Open vs. Closed Society: An Ecclesial Consideration

This reflection begins from a very problematic foundation: the summary of a work that I didn’t actually read – Karl Popper’s The Open Society. But I will sin boldly and jump from this shaky platform. Maybe someday I’ll read Popper himself.

While denying historical determinism, Popper sees a sociological progression from closed to open societies. Closed societies are marked by the imposition of conformity upon a society by an elite that forbids questioning or dissent. Such closed societies are marked by “tribalism”, or the rigid identification of groups according to national, racial, religious and ideological boundaries. Open societies, in contrast, allow for and encourage the free debate of ideas by everyone who accepts broad and simple societal parameters. Citizens of an open society possess not only greater freedoms but also more personal responsibilities than their closed society counterparts. Open societies tend to be more flexible and adaptable.

But there is no inevitable march from closed to open societies. The transition from a closed to an open society can be difficult, even traumatic. Consider, for example, the current upheaval in Libya. And open societies may revert to becoming closed societies, particularly during times of stress. Consider, as an incomplete and simple example, the reaction to 9/11 in the US; personal liberties were curtailed and dissent was vilified.

This tendency to return to closed societies exists because the individual and sociological traits remain which created them in the first place. New predilections and sensitivities may emerge which engender open societies, but the old remain. A helpful analogy comes from the pop psychology description of the human brain as a superior cerebral cortex overlying a primitive reptilian brain. In a crisis, the urges of the primitive brain take over, and we act out of anger, fear, and passion, rather than reason and logic. Similarly, societies under stress allow the drives which promote unquestioning conformity and group identification to dominate over the flexibility and freedom of an open society.

What follows is a reflection of how these insights may provide a helpful perspective on Church governance and discourse. My goal is not to vilify certain church traditions although regrettably this may at times appear to be the case. Rather, my purpose is to determine (1) if an open society model is preferable to that of a closed society for the Church, (2) what factors influence the Church’s tendencies toward an open or a closed society, and (3) what, if anything, can be done to encourage the development of the preferable model.

Using this roadmap, the first task is to determine if, for the Church, a closed or an open society model is the most faithful response to the work of God through Christ in the world. As 2 Corinthians 5 explains, and as the Presbyterian Confession of 1967 elucidates in our contemporary context, Christ’s work is reconciliation: reconciling humanity to God, and reconciling people to each other. This seems to validate the goal of an open society; closed societies thrive in the competition and conflict between rival groups, or “tribes.” The reconciling work of Christ strives to eliminate the “us/them” dichotomy of groups with prescribed boundaries, enforced by expectations of conformity.

On the other hand, the Christian community is defined by its acknowledgement of the lordship of Christ. This critical feature appears to conform to the closed society model: the expectation of unquestioning conformity to the authority of the elite (i.e. Christ). Granted, there is a strong tradition in the Christian faith of complaining to and even of accusing God. But disavowal of Christ’s lordship, by definition, disqualifies one as a member of the Christian society. Conformity to the authority of the elite (Christ) is demanded, and violation is punished.

The proposal that the Christian community approximates a closed rather than an open society can be refuted along three lines First, while Christ’s unquestioned authority is affirmed, this does not necessarily lead to the sort of hierarchy that closed societies share. To name Christ as an “elite” is very different from doing so for a tribal chieftain or the Politburo. While some Christian groups consider the authority of their leaders to derive from Christ’s authority, this is not necessarily the case. In any event, the admonition that “whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (Mark 10:44) precludes any sense that Church leaders wield authority in the way that leaders of closed societies do.

Second, it is disingenuous to argue that acceptance of the lordship of Christ is a demand of unquestioning conformity akin to that of closed societies. Popper explains that open societies also expect compliance with broad principles (such as the Bill of Rights in the US), which are less specific and encompassing as those in closed societies. The absence of any points of agreement would prevent a collection of people from being a society at all.

Third, open societies nurture and value flexibility, whereas closed societies require “one size fits all” conformity. Response to Christ’s lordship is nothing if it is not diverse and flexible. There is no single way, or set of ways, to live faithfully to that call. Consider Romans 12:3-8, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, and Ephesians 4:7-13 as expositions of this point. Like Popper’s open society, Christian community encourages a wide range of activities and initiatives in order to respond faithfully to Christ’s lordship. For these reasons, it seems clear that the Church’s mission is more to be an open society than a closed one.

The second task of this reflection is to consider the factors that would influence the Church to be a closed or an open society. I will assume that its motivations to be an open society are self-evident, given the mission of the Christ described in the first part of this reflection. If the Church is to be an open society, what leads it toward being closed? The factors are several. Bear in mind Popper’s explanation that the motives which lead to the development of a closed society continue to exist in an open one. In situations of stress or conflict, these closed-society tendencies emerge and dominate, just as the “reptilian brain” takes over when a person is in crisis. In the same way, the Church’s tendencies toward a closed society and, I argue, away from a more faithful response to Christ’s lordship are more pronounced when the Church is in crisis or under stress. Parenthetically, let me note that this is not inevitably the case. Often, through the amazing work of the Spirit, the Church acts with the greatest faithfulness and courage precisely when it is in the greatest peril. I am speaking now of the times when this is not the case: when circumstances may lead the Church toward the traits of a closed society. I describe three such traits.

The first is tribalism. Despite Christ’s prayers that his followers may all be one (John 17:20-23), Christians frequently seek to identify themselves and associate as subgroups. Sometimes these sub-groupings are formalized, such as denominations. But these groups also, and perhaps more problematically, coalesce around particular beliefs, practices, and priorities. It is the danger that CS Lewis warned of in The Screwtape Letters: “Christianity And.” Once you no longer consider identity as a Christian to be enough, you qualify it as a particular type of Christian. You may label it “evangelical,” “progressive,” “orthodox,” “Bible-believing,” and so on. We seek to create our own tribe within the Church. The “reptilian” closed-society tendencies within us are unwilling to accept the lack of boundaries to define the group, and our own identity. In order to affirm ourselves and validate our own position, we create a division so that we can identify ourselves in opposition to “them.”

Second, the Church tends toward a closed society because of the inherent sinfulness of its leaders. Any individual, when given enough authority and enough time to exercise it, will inevitably begin to abuse it in order to advance his or her own position. And they frequently do so with the encouragement and blessing of the people under their authority. This is as true for leaders in the Church as it is anywhere else. Indeed, it is even more likely in the Church because the Church’s true Leader, Jesus Christ, is not as apparent and visible in his leadership role as other more conventional leaders may be. This is the temptation spoken of by the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. It is difficult for people to accept the ambiguity that comes from the freedom Christ offers. So they are willing to accept the restrictive, even oppressive, leaders of other humans in order to feel more secure.

Third, the Church may tend toward the characteristics of a closed society in order experience greater clarity of belief and purpose. The diversity and flexibility of response of Christ’s lordship can be unnerving: we want specifics. This desire for clarity and specificity can be termed “fundamentalism,” but a word of explanation is in order to avoid confusion. I do not refer to fundamentalism as a particular set of beliefs, such as fundamentalist Christianity. I refer not to any particular set of beliefs but to the establishment explicitly or implicitly, of any clear set of beliefs. “Political correctness,” in this sense, is just as fundamentalist as rigid evangelicalism. The “reptilian” brain wants certainty, and certainty requires clear rules. It wants to know what is right and what is wrong. Thoughtful reflection is much more difficult than following a code of belief and conduct.

The third and final task of this reflection is determine what can be done to encourage the development of the preferable model, which has been demonstrated by the first task to be an open society. One way for this to be done is to counter the three tendencies toward a closed society, which have just been explicated: tribalism, authoritarian leadership, and fundamentalism. Each of these can be neutralized, at least in part, by a renewed focus upon the lordship of Christ, the Living Word, and to the written word which bears witness to him.

The first of three tendencies toward a closed society, tribalism, can be diminished by a greater awareness of the universality of Christ’s kingdom. As Revelation 7:9 describes, his kingdom includes people “from every nation, tribe, people, and language.” But, even with this promise, we may still be tempted to draw distinctions and form tribes within the universal Church. We find a corrective for this in Ephesians 2:11-22 (among other places), where Paul addresses the first tribalist division in the Church: between Jews and Gentiles. Christ’s mission is to bring peace by destroying “the dividing wall of hostility,” in order to reconcile people not only to God but to each other. By removing these human barriers, Christ does not take away what makes us distinctive: Paul’s readers were still Jews and Gentiles. But these identifying features are no longer criteria for group identity, inclusion and exclusion.

Second, hierarchical authority no longer leads to a closed society when Church leaders heed the example and instruction of Christ. Authority does not exist in Christian communities for the purposes of imposing the leaders’ will on the people, or to consolidate and wield power. Leadership in the Church is servant leadership, as Jesus’ words of correction to James and John emphasize (Mark 10:35-45). Christ’s authority is based upon his emptying of himself (Philippians 2:5-11), not the exploitation of others for his own benefit (Ezekiel 34:1-16). Church leaders must constantly repent from the ways in which universal human impulses for self-aggrandizement lead them away from the example of Christ’s leadership.

Third, the witness of Scripture can help us to withstand the appeal of simplistic certainty, which can lead to a closed society. The very fact that the Bible is not an encyclopedia that delineates proper belief and practice demonstrates this point. It defies attempts to convert it into a simple answer guide. The juxtaposition of Proverbs 26:4-5 makes this point clear; two sayings exist side-by-side with contradictory instructions about how to deal with a fool. This does not indicate that Scripture contradicts itself; it compels the believer to seek God’s guidance at deeper and more complex levels. In the face of the discomfort that this ambiguity causes, we are tempted to manufacture our own code of ethics and belief, or to subscribe to those created by others. We can resist this temptation as we recall Christ’s promise in John 14:25-26: the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, instructs and guides us. Like the light that illuminates the footpath but not the entire landscape (Psalm 119:105), this guidance requires a constant dependence on God, rather than providing an overall perspective which enables us to be our own guides.

In summary, this reflection demonstrates that the Church exists more faithfully as an open society instead a closed society, and that the Bible’s witness to Christ helps us to avoid the allure of tribalism, authoritarianism, and fundamentalism.