Church, Community and Power

Roy Kearsley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138376236
• eBook ISBN: 9781317166207
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In the era of 'post-Christendom', how can church as a sociological reality be switched on to the destructive dangers, yet constructive possibilities, of 'power' flowing in and around its community? Attuned to the current distrust of church power, this book creatively works out responses that could turn painful censure into a re-visioning of church power relations, helped by neglected critical studies. The approach exposes a complexity to power, and filters that insight into a theology of church. The book shows how lessons are available for a religious community from post-modern philosopher Michel Foucault and from recent feminism. The topic of power has universal importance in the study of religion, though the response to analysis and critique in this book is drawn specifically from Christian sources. Kearsley concludes with an exploration for a future renovated, self-critical, authentic and growing community, sensitive to power while remaining in line with classic Christianity.

Chapter 1
Introduction: Church as Community in the Presence of Power

Focusing on Power and Community

Why do churches split, splinter or become scarred? Most obviously, because people fall out. Less obviously, because the members have made no allowance for the effects of power in their church community, a social body which is vulnerable like any other to the sociological hazards carried around by power. This troubling tendency for power dynamics to take church leaders by surprise suggests that there is a place for a new critical exploration of power’s effects in Christian local ‘congregations’ or ‘local churches’. Apart from the obvious value to theory about groups, it could help to clarify claims in a sceptical world that church is ‘just interested in power’. But most of all it could lay a basis for reducing through vigilance some unnecessary pain and emotional upheaval entailed in power’s laying waste of church communities. This book is offered as but one contribution to such a cause today. The book’s aim is to lay critical foundations for an analysis of power in local churches, to address these theologically and to mark out practical challenges and opportunities implied as a result. The hope is that critical theorists, theologians and practical theologians alike will be encouraged to continue turning to this subject and addressing its many aspects. Hence the work undertaken here is no more than a contribution at a specific point, hopefully, to a much wider work in progress.

Accordingly, in uncovering the mystery of power’s working in a church group, the following pages concentrate on power within the local church, though of course this will have implications for church’s wider networks. Moreover, the book makes theologies of church as community a major resource for this task and newly applies some recent epoch-making, ecumenical agreements for the same end. As a result of all these factors, certain terminology will crop up frequently, such as ‘church community’, ‘people on the way of Jesus’, or ‘those sharing in a common journey’. The preference for a community understanding of congregations is not designed to relativize all other depictions of church such as universal, national or ecumenical. Rather, a community portrayal proves particularly apt as a framework for a study of power dynamics.

It should be mentioned here that the decision to focus on local communities of the faith, as distinct from church as a universal or national body, is not a ploy to argue for a ‘congregational’ ecclesiology. There is no sectional, polemical aim in what follows. In fact the theological reflection throughout will throw up challenging questions for all traditions. Rather the purpose springs from a more catholic concern. It simply recognizes that all wider Christian streams are composed largely of such local churches and depend for their existence on the vitality and health of these grassroots communities. So here is the only place that a personal aside will be inflicted on the reader, and only so as to mention the biographical history behind the breadth of interest. That history includes regular attendance as a youngster in the Church of England, long and close contact with Methodism and branches of Presbyterianism, experience of independent churches and finally a long commitment to the Baptist tradition, including knowledge of at least three Baptist Unions. Teaching theology has meant involvement with students from most traditions, ranging from Salvation Army and Charismatic to Catholic and Coptic. I should also make mention of my three years in West Africa encountering Christian congregations at a time when new styles of church were burgeoning there and providing a challenge to established traditions. The aim therefore is to explore the handling of power in a way hopefully applicable to most types of local communities of the faith whatever their ‘polity’ or organizational preference. Of course someone from another tradition, might well have addressed the issues differently, but in general power is no respecter of differences. As a natural feature of a social unit it works similarly in all groups and therefore in all groups of a common faith.

Given such a focal point as that above it is obviously not possible to do justice at the same time to other related pressing concerns. So for instance we cannot in the same book also analyse in depth Christian thought on church responses to such critical topics as politics, social ethics, church and state, pastoral care or economics. Similarly we cannot give sustained attention to the fading glory known as Christendom and its meaning for today. Fortunately the literature is already abundant on such crucial concerns.1 This book is focused differently from these endeavours, and yet it should still be seen as an overdue complement (and compliment also) to those big-canvas studies, for it is intimately connected with them. It works on their borders and even examines the anatomy of power in a way that is transferable to a larger scale. In any case, the way power works within any local church is obviously connected with that same church’s attitude to its power relations among outside bodies such as ecumenical partners, political authorities and coalitions. For one thing, grassroots concerns, vitality and dynamics usually feed upwards into wider Christian thought on issues of ‘big power’. Moreover, broader Christian pronouncements on major issues sometimes depend for their credibility on how well local church communities seem to handle their own internal power streams. Conversely, in this book broadly based political conceptions furnish a starting point for exploring more local forms of power such as those in a church. In summary then, the focal point from the outset is indeed going to be power in a local church, but a wider significance will be in evidence, and wider applications will be beckoning.

Clearing the Air on Terms

At this point a comment about terminology is needed with regard to all three terms of the book’s title: ‘power’, ‘church’ and ‘community’. For the sake of convenience we have already used ‘power’ somewhat carelessly as if it were a transparent word. But of course background will soon become necessary to address the problematic complexity in the word’s varied uses. Though ‘power’ seems to have a vaguely common meaning to all speakers, in reality its varied deployment is far from simple or consistent. Muddling of categories easily occurs. Consequently the book endeavours to address the need for distinctions that assist conversation about power.

The word ‘church’ too is not straightforward. Here it will be used most frequently in the form: ‘a church’. This convention is merely to remind constantly that power in local congregations is the main focus of discussion. But in addition the reader will encounter simply the single word ‘church’, as in ‘church and power’. Then this single word on its own focuses sharply upon a quality, for example: ‘to be church to the world’ with all that means. It speaks of church-like traits usually valued in principle for all congregations, especially life as community or a ‘life together’, serving the world as Jesus did, not merely a meeting place or weekly event. In addition, it helps us not to speak of ‘the church’. Accordingly there will be less danger of unintentional sweeping assumptions about any particular wider tradition, association or coalition. That is, it does not raise contentious issues involved in talk of the ‘true church’ or ‘the real church’. After all, the whole point of the discussion is to quarry some insights that might benefit all congregations of whatever stripe, with only occasional reference to any one body of the faithful.

One further clarification remains: the use of the word ‘community’. The term nearly always denotes a local church considered as a community governed by the person, way and words of Jesus. Which means of course that here the word ‘community’ is not, as so often, a technical term referring to the various special orders, callings and vocations. Granted, the description ‘community’ here could actually be applicable to all kinds of Christian groups, including vocations, but more especially in what follows it emphasizes that congregations are communities. Their quality of community may not be as constraining as a specific vocational vow, but still a local church is community in biblical terms. It is an extended family with a calling for members to share in a life together on the way of Jesus, a ‘household of the faith’. For reasons of comprehensiveness and simplicity, we leave open the vexed question of who exactly qualifies for inclusion in this family. These days even so-called ‘gathered’ congregations are much more accessible and hence broader in population than they used to be. They consciously make welcome a wide range of believers, searchers and doubters, including them in their activities, often under the heading ‘friends’. This fact allows the term ‘community’ to be flexible, but usually implying that those calling themselves Christians are going to be in the majority and, at least by their own lights, receptive to their community being governed by Christian beliefs.

Why Power is Important

It is not difficult to identify the relevance of exploring power’s presence in the community life of a local church. Disasters of dynamics in churches suggest that the time is ripe for bringing the subtle and complex questions of power into consideration of local church. It is here at street-level, in face to face church, that leaders and members often show troubling unpreparedness for power’s sometimes destructive impact. Accordingly, the aim of what we are doing is to explore how power inhabits local communities of people of faith as they seek to build a life together on the Jesus way. This task naturally stirs up a variety of questions. What might ‘power’ mean specifically to church as a cluster of face-to-face relationships? Do the leaders themselves really enjoy as much power as they think? Or do they acquire more than they should? How should the people committed to a life together in the service of God and the world align and understand themselves in the presence of power? Can power be seen at all in a positive light? Is power a reality anyway or just a construct of human speech?

A response to such questions should be the concern not just of some unfortunate clergy but of every single leader of any kind in every church community, whatever stage it has reached in its life cycle. For meltdown can strike any company thinking itself to be on the way of Jesus, even one that seems buoyant. Such crises can occur whether the church concerned is healthy or in decline, traditional or contemporary, small or large, struggling or thriving. The sobering reality is that many a church bursting with vitality and on the brink of a seemingly great future has been cruelly blown away in a few hours by what is called in its midst, ‘power dynamics’ or ‘power behaviours’ (often to be termed in this book power patterns, power moves, or power streams). And it is likely that matters would indeed have been different if close attention had been paid to the sometimes half-hidden presence of these dynamics. Limited attention to power in ecclesiological literature also suggests there is a poorly developed awareness of power’s role and an inadequate insight into its meaning and dynamics. Equally, it is possible sometimes to detect that little thought is given to the forms of natural defence available for church to combat power’s more negative forms.

However, the study which follows does not simply concern the worst nightmare in a church. Consideration of power relates at every point to all the processes of church life including positive ones. This fact means that it is not enough to denounce all power, and hope for an upsurge of ‘servanthood’ in church leadership. To address social relations in the realm of church community, an inquiry like this must seek to throw light on the range of meanings for ‘power’ and unearth something of how it might work and might be conditioned by other influences. Therefore our task must not only explore measures against potentially harmful power in church community, but also recognize in what conditions it could be productive.

The uncomfortable truth is that power in churches often serves as the real cause of changes, whether positive or negative. Even in our highly democratized society, power rather than policy often still turns out to be the single most decisive factor in strategies developed by social groups. It can rise as the most immediate and pressing factor in every undertaking, despite accompanying solemn discussions about theology, finance and management. Power, this slippery element of human relations, frequently manages to mutate or reincarnate in some form – to live on in varying degrees and shapes. Probably there is no feast anywhere in the world of human relations without this spectre knocking on the door. And so it cannot be missing from church either. Power is possibly the element that is least understood, explored or explained in groups like churches, even though it is pervasive. Time and again it is the determining issue even around such core activities as mission, worship, pastoral care and sacrament.

Hence this is a journey which seeks to identify, dissect, and better understand forms of power faced in the social realities of a faith-community like church. The challenge is how a church seeks in the presence of power to be a company of authentic ‘Jesus followers’.

The Critical Context for Church in the Presence of Power

Any c...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Church as Community in the Presence of Power
• 2 Church as a Koinonia. The Fellowship of the Way
• 3 The Contested Concept. What is Power?
• 4 Church and the Environment of Power
• 5 ‘Power Relations’ and Church
• 6 Strategies, Church and Freedom
• 7 Spirit, Power and Weakness
• 8 Power, Authority and Community
• 9 Twin Problems on Power and Church
• 10 Conclusions: Power in the Future of Koinonia Community
• Bibliography
• Index