Why bureaucracy is not good news -June 10, 2006

These days we frequently hear the term ‘mission shaped church’, presumably to conjure up the vision of something dynamic, outward-looking, purpose-driven and organic.

But what we actually have, in reality, is committee-driven church. And with worrying political and religious consequences.

Once committees get established, they are self-propagating. People who put themselves forward for them are generally those who think committees are a good thing. So committees self-select in favour of those who work in a particular way.

As every new challenge emerges, the committee invariably sees yet another committee as the answer.

Like the weed ground elder, once the committee system has taken root, it's a devil of a job to get rid of it. It grows and spreads and chokes the life out of the other plants in the garden.

The nightmare of the committee-shaped church is that we end up with all the energy and charisma of a call-centre in Slough - a vision of the life-giving Kingdom of God being replaced by a discussion of last month's minutes.

Back in the mid-part of the 20th century, philosophers such as Theodore Adorno were warning about the changes to society that were being brought about by the extension of bureaucracy.

He argued that, in the wake of the Enlightenment, social policy came to be dominated by a way of thinking characterised by evaluation, measurement, and testing. In this efficient style of thinking, subjectivity is steadily eradicated.

As Adorno put it: "Thinking objectifies itself to become an automatic, self-activating process - an impersonation of the machine that it produces itself so that ultimately the machine can replace it."

One of the important aspects of Theodore Adorno's vision is his claim that such systems of thought are good at means-and-ends questions, but unable to answer (or even ask) "why" questions.

Indeed, he argues, it was precisely this emphasis on efficiency - yet the failure to question why - that created blindness in thousands of Germans who worked towards the establishment of the Nazi death camps.

The committee-shaped church is also good at blocking out questions of the wrong shape, and focusing instead on efficiency and management. It is so ironic.

One of Adorno's observations is that this style of thought is peculiarly unresponsive to the divine, a consequence of the universe's coming to be seen as cold, technical, and disenchanted.

No wonder there is burn-out among clergy and laity alike.

We thought we were reaching for the kingdom Jesus proclaimed, lived, died and rose for. Years later, we realise we are working for just another multinational conglomerate.

It should be perfectly obvious to anyone who has actually read the gospel narratives that they regard the incarnation of God in Jesus as challenging the existing order.

Maybe that applies to over-reliance on committee-based bureaucracy too.