Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 3, Counsel and Authority

From Chapter Three--"Summoning the Brothers for Counsel"--from the Rule of St. Benedict:

Chapter 3
1As often as anything important is to be done in the monastery, the abbot shall call the whole community together and himself explain what the business is; 2and after hearing the advice of the brothers, let him ponder it and follow what he judges the wiser course.
Back in September when I was visiting with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at the new monastic community Rutba House, I had a few questions I wanted to ask. The first one I asked was this, "How do you resolve the authority issue?"

Many new monastic and intentional communities are passionately anti-authority and anti-hierarchy. Many are anarchist. Consequently, their decision-making tends to be democratic and egalitarian. Which is all to the good, but it does create a suite of problems when the community is deadlocked or if members are engaging in behaviors that violate the covenant of the community. Jonathan's answer wasn't very specific, he recognized the problem and spoke about giftedness. If time would have permitted I'd have liked to have explored in a little more detail.

Classic monastic communities are very hierarchical. But in Benedict's Rule we see an attempt to find a middle way. The abbot is in charge but shouldn't be autocratic and dictatorial. When facing difficult decisions the abbot should solicit the advice of the brothers and ponder it. New monastic communities don't have abbots, but we see in Chapter 3 of the Rule something that should look familiar to these more egalitarian Christian communities.

This entry was posted by Richard Beck. Bookmark the permalink.

8 thoughts on “Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 3, Counsel and Authority”

  1. "Autocratic pastor" is an immense and self-evident oxymoron, but the CEO/megachurch thing does little to discourage people from ascribing to it as a great way to achieve a "vision" of the "kingdom."

  2. I’ve been active in a non-traditional church structure (aka, “house church”, “organic expression”) for a little over 6 years.  “Who’s In Charge” isn’t really much of an issue because from the start we made a point of understanding that either all exercise responsibility for the group or none do.
    We’ve never had a “dead-lock” issue, but at times we’ve been clueless about what to do or not to do.  We’ve tried to operate by consensus, which means unless you have a strong objection against the direction most of the group are heading, then you go with the best ideas and direction that are available.  A few times it has been necessary to postpone a decision and just wait.  We have the impression that if most in the group aren’t comfortable with a proposed decision, then it means that we need more Spirit direction and wisdom.
    “Getting stuff done” isn’t near as important as honestly relating to and waiting on each other.
     
     Tom

  3. To live outside the law, you must be honest. My experience with egalitarian, consensus-driven groups has generally been that it isn't too hard to come to a consensual agreement, as long as they don't call themselves egalitarian, consensus-driven groups. In my experience, the people who have been most hung up on and interested in process, in this way, have also tended to be the least able to operate in a consensual way. There is a dying to self that everyone has to do here and there for a genuine consensus model to work. For those who really obsess over the consensus model, I like to point out that the World Trade Organization operates on this model. Maybe it is more important to cultivate the capacity to operate consensually, than it is to impose it as an organizational rule structure.

  4. To live outside the law, you must be honest. My experience with egalitarian, consensus-driven groups has generally been that it isn't too hard to come to a consensual agreement, as long as they don't call themselves egalitarian, consensus-driven groups. In my experience, the people who have been most hung up on and interested in process, in this way, have also tended to be the least able to operate in a consensual way. There is a dying to self that everyone has to do here and there for a genuine consensus model to work. For those who really obsess over the consensus model, I like to point out that the World Trade Organization operates on this model. Maybe it is more important to cultivate the capacity to operate consensually, than it is to impose it as an organizational rule structure.

  5. I'm curious if this "middle way" could be called "soft authoritarianism" much as Rachel Held Evans has reframed complementarianism as "soft patriarchy". Just thinking out loud here. As someone whose tradition is very uncomfortable with any form of centralized authority (Christian Church/Church of Christ) I was raised to see all authority in that context as wrong.

    As I've grown older and seen the difficulties that come from a lack of a centralized authority structure, I've seen it not as "the right way", but simply "our way". Is authority itself the central problem, or is it's misuse the problem?

  6. I think it's a bit of both. Misuse is the proximal cause, but authority itself, I think, is a corrupting influence. Or, at the very least, damaged people drift in and out of authority structures, wrecking havoc during their tenure.

    But I agree, I'm also curious about a middle way. I've been thinking a lot about what, at root, holds my church together past mere preference and affiliation. Church-as-Facebook. To be sure, there are advantages to that. If the environment gets toxic you can just walk way, no strings attached. But a no strings faith community can be pretty thin, spiritually speaking, as we expect nothing of each other.

  7. Arryq,

    Linda @ Kingdom Grace has a good series with lots of discussion about "leadership".  http://kingdomgrace.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/leadership-part-1/ 

    I agree with Richard's reply.  Authority itself is problematic, not because we don't need authority in our lives, but because any human that is given authority over others is fallible and corruptable.  Also, we often fail to recognize that "authority" itself is rooted in differing qualities/kinds; moral, technical/expertise, positional, relational, spiritual.  Each of those kinds of authority are exercised in different ways.  I think the two most powerful types of authority, the types which adhere most closely to the ethos of Jesus are relational and spiritual.

Leave a Reply