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While not very common, a pastor can
find himself (more often in smaller churches) having to serve the wishes
of a wealthy church member (or his wife). This relationship was portrayed
by Karl Malden in the movie “Pollyanna”. A pastor seldom seeks out
this sort of position, but he may fall into it unawares.
No one likes to think they have become
a stooge or puppet. However, cognitive dissonance is a powerful force and
we may often come to adjust our perceptions to allow for us to continue to
feel comfortable in a situation that would be better left behind.
Stanley Milgram was a researcher in the
1960s attempting to understand why those in Nazi Germany would work in the
system that exterminated Jews. He conducted experiments where average
people were to give electric shocks of increasing voltage to people who
answered questions incorrectly. He was surprised to find that about two
thirds of people were willing to apply the most lethal voltages simply
because they were told to.
Milgram concluded from his experiments
that people were inclined to “follow orders” regardless of consequence
because of what he called “agentism”. A person would come to set aside
his individual responsibility if he saw himself as an agent of a system.
With corporations, schools, and bureaucracies many people have come to act
as agents and place themselves at the disposal of the organizations that
employ them.
An agent is not free to speak or act as
he feels. What is strange is that the agent may not even be aware that he
is an agent. One measure of this condition is the frequency and degree of
questioning. The person that is frequently asking “Is this right” or
“Is this true” demonstrates his own evaluative agency.
A church does not have to belong to a
denomination with hierarchal structure to run afoul of agentism. A pastor
can make himself an agent of a doctrinal package or of the political
preferences of his congregation. as well.
I once worked with a prison ministry
and in conversation with a guy from New York was told that occasionally a
priest would become a Christian and start to use his homily time to preach
the gospel. The hierarchy would then remove him from the parish and assign
him to work in the prisons. He said this worked to the advantage of the
prisoners.
One can observe this phenomena over the
last seventy years as well with medical doctors. It used to be that a
visit to the doctor was to obtain his recommendations and advice regarding
health issues. Over time doctors began to collectivize first in clinics
and than as employees of corporations. As this transition occurred,
medical advice also transitioned from advice to instruction and now
appears to becoming medical mandates. Being told what we could do is
different from being told what we have to do.
Since agents do not act as individuals
themselves, they do not often see others as individuals, just as
components to be brought into alignment with the system they serve. |
