4.2 The Shifting Nature of Authority
4.2.2 Authority in Organizations
Authority within an organization has long been held to be a key component in determining organizational form in both religious and secular organizations (Nelson 1993; Weber 1981 [1946], 2002 [1930]). Weber was one of the first theorists to realize the importance of authority. His concern was, of course, with explaining the origins and rise of the modern bureaucracy based in rational-legal authority as the dominant
organizational type and subsequent scholars have done much to explain exactly how this homogeneity is maintained. The fact that most organizations of any size or scale
organize around rational-legal leadership is not an accident. Institutional theorists following Weber’s lead have developed theories of isomorphism to explain the
significant social forces which encourage and compel new and/or growing organizations to adopt structures and practices similar to the rest of the field (Powell and DiMaggio 1991; Selznick 1996). In contemporary society this means that rational-legal authority is institutionalized in the form of the modern bureaucracy due to real or perceived
efficiency.
By contrast the resistant organization does not rely on a rational-legal authority structure. Neither does it champion either of Weber’s other ideal-types, charismatic or traditional. Rather, the resistant organization utilizes a shifting basis of authority in order to resist the routinization of authority. The organizations in this study are attempting to resist institutionalization, but within these organizations, just like any others, decisions must get made, enacted and followed through both for the survival and effectiveness of
the organization. So how do resistant organizations ensure that no form of authority consistently overrides the others? Beyond ideology, what mechanisms are in place which demand a multiplicity of leadership styles? How do resistant organizations guard against the isomorphic pressures of the fields in which they are embedded? In this section I present data which suggest that one of the key ways resistant organizations defy institutionalization is by granting authority based on a dynamic set of qualities (e.g.
desire, time, ability) which guards against institutionalization. It is important to note here that for the most part, my respondents are very aware that authority works differently in their congregations than it does in both other churches they have attended as well as the dominant mode of authority in religious organizations. Not only were they aware of this difference, but it would be difficult to overstate its importance in their decisions to attend an Emerging Church. This kind of authority structure is important to them for two reasons. First, it means that there is a place for them to contribute to conversations and events that are important to them. Second, they see it as a mechanism for producing a more informed and honest dialogue where people are able to use their skills and knowledge to aid in the group’s faith development and exploration. Establishing this level of intentionality is crucial to the overall argument of this dissertation. As I
discussed in Chapter 1, intentionality is a necessary, but by no means sufficient, aspect of resistance.
The Appeal of Shifting Authority
My respondents reported that the ability to be involved in church events and discussions they felt most passionate about was not only a reason they were attracted to
the congregation in the first place, but also a fundamental reason they continue to attend an Emerging Church. The comments Diane, a 41 year old congregant at Faith, made when explaining why she left her old church and ultimately ended up helping to found Faith illustrate this point well.
I felt the transition happening when we were at a church in Eden Prairie because the high school pastor for probably eight years and I worked on staff for six years in children’s ministry recruiting hundreds of volunteers a year for 250 two and three year olds. It was a very huge mega-church. And basically what happened was between both the senior pastor and my supervising pastor and I got another pastor involved and we’d been there for years and I started to feel disgruntled because basically my relationship and my involvement there didn’t count. And they believed this guy who was new and came in and basically they said if you can’t work for him then you have to quit. Which really sucked, because I was really invested and I loved my job and I loved the people I worked with the most and when I saw how he was hurting other volunteers and they would come to me with lots of documentation and I think it was at that point that I really started to I don’t know God just started really doing something. It was a really hard time.
This is her way of explaining that she did not really want to be a part of church like her old church where the authority of the pastor reigned supreme, but rather one which was structured in a way where her experience and voice would count just as much as anybody else’s. That, she said, is what she likes about Faith (she also says she could not imagine going to church anywhere else). Throughout this section we will see
multiple examples which confirm Diane’s assertion that the ability to have a voice whose authority varies based on passion and knowledge rather than on organizational position is important.
And this experience is by no means unique to Faith. The pastor at Living Word expressed a very similar attitude when he told me that “Two things we always say around here are, every member is a minister. How can we help you live out your ministry?” The members at Living Word echoed this attitude. Several of them mentioned how important
it was to them as newcomers that so many people were involved in church activities.
Additionally, the ability of church members to organize congregational activities without having to go through a committee structure or bureaucracy was especially important to them. Megan told me about a regular “theology pub night” that a fellow Living Word member organized as a way for members to get together and discuss theology. This event was announced at church each week, but was not organized or maintained by the pastor or other church staff, and when the organizer decided to stop doing it, it ended.
This is important because it demonstrates not only that the members have the ability and freedom to start something, but they also get to decide when, how and if it ends. Just because something was “successful,” there was no attempt made by the pastor or
“leadership” to incorporate it into official church structure and control it.
The Effectiveness of Shifting Authority
Second, there is a distinct feeling that ceding control and authority to multiple people is a more effective way of developing faith by engaging in productive dialogue.
Organizational scholars have advanced an understanding of effective dialogue as a process which moves beyond exchanging and defending viewpoints and toward the creation of a new experience, idea or culture (Bohm et al. 1991). This conception of dialogue involves some combination of voicing one’s initial thoughts or understandings, suspension of reaction, and development of shared understanding (Isaacs 1999; Schein 1993). These components do not have to occur in any order, and the process is rarely, if ever, linear making this theory particularly useful for understanding the value of dialogue in organizations which resist institutionalization. This conception of dialogue “is not
concerned with deliberately trying to alter or change behavior nor to get the participants to move toward a predetermined goal,” instead emphasizing the sharing of thoughts in order to make the taken for granted visible, because “observed thought behaves
differently from unobserved thought” (Bohm et al. 1991). In the congregations I visited, there was a high premium placed on being able to think for one’s self rather than
adopting somebody else’s policies wholesale. Dispersing authority throughout the organization encourages conversation and dialogue by increasing the number of
perspectives present in any discussion and fundamentally undermining the development of an ego centered viewpoint (Gergen 2001 et al.). Dialogue encourages individuals to locate their own perspective amid the various positions being voiced, but not in a way which is divisive or defensive (Schein 1993). William Isaacs (1999), a pioneer in organizational learning, has shown that the sharing of multiple perspectives can result in the creation of new association of thoughts that is inclusive of many different viewpoints.
These interactions bring with them the inherent ability to disrupt taken for granted patterns of thought and action. Isaacs (2001:712) writes that
dialogue instead focuses on transforming the quality of tacit thinking that underlies all interactions. It implies developing a capacity to interact in a way that ‘suspends’ the habitual processes of thought and meaning that typically control us.
In part, he argues, this is due to the location of the self in a larger narrative of ideas thus reducing the authority of any one voice, instead finding power in the combination of efforts.
Fred’s comments are indicative of how some congregations actually make this a part of their worship structure, a time which is typically reserved for the pastor to espouse his/her thoughts on the issue at hand.
The thing that seems to switch up the most now is who’s speaking and what the topic is. It’s not just William (emphasis in original). Like this Sunday William will bring in someone who he thinks probably has more expertise in an area, which again is so different from the churches I’ve been to in the past where the Pastor is going to give his two cents on whatever the topic is, mental health or whatever, versus bringing in someone who has studied it for thirty years and getting their perspective on it. I prefer that because to me it lends a lot more credibility to what’s going on. You’re really allowing the experts to be the experts at what they do rather than pretending that the pastor can become the expert on every topic under the sun. Stem cell research. How many pastors do you see going crazy about stem cell research? And probably the only thing they know is what they read from Dobson. Don’t get me started on him right now.
Fred’s comments are interesting for several reasons. First, they reflect his partiality for a shifting basis of authority as a way of engaging new information with people in his congregation. It is important to him that dialogue be the central process for structuring this shifting of authority because it results in the voicing of multiple understandings in addition to the pastor. He expressed no desire to replace or eliminate the pastor’s voice, but at the same time, he did not want it to be “just” William either. This is more than simply a panel discussion, however, as the dialogue between the speaker and the congregation is the central interaction.
Additionally, it is clear that in general Fred has a preference for consuming multiple perspectives rather than letting the pastor be the sole voice filtering and interpreting information. It does not particularly matter that knowledge is the criterion upon which people are selected. For Fred, it lends credibility, but he was the only one who mentioned this as a crucial factor. Others appreciated the different voices because of the perspective they brought to bear on the topic as someone with an abundance of
experience, status in the community, or particular background. Mark, a seminary student, said,
I really appreciate hearing how other people deal with their struggles in life or in
faith, because it is often similar to what I’m going through or have been through and hearing them talk about it helps me to think about it in a different way.
Especially when the women talk, because so often in the church in general it’s just a very male perspective all the time.
What is important is that the criterion for selection is something which is open to the entire congregation. I discuss the role of credentials and professionalism in the Emerging Church in depth in chapter 5, but it is clear in this situation that credentials cannot be the sole basis of inclusion or else authority cannot be shifted very broadly.
Second, this act of bringing in an outside expert is such a common occurrence at Faith that Fred was right. William did ask several experts in the topic for the week, mental health, to aid in the discussion at the weekly worship service, and all but one of the speakers were people who attended the weekly discussion group and volunteered their services. I discuss the role of these discussion groups more later, but it is important to note that these groups are open to anyone. Indeed, the group even asked me if there was something I could contribute at the worship discussion. This is significant because it was my first time attending the meeting. This desire for and importance of a shifting base of authority is not only present theoretically, but practically as well. Furthermore, the discussion format of the weekly gathering which I analyze more fully below, encourages the kind of faith development that these people are seeking. As I point out above, effective dialogue results not in the advocacy of one position instead of another, but rather in a new understanding or experience which is unachievable apart from a group interaction.
While asking different experts to share an opinion on a topic is certainly a way of encouraging some dialogue, it is not without its difficulty. Although the pastor is not the one giving his/her opinion from the pulpit, he/she is often the one who selects the experts.
William’s approach to selecting the speakers was not heavy handed or manipulative from what I could tell, but the potential for him to hand select people who will voice a
particular perspective that he wants to advance certainly exists. The ability to frame an argument and legitimize a perspective carries a tremendous amount of power which could result in the institutionalization of the set of ideas held by the selector. This is not an insignificant problem, but it is one that can be dealt with to some extent. Later in this chapter, I discuss some of the ways organizations can deal with these issues by implementing particular structures which mitigate an abuse of power.
The most significant challenge, then, lies not in these structural issues for which they have mechanisms in place, but in the more informal interactions. For example, in the weekly congregational discussion during worship described by Fred above, William was able to steer and/or derail the conversation between congregants and speakers on more than one occasion simply by virtue of his title as pastor and the fact that he holds a microphone. Joe, a semi-retired paralegal, talked about this dynamic at length. “You know, William had a vision for this church at the beginning and in a lot of ways, he’s still very much in control of the direction of the church just by virtue of the fact that he’s here every day.” Nobody I talked with, including William, expressed that they were
comfortable with this set-up, and there is evidence to suggest that the community is engaged in several activities, many of which are illuminated in this dissertation, to
counter the natural consolidation of power that comes with charismatic, founding pastors.
The current situation, however, relies to a great extent on William’s own personality to check his power. This is a situation that will become increasingly difficult to maintain as the congregation grows in size and influence. The difficulty Faith has as an organization,
and William himself has in minimizing his influence, illuminates the need for the structural mechanisms discussed in this chapter to be implemented early in the life span of an organization.