When boards and agencies operate outside the authority and control of local consistories, they are bureaucracies. The CRC is bureaucracy-ridden. But bodies which avoid consistorial control cannot be doing work as the Church. That is “what’s wrong” with bureaucracy in the CRC.

So far this series has come.

We noted that bureaucracy violates our conception of church government, because Reformed polity understands the Bible to vest original authority in the local congregation to be exercised through the local consistory.

This means, as we have observed, that no matter how busy a bureaucracy may be, and how large its staff and budget, its work cannot be understood as done by the Church—except to the degree that it is carried on by authority of, and under supervision by, the consistories of the Church. Precisely what bureaucracy avoids.

It is noteworthy that among the offices established by the Lord to serve His Church there is none for bureaucrat. The Church is not called to function through bureaucracy.

Perhaps you are now thinking that all members of our boards, committees, and staffs are, each of them, members of some congregation and therefore responsible to some local consistory? That’s a tactical device which boards may occasionally use to sidetrack questions or complaints relative to staff personnel: don’t ask us; ask his consistory! And the question rarely gets an answer!

But go ahead, ask the bureaucrat’s consistory if they accept full responsibility for, because they can exercise careful supervision of, the bureaucrat’s full board or agency. They do not, of course, and cannot. The issue in bureaucracy is not the faith and life of this or that person, but the work of the board or agency as a whole. Where and how is that supervised by local consistories? In short, how is all that activity really the work of the Church?

     

There is, of course, a category of activities done for rather than by the Church -the care of building and grounds, housing and busing and printing, and the like, all done by delegated authority. You may not, for example, start painting the walls of your sanctuary without consistorial authorization. And the wise building-and-grounds committee carefully supervises what you do-more than they can do with bureaucracies. But this is work done for, not by, the Church of Christ.

We are talking of bureaucracies, namely boards, committees and agencies which presume to work as the Church, and thus at the Church’s expense, without the Church’s supervision.

It is, of course, the very nature of bureaucracy to present itself as doing the work of the Church, all the while avoiding or obscuring the lines of authority/responsibility between itself and local consistories.

How do things get that way?

Probably by a combination of consistorial negligence, and the ambition of those who know how to use that for their own purposes.

But, friend, don’t blame the bureaucrat. He is a product, not a cause. Do you remember Pogo, “We have found the enemy, and he is . . . us!”

Consistorial negligence is the root of bureaucracy, and consistorial assumption of responsibility will be the cure of it.

Consistories seem to have forgotten that ecclesiastical authority has, if you like, a twin.

That twin is, precisely, responsibility.

Authority and responsibility are co-relatives. As the Lord gave authority to consistories, He laid upon them the burden of responsibility.

For example—and you know it right well, reader—if a consistory accepts full responsibility—as before the Lord—for what goes on in the congregation, it finds itself granted the Lord’s gift of authority over what goes on in the congregation. Yes, authority and responsibility are twins!

Say that your consistory takes full responsibility for the orthodoxy of the preaching, the teaching, the witnessing, catechizing, house visiting, youth and diaconal work . . . in short for all that is done in and by the congregation as the Church: what happens? The consistory discovers that the Lord gives effective reality to its authority over the biblical character of these activities.

How could it be otherwise? Consider the elder who has just read, say, the awesome description of the risen Lord in Revelation, chapter one. This Lord has, He soon makes clear, an eye fixed on the elder’s exercise of office. Now, could such an elder even try to tell this Lord that all’s well in the congregation of which he is made guardian if he doesn’t know, or can’t approve, what goes on there?

Where the consistory does none-the-less abdicate its responsibilities, its authority is removed. Are there elders who don’t bother to know what doctrine is implicit in the preaching or is conveyed in catechism classes? What standards govern discussion groups? or youth, or adult retreats? Are there elders who think that the lapse of our fine tradition of extending the right hand of approval to the minister after sermon really excuses them of concern for the doctrinal purity of what has been preached that day? Whatever is sung is all right with you? Dialogue by the unordained is as valid as proclamation by the ordained? And the like. Anything goes if enough vocal people in the congregation demand it?

Then why be surprised ifyou have no authority in these matters? Why should the Lord endorse a mockery of His prescribed way of ordering His Church?

It follows, of course, that when consistories permit bureaucracy to presume to accomplish the work of the Church out from under their immediate supervision (and pay for it besides), then consistorial authority and control vanish there too. Responsibility ignored; authority gone. Twin casualties. A kind of universal law, really.

It’s likely that here is the profile of the bureaucratizing of the Church: consistorial responsibility forfeited; consistorial authority lost.

What consistory even pretends to have a governing word over our bureaucracies? Those that even attempt it are rebuffed. Quotas are laid upon congregations as obligatory taxes—and consistories supinely collect them. New liturgical forms are imposed after the formality of denominational trial; church school materials float down; study reports fill unread Acts and Agendas; pastoral “guidelines” fall like crumbs from synodical tables. It’s a veritable hive of activity. And yet, bureaucratic coming and going and doing and saying, if not out of sight, at least out of reach of consistorial jurisdiction.

Bureaucracy steps in where consistories step out. And synods dance to bureaucracy’s tune. Recall how Synod ‘85 was manipulated by our Interchurch Relations Committee into speaking of apartheid as “heresy,”—a story detailed by Dr. H. Vander Goat in the recently published volume Orthodoxy And Orthopraxis (Paideia, 1986). Neither the first, nor likely to be the last, instance of bureaucratic success in using synod as its servant.

Bureaucracy came to the CRC as consistories surrendered, some of them no doubt gladly, responsibility for what they still wished done in the name of the Church. And then some consistories were surprised to discover that they had no voice in what the bureaucracies they had nurtured are doing.

The history of how bureaucracy came to the CRC is not past finding out, and would make a more useful academic thesis than are many, but let’s for our purposes, suppose things went something like this:

Once upon a time somebody said, “Our method of training pastors in ministers’ studies is inadequate and out of date. Let’s have a school.” Sounded like a good idea, especially when put under synodical control to ensure orthodoxy. But step by step consistories lost control over seminary education to the point where the system now has a stranglehold monopoly over whom consistories can even nominate for their pulpits. Bureaucracy calls the tune, synod pipes to order.

Or again, it was said, “Look here now! Local congregations can’t bear the burden of mission work, haven’t the time or the expertise to supervise it. We’ve got to have a denominational missions board, maybe two of them, don’t we?” (Reverend Van Dellen, you may recall, was thinking of that).

And local consistories, some more readily than others, chorused in effect, “Yeah, we don’t really want to be responsible for organizing and supervising mission projects anyway. Who’s got the time or the money? Let’s have a board!” (The bureaucrats will find the time; and we will still put up the money).

But at first some congregations probably applauded. Now we began to count in the world. Some “leaders” had vision, they did. Let the Van Dellens (and there were others) croak their ill omens! Bigger is better! Who needs be hobbled by Reformed polity, whatever that is? And lo, mission boards there are! As bureaucratic as described.

Then ‘twas said somewhere, “Local congregations can’t take care of catechetical materials, can they! The preacher is too busy counseling. Elders haven’t time, either. And that old question/answer technique is certainly out of style—no respect for the initiative of the young. We need a source (doctrinally above suspicion, of course; synods will see to it) for the production of ‘Bible school’ materials.”

And many consistories said, “Yes, we’ll buy that.” And lo, a board of publications, as bureaucratic as any. Preachers are indeed freed from typing study outlines, but consistories are out of control of what study materials say.

Probably so it went. Always the apparently right solution to a problem, though always bearing the same stamp: transfer of responsibility out of the hand of the local consistory—and authority going along.

“What does the laity know about liturgy, anyway?” And so we got a liturgical committee. “What do consistories know about hymnody?” And behold, a succession of Psalter–Hymnal revision committees. “How could local churches compete on the air waves with the electronic church?” Another committee. “What about extending material relief into areas of disaster?” Another committee. Interchurch relations? Another committee. Race relations? Another committee. Hosts of matters to be studied and then “guidelines” into the churches? More committees.

What a field for enterprising bureaucrats!

And we’ve found them, or they us.

And where in all this are the consistories?

In terms of authority, out of sight.

With but one crucial function left them: scrounging up the funds!

And with the local congregations reaping the fruits, then?

What fruits?

Why don’t you inspect your congregations’ storehouse and see what harvest is gathered there from all the bureaucratic activity you help pay for? Chances are you cannot even name all the bureaucracies, let alone the bureaucrats. But look to see what, if anything, you are getting for your stewardship. You may, indeed, encounter a few elders wistfully wondering how they, the seat of original authority in the Body, count for so little while the bureaucratic creatures of their own making loom so large.

But what fruits? All this flurry of planting, and so little in the local cupboard? How come?

We seem to have thought that God can be mocked with impunity.

Consider this: the Lord lodges authority and responsibility for what His Church does in the handle of the local consistory. That is Reformed polity.

But the local consistory has been sold the notion that the Lord made some kind of mistake. The local consistory has persuaded itself, it may be with a boost from the bureaucrats, of its own incompetence. Lay elders simply came to see themselves as lacking the time, the skills, the vision, the theological acumen, and whatever else bureaucracies offer to provide. So they sought to shift Church work to bureaucratic shoulders. Clear enough.

But this was quite clearly saying, then, that the Lord made a mistake in wanting His work done through consistories instead of through bureaucracies. And, obviously, the loss of consistorial authority in the CRC clearly demonstrates that the Lord is displeased when His servants question His judgment.

Dare one say that the Bible neglects by oversight to provide for the office of bureaucrat? That is, a Church functionary who owes no responsibility to consistories? Or does the Bible really prohibit the elder from trying to shift his responsibilities and authority into other hands? (We had a study committee in the early ‘70s which tried to amend the Lord’s seeming neglect by telling the Church it could create whatever offices it likes—a mistaken view already rejected by Reformed synods four centuries ago).

What, then, was the Lord to do with those consistories that so willingly forfeited their own birthright on the promise of bigger and better messes of pottage?

What use had He in His Church for servants fleeing from obligations?

Not much. So He stripped them of authority over the bureaucracies they so willingly created to try relieve them of responsibilities . Truth may have been that most consistories were once glad to “let Johnny do it,” and may even now know no better. Elders may see nothing out of order, perhaps, in Johnny’s being off and running with the reins well out of consistorial hands.

But sowing has come to reaping, cmd the bureaucratic vine bears little fruit in local vineyards. We may sacrifice much at the bureaucratic altar, but the Lord counts obedience first!

Bureaucracy among us has never been bigger and more expensive while consistorial authority has never been at lower ebb. And along with it is going respect for the Church Order, for the Forms of Unity, the Form of Subscription, and for the “pastoral advice” of synods. Never more centralized busywork and the Church never more divided.

How is it that consistories appeal in vain to broader bodies, except that these broader bodies respect them no more than they respect themselves? Is it surprising that dozens of consistorial protests to Synod ‘85 re women in office were disposed of in less time than it took to compose and process them? Why should a so-called “major” body be impressed by higher authorities which meekly pay the bills despite having given their prerogatives away to boards, committees, agencies and staffs?

There is, it is true, as already noted, one denominational role left the local consistory. It is that of tax collector, bringing in the quotas, sometimes enforced by strong-arm tactics at the classical, or even the synodical, levels.

But to call the quota system the exercise by consistories of responsible stewardship is to rob terms of their meaning.

There is, too, the election of delegates to broader bodies, there to encounter the Establishment as described by Reverend Van Dellen.

To this we have come from the consistorial heights won for us by the Reformation. What then?

What’s the prescription?

Plain enough to write it ourselves, really.

It’s been implied all along in this series: the recovery of consistorial responsibility as route to reassertion ofconsistorial authority. That’s the formula written on the prescription. And the counter to which that prescription must be taken is the table in every consistory room.

Cure starts with the recognition that bureaucracy is everywhere a symptom, of the nature of a fever, an alarm signal pointing to consistories derelict in duty.

What duty?

The God-assigned duty of guardianship over what the Church does. A responsibility which cannot be evaded before the Lord, cannot be exercised in ignorance, nor satisfied by checks despatched to classical and other treasurers.

Or say: a high bureaucracy-count indicates that the church body is ill. That count needs to come down, lest this body join other churches in the comatose state of amounting to nothing in getting the Lord’s work done on earth.

The only cure is that consistories once again be what the Lord means them to be: bodies responsible for and exercising authority over all that transpires as the work of the Church.

Not impossible, but by no means easy.

Some steps are to hand:

1. No use blaming bureaucrats. Often of good intention, hard-working and skilled, though smitten with the virus of secrecy that hallmarks bureaucracy. No use blaming anyone, really; it’s time to get to work at what it means that the Lord devolves original authority in His Church upon the local congregation, to be exercised via the consistory. A study for elders and members alike. 2. Sound stewardship is always possible. It involves consistorial oversight of the funds provided in good faith by the congregation. How can these be responsibly disbursed without receipt in exchange of the fullest accounting of how bureaucracies use each penny? We recall that in the Lord’s parables, stewards are always called to an accounting. “You can just trust us,” is not a biblical stewardship pattern. 3. One goal, of course, is making bureaus out of bureaucracies. Bureaus, as was pointed out in the beginning, are agencies so eager to keep consistories fully informed of every detail of their work, and so sensitive to consistorial concerns, that consistories can in good faith assume full responsibility for what is done and paid for in their name. In short, consistories can demand full accounting of all that the bureaus do, and in turn, the bureaus can accept from consistories full supervision of what they are about. Work can start any time on making bureaus out of bureaucracies, and disbanding those that will not make the adjustment. Van Dellen’s phrase, borrowed from Professor Steffans, was, you remember, “Kill the boards!” That, then, for those bureaucracies either not essential or unwilling to become bureaus. Here the exercise of consistorial responsibility begins with withholding funds. Is there any other definition of stewardship, either with the Church’s monies or our own?

4. Without developing another subject, we may observe that even the work of bureaus is not of the essence of the Church. Education can be done for the Church through external agencies. Publication can be farmed out. Thus local congregations could be offered a range of options for their pulpits and teaching . Evangelism and missions, use of the air waves and outreach of all kinds, including diaconal concern, can be accomplished by one or a combination of several consistories. All this would keep responsibility close at hand. Synods can be liberated from influence by non-elected people; synodical agendas can be limited to matters arising only as actual local problems; and synodical meetings can be reduced to being held at two or three year intervals.

In a word, the cure for bureau-itus begins with renewed consistorial exercise of responsibility for what the Church does—and with that will come authority for what is now obscured in bureaucratic haze.

Each consistory is, by divine appointment, the Boss! Act like it!

For one day judgment will be handed down by that standard.

Might someone now be thinking: only so general a prescription as that? No step by step route to the restoration?

To be asking that is to have missed the point so far, I fear.

Still hoping for someone to tell you, as a consistory, what the burden of original authority involves? Thinking of turning to some “authority,” perhaps? A weekend retreat, and lecture on “What Should Consistories Do?”

Your congregation deserves better than that. It’s you they elected to take full responsibility, now, for what transpires among them, and how their money is used. Or, better, it’s you the Lord has appointed to guard His flock. He offers a guide, the Bible, and a rule, your conscience. Forget the “experts.” Remember that when the Church was run by theological “experts,” it got so far off track that the Reformation was necessary. St. Paul makes it very clear that God deliberately chooses seemingly ordinary people to do His work. He will qualify as deserved by commitment and effort.

Take courage, then, and be counted. If drift is to be curbed among us, you must be one of the turning points.

Don’t, of course, expect the bureaucracies to help you out. Bureaucrats in board, committee, agency and school have a stake in keeping things as they are, and more so. You may even hear that local consistories should acknowledge classes and synods as “higher” bodies, to fit in theory with what now goes in practice.

Or you might hear that Reformed polity is not nearly so clear, nor ofthe nature as described in these articles. Think it out for yourselves.

It‘s an issue not really very obscure: Can activity, of whatever kind, be done as the work of the Church unless it is under the jurisdiction and control of the local consistory, by its authority and correlative responsibility?

Bureaucracies operate best under what Dr. Machen was fond of describing as “conditions of low visibility.” He meant engulfing is.sues in a mist of uncertainty, as is done with the discussion of women in office. Bureaucrats are good at that, they sniffing out their way, while the rest of us are immobilized by bad weather.

Consistories who mean business—and there should be no others—will have to knit their brows, recapture the vision implicit in our heritage, and dig in.

To everything the same test: is it done as our responsibility, and thus by our authority? Where the answer is “No,” there is work to do.

Lester DeKoster is a retired Colvin College professor and Banner editor, living at Grand Rapids, Michigan.