The evolution of authority structures - III

A short summary of some aspects of changes in the Western world follows. I especially recommend “The God That Did Not Fail” by Robert Royal for a discussion of how religion and democracy are intertwined.

• Greece and Rome - most of the authority structures don’t seem much different from many other societies, with the exception of democracy. You can read the wikipedia article for more details, but these societies limited the vote to males, and sometimes gave the wealthy more “votes” than the less wealthy. I’ll not explore this in detail, but it seems that a fairly good case can be made for the “separation of church and state” (NOT the exclusion of religion from the public square) being a distinctively Christian inference (see Royal’s book mentioned above).
• Pre-Reformation - as Christianity waxed and paganism waned, the separation of church and state began to become more clear. However, both authority structures remained centralized.
• Reformation - here we see a clear separation of church and state begin to emerge, along with a movement toward more decentralized authority structures in both church and state. Although technological changes and the creation of large amounts of excess wealth contributed to the consolidation of small states into large nations through the 19th century, the fact that messages could not travel faster than a ship or horse meant that large nations had to allow a certain amount of decentralization.
• Modern - the skepticism of Kant & Hume mentioned earlier, along with Darwin’s naturalistic explanation for species, began to undermine the traditional foundation of authority in the West…the Bible and the created order it describes. Marx/Lenin’s Communism and Hitler’s Fascism were two influential experiments that built on these new foundations and altered traditional God-individual, family, religious, and governmental authority structures. Outside of the West, my impression is that their effect was more in degree (by providing justification for more extreme forms of totalitarianism) since the non-Western world did not have a concept of “all men created equal”, even in non-Western ”democracies.” In the democratic West (e.g., US and Europe), radical individualism and radical egalitarianism began to emerge. Radical individualism takes the biblical “all men created equal” and elevates its to the point of asserting that the individual is supreme. As a result, biblical authority structures (God, family, church, and to a lesser degree, government) began to be attacked. Radical egalitarianism takes the same “all men created equal” and argues that there should be no difference between individuals. The defense of biblical structures was often lukewarm, especially beginning in the 60’s. Secularism attacked the individual’s obligations to God and to others, radical feminism attacked the traditional family, radical political theorists attacked the rule of law (e.g., the idea of a “living constitution”) and expressed utopian notions about the limits of government, and higher biblical criticism (which began in the 1800’s) provided a basis for asserting that the text was merely a human creation with no unique authority.
• Postmodern - though this is perhaps better characterized as late or hyper modernism, its emphasis on socially constructed and relativistic “truth” is at odds with traditional modernism’s utopian vision of scientific rationalism and empiricism yielding total and objective Truth. Postmodern conclusions include: male/female is not biological but sociological, that the family is defined by coupling not children, that the church is a spiritual community with no objective standards, and that all traditional structures that exercise authority simply reflect longstanding patterns of oppression that need to be de-constructed conceptually and literally. Not all these conclusions are held by all postmoderns, but they should provide some perspective on what makes postmodernism distinctive.
  

Next, I’ll review authority as seen from the individual, family, church, and government perspectives.

The evolution of authority structures - I

The other night I watched the Brett Morgan’s “Chicago 10″ on PBS (Independent Lens). Since I turned 9 years old in July 1968, and we didn’t have a TV, I have no memory of this part of American history. We had just moved to rural Arkansas, so I didn’t even see the edges of the violence that rocked the nation at that time.

However, I was struck by Abbie Hoffman’s conviction that the government had little, if any, legitimate authority. My reaction was that it sprang from a Marxist worldview, a partially postmodern understanding of language and power structures, a condescendingly playful messiah complex (not uncommon in the 60’s), and, however distorted, a sense that the created order was being transgressed by the deaths of innocent people in the Vietnam War.

Which set me to thinking…how did we get here?

We all are captives of our cultural backgrounds to a certain degree. Since our knowledge will always be partial and flawed, we struggle with whether our knowledge is “complete enough” or “accurate enough.” I’ll address this in more detail in a later post.

At this point, I’ll simply assert that most young adults, and many older adults, are so saturated with a culture that has so radically abandoned the created order that they often find it difficult to separate a created structure from a distortion of that structure. A classic example is the radicalized egalitarianism that denies that any authority is legitimate.

One aspect of “de-saturating” or deconstructing the existing cultural distortions is tracing how we got here.

The evolution of authority structures - II

I’m sure there are entire books on this topic, which means I can only hit a few highlights.

What doesn’t change…structures that seem to be pervasive and constant…part of what Christians call general revelation:

• A general recognition that there is a metaphysical reality with entities that have some sort of power/authority that is greater than a human power. Belief systems vary (animism, pantheism, monotheism, etc.), but all share a belief in the need to recognize the power/authority of gods/spirits that is seen in its effects on the physical universe. Along with this, we usually see various means defined for manipulating the metaphysical to bring about desired changes in the physical. This anthropological feature is one reason why Kant & Hume’s skepticism is so radical…and why, at a practical level, it remains more in the metaphysical world of theory than the physical world of action.
• Family - this varies, with extended family authority structures blurring into tribal authority structures, but male authority in the family is the general rule. I should probably note that some feminist anthropologists have proposed a history where female authority was the dominant model up until tens of thousands of years ago, but their speculations about a distant utopian past remain on the fringe.
• Religion - cultures vary much more in this area. What remains constant are religious authority structures…often tied to a perceived ability to manipulate the metaphysical to produce physical effects. As with Family, feminist writers have proposed a distant utopian past when the metaphysical was dominated by a nurturing, eco-friendly, and peace-loving feminine (e.g., the Goddess).
• Government - again, cultures vary, but governmental authority structures are universal. The degree of formality varies, but all societies define standards and create governmental entities with the power to enforce those standards and defend the community from internal and external threats.

Why "Under Authority" - II

As some of you know, I’m interested in fundamental structures. I want to understand how everything relates to everything else.

As a Christian, I ground that understanding to a large degree in the first few chapters of Genesis. Among the key anthropological structures found there are: (a) man in the image of God, (b) woman created from man, (c) man given stewardship/authority over the rest of creation, and (d) man under God’s authority ("don’t eat of the tree”).

The key incident of course is the Fall, with its introduction of rebellion against God. This theme echoes throughout history, especially in Christ’s healing sacrifice.

If God’s goal is to have a loving relationship with us, and that relationship is contingent upon an existence (in this life and beyond) that is completely aligned with what God created us to be (i.e., holy in accordance with the Word that spoke us into existence), then it seems to me that an understanding of the created authority structures is fundamental to understanding everything else.

My understanding is that at least four such created structures are seen:

• Creation - God over the individual, family, church, and government
• Family - husband over the wife over the children
• Church - elders over the congregation
• Government - government over the governed

Even in a fallen world, it would seem that these structures are visible in general revelation; although they’re often grossly distorted. Criticisms of these structures often infer (incorrectly) that an authority structure is invalid if an individual in authority is imperfect in the exercise of that authority.

What is the created nature of these structures, and how have they been distorted? I’ll begin to address that question in the next post.

Why "Under Authority?"- I

Brent and Alia will remember that one of my early influences for homeschooling was Jonathan Lindvall. The only specific thing they probably remember is his enthusiastic, but amateur, singer/songwriter compositions about Biblical parenting.

However, his discussion of Mt. 8:5-13 was something I’d not heard before. His interpretation of the relevance of “under authority” was that the centurion recognized that Jesus was under the authority of the Creator of the universe, and was therefore authorized to intervene in the creation in a supernatural way.

His point was that all legitimate authority is ultimately grounded in its submission to God’s authority, and that any authority that is not in submission to God’s authority is illegitimate in those areas where it is in rebellion.

So, why start with this specific aspect of the created order? (sorry, Alia, I’m going to use this phrase…unless you can suggest a better one that says (a) the universe was created, and (b) we perceive it as having a structure that has some degree of order/organization).

That’s the topic of the next post.