All tyranny requires these elements to be successful.
******************
I use Alexander Strauch–the quotes from his book–because he condenses many of the historic arguments with the embedded presumptions and filters that so many in the Church Government tub advocate. Never forget, the FORM of Government is irrelevant if the ideas driving the form are designed to oppress. I could dig around in other contemporary Church Government writing and find much of the same. Strauch just happens to have a comprehensive presentation.
Alexander Strauch wrote this in 1991 in a book called Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership.
Furthermore, “first among equals” provides desperately needed protection from the all-too-common pitfalls of egoism, greed, personality imbalance and unholy ambition to which highly gifted teachers may succumb. An exceptionally gifted leader or teacher can lead and teach with all his zeal and might, as the Scripture commands a leader and teacher to do (Romans 12:7,8), and yet be held accountable to fellow leaders and teachers. The Christian leader or teacher who refuses brotherly accountability is self-deceived and is headed for self-destruction. The Christian leader who really knows his Bible and has an honest view of his sinfulness and weaknesses understands his undeniable need for the checks and balances (see Fallacy of Checks and Balances at the bottom of the article) provided by fellow colleagues. Only dictators fear accountability from godly colleagues. (Strauch, pp. 48-49)
I said this in my post titled Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit. “So many Assumptions, Presuppositions, and Filters are already in place that we read the Bible with profoundly closed eyes. Or maybe better said, we read the words but our conclusions are ingrained in the history of our tradition or driven by the substance of our fears. Since I like saying I told you so, notice the implicit appeal to fear in his paragraph.
Strauch sets the foundation of his comments at the last of this paragraph. In the second to the last sentence, we find this argumentative gem: “The Christian leader or teacher who refuses brotherly accountability is self-deceived and is headed for self-destruction.”
This non-argument is summed up by saying: “If you don’t believe exactly what I’m saying, it is because your truth knower is broken… because YOU broke it.” This illogical silliness is a Calvinist staple that gets trotted out when the perpetrator demands an intellectual pass on what he considers a self-evident truth.
What self-evident truth is Strauch trying to get past critical review? Actually, in this paragraph, he is offering four.
1. Personal Self-Awareness is limited or nonexistent.
2. The Highly Gifted is uniquely imperiled by measure of his gift.
3. Expressing individual gifting is a function of biblical illiteracy and self-deception.
4. Moral action is the function of group pressure: “first among equals” are the only place gifted folks can prevent their implicit failings.
So, the “Highly Gifted” are somehow more susceptible to the “pitfalls of Egoism, greed, personality imbalance, and uhholy ambition.”
Hummm…where have I heard those sentiments? Never mind…I’ll get back to that later.
Strauch is an Indwelling Sin guy; he presupposes that man is insane. Since that body of doctrine casts a jaundiced eye at any human endeavor that aspires too much of any self-fulfillment or self-expression, the intellectual assumptions would lead to placing the Highly Gifted under the greatest scrutiny. But this is really a false choice based on this progression of thought.
Isolation = failed submission to a group of “equals.”
Highly Gifted + Isolation = self-deception and therefore self-destruction.
However misplaced this logic, it has a goal. The false choice is designed to make a liability out of virtues; it is designed to make a successful, effective, gifted, man/woman fear their ability, to view it with suspicions and look for safety. The location of that safety is in the affirming judgment of “colleagues.”
In a later post, I will deal with the intellectual slight of hand Strauch uses to establish the non-hierarchy…uhhh…errr…hierarchy called the “First among equals.”
But I want to point out that his solution to self-deception is a group of men who are somehow mutually immune to deception and the “…pitfalls of egoism, greed, personality imbalance and unholy ambition…”
How? What is the magic bullet?
Since the pitfalls increase with measure of greater Gift, it follows that lacking gift, lacking ability would be the antidote. Consider the implications like this: the Highly Gifted have a desperate need of protection from…themselves (?). The measure of their gift imperils them directly proportional to their lack of GROUP accountability. The logical progression would be: less gifting = less personal peril. Be gift-less and be immune to ego and greed. Be Highly Mediocre and suffer no personality imbalance.
Hahahah…that is too rich. Hey God, make me gift-less! Make me Mediocre! Then I won’t suffer personality imbalance!
But wait…I know plenty of mediocre people who are profoundly greedy, filled with overbearing ego and are personality basket cases. So how do they escape the desperate need of the “first among equals?”
>big eye roll<
Strauch is the one who singled out the Highly Gifted for an increased need of governance BECAUSE of their virtue: that is the implication of his comments. What happened to all the rest of you? Why don’t the Highly Mediocre merit this profound warning to come lay their gift-less-ness down at the feet of the “First Among Equals”?
You will see in a minute.
Ambition: This word has been transformed into a word meaning the amoral pursuit of any goal. We inherited this philosophical assumption form Nietzsche I suppose.
However, Ambition is not ruthless, unscrupulous achievement. Synonyms for ambition are aspiration, dream, hope, and desire amongst others. If I rendered Strauch’s sentence like this “…. personality imbalance and unholy aspiration or hope….” we would all wrinkle our brow trying to decipher EXACTLY what an unholy aspiration or hope could be. We would want to identify the specific failing.
But he puts the word ambition in the sentence. If we acknowledge the word at all, we assume that the failing the “Highly Gifted” suffers is an ambition of the unholy sort. What other kind of ambition could there be?
Ambition is merely a relentless effort to improve. Improve what? Anything. Everything. People have an ambition to get better when they go to the doctor. People have an ambition to get smarter when they go to school. Ambition is an amoral description of determined sustained effort for self-development. The moral quality of the effort of self-development is directly attached to who pays the price for that development. Go to the doctor to get healthy: who could see a moral failing in that pursuit? But what if I told you a person shot three people in the head to get their flu shots before the supply ran out? Now we have an unholy ambition.
Since ambition is an amoral desire to improve oneself, then the operative word in Strauch’s comment is Unholy. What then is unholy? Since he has already said that human capacity to find, arrive, and emulate ethical, moral action, he has to find another location for such guidance.
Struach’s predicate is: Highly Gifted people have a limited capacity to tell when they’ve wandered into moral pitfalls. Somehow being Highly Gifted means your moral development and self-awareness is stunted.
Since Gifting imperils, mediocrity saves. Sooo, Strauch’s necessary solution is a group of Highly MEDIOCRE “First among Equals.” They define the Unholy part of the Ambition. The UNgifted Have-Nots get to define the proper moral limits of the Highly Gifted Haves’ aspiration and expression.
I suppose that seems like a boon for the Highly Mediocre. The Highly UNgifted Have-Nots unite to bring gifting justice to the world. The evil Highly Gifted Haves are making themselves better at the expense of spiritual proletariat.
People State of Heaven Unite!
Ehem!!
This is awesome government: Oligarchy of Mediocrity. Highly Gifted souls must subordinate their gifts to a group of less…gifted. Why? Because the gift-less are Holy? They have no ambition to corrupt? Their moral clarity is effective?
That means a group of men (or women) with the least gifting are setting the standard of personal improvement. The logical outcome of this silliness is utter enforced passivity.
I know, for those of you who don’t have anything to offer–lacking any gift of note–you just breathed a sigh of relief.
The pressure is off. You don’t have to produce with your gift, as small and insignificant as it is. The “First among Equals” will level the playing field and keep bad things from happening by keeping the Highly Gifted from excessive…success?
But wait. What if you decide you don’t like your lot in life? What if you want to develop your gifts and use them for the glory of God? You and I both know they are modest gifts, not amounting to much, but hey…we all want to make a difference.
What happens to you?
Hahaha… hahahhahaha…
The guy who has NO GIFT WHAT-SO-EVER is gonna set the limits on your holy aspirations. And if you “…. refuses brotherly accountability is (You are) self-deceived and is (you are) headed for self-destruction.” You’re stuck with your mediocre lot in life. Your passivity is essential to avoid being deceived. Sucks to be you!
And this is what Strauch (and others like him) is really after. He is advocating passivity. The reason he doesn’t paint a broad brush over everyone’s propensity to fall into “egoism, greed, personality imbalance, and unholy ambition …” is because what makes most people “average” is their passivity. They are willing to accept the shepherd’s crook without too much fuss and feathers.
Most government structures need a docile body politic. Tame men are easy to order about, ambitious men… not so much. And since Strauch is positing a very thin distinction between the governors and the governed in his “First among Equals,” he needs a very heavy tonic to keep the body politic compliant. He needs you to fear the very gift you have been given. He needs you to utterly distrust yourself and your capacity to know and follow the truth: your ability to define, and make the choice to act on ethical (read: Holy) action.
The reality is, most people have profound gifts but never set out to exploit the content of those gifts because of the twin paralyzers: fear and passivity! It is easier to be passive. It takes courage to embrace the potential of your own life and work towards its highest and best expression. Fearlessness is the product of moral clarity–the foundational assurance that you are right to pursue your course of action. It takes ambition fueled with the moral clarity that using your gift is the RIGHT action.
And this is what Strauch (and others like him) implicitly know: the “gifted” tend to be movers and shakers. The success of their gift is usually because of their work ethic: the successful Highly Gifted is NOT passive. He tends to be self -motivated and self-appointed and self-confident.
This is Highly Gifted tendency UNLESS they are terrified into forfeiting their self-motivation.
And if I read the parable of the three men and the talents right, the two men who exploited their ability, taking actions to expand to double their stewardship were rewarded.
The man terrified of his stewardship, fearing failure and the judgments of his master, buried his talent demonstrating his utter passivity.
What was his judgment again?
5 comments
Dan
November 17, 2008 at 2:23 pm Dan(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Since the pitfalls increase with measure of greater Gift it follows that lacking gift, lacking ability would be the antidote. Consider the implications like this: the Highly Gifted have a desperate need of protection from … themselves. (?) The measure of their gift imperils them directly proportional to their lack of GROUP accountability. The logical progression would be: less gifting = less personal peril. Be gift-less and be immune to ego and greed. Be Highly Mediocre and suffer no personality imbalance.
Hahahah… that is too rich. Hey God, make me gift-less! Make me Mediocre! Then I won’t suffer personality imbalance!
Utterly classic. I had a good chuckle over this. And dammit, isn’t it so true!
Ellie
November 18, 2008 at 2:13 am Ellie(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
…mustn’t think too highly of ourselves, huh, Dan? ;0
Crazy stuff, that’s for sure… :/
Barb
October 24, 2010 at 12:24 pm Barb(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
but..but..but… This is so not fair. I want to have you in my living room so I can ask the 1,000 questions that come to mind. I know you want to spur us on to think for ourselves but…but…but…
Without knowing what presuppositions I naturally have through my very carefully crafted Bible School training (think Bob Jones) and the subsequent erroneous writings of a multiplicity of writers, preachers and doctrines it is very hard to sort through this stuff.
So the easiest question. How about how (we have been told) the early church arranged structure? What about the whole “in a bunch of counselors there is safety” thing in the OT writings? Isn’t what you have even here on this blog in the “arena of ideas” a form of putting out an idea to have others examine it and see if there are holes anywhere? Isn’t that what a “board of elders” or what this man is proposing, supposed to do – not necessarily let the mediocre rule over the gifted one but actually help him go further than he could on his own?
.-= Barb´s last blog ..Home for Sale =-.
John Immel
October 24, 2010 at 4:40 pm John Immel(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lol… not fair? And you told your kids that life was not fair, right? Tee hee… just messing. It would be fun to sit in your living room and answer questions. But I get expensive after about 5 answers.
>snicker<
Barb
October 24, 2010 at 8:46 pm Barb(Quote) (Reply) (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thanks for your quick reply. we have started just reading from the beginning of your blog and what you are saying is becoming more and more clear as we read. Will save any other questions till after I have tried to understand all the posts. Many of the questions that you have just answered have been addressed in other posts. So thanks..will be around as you write more and we continue to read. Appreciate your work as I know it has taken years of study to know what you know. We are being blown away as we read.
.-= Barb´s last blog ..Home for Sale =-.