The Center for Progressive Christianity Article

The following appeared in the October 2005 Newsletter of the Center for Progressive Christianity

THE CHURCHES' SYSTEMIC HEART DISEASE

A systemic disease eats away at the heart of the ministry and mission of churches even when they commit themselves to the 8 Points of Progressive Christianity. We have difficulty diagnosing the disease because we are accustomed to living every day suffering its symptoms. The disease is called the domination system and it is manifested in the form of hierarchical organization.

The domination system has prevailed as an organizing social system since the rise of civilization in roughly 8000-6000 BCE. For our purposes I will only cite four key elements of civilized societies.

1] The gathering of nonfood producers into cities - urbanization.
2] A social hierarchy - a kingdom, in which the head of one noble family rules; or a state society, in which the ruling elites are supported by a government or bureaucracy and the masses are subservient. The ruling elites maintain power by institutionalized or vigilante violence.
3] The institutionalized ownership of food by ruling elites, government or bureaucracy.
4] The establishment of complex, formal social institutions such as education and organized religion. Religious institutions serve to give divine sanction to the power of the elites and are under their protection.

The pervasiveness of this system transformed Jesus’ egalitarian Kingdom of God into the primacy of monarchical bishoprics in urban centers as early as the turning of the 1st Century. Early in the 4th century the Bishops found themselves in the happy situation of being bought out by the Emperor Constantine. They won great edifices, but lost their autonomy. ‘Orthodox’ Christian communities became captive to the domination system and fully adopted the hierarchical system as their own. The efficiency of the Roman Empire became embodied in the church which, in turn, made the Empire holy.

Nowadays, sans Empire, the hierarchical conspiracy in the church works something like this. Bishops, priests, elders, presbyters and ministers are bestowed with disciplining power and spiritual wisdom. They promise to assure security, support, well being, approval, and rewards (sometimes including eternal life) for their subjects, the laity. The subjects agree to be obedient, loyal, and dependent on the perquisites conferred by the hierarchs. Thus the hierarchs and subjects conspire, each to their own supposed advantage.

Because the vagaries of existence undermine their best efforts neither the hierarchs nor the subjects can fulfill their commitments. The conspiracy breaks down. Each party blames the other for its failure. Tragically, they remake make the deal again and again, because it is structured into the culture of civilization, analmost immutable mindset.

What are the crippling symptoms of the disease?

--- Dissonance with progressive trends in other areas of contemporary culture. See David Prescott’s article The Christian Church: Engaging the Future. www.tcpc.org/resources/articles/christian_church.htm
--- Codependency and addiction. See Anne Wilson Shaef’s article Is the Church an Addictive Organization? www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=751
--- Repressed and displaced anger and hostility, frustration and depression,
--- Pervasive sexual and psychological abuse.
--- Overt and subliminal racism, sexism, classism.
--- Institutional survival (ie. the interests of the hierarchs) as a primary operational value, which belies stated values.
--- De facto sanctification of the domination system (and its underlying violence) in all areas of society.

Reshaping our theologies and reiterating our goals will not be enough to make us healthy Christians, freed from our captivity and committed to fulfill the values stated in the 8 Points, Liberation will happen when we learn how to create organizational alternatives to the domination/hierarchical system.

Peter is a retired Episcopal hierarch [Dean, Rector, Vicar, Diocesan Missioner] and organizational consultant who attributes his failure to convert congregations to Jesus’ program and mission to his attempts to stay within the system. He is the author of Jesus Circles: a Way to Heal our Wounds, Subvert the Domination System, and Build an Abundant Future.

A Review of Jesus Circles

In this interesting and well written book, Peter Lawson first presents the reader with a history of the domination system that has pervaded human societies from ancient times to the present - a system of social imperialism and hegemony in which a few wealthy and privileged members of an "upper class" warp society to their own needs and desires while punitively subordinating and dominating all those below this class level.

This warpage has pervaded our religions as well. The author points out that while this system basically exists in and pervades today's world, it was particularly harsh some 2000 years ago in Palestine when Jesus, an itinerant Jewish teacher, healer and revolutionary, began his mission of opposing this system of class domination by teaching instead, a system of social justice, equality and love to replace it, a system of values originating within Judaism centuries before but by Jesus' time, completely corrupted.

Having outlined and discussed the historical aspects of this domination system, the author then proceeds to review how this system is still punitively, suppressingly and devastatingly operative in today's social, political and religious worlds. In effect, this system is just as pervasive in societies today as it was in the world 2000 years ago.

This is the problem that Lawson addresses and, having done so, he next presents a way for us to confront it and at the same time a way to find interpersonal support and guidance through a system of relating with each other that he calls Jesus Circles, a system of relating that is based on "Jesus' vision, message and program" and "a way to heal our wounds, subvert the domination system and build an abundant future."

Lawson's perceptions and guidance in this wonderful little book can help us to hold open the door to a more wholesome and meaningful life in which we can respect, honor and love each other, the very principles that Jesus stood for.

James A. Turner
San Francisco

A Review by Robert Warren Cromey

Jesus Circles is book with a radical way to look at the life of Jesus and its application to the broken world in which we live. The circles refer to a specific method of getting people into deep dialogue and reaching consensus in non-violent and caring decision making.

Lawson is deeply influenced by the Jesus scholars John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg. Tracing the culture of Jesus’ time as different from our in many ways yet shows the results of domination and violence are essentially the same. We don’t have slavery in the US but overlook it in other places in the world. Corporations treat people as objects – means of production. Our addiction to violence is not with lions in the arena but in the brutality of football, hockey and wrestling.

Less concerned about the divinity of Christ, Lawson focuses on Jesus the sage and proclaiming of the Kingdom of God. Jesus teased the elites and people in power, he broke the tyranny of the rigid family structures of his time, named the poor and lowly as those most blessed by God, ate with those regarded as sick and impure, encouraged the lower classes to be “non-violent provocateurs of the new Empire of God.” These sections of the book are inspirational pictures of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

The final sections of the book describes how circles as ways of making decisions break the tradition of decisions made by the powerful at the top, the dominant ones. In the circles people share their stories, their frustrations and joys and then work toward making decisions in a whole new and joyful way rather than where majority rules and the losers feel rejected and hurt. The chapters are helpfully specific in how to set up groups, how to proceed and how to reach decisions.

This is a fascinating and rewarding read for anyone who calls him or herself a Christian, a follower of Jesus. Preachers will find a store house of interesting ways to tell and re-tell the Jesus story and lay people will find help and hope in helping define what it means to follow Jesus and use some of the principles of that following to be in community and make decisions.

Peter Lawson is a retired priest of the Episcopal Church. He last served as co-rector of St. James’s Church, San Francisco. He lives with his wife Danielle in Valley Ford, California.

The Beginning and the End - It's time for the New Human Being

"We find ourselves at the end of one era, and not yet at the beginning of a new one. We are caught in a parenthesis between the reluctance to leave what was, and the terror before what is yet to be. Some of us have subsided into lives of serial monotony, while others risk all for sensation at any cost. And still a vision beckons. We are the citizens of closing times, and this makes us pioneers of opening time, bridge builders and architects, the ones who will make it happen. In this, our vision and guidance is essential for these are the times, and we are the people. "   Jean Houston

Bill Moyers on The Best Government Money Can Buy

"The middle class and working poor are told that what's happening to them is the consequence of Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand.' This is a lie.

What's happening to them is the direct consequence of corporate activism, intellectual propaganda, the rise of a religious orthodoxy that in its hunger for government subsidies has made an idol of power, and a string of political decisions favoring the powerful and the privileged who bought the political system right out from under us." Bill Moyers June 3, 2004

http://www.inequality.org/moyerstranscript.pdf.

Distributive Justice

We will not see any movement toward distributive justice in the social structure until we find ways of organizing that do not mimic the hierarchical/power/violence/domination system now infecting all of society everywhere.

We need not to be alone.

David Engwicht, a shared-spaces proponent in Brisbane, Australia, has written: "Implicit in the whole notion of second-generation traffic calming is the idea that significant social change only happens when we amplify the paradoxical 'submerged voice' as opposed to tearing down the 'dominant voice.'

The dominant voice is violence - the core of the domination system.

Amplifying the submerged voice is an act of subversion. Standing alone as a subversive is nearly impossible. That's why we need to create circles to heal our wounds, sharpen our wisdom, and gain the insight and strength to prevail.

Peter

Jesus Circles by Peter Lawson

You can buy Jesus Circles from

http://www1.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.asp?bookid=20202

or from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.