Individuals, Congregations, and 'The System': What Will and Won't Work

Peter Sawtell writes a wonderful E-zine called Eco-Justice Notes (go to http://www.eco-justice.org/ to subscribe). In the August 22, 2008 issue which carried the title "Questioning the System" he identifies four types of church. He first developed this typology based on a congregation's response to today's environmental challenges: some don't do anything at all; others that do the basics like recycling and trying to buy "green" cleaning projects; a third type goes deeper and devotes time and energy to affect the political process or the marketplace; the final type believes that our society needs to be transformed, not just 'tweaked.'



Upon further reflection Sawtell noticed that the four types of church represented four different view of "The System." The do-nothing type believes so firmly in the existing political/economic/social institutions and their ability to solve all problems (the 'invisible hand of the market' is a good illustration here) that they don't feel they need to change anything they're doing. The church that engages in basic steps sees The System as being fine, but individually they need to do things to make the system work the way it should. The third type looks deeper into the problem and comes to the conclusion that The System isn't working the way it should, although basically it's a good system that can handle all the problems of today with just a little 'tinkering under the hood.' The last type, the transformational type, see The System as being deeply flawed at its core: consumerism is unsustainable, the market's vision of 'the good life' and 'progress' is an illusion. This is the type that believes The System must be changed, not just fixed.



Now, do you remembering Jared Diamond's book Collapse that we discussed a few posts ago? In that book Diamond states that the greatest challenge societies face in a crisis, and the best predictor of the society's survival, is its willingness to look critically at its institutions, its System, to determine if it still works. Does the traditional way of doing things really work in the new reality, or will following that way lead to ruin? Can the System's weaknesses or downright failures be ignored any longer? I believe that Diamond would rate that fourth type of church, the transformational church, as being a society's best bet in a time of crisis when the approach of the other three types - denial, changing inputs, and repairing The System - won't do the job.


So, what can one person, or one congregation, do in the face of a gigantic task like changing The System (which will resist the change mightily)? The most important thing to do is resist feeling helpless.

We'll talk about that next time.

Never the last word,

Pastor Lee