thomas Merton and Jean Leclercq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002) p.128)

Just two years earlier, Merton expressed, in his journal, his approach to obedience to an authority he did not respect.

In consequence my attitude toward the monastery changes. They have need of me and I have need of them. As if without this obedience, and charity, my life would lack sense. It is an existential situation which god has willed for me, and it is part of His Providence – it is not to be questioned, no matter how difficult it may be. I must obey God, and this reaches out into everything… In this new condition my attitude toward the abbot is changing. Of course it is obvious that my complaints and discontent have been absurd. Though I can perhaps back them up with plausible arguments, they have no real meaning, they don’t make sense. He is what he is, and he means well, and in fact does well. He is the superior destined for me in God’s Providence, and it is absurd for me to complain. No harm will ever come to me through him – it cannot. How could I have thought otherwise?(January 15, 1963, Thomas Merton, Turning Toward the World: the journals of Thomas Merton volume four, 1960-1963 (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) p. 288-289)

Esther de Waal suggests,

…obedience is a gift rather than a matter of duty. It is something which the good monk gives with gracious charity to his brother… Obedience depends on listening so totally and openly to the other that through them we discern the face, the voice of Christ himself. (Esther de Waal, A Life Giving Way: a commentary on the Rule of St Benedict (London: Continuum, 1995) p. 208)

Obedience must be a gift and should be lived not out of duty but love. This becomes painful when authority is wielded over you and obedience demanded from you rather than inspired in you. It is a delicate balance that Merton lived and that we all, in some way, must navigate. Obedience, like love, must begin as a practice, a choice and through this will grow into a habit and a virtue.

The service of obedience is to be shown to all, not just the abbot, for by this road of obedience they shall travel to find God.

Philip Lawrence, OSB and abbot of Christ in the Desert, writes,

Obedience is valuable in our lives because we show one another what it means to serve and love one another. Even the abbot has to obey the brethren! (Philip Lawrence, “Chapter 71: Mutual Obedience”, Benedictine Abbey of Christ in the Desert, April 23 2016, https://christdesert.org/prayer/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-71-mutual-obedience/)

Obedience is to be done in love and as a service and it is expected, although not explicit in the Rule, reciprocal. The person in authority over another is not to laud it over their subjects but to be obedient also. It is in this mutual obedience that authority can be wielded.

Obedience then should be preceded by a deep listening from both parties. If it is rooted in relationship then authority will be exercised with love and obedience given as a gift.

Reflection

This chapter challenges me, like the rest of the Rule, but particularly at this moment in my ministry. This current season in my life is painful like a continual dull thud causing me discomfort. I find myself blindside by a sear of the pain which I must ride out until it subsides. Through it all I choose obedience and to re-commit to following the path laid out for me by God, to see through my potentially erroneous beliefs or opinions and to say of my superior,

He is what he is, and he means well, and in fact does well. He is the superior destined for me in God’s Providence, and it is absurd for me to complain. No harm will ever come to me through him – it cannot. How could I have thought otherwise?

Having said that, I am also aware that authority and obedience is not currently rooted in relationship and it is in this way that it and I must seek to change. I must be careful though,

The moment of truth will come when you will have to resist the arbitrary and reactionary use of authority in order to save the real concept of authority and obedience, in the line of renewal. This will take charismatic grace. And it is not easy to know when one is acting “charismatically” when one is surrounded with a great deal of popular support on one side and nonsensical opposition on the other… In either case let us work for the Church and for people, not for ideas and programs.

I was asked to visit the nacent new monastic community at St Lukes, Peckham, as part of my involvement in the development of the Society of the Holy Trinity. In our discussion (which can be found here) the painful and personal issue of obedience to authority was explored. I encourage you to listen to it and pray.

I appreciate that this post has been long so I want to sum up the salient point: I believe in the Church as an institution which can develop a transformation of character by practices such as obedience. If authority and obedience is rooted in relationship and a place of intimacy they can be amazing gifts one to another. Outside of relationship they are potentially deeply damaging weapons wielded over people. The change should not be to disown them and seek replacements but to renew and replace them into their proper place.

You are the God who makes extravagant promises.
We relish your great promises of fidelity and presence and solidarity,
and we exude in them.
Only to find out, always too late,
that your promise always comes in the midst of a hard, deep call to obedience.

You are the God who calls people like us,
and the long list of mothers and fathers before us,
who trusted the promise enough to keep the call.

So we give you thanks that you are a calling God,
who calls always to dangerous new places.
We pray enough of your grace and mercy among us
that we may be among those who believe your promises
enough to respond to your call.

We pray in the one who embodied your promise
and enacted your call, even Jesus. Amen.
(Walter Brueggemann, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis:Augsburg Fortress, 2003) p. 90)

Come, Lord Jesus.

Chapter 69: no one shall presume to defend another in the monastery

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Take care that, no matter what, no monk presumes to defend or protect another…

How should we teach?

I was sat with a large group of young people leading them in a Bible Study on cutting off limbs (Mt 5:30, Mk 9:43) and there were a lot of questions being asked. I had not been a leader for longer and, althoguh I had experience of being a teacher, I felt out of my depth. I looked across at the paid youth worker who headed up the team I was on and looked pleadingly at him. I desperately needed his help to answer and guide us back on track as I was flailing in the metaphorical brambles! Instead of jumping in and either closing down the questions or deftly answering them he remained silent staring back at me.

Well, thank you very much!

I thought as I clumsily fought back the probing questions and steered us to end the time together to start an unplanned game.

After the young people had left I cornered the youth leader and said,

Could you not see I was in trouble there. I needed your help and you just left me to fail and it was really embarrassing!

He smiled and replied,

How are you going to learn to stand on your own two feet if I keep propping you up. You need to find your own way out of those kinds of messes.

It was one of the best lessons I learnt.

Skip forward eight years and I’m now ordained and leading a youth group in another church. I have a new leader who I am helping to train up and she was surrounded by young people asking difficult questions about miracles. She stuttered and struggled and then she turned to me and said,

I have completely lost track of what I was saying. Ned, how should I end this?

For a moment I was back at that moment when the youth leader let me struggle on my own and I learnt the valuable lesson of finding an ending on my own. As this student leader stared at me, totally overwhelmed, I faltered and stepped in to defend her. Afterwards I regretted doing that, remembering the great lesson learnt when someone didn’t protect me from embarrassment or failure.

It seems harsh reading this chapter, to be told not to defend another person. To leave them struggling doesn’t seem that kind or, to be honest, very Christian. The instruction, however, is to enable monks to learn the lessons they need as they journey the path of righteousness. How often we step into help someone and in so doing refuse them the opportunity to grow or deepen their faith?

As humans we love the opportunity to instruct and teach others in some weird narcissistic attempt to make them more like us. Imparting advice is a way we can extend our influence and intellectually procreate. In doing this, though, we rob another of growing or maturing. It’s the problem with our established pedagogy (way of teaching).

Paolo Freire, a liberation theologian and practitioner articulates, for me, the fundamental problem with the way we teach one another. The church is not immune to the oppressive approach to education which ‘becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.’

Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive , memorize, and repeat. This is the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits… In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. (Paolo Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed (London: Bloomsbury, 2012) p.72)

Students become passive participants who are, by the manner in which information is given to them, encouraged to accept the world as it is and not to hope for new revelations or transformation in reality.

Implicit in the banking concept is the assumption of a dichotomy between human beings and the world: a person is merely in the world, not with the world or with others; the individual is spectator not re-creator… he or she is rather the possessor of a consciousness: an empty “mind” passively open to the reception of deposits of reality from the world outside. (Paolo Freire, Pedagogy Of The Oppressed (London: Bloomsbury, 2012) p.75)

Discipleship must be shaped around a new way of teaching. A teaching, outlined in Freire’s writing, which encourages students to journey alongside another student. It is a focus on modelling how to interact, with curiosity and wonder, with the world around us. The teacher is no longer set apart, up front, depositing information but rather in amongst, a student amongst students, learning and asking questions with them about what they see, hear and experience around them.

In another book, ‘We Make The Road By Walking’, he summarises his point concisely.

The other mistake is to crush freedom and to exacerbate the authority of the teacher. Then you no longer have freedom but now you have authoritarianism, and then the teacher is the one who teaches. The teacher is the one who knows. The teacher is the one who guides. The teacher is the one who does everything. And the students, precisely because the students must be shaped, just expose their bodies and their souls to the hands of the teacher, as if the students were clay for the artist, to be molded. The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves. And in doing that, he or she lives the experience of relating democratically as authority with the freedom of the students.(Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990) p.181)

Within this liberation framework we begin to see a way in which the abbot’s authority explicit throughout St. Benedict’s Rule, can be executed without taking away freedom from the monks. The guidance and teaching is one of accompaniment; yes, firm and un-wielding when necessary but allowing God to transform them through a process. Thomas Merton understood this approach.

A person is a person insofar as he has a secret and is solitude of his own that cannot be communicated to anyone else. If I love a person, I will love that which makes him a person: the secrecy, the hiddenness, the solitude of his own individual being, which God alone can penetrate and understand. (Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island (Boston: Shambhala, 2005) p.258)

Reflection

I suspect that discipleship crisis in the Church (which has led us to mission and evangelism crisis) is rooted in the approach to how we teach. The time has come to throw away the educational philosophy described above as the ‘banking concept’ for what it creates is followers who are dependant on ‘experts’ to feed them the information they need. If they manage to fight through the passivity that is forced upon them they become oppressors themselves with the catalogue of deposits they have collected over the years.

We leaders and teachers must relearn how to guide people to become the person God intends for them to be. This is going to be hard for most of us as we are products of this old and autocratic educational process. We must come to see God through Jesus the teacher who allowed mistakes and failures, who brought out free enquiry in story rather than a syllabus of knowledge that needed to be memorised. The first disciples were not given, like the other rabbis of the time, a textbook to be learnt but instead received the Holy Spirit to inspire.

This new form of teaching must ripple through every aspect of the Church; through the pulpit, into small groups, into evangelism. Can we imagine the Church being at the forefront of education again by establishing this inquiry based, liberation approach to teaching the younger generation how to engage with the world?
Guiding God, through your son, Jesus Christ, we see you teaching us amongst us. You do not deposit diktats from above but instead walk life with us encouraging and leading with all gentleness, strength and faithfulness. We thank you that your desire for us is not just to know about you but to become like you and in that, find our freedom.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Obedience

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Suscipiendus autem in oratorio coram omnibus promittat de stabilitate sua et conversatione morum suorum et oboedientia.

Upon admission, in the oratory, before all, he is to make a promise to stability, conversion (of behaviour/morals/life) and obedience,

Obedience

I have been rather tarry on my writing for the blog this week due to the topic of today’s post. As part of a Lenten discipline I’ve decided to take up writing for 20 minutes a day again. A project which started me on this blog some two years ago! Instead of just writing a diary which led me to overly introspective and unhealthy depressive cycles of thought, I have decided to set myself outward focussed writing tasks. I have been writing fairytale versions of gospel narrative which I started for Burning Fences and I have been gathering material from this blog to put into a book (I know another book project which will probably not get finished and I’ll move on!)

One of the chapters I have tried to collate this week has been the chapter on ‘obedience’. This has meant I have looked through my blog on Parish Monasticism and picked out any material which touches on or has guided my reflections on the theme of obedience. The problem is: the whole of the Rule of St. Benedict is about obedience!

Most of the chapters have been me wrestling with what obedience looks like in 21st century western culture. I have returned again and again to issues of authority, leadership and individualism. In fact, if I were to sum up what I’ve been learning about through my reading and meditating on St. Benedict it has been the need for clear authorities in our modern day society.

At this point I’d direct you to a link on a previous blog post to highlight the salient point but, I can’t choose from so many. Type authority into the search bar at the top of the page and you’ll find the wealth of material there. Type obedience in and you’ll have more… enjoy!

The challenge of evangelism in our current age is the call to submit to an authority which is not the self. Life within the character of our Triune God demands that we relinquish power of our lives to someone/thing else, otherwise it bears no fruit. Anglican pews are used to the bottoms of the lukewarm non-committed, in fact they are pews because no one has felt the need to sit on them for a long enough time for them to be painful! (I’m being deliberately provocative, I’m sorry!) The challenge for the Church is to be bold in living out the life of obedience in a way that shows its fruit.

Let me be clear, this obedience is difficult and painful. We can easily romanticise, as with the whole religious life, what it means to commit to a life of obedience. I have only lived out ‘diet obedience’ or ‘obedience lite’ and that’s tough but I long for the environment to delve deeper into it.

True obedience requires stability and the intentional conversion of opinion, thought, behaviour and life. Obedience can only be experienced within the relationship of the other two vows that we’ve explored just as each of the other vows require the balancing of the rest in order to be fully experienced.

Brian C. Taylor helpfully writes,

We tend to think a balanced life means one in which there is no tension – a perfectly placid existence. But, in fact, it is quite the opposite. A truly balanced life, if it is to embrace the paradox of truth, is one which is in tension: not destructive and stressful but healthy and dynamic.

Approaching the vow of obedience after reflecting on ‘stability’ and ‘conversion’ it can seem that these first two vows are in unhealthy tension and the vow to ‘obedience’ brings about a dynamic tension and frames them harmoniously. This would be too limiting. In fact if you approach any of the three vows through the other two vows you’ll come to the same conclusion: Trying to live within the tension created by a vow to obedience to a particular person or Rule and the vow to conversion creates an antagonistic relationship of discernment and interpretation. When discovering stability as a third point of reference eases that battle and brings an extra dimension to the life lived within these vows. The same is true with discovering the power of conversion via the tension of stability and obedience.

In this way the trinitarian model of life asserts itself in practice.

Authority is abused; that’s a fact of life. We can all reel out stories of how someone in authority has abused that position to meet their own needs. No area of life has been immune to this experience and that needs to be said and heard. This does not mean, however, that authority is, in itself bad or negative. I have had problems with authority personally but I have found it helpful to put a face to those problems and rather than dismiss ‘authority’ because it hurt me name the person in that position who hurt me (on a side note, the Church doesn’t hurt people, people hurt people!)

Life without authority is actually just as painful and difficult and it is in the vacuum of authority that extremist views step in. As human beings we hunger and thirst for an authoritative voice to get behind and we’ll find it wherever it may be found. Charismatic leaders, like Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Russell Brand, etc. can sound authoritative when their opponents lack depth and experience. Sadder still is those amongst us who’s only authority is themselves and their own egos and desires. With these as sole authorities no learning or change can occur, cynicism and skepticism hinders any depth of relationship and all of life becomes precarious and unstable.

Authority is needed to teach and grow us beyond our immediate beliefs and opinions. Authority, ironically it seems, gives people freedom to explore and exist. Culture and Societies only develop and deepen when there is a shared narrative; to prove this I point you to the current character of public discussion and the temperature of the exchanges. Our examples of philosophical discourse is loud, abusive, fear centric, cyclical and, above all, non-sequential (the great example of this is David Cameron at Prime Minister’s Question Time when in response to a question he’ll change the subject as his answer!)

Obedience is other focussed. Obedience is about placing your life, your choices, your future, however difficult it is, into the hands of another. This is risky; there’s no escaping that fact. Obedience is about inviting someone to act in freedom upon you and you to take on the consequences of their decision. This is so alien to us that it will take the Church to start to live it out to be an example that will save our world.

I want to finish this short romp through potential vows around which many new monastic communities may gather to explore briefly how our culture desperately needs to participate in a triune life. What I mean by this is a life which is beyond polarised, extreme binary terms of reference into a dynamic dance of ideas and discovery.

We are increasingly finding combative language and views as we’re forced into extreme, entrenched political, social and religious viewpoints. Our debates have become antagonistic fought between two sides; political right and political left with the centre being an attempt at mixing the two in different concoctions, liberal and conservative wings of the church with the ‘middle of the road’ churches being different grey mix of the two at the whim of that particular people. I have quoted Oscar Romero recently,

The Church, then, is in an hour of aggiornamento, that is, of crisis in its history. And as in all aggiornamenti, two antagonistic forces emerge: on the one hand, a boundless desire for novelty, which Paul VI described as “arbitrary dreams of artificial renewals”; and on the other hand, an attachment to the changelessness of the forms with which the Church has clothed itself over the centuries and a rejection of the character of modern times. Both extremes sin by exaggeration. Unconditional attachment to what is old hampers the Church’s progress and restricts its “catholicity”… The boundless spirit of novelty is an impudent exploration of what is uncertain, and at the same time unjustly betrays the rich heritage of past experiences… So as not to fall into either the ridiculous position of uncritical affection for what is old, or the ridiculous position of becoming adventurers pursuing “artifical dreams” about novelties, the best thing is to live today more than ever according to the classic axiom: think with the Church. (Oscar Romero quoted in Morrozzo Della Rocca, Roberto, Oscar Romero: prophet of hope (London: Dalton, Longman and Todd, 2015) p.22-23)

Romero’s call to ‘think with the church’ has haunted my thoughts for the last few weeks. I have come to discover that what he might have meant is to think Trinitarianly (that’s a new word I’ve just made up!) not in binary on a flat spectrum but in a three dimensional balance. We don’t fit on a continuum between two points but a matrix within three.

I am a vocal supporter on the Anglican approach to authority and it is Richard Hooker’s balance that finally convinced me of my Anglican calling. We do not limit ourselves to Sola Scriptura (scripture alone) nor to Sola Traditio or even to Sola Spiritus but a beautiful balance between them all. Univocal authority tends to lead to oppression of those under it. With only one authority power becomes unbalanced and blind loyalty is required. Bivocal authority creates stand offs, the likes we have seen within both political and ecclesial debates. It is once you reach three or more that power is released and shared. This is what I have discovered within the Rule of St. Benedict and what I am keen to press into more within an umbrella construct to feed new monastic communities across the Church of England and beyond.

Practical

So what might the call to obedience look like for the different forms of community? For most of these broad categories it will come down to the individuals involved, to what/who they are obedient may need to be fleshed out in the context.

Sodal
For more intentional gathered communities, obedience will look very different depending on the individuals who participate within it or, rather, will be more or less of an issue depending those within the community. Taking on a vow of obedience would need to be done within a multi-authoritative framework. Obedience to a particular role of authority whose job it is to interpret a communal narrative which is another authority and, finally, a community of people who live out said narrative who are an accountable authority to the others.

Obedience will need to centre on accountability frameworks which will be contextual but the practice of obedience will be the same. These communities will need to figure out to what they are obedient and how they encourage the living out of the vow.

Modal
The parish church has authority structures in place but encouragement and teaching on obedience is somewhat lax amongst us. Synod and Bishops are not always agreed with and local expressions tend to follow differing practices depending on conscience; such as it naturally is within a place like the Church of England. This challenge to obedience has led to some difficult and painful discussions but the challenge has come from a perceived abuse of authority.

How do we ensure power is not abused within a large, established institution? I think a detailed exploration of the understanding of leadership is vital in this discussion. When leadership is seen as ‘driving forces’ then we are in difficulty as it is a force to be reckoned with and is unhelpful in relationship. If leadership is seen more as one who is under authority, a first amongst equals then we’re on our way to a healthier tension. That is why a model like that proposed for sodal communities can also be adopted in the modal.

Obedience within the monastic/mendicant form is to a particular tradition and so naming those things, be they, General Synod, Articles of Religion, Canon Law, a Bishop, a Rule of Life within the parish context is key to encourage the practice.

Nodal
For networks of autonomous groups, obedience becomes very tricky as we have seen in the Anglican Communion recently. Establishing, early on, not only what are the authorities but also how they relate with one another is absolutely essential. If we neglect the long process of exploring together the details of how authorities relate and hold that important balance then disagreements will become increasingly difficult. This is where the Rule of St. Benedict becomes an example in the same way as the Sermon on the Mount is. St. Benedict explores, in many areas of life, how to discern the way forward, how the authorities of the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit and tradition interplay to develop a community which deepens the individual as well as communal character.

It is also important to have shared authorities, particularly so in nodal communities. It could seem as though I’m suggesting just having lots of authorities to defend against dictatorial forms of dominance but actually too many conflicting authorities and the balance is lost also. The authorities need to interact in a creative and dynamic way rather than creating a new kind of destruction.

Chapter 26: those who meet with the excommunicated without leave of the abbot

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If a brother dares speak with or meet with the excommunicated brother, without the express permission of the abbot, he shall undergo the same penalty of excommunication.

Why can’t I speak with them?

A short chapter this week on the role of authority; a topic that is increasingly contentious in our culture. I have written on the subject before and have reflected at length on it from a personal point of view. I encourage you to search on this site for previous posts on the topic (you’ll find a few!)

The post I thought of first was this one from February which quoted from an article by Anna Mussmann called, ‘Millennials Think Authority Figures Are Untrustworthy Idiots, And Modern Culture Is To Blame’ In this article Mussmann argues that popular fiction is both commenting on the shift in attitudes to authority and wisdom as well as encouraging a particular culture amongst the younger generation.

I continue to reflect on the popularity of changing rules and traditions. There has been, in my opinion, a rise in challenge to long held traditional views and the bending to popularism. Popular media is being used cleverly to move goal posts to argue for a rethink on any moral or ethical standpoint. The way it has been done is similar in approach each time:

A lobbying group begins by publicising the story of a bullied minority who are discriminated against and face daily injustices. Once the public see and hear of this plight of the opposed they have good will and (if we’re honest) feel suitably guilty for making another person feel that way and, being British with colonial guilt now ingrained, do all they can to elevate their oppression. Once this good will is felt and vocalised and people are emotionally invested the lobbying group then proclaim that they are a majority voice and begin approaching politicians who love to say yes to majority voices. With the politicians on side they then move to change legalisation and, therefore, the character of the society.

All this happens with clever use of media, persuasive rhetoric and stubborn campaigning. None of these things are wrong, in fact I am glad that people are able to speak freely and protest against injustices. My issue is that at times the bias is skewed and a balanced debate cannot be had because of unfair game playing by political crusaders. The approach relies heavily on two things: subtle shifts in the use of language and a high reliance on emotive stories to cover up exaggerations and twists of logic.

There is one other thing which is involved in this and why, I think, there’s been an increase in major moral debates in government in recent years; no one understands or respects authority outside of subjective individualism.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it: our culture is sick. The disease is individualism. The symptoms are isolation, violence in action and language, increase in suicide, imbalance in wealth distribution and the subtle crumbling of social institutions and groupings. The cause: an increasing bias towards unchallenged liberalism.

Of course what I am arguing here is simplistic and overly generalised which, if I were to face up to opposition would need to go into more detail but for now my observations stand as a starting statement. What is clear is the breakdown of trust in authorities leads to no stable ground on which to build a commonality in society. It is right to hold authorities to account but where does it stop?

The Assisted Dying Bill has been widely discussed and, I am glad to say, faced great opposition. My concern is that if the Bill passes the arbitrary six months will be challenged, the ‘terminal illness’ will be challenged and, in our ‘legal precedent’ culture the floodgates will be opened. My use of floodgates will already prickle some of the more liberal of my readers and I stand again in the position of oppressed by the popular, liberal agenda.

Our society wants free will unrestrained. I don’t blame society that but when the Church sides with them and blesses their freedom of choice and calls all their choices ‘Christian’, Christ-like I have a problem. To be a Christian is to be under authority. To be ordained is to be under authority. To act in disobedience to that authority must be challenged (in love) and done to bring you back to the authority given by Christ himself to His Church. The Right Reverend Dr. Alan Wilson, Bishop of Buckingham, an outspoken liberal bishop has been very public in his challenges to authority on the issue of Same Sex Marriage along with many other ordained brothers and sisters. It was Rev. Rachel Mann’s, poet in residence at Manchester Cathedral, article on the recent issue of Rev. Jeremy Pemberton’s denial of licence to minister by his bishop, Rt Rev’d Richard Inwood, because of Pemberton’s marriage to his now husband Laurence Cunnington that made me reflect the most.

In the article Mann writes that the only thing Jeremy Pemberton has done wrong is got married. This is not true. Jeremy has broken Canon Law by refusing the authority of the church in to which he was ordained; authority held by his bishops. In acting against the wishes of this authority he has opened up the need for disciplinary action. He has sworn an oath of canonical allegiance to that authority and that authority must be allowed to act in the manner set out in accepted documents. In order of those documents to be changed there needs to be a thorough debate and discussion. Within that discussion there must be sacrifice on both sides and for reconciliation and peace to be achieved we must allow our selves to be challenged by God through the painful process of community.

Discipline in a Christian setting is about shaping someone into the likeness of Christ, who, himself was under authority. It is not a natural thing for us to reject obedience and we fight against it at every corner (Adam and Eve’s instinct still beats within us!). We don’t understand discipline and it always seems ‘unfair’ but that is what changes us. I repeat my assertion from before; authority must be held accountable and hence why I have promoted before the need for multiple authorities to be held in balance but it is important that we know what the rules are. The problem with the continual erosion of authority is that it encourages repetition. The great prophets and revolutionaries of human history are the ones who know and appreciate authority; who act under it and are humbled by it.

Reflection

Discipline is always a difficult subject and neither party ‘enjoys’ giving or receiving it but it is necessary. To be transformed is to be changed and change is painful and difficult. To live in community is to accept life under an authority; an authority of a Rule and that of an abbot. In parish life there is less explicit authority as anyone who doesn’t like a particular community leaves.

How do we exercise authority in a parish church? What does this look like? How do we accept the admonitions of others and how do we encourage each other to be accountable?

Heavenly Father, you sent your son Jesus to be an example of life under authority and you gave unto him all authority in heaven and earth. He then gave it to His disciples. He gave it so they could proclaim the gospel and to bring your people into a relationship with you. Help us to know how to wield and receive authority.

Come, Lord Jesus

Chapter 19: how the Office should be performed

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We believe that God is everywhere, and the Lord sees both good and evil in all places.

Why go to church?

As we come into land on the specific matters of prayer in a monastic community, like that of the previous section on ‘matters of authority’ (chapter 1 – 7), St. Benedict ends on an idealistic vision; a goal to aim for. He begins this picture by affirming

God is everywhere.

He does this to acknowledge that, yes, we don’t have to go to a particular place with a particular group of people to pray. You, as an individual, can pray in any place at any time but there is a time and place to specifically go to where his presence is particularly felt. This reminds me of words from Common Worship’s Eucharistic Prayer A which says,

It is indeed right, it is our duty and our joy, at all times and in all places to give you thanks and praise, holy Father, heavenly King, almighty and eternal God, through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord.

It does not take long for St. Benedict to highlight an often forgotten aspect of this argument; that, just as you can be in contact with God at any time and in any place you wish, so can he be with you seeing

…both good and evil in all places.

It is surprisingly frequent that I hear people proclaim their belief that you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. Although I agree with that statement the assumption is not correct. What the person often means (you discover after some further questions) is that to be Christian is a matter of belief alone, ascribing to some statements as true or false or ‘hedging your bets’. To go to Church is seen as an unnecessary waste of time when you’ve already signed to say you are willing to be identified and ‘protected’ as a Christian (until it gets tough). The people I hear this from often cite the truth that God is everywhere and they can pray (if they want to) wherever they are. Indeed many people admit they pray, i.e. they say some words and, as much as they can tell, if God does exist, they think he hears and will act on their behalf.

What these people don’t always care to realise is that those moments when they are not aware of God, when they don’t consider God’s presence with them, God is still everywhere and he ‘sees both good and evil in all places.’ God can become an agent who is commanded to turn up when we ring our prayer bell and depart when we do not require his services. What this means is, that if you want to take seriously the belief that God is everywhere and this means you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian then you must also admit that God is part of every aspect of your life. Being a Christian is not about going to a particular location at a set time but it is about a genuine relationship; a relationship that is two way.

What makes someone a Christian is an active desire to be continually shaped into the likeness of Christ. We do this by reading Scripture and seeing the character of God, perfectly revealed in the person of Jesus in the Gospels. We do this by gathering with other people who are desiring the same change into their lives and discerning together what it means and looks like to be like Jesus. Church then becomes not a place you have to go to but a place where Christians gather to share, to be encouraged, to see Christ in other people and to re-commit themselves to the task of transformation. It is a hospital where the continual healing of our lives can be done in a safe space. We also get shaped into the likeness of Jesus by prayer. Prayer, in this instance, is about inviting God to enter into your life and begin the work of transformation and change. Prayer is the way we open up the wounds of our life to God who can heal us and set us free.

Change is always painful because there is some loss involved. Change can be exciting as well as new things begin to emerge but, as St. Paul says in Romans,

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:22-23)

Prayer is a two-way relationship one where we are invited to speak and share, to cry out for change, but it is where God is invited, by us, to speak and share, to cry out for change, often starting in our own lives. When prayer is only seen as a formal request to an unknown agent who delivers what we order then it falls and rarely satisfies. Prayer is about relationship and that is why it is harder than most people think because prayer asks something of us; it invites us to change and to lose something, an addiction to something that distracts or comforts us apart from God. We don’t care to admit it but we love the chains that holds us and imprison us (see ‘Lovers of Chains‘ post). We are all addicts to something and need healing and liberation. We rarely ask for it because the process is tough and the thought of letting that thing we deify, we hold up as our God, to go is inconceivable.
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Blind to Addiction

It is in R Kelly’s questionable song that he says,

My mind is telling me no but my body my body’s telling me yes

We are torn, as human beings, between that which we might consider noble and that which is more ‘instinctive’. Our conscience is trained to know what is right but our issue, increasingly, in our culture is that there is less shared ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. We do, however, continue to talk as if there is but everything is up for questions as authority is moved and changes. The difference between that which is ‘noble’ and that which is ‘instinctive’ is about that which raises us out of purely materialistic desires, the tangible and the animalistic into a realm of rationality and consciousness. These should be united but they are not always so.

We are creatures that can justify action. There is a wealth of opinion and countless beliefs we can articulate and ascribe to and any action can be explained. We are also in a culture of precedent so if someone else has done it then it is possible for someone else to do it too. This means when barriers are pushed and moved, they are irrevocably pushed and moved. We hope that our beliefs will inform our action but I think the other way is more true; our need to justify, to ourselves as well as to others, our actions shape our beliefs (if I did x I must believe y).

You will see this insight when you live with an addict. Their dependency on a particular substance is rationally justified. It is the extreme cases of alcohol and drugs that we are more aware of it but this justification that comes out of the mouth of those addicts comes out of all our mouths at some point. We may phrase it differently but it is the same,

I can’t help myself.

I need that person to feel secure.

Surely if this makes me happy it’s not wrong.

We justify to ourselves why we need the props and crutches in our lives and religion can be one of them. Having crutches is not necessarily a problem; if you have a broken leg it is helpful for a time of healing but the aim is to let go of the crutch and be free. Religion is a crutch while we heal, the aim is to be free.

My brother in law gave an image, which I find helpful. He was talking about the Law of Moses as St. Paul talks about in Romans. He sees the Law of Moses as a cast which you place over a broken part of our body; the cast does not heal the break but it protects it while it heals. The healing comes from the Spirit. The same is true, I think, of crutches. What is important is not the crutch but the healing.

The problem is we have an odd relationship with crutches. The analogy breaks down after a while so maybe it would be easier to talk about pain-killers. These are helpful and help us live with illness and pain but they can also become something we rely on and therefore blind us from our awareness of the need to heal. The initial problem may disappear but we don’t know and we become addicted to the pain-killers and we justify it to ourselves that we believe we still need them.

Reflection

St. Benedict ends this chapter with an interesting sentence,

Let us rise in chanting that our hearts and voices harmonise.

The aim in prayer is that our hearts and voices harmonise; so what we say is what’s in our heart but also what’s in our hearts is what we say. This extends, I think, to our actions too.
To be Christian is not about going to Church, about saying the right things, but is it is about allowing and inviting God into your lives to transform you into the likeness of Jesus. To be like Jesus is to have your voice and heart harmonised and that your heart is instinctively noble; that which you do without thinking is pure and Godly. We don’t perform Jesus but we become Jesus. We know what Jesus is really like by Scripture, by other Christians and saints and by prayer and the work of Holy Spirit through that relationship. Our authority then must be on three things: Scripture, Tradition and Reason.

Heavenly Father, you are indeed everywhere, you are with us at all times and in all places and you stand at the door to our lives and knock. You never force yourself in but you are wanting to be in our lives to make all things new. I’m sorry for the times that I have sent you back out of the door to hide parts of my life from you. I lie to myself and train myself to believe that you are in it all and you bless all my thoughts and actions but I know that that isn’t true because I’m not yet like your Son, Jesus.

Come, Lord Jesus

Chapter 5: obedience

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The first degree of humility is prompt obedience.

Why should I listen?

There is a myth that ‘millennials’ (my generation who have grown up saddling the millennium) have no respect for authority. In reality I think we do have respect for authority but the authority must be earned before it can be trusted. This does lead to many of us dismissing first instances of authority, particularly if it is enforced with rigor; this is a dangerous tendency. Our primary authority is no longer in older figures, previous generations but rather in peers; this is an even greater danger for what it leads to is a narcissistic, blind belief in our own power, understanding and un-walked wisdom.

Blogger, Anna Mussmann, has written a really interesting critique on culture using the young adult fiction which is popular. The article is called ‘Millenials Think Authority Figures Are Untrustworthy Idiots, And Modern Culture Is To Blame’ and takes stories such as Hunger Games, Finding Nemo and Splendors and Glooms to explore what these books have taught and continue to teach us growing up in this culture. Mussmann argues,

…when young adult fiction encourages reliance on transitory, peer-based relationships, it casts off the unifying role that classic literature once played. Our stories no longer bind multiple generations together. Instead they divide them… we even structure young people’s lives in ways that decrease adult influence and increase peer culture: our children are separated by age at school and attend age-specific youth programs at church (often never participating in traditional services that are designed for all-ages). They listen to their own music and text in their own language. The qualities which unify a culture, such as music, etiquette rules, and stories, are all things of which youth have their own.

This article is fascinating when considering my own attitude to obedience to authority figures of older generations. The issue, in my eyes, is always with them. This is an unhealthy reaction to many older people who have lived and experienced many things. I don’t want to dismiss my generation too quickly though. I do feel there’s always been an earning of trust and some blame must fall onto the previous generation who, after dismissing their parents for the mess of two world wars and the violent climax of enlightenment and modernism, felt they should never impose obedience on their children. In this context is it any wonder that young people today have little to no moral compass to guide them through the chaotic adolescence.

If you are a regular reader of my blog then you will know that over the last two or three years I have been increasingly vocal about ethics and virtues and the nature of moral discussions (read On Secularism, The Hunch, The Compulsion and The Overwhelming Pain, The Pope is Dust Just Like You and There is No Majority). The heady mix of my generation with my parents’ generation when running a society, is a cocktail for increasingly isolated people with highly subjective opinions to right and wrong trying to co-habit a claustrophobic space which leads inevitably to an increase in violence, physical and political. Our politic is broken because we have taken a shared narrative away and allowed a vacuum to be created. We now happily worship the absence in true nihilistic fashion.

Many young adults, especially those from the less affluent backgrounds, feel that they live in a world where family and community have eroded to the point of dysfunction. Personal loyalty may be their only hope in a dark, chaotic, and existential world. This kind of loyalty is the same moral value on which both gangs and tribes are built, and in many ways, our culture encourages a new kind of clique-like tribalism. Paradoxically, however, such loyalty is also constantly mutating, because our peer-oriented relationships (friendships and marriages) are self-chosen and therefore dissolvable. In real life the group loyalties break and reconfigure under strain. Such single-generation tribalism is also incredibly narrow. G. K. Chesterton argues that families are far more broadening than self-chosen companions because they force individuals to learn to understand many kinds of people. (Anna Mussmann, ‘Millenials Think Authority Figures Are Untrustworthy Idiots, And Modern Culture Is To Blame’, The Federalist, February 4th 2014, http://thefederalist.com/2014/01/23/millennials-think-authority-figures-are-untrustworthy-idiots-and-modern-culture-is-to-blame/)

Through this millennial lens I read St. Benedict’s words on obedience. I have explored in the previous weeks the role and nature of the abbot and have wrestled personally with my own attitude to the leader figure. I would argue that it is right, at this time, to reshape our understanding of leadership to fit the culture. In order to do that a leader must become an advocate to the people under his/her authority and we should embrace a more flat leadership model, organic in nature. This does not mean that the leader must become a friend, homogenous to the group, for that complicates the role of wisdom and obedience needed in order for personal and communal growth to occur. Authority is needed and it must remain external to the self. Tribalism is not a healthy way to exist but there are elements of it that should be encouraged; togetherness, sociality, loyalty but in Narnia this balance between friendship and authority is beautifully portrayed in the character of Aslan who remains aloof and separate from the children who must negotiate the strange and dangerous world of Narnia. I return again to the model of the ensemble theatre company; there is a sharing of leadership and direction but the role of the director becomes one of facilitator and ‘story-keeper’. This role ensures that authority is named and placed in a specific place. The challenge comes when the person who takes on that role mis-uses it. This is why the selection of such a person must come from the group and is placed on them through a sense of vocation and discerned calling.

Aslan’s style is to be alongside, encouraging but at times to demand the respect and authority to, enigmatically at times, to guide the children into strange and unknown experiences. The children do not understand why at the time but they are encouraged to trust the authority of figure to do it anyway. My generation would instinctively baulk at such suggestion,

Why should we?

Who does he think he is?

He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what’s good for me.

When I think of my personal authority figures, the ones who know me and guide me and whom I respect and obey, most of them are of a previous generation. They have earned my trust but remain separate enough from me to be able to command me and my will.

The church, I feel, must reflect on this cultural issue seriously when we discuss the nature of leadership and authority. There needs to be an overhaul of our images and models of leadership and I am increasingly convinced that we must return to a ‘priestly’ model where reconciliation and spiritual depth are primary roles. Obedience is demanded like Jesus demanded it; not by His words first but by His character. He was obviously a man who commanded attention but where it came from, no one could tell. Jesus, of course, is unique but as priest’s we are called to be His ambassadors in His Body, the Church. We are called to stand in His place between people and places, heaven and earth. We are to follow Him closely to encourage the people of God to do likewise. We must commit our lives to being lead by our Master in obedience and to speak the commands we follow to those whom God calls us to.
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Sacrificial Obedience

Not satisfied with calling the monks to obedience, St. Benedict takes it one step further and asks them to do so ‘without fear, laziness, hesitance or protest.’

Orders should be carried out cheerfully…God will not be pleased by the monk who obeys grudgingly, not only murmuring in words but even in his heart.

I am guilty of saying that I am happy to obey authority but doing so questioningly and with reservation. I act, in line with commands, suspiciously or creatively twisting the will of my superior to fit my own desires and will. St. Benedict is clear that true spiritual growth will occur when ‘These disciples must obediently step lively to the commanding voice – giving up their possessions, and their own will.’

I’m not sure if what I am about to suggest is skewed by my generational attitude to authority but I wonder if there’s an understanding here that the abbott himself is under the authority of the Rule and, prior to being called to the role of abbott has shown himself obedient to it. Thus his authority has been proved through his own discipleship. I wonder if his own discipleship and obedience must remain the hallmark of his leadership. The abbott must, in this understanding, follow and imitate Jesus, his Master, who followed and imitated His Father.

Reflection

This week’s chapter has cut to the heart of some personal issues for me and I am convicted to pray through my attitude. There is a sense in which it is a nudging back in line with God’s will and not a whole hearted overhaul. In parish ministry at this time there is a large confusion about right and healthy distinctions between ordained ministers and laity. In the past there has been some devastating situations caused by those in authority in the church and this has destroyed much of the Church’s authority. To destroy the whole thing and dismiss the tradition is too risky and dangerous and is akin to throwing ‘the baby out with the bath water’. There is such a call to wisdom but, unfortunately, my generation in this culutre will struggle to find wisdom for we no longer ascribe to a shared cultural narrative and to any virtues of character. The characters we share are story-less, peer-guided and self selected. With no wisdom this self-selection is vacuuous and vapour and we will lead ourselves ever darker into the abyss of nihilistic existence.

Lord have mercy upon us all.

Come, Lord Jesus.