Otagosh has a post on spiritual bullying that is worth reading. What particularly struck me is that what he describes is simply widespread human behavior, and something that is also found among other primates: a hierarchy or pecking order, competition for acquisition and retention of status and power, and so on.
And yet the irony is that I have seen these dynamics most obviously on display in churches which emphasize that they “are not of the world,” and include significant numbers of people who deny evolution. Anthropologists could visit a congregation of Christians who just might still sing “You Can’t Make A Monkey Out Of Me” and point out how the power relations in the church are paralleled among those very monkeys with whom the congregation denies sharing a common ancestor.
As Niebuhr observed, those who adopt a “Christ vs. culture” stance are particularly prone to defining their difference from the world in certain very specific and superficial terms, and to have a blind spot with respect to just how much their values resemble those of the culture around them.
What do others think? To what extent do power relations in congregations mirror those in the broader society in which they are found? To what extent are they simply another pointer to our shared evolutionary heritage with other living things on this planet? And theologically speaking, how might Christians who take issues of biology and culture seriously reflect on and respond to these observations?
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