Raymond Dague: The Ungodly Tyranny of Visionary Control

Commentary
July 20, 2008

We live in an age when many religious leaders seek to impose their notion of faith on those within their flock. The source of their faith is their own perception of God. This notion of theirs is untethered to the scripture or the faith tradition which gave them their positions of authority. Such church leaders look to their own hearts, to their own cultural biases, and sometimes perhaps to spiritual forces which are the antithesis of the God they claim to follow. They claim that the Holy Spirit speaks to them in a special way. They usually don’t say in so many words that they want to impose their vision on others; that is just the effect of their actions. These actions, while successful in imposing the will of a few on the formal actions of the church, ultimately devastate both the spiritual vitality and the number of people in the pews. Today’s Episcopal Church in America, the Church of Canada in the Diocese of New Westminster, and many parts of the Church of England are excellent examples of this.

American Bishop Geralyn Wolf attending the Lambeth Conference underscored how “vision” invigorates the left which seeks to impose its newly discovered values on the rest of the church. She was quoted in Episcopal Life Online talking about the retreat at the first day of the Lambeth Conference saying, “for those who like to be taken into a vision and work into that vision," the retreat's first day was "thrilling." "For those who like absolute answers and wish [Rowan Williams] to address the issues in the Communion, it was probably a disappointment," she added. In other words, “vision” trumps scripture and the tradition of the church.

Another way of putting it is to refer to the work of the Holy Spirit to justify the course you as a church leader take for the church. Kendall Harmon in an interview after General Convention 2006 noted that he had never heard the Holy Spirit invoked so many times at a church convention as at that one. If you have no other authority for your innovations, simply claim that your vision of the church is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and you have justified anything that you do.

When God speaks to the leader, and she or he claims the exclusive pipeline to the Lord, that leader can ignore the little people who protest that an innovation flies in the face of scripture or tradition of the Christian faith. They can steamroll the opposition, because they hold the office and power to do so.

Take the recent vote in the Church of England to allow women to be made bishops. A vast number of clergy and laity said that if the Synod of the Church did this they would leave the Church of England. Before the vote, 1300 clergy of the Church of England warned them that an affirmative vote on this issue would split the church, and that they would defect to Rome if such a thing were to happen. What was the response from an arrogant church leadership which holds visionary control of the Church of England? Go ahead; that is an empty threat; we dare you to do it; we will consecrate women as bishops because our vision tells us to!

The American Episcopal Church did the same in 2003 with the consecration of a man living with his same sex partner. The primates of the Anglican Communion gathered and told the American Church not to do it. The Windsor Report told the American Church to turn back from this course of action. The American Church ignored them. They knew better. God gave them the vision. It was their duty to impose that on the church.

Another problem with imposed vision is that it can sometimes lack any substance. It is just a way to waste the time and energy of the church on something other than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Bishop Schori’s constantly pushing the Millennium Development Goals to the point of obsession is just such example of visionary control without substance. Other than talking about the Millennium Development Goals, what are parishes or individuals supposed to do about them? This vision has (fortunately) gotten no traction in the pews. Even at the level of the presiding bishop, MDG are little more than a mantra rather than a vision for the church. It is an imposed vision without substance.

Michael Ingham, bishop of the Canadian Diocese of New Westminster, is another purveyor of visionary control. When clergy of his diocese refused to knuckle under to his same-sex agenda, his heavy-handed response was to warn clergy that he would impose church discipline on them. One of the clergy he targeted was J. I. Packer.

Packer was only one of many clergy who refused to accept Ingham’s notions of homosexual relations as a blessed lifestyle. So Ingham threatened Packer and the others with suspension of their orders. Sadly for Ingham, J. I. Packer is one of the most prominent Anglican clergyman and theologians in the world. Ingham’s heavy handed treatment served to show the hollowness of the visionary control he sought to impose on others.

Ingham learned the hard way that the church is a voluntary association. J. I. Packer left the spiritual authority of Ingham and his diocese. But when people such as him are chased out the front door, many others quietly leave though the back door. They vote with their feet. That is the result of the attempt to impose visionary control.

Occasionally somebody makes explicit what is often only implied about visionary control. As an attorney who regularly reads and writes documents for churches, I see all sorts of things. I recently found one church document which allowed the leadership to strip the congregation of all authority other than to affirm the selection of the trustees as selected by the leadership. But they went even further in ceding visionary control to one man. They adopted this:

“In matters of visionary control and spiritual direction in the ministry, the decision of the Senior Pastor shall be final without regard to the decision of the Board of Trustees. Although all matters will be discussed openly with the Board of Trustees and a consensus sought for the decision to be made, it will be the duty of the Senior Pastor to use his overriding authority to make sure that the vision given him by the Lord for this ministry is not compromised by any vote of the Board of Trustees.”

Yikes! Under the sway of its Senior Pastor that congregation explicitly set forth in its certificate of incorporation a theology that one man’s vision is the sole conduit of revelation from God.

Often visionary control is not stated so plainly. It often is discerned only in actions, not formal documents.

The Episcopal Church sometimes makes “visionary control” clear from its rhetoric, but it is more often only seen in its actions. The arrangement that finds Katherine Jefferts Schori in control of a $50 million per year church bureaucracy used to sue parishes allows her to assert visionary control not just over those sued, but over others who are intimidated by those lawsuits. She gets away with it because others in her church quietly acquiesce to her actions.

This is not to disparage the need for vision in the church. As the Psalmist wrote, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” The problem is not with having a vision; the problem is with an autocratically imposed vision.

And just any vision is not sufficient. A vision consistent with God’s revealed law is the basis for the Holy Spirit to prosper the church. A vision which is based on personal whim and preference is a recipe for destruction of the church.

The way of the unimposed vision is the way the Father worked through Jesus. God has plenty of vision, but he had absolutely no control of his Son. He did not compel Jesus to follow him. Jesus followed a Father who asked his Son to do his will, but he did not force Jesus to do anything. Even in giving up his life for his followers, Jesus voluntarily laid it down.

Jesus approached his disciples in the same way. He extended the offer, but everyone was free to accept or decline it. Jesus invited, and those who got the invitation did as they pleased. Some accepted, like the Twelve. Others refused, like the Rich Young Ruler. God’s vision was for the redemption of man by sending his Son with the approach that “a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.”

A humble disciple of Jesus took the same approach in the Foreward of a book he recently wrote entitled Jesus of Nazareth. He writes, “It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search ‘for the face of the Lord.’ Everyone is free, then, to contradict me. I would only ask my readers for that initial goodwill without which there can be no understanding.”

Those are the words of Benedict XVI. He has all of the authority of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, yet does not compel his readers, whether they be Catholics or not, to agree with him. He sets forth the vision he discerned about God, and asks others to partake of it. He will not compel others to follow.

Were that all church leaders understood and followed this. If they did, the Holy Spirit would indeed prosper their ministries, or allow the ones which are not in the Father’s will to die. But then again, maybe that is why some clergy insist on the tyranny of visionary control.

Raymond Dague is an attorney in Syracuse, NY who represents many churches in his practice of law. www.DagueLaw.com