Tricky Question of Power

I have found myself thinking a lot about the situation around Israel Folau.

A lot of the debate around what has happened seems a bit reductive and seems to boil down to do I personally agree with him or not?

However there is, of course, a lot more going on.

One of the questions underneath is who gets to decide what is acceptable behaviour for an individual on a particular issue.

Is it the individual? Is it a small group? Is it an institution?  Is it the law?

This same question pops up in regard to the SBS reporter who was fired for posting a critical tweet on Anzac Day.

This sort of question is often hidden in discussions about church life too.

The bible has a lot to say about the ethics of money.

We have decided, by and large, that it is up to the individual church member to decide what they do about that.

It also has a lot to say about the ethics of sex.

We have decided, by and large, it is up to our leadership structures to decide what individual church members should do about that.

It didn’t have to be that way.

You could leave both decisions up to the individual.

Or you could decide both of them from the top.

And it is interesting to wonder why things have panned out as they have.

There are really questions of power when you drill them down.

You can think someone is wrong but the remedy is you saying that aloud to the person.

Or you can think someone is wrong and the remedy is that you kick that person out of your organisation.

It is no easy decision as to which issue should be dealt with in what way.

Jesus was very strong in his speech. So was Paul. So were the Old Testament Prophets.   The first two, and the vast majority of the latter, were speaking from positions of no actual power at all.

The strength of the words was in the words, and in their character.   You were perfectly free to ignore what they said and go on with your life.

They didn’t sit at the top of earthly structures which acted to enforce their views.

So what does that mean for us who want to learn from their lives but who mostly find ourselves within institutional structures?

This is something I am still wrestling with.

It does mean we have to pay close attention to underlying questions of power rather than focussing only on ‘do I personally agree or disagree’ with the particular point of view.