Justice and the Structures of Governance in the Church

Here’s an interesting piece from the Wikipedia article on Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience on the question of the morality of structures of governance. He’s talking about the state here but it relates to the structures by which the Church chooses to govern itself.

Read Church instead of State and it points to an interesting future. (And no, I do not consider current Church governance “an act of God.”

Because government is man-made, not an element of nature or an act of God, Thoreau hoped that its makers could be reasoned with. As governments go, he felt, the U.S. government, with all its faults, was not the worst and even had some admirable qualities. But he felt we could and should insist on better. “The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual.… Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”

Tags: structures of governance