Christ calls us to live above the dynamics of control.
We need authority and conformity to keep society on the rails, but we must also rise above the dynamics of control to escape our corrupt generation.
In our previous discussion in this series we said that to qualify as the power of God to save, we must face a clear and present danger. These dynamics of control which the apostle Paul called, “the elementary principles of the world,” are part of that clear and present danger.
Episode Notes:
Point: We must be saved from social control which is human authority and cultural conformity.
These can be seen in the introduction to Paul’s freedom polemic, the book of Galatians:
Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead…
(Galatians 1:1 NIV)
Two things strike me as odd. First, he begins by telling his recipients who he doesn’t represent before telling them who he does. Simply telling them he was an apostle of Jesus Christ, as he does in other letters, would have been plenty to establish his bona fides. Second, he refers to human influence twice – first in the plural, “men,” and then in the singular, “a man.” This sounds uncharacteristically redundant.
Could I suggest that these anomalies indicate the Galatians’ need to be reminded that the gospel saves from society? It might seem implicit that entering the service of God would preclude allegiance to humans, but not everyone connects those dots. Sometimes they need to be explicitly told we must renounce human influence before coming under Christ’s. Not only must they be told to renounce human influence, but the types of influence must be specified lest they think they can straddle the fence. Paul wasn’t being redundant in saying that his apostleship wasn’t from men or a man. He was disassociating himself from both types of human influence – from people as a conforming collective and from any authoritative individual. His apostleship was free from the two principles of interpersonal control – conformity and obedience.
In analyzing the results of his groundbreaking study on obedience to authority, Stanley Milgram[i] named these two principles as the means of interpersonal control. He wrote, “Obedience and conformity both refer to the abdication of initiative to an external source.”[ii]While Milgram studied the influence of authority, his analysis names conformity as a second influence. Milgram’s observations seem to indicate that authority and conforming pressure are empirically recognizable forces in society.
While distinct, these two principles apply continuous pressure in tandem. According to Milgram:
“Conformity”…(means) the action of a subject when he goes along with the peers, people of his own status, who have no special right to direct his behavior. “Obedience” will be restricted to the action of subject who complies with authority. Consider a recruit who enters military service. He scrupulously carries out the orders of his superiors. At the same time, he adopts the habits, routines, and language of his peers. The former represents obedience and the latter, conformity.”[iii]
Point: Authority and conformity work in tandem to ensure that nobody escapes their grip.
Dr. Milgram also notes that sometimes conformity and authority oppose one another such as in cases of nonviolent civil disobedience or prison riots.[iv] Group dynamics might help a person resist unjust authority but that doesn’t mean the person becomes free. They’ve just come under new management since conformity to a group requires that individuals abdicate “initiative to an external source.” The pressure to conform can be just as oppressive as a jack-booted authority, but those in its grip often fail to recognize their enslavement. According to Milgram, “Subjects deny conformity and embrace obedience as the explanation of their behavior.”[v] Authority and conformity work together to bring people under the influence of the corrupt society even in their defiance.
For us to be saved from a corrupt society, we must be free from all forms of external control. So, before even mentioning to the Galatians the name of Jesus Christ, Paul dissociated his apostleship from cultural conformity and human authority. He couldn’t represent human interests because his gospel set him free from them. Because of this, his autobiography contains an autopsy of a life under the sway of authority and conformity. Let’s analyze a short description of his pre-converted life, line by line:
- For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, (cultural conformity)
- how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. (human authority – see Acts 9:1-2)
- I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people (cultural conformity)
- and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. (human authority)
Though Paul had been extremely religious and conscientious, his true allegiance was to his society. If you think I’m reading into this description, consider the thesis of his previous life: “If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10b NIV emphasis mine)
I used to read this sentence as an axiom, “He who would seek to please people cannot be a servant of Christ.” That’s probably true, but it’s not Paul’s intention here. He’s not speaking theoretically. He’s saying that he had continuously lived for the pleasure of other people until he met Christ on the Damascus Road. His “Judaism” was just another manifestation of the corrupt society. Religion can’t provide a refuge from the way of the world since religious systems just produce alternative hierarchies and subcultures.
Point: Even if we could escape the double bind, we’d be no better off.
In a post-religious world, some have attempted to escape society’s oppression through political ideologies. Anarchism has endured despite its seemingly fanciful ideas and often violent expressions. Over the past few years, I’ve had several interactions with thoughtful anarchists. It seems there may be more anarchists than ever in the US.[vi] Anarchism persists because it correctly diagnoses a major cause of perennial oppression. According to one modern anarchist website:
The political State exists to uphold a class-divided and settler-colonial society. We believe that a better world can be created in its place, organized from the ground up, where power is spread out horizontally, with human labor going towards human needs, not profit. We act in the spirit of autonomy, mutual aid, and direct action. We have no allegiance to representational, Statist politics.[vii]
Anarchists aren’t wrong about the net result of political states. They always eventually uphold oppression. Unfortunately, revolutions have always empowered new oppressive regimes. Since there’s never been a successful anarchic state or even community for that matter, I’m not optimistic about their chances.
Here’s the dilemma: we need to be saved from interpersonal control, but without it we must either live in isolation or trust others to always behave unselfishly. Milgram, who attributed the holocaust to obedience, wrote:
Submission to authority is a powerful and prepotent condition in man. Why is this so?
Let us begin our analysis by noting that men are not solitary but function within hierarchical structures. In birds, amphibians, and mammals we find dominance structures, and in human beings, structures of authority mediated by symbols rather than direct contests of physical strength. The formation of hierarchically organized groupings lends enormous advantage to those so organized in coping wit dangers of the physical environment, threats posed by competing species, and potential disruption from within.[viii]
So, the forces which threaten our souls exist to preserve our bodies. Authority maintains order and order maximizes our collective efficiency. But authority alone can’t maintain order since that would require enforcers to continuously supervise each person as well as other enforcers to supervise those enforcers and so on. Societies can’t function on authority alone so conforming pressures further encourage individuals to behave according to established norms. Countries that rely heavily on honor and shame don’t tend to be as litigious as those which are more individualistic. We might say that authority and conformity operate along a continuum to ensure full control of the individual by the group.
Point: The dynamics of control, though corruptible, are inherently benign.
While Paul’s gospel called for liberation from them, he also lauded them. Consider this advice he gave the Roman church:
Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.
For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
(Romans 12:17-18; 13:4-5 NIV)
Paul calls on his fellow Christians to carefully conform to their society’s idea of praiseworthy behavior. Then he tells them to obey the pagan authorities for God’s sake. God ordained authority and conformity to keep society on the rails. In the fall narrative from Genesis 3, the man and his wife naturally feel shame (a conforming pressure) over their rebellion. In proclaiming his curse on the woman, he called forth the principle of authoritarian control: “And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16b NLT)
These dynamics of control entered the world early and ubiquitously operate within all human interactions. They are inherent to the fallen human condition and cannot be avoided so long as we live in a fallen world. They are essential to mitigate individual evil. These are what Paul referred to as “the elementary principles of the world.”[ix]
Point: We can’t rise above the dynamics of control on our own because they are the Elementary Principles of the World
So far, we’ve said that the gospel saves us from the dynamics of control. We’ve also said that those same dynamics keep society from imploding under the collective demands of every individual. These ideas may seem contradictory, so Paul gives an illustration of something that is both benign and controlling:
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
(Galatians 4:1-3 ESV)
Paul describes the “elementary principles of the world” as household servants employed to train and supervise wealthy children until they come of age.
This phrase which is translated from three Greek words has caused a lot of debate among New Testament scholars. It has been thought to describe angelic powers. The New International Version for example translates it as “elemental spiritual forces of the world.” This understanding however doesn’t seem to consider the overall context of the Galatian letter or of Pauline salvation doctrine. Until this point in the Galatian letter, Paul has not described some sort of esoteric threat but has dealt at length with the threat of human authority and social pressure. It seems more in line with Paul’s gospel to understand the elementary principles of the world as something akin to the laws of human interaction. To better understand this phrase and its significance to the gospel, I will unpack its constituent words individually.
There are several words in Greek that refer to some aspect of the world. The one used here originally meant “order.” In the 6th century before Christ a philosopher named Heraclitus began using it to refer to the world. That usage stuck and was employed by the writers of the New Testament. While this word is often translated as “world” it doesn’t necessarily refer to the planet or to the natural universe but to the social order. We use the word “world” similarly when we talk about someone being worldly or someone following the way of the world.
In the prevailing thought of the New Testament era, nature and human nature were somewhat enmeshed. For instance, Heraclitus used observances about nature to infer advice on how human beings ought to conduct themselves as individuals and within society. To the ancients, there was a way of conducting oneself that aligned with pre-existing laws just as water evaporates and stars appear at prescribed intervals.
“Elementary principles” is a translation of one Greek word which literally means, “basics” or “fundamentals.” The insertion of “principles” can be readily inferred even in English. When we encourage someone to “stick to basics” we mean they should avoid sophisticated methods for a proven set of best practices. We might, then, think of the elementary principles of the world as the givens or constants upon which all other human interactions are based – a kind of interpersonal inertia.
Point: The elementary principles of the world are the clear and present danger.
Even though they are benign in and of themselves they ultimately become the vehicle for interpersonal control. This threat doesn’t need to be identified or even acknowledged to impact individuals. Just like inertia the elementary principles of the world affect every person whether they understand them or not. Neither do these laws need to be enforced because they come with their own set of consequences.
Paul curiously describes the elementary principles of the world in Galatians chapter 4 as having enslaved the pagan Galatians as well as the kosher Jews. For the Galatians to attempt to keep the Torah would be a return to bondage under the same elementary principles of the world even though they had come to believe in Yahweh. Consider the following passage:
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
(Galatians 4:8-9 ESV)
I’d like to notice a couple of things about this passage. First, it seems to preclude the interpretation taken by the NIV translators that the elementary principles of the world are spiritual entities. It may have been that those who were outside of Israel were subject to spiritual forces or demonic powers. However, it doesn’t seem that observant Jews would have been subject to the exact same powers.
Whatever the elementary principles of the world are, both Jews and gentiles were subject to them. This would make sense because these principles are fundamental to all social interaction.
Like physical laws, the elementary principles of the world carry their own consequences and do not need to be enforced. The principle of inertia cannot be violated even if all the speed limit laws were immediately repealed. I remember driving an RV on a two-lane highway in East Texas a couple of years ago. The speed limit was 70 mph, but this road was dotted with driveways and blind intersections. I could just see myself summiting a blind hill to encounter a vehicle that had just pulled onto the highway. I could almost hear the shattering of glass and the crunching of metal. It was the first time in my life that I chose to drive under the speed limit. At that moment I was no longer following the laws legislated by the state of Texas but the law of inertia. The penalty for violating that law was way too high for me to risk paying. The same can be said for the elementary principles of the world.
The Bible book of Judges ends with two horrific vignettes. In the first, armed men from one of the Israelite tribes rob a fellow Jew and then murder all the inhabitants of a peaceful city. The second vignette descends even further as a man from another Israelite tribe attempt to rape a traveling member of the priestly tribe almost exactly as the citizens of Sodom had with the angelic visitors to Lot’s house. From here the story digresses further into rape, murder, dismemberment, genocide, and more rape. The book of Judges closes with this commentary, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 21:25 ESV)
Like modern anarchists, we might want to shed human authority, but the outcome will be the same. The elementary principles of the world can’t be violated without consequence to the individual and society. The call to defund the police, for example, doesn’t need to be refuted. It’s self-defeating because we need authority to make society work.
While they may not admit it to themselves, most people know this to be true and they wouldn’t want it any other way. In fact, we’re so accustomed to living under the elementary principles of the world that we default to them when we want to get something done. Churches, though keepers of the liberating message, often insist upon believers signing covenants that stipulate obedience and conformity as requirements for membership. Practical-minded church leaders know that grace might get someone into heaven, but you need an obligation to get them to serve in the nursery. On the other side of the aisle, progressives eagerly assassinate the character of those who fail to sufficiently advocate their own ideology. Most people don’t like being controlled but it’s a price they happily pay to ensure others will fall in line.
“Above the Dynamics of Control” References:
[i] https://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html
[ii] Obedience to Authority, p. 114
[iii] IBID p. 113
[iv] IBID
[v] IBID p. 115
[vi] https://www.csis.org/blogs/examining-extremism/examining-extremism-us-militant-anarchists
[vii] https://itsgoingdown.org/about/
[viii] Obedience to Authority, p. 123-124
[ix] Galatians 4:3; Colossians 2:20 NASB