calling

Understanding
Society’s Systems
The World As It Should Be
versus
The World As It Is

Session 5
Homework
 introduction
Many Christians have difficulties articulating a vision for the kind of
society God intends for us to live in. We often talk about faith in
individualistic terms and apply biblical principles only to our private lives.
So a great majority of us don’t know what we ought to be about; what ours
and our churches’ purpose is; what we’re called to do. Because the
Christianity we’re taught doesn’t challenge us to envision and work
towards the kind of society God intends for us to live in, we take the way
of least resistance and accommodate ourselves to “Sunday Christianity”.
As a result we substitute God’s bigger vision for a much lesser vision. We
become diverted from our main calling and sell for a much lesser calling.

I would like to suggest that we can’t really make a lasting difference in our
church, in our ministry, in our business, in our family or in any human
relationship, unless we are able to get two things clear:

a clearly articulated vision of what human society was meant by God to be

and…
a realistic appraisal of what human society actually is.

We’ve got to understand the “world as it should be”; what God’s

intentions for it are. Fuzzy ideas such as “God wants all people to give
him glory” are not bad, yet won’t do. We need to have a clearer idea about
the values and structures that would need to be in place to enable a society
to get there. It is not enough to understand the “world as it should be”
though. We also have to understand the “world as it is”. Dwight L.
Moody, the famous urban preacher and evangelist of the 19th century,
once was asked by the Chicago Tribune what his definition of a great
preacher is. His answer: “e pastor who climbs to the pulpit every
Sunday with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other!” He
was saying that a part of the Gospel is the Bible, since the Bible gives us
our conceptual framework of what it is that we believe – “the world as it
should be”. But it is not enough to have the Bible and hold a conceptual
framework. Besides the conceptual framework, we also need a contextual
framework – we need the newspaper. We need good news but also daily
news. Real ministry doesn’t happen in a vacuum. ough we are not of
this world, we are still in this world. So real ministry only occurs when
Bible and newspaper are brought together, when Gospel truth, “the world
as it should be”, and the “world as it really is” are brought together! One
of the amazing things is that the Scriptures describe very clearly “the
world as it should be”, as God intended it to be, while at the same time
giving a profound description of “the world as it actually is”.

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 the three systems of any human structure
e way to begin to better understand the Biblical teaching about the
“world as it should be” versus the “world as it really is”, is by talking about
how we understand our society. at is, what are the systems any society
must have in order to function? It is widely suggested that there are three
systems by which each society or human institution functions and that
these systems that order the life of a society are economic, political and
religious.1 All other social institutions (education, health care, culture and
the arts, social services) are subsystems of the economic, political, and
religious systems of a city.2

Religion doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with God, though that is

the common perception of most people. Religion is the values that
someone, or a society hold dearest. e word religion is derived from the
Latin word “religio” which means “that which fences in” or “that which
structures”. So your religion is that which builds a fence around you – or
builds parameters around you by which you live. It is that which
structures or brings ordered meaning to life. Your parameters, then, are
what you believe and what you value. If you value for example that other
people be honest with you and vice versa, but then you discover that
someone is dishonest to you… What would be your reaction towards that
person? I’m pretty sure you’d feel offended, or confront that person, or
avoid that person, or even break the relationship. Why? Because that

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 person has stepped outside of your boundaries, outside of your fence, gone
beyond the values under which you operate! If we apply this
understanding beyond an individual person to society, we could say that
the religious system maintains, forms, and builds the values of any society.
What is it that the majority of a society really believes in? In fact, there is
no such thing as a value-less or religion-less society. Even the most
secular and materialistic society has a religion. Now, that religion could be
the worship of a God, but it could also be the worship of no God – i.e.
where a thing, or a concept, or an idea, or an ideology is worshiped and
becomes that society’s God. So even Communist Russia between the
1920s and 1980s had a religion; an atheistic religion centered on the State.
It had values and beliefs; it had built a fence to determine who would and
who wouldn’t be acceptable in Russian society. e country’s foremost
value was that you follow orders and directives of the Central Party Office.
Loyalty and allegiance to the Party Line were valued and rewarded;
disloyalty and independent opinions were brand marked and punished.
e worldview and way of life promoted by the Central Party Office were
central to Russia during those decades. So it is important for us to
understand this definition of religion, for that is what we talk about when
we mean a religious system.3

Politics in many circles is seen as somehow dirty. And there’s good reason
for it! Politicians are often corrupt, ineffective, oppressive and exploitative.
ey promise heaven on earth before elections, but forget about their
promises as soon as they enter office. Politics, therefore, has gained a bad
reputation around the world. Particularly among Christians, politics is
often considered a no-engagement zone. ere are some Christian groups
that even forbid their members from exercising their civic duty to vote –
since that would mean mingling with “the corrupted World”. But what is
politics? e word comes from the Greek “polis” which means “a city
state”. Politics, then, is that process by which decisions are made about the
corporate life of a city state. So every society has ways of making decisions
about its life together. In some societies, such as Burma and Zimbabwe,
we find dictatorial politics. One person, or a handful of people, makes the
majority of decisions about that society’s corporate life. Other societies
pride themselves about their democratic politics. One person-one vote is
supposed to be the basis of a democratic society’s decision-making
process. However, under the surface, much democratic politics is guided
by powerful interest groups so that decisions – in reality – are not made
according to the “one person-one vote” motto, but the “one dollar-one
vote” motto instead.4

Economics – at its core – is not very complicated. It is only economists

that that have complicated matters with their econometric models that
confuse most people and often are inaccurate, since they are more often

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 than not guided by political interests.5 All that economics is about – at its
core – is the way by which a particular society has determined which
goods and services will be produced and generated and then how these
goods and services will be distributed. ere are “planned economies”, for
instance, where the government controls much of the economic life of a
society. e government is in charge of setting prices, planning industrial
growth, and deciding how and where these goods and services are to be
distributed. So-called “free-market economies” allow for a less restrictive
flow of finances, goods, and services within and across national borders
and tend to leave more freedom to individuals to create business
enterprises, and buy and sell goods and services. Numerous other
economic systems exist, though currently the neoliberal economic system
(or versions thereof ) is dominating global economic thinking and practice.
6

Traditionally, the political and religious systems have often joined forces.
Most ancient civilizations regarded their highest political power also as
their highest religious authority. Egypt’s Pharaohs, for example, were
considered divine, thus comprising the Empire’s supreme political AND
religious powers. Only within the last 150-200 years of world history has
the third system, the economic system, gained in importance. In fact,
today the religious and political systems of many societies orient
themselves at the economic system, instead of vice-versa. Politically
speaking, the global economic market transcends the power of any
national government today. Religiously speaking, economic progress
seems to be the top-most agenda of many societies around the world.7

While each of these systems becomes more complex if we dig deeper, the
basic concept behind each of the three systems is really very simple:

Religion: What is it that you value as a society? What values does your
society live by?
Politics: How is it that you make decisions about your corporate life?
What are the structures that help you realize and uphold your society’s
values?
Economics: How is it that you produce and distribute your goods and
services within your society?8

the three systems in family and church

It is important to point out that these three systems don’t simply operate
on a national level. All of us deal with all of these systems many times
each day. Not only does a nation or an international body such as the
United Nations operate out of these three systems. You have the political,
economic and religious systems operate in every city. You even have these
three systems operate within your own life.

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 Take your family for example.

Your family operates out of a certain religious system. What are the values
that you are trying to teach your children? What values does your family
actually live by? In answering these questions you may get at the root of
the religious system out of which your family operates. So some families
promote the value of educational success to their children. Educational
achievements are seen as one of the most important things in life. Other
families impart on their children that securing a stable financial base is
among life’s most important accomplishments.9

Your family also has a political system out of which it operates. Who
makes the decisions in your family? How are decisions reached? In
answering these questions you may get at the root of the political system
out of which your family operates. So in patriarchal families, the father
has the last word on most any decision. All other family members submit
to his rule. In matriarchal families, on the other hand, the father remains
invisible or absent from any decision making, while the mother runs all
family affairs. ere are some families, where spouses try to reach
decisions through dialog, while in other families the children run the
family’s agenda.10

Your family finally operates out an economic system. How is money

handled in your family? Who holds the cash? How is it distributed
among members of the family? In answering these questions you may get
at the root of the economic system out of which your family operates. So
in some families the father is the sole money-provider, who gives his wife
an allowance for family expenses. In other families, father and mother
both work and keep separate accounts. Each contributes a fair share
toward common expenses while all other expenses are individually
covered. In yet other families, money goes into a common pot out of
which all individual and corporate expenses are covered. Spending
decisions are reached through mutual agreement. Children are given some
pocket money, which they can spend or save.11

Most arguments that you have with your spouse, parents, children and
significant other are arguments around religion (values), politics and
economics. Sex, for example, is part of your value system. So most
arguments in our families are around values, power or money!12

Our churches function in the same way. All churches operate out of the
three systems. Your church operates out of a religious system. Some
churches value big and extravagantly decorated buildings, while other
churches are content to meet in the living room of a church member.
Some churches heavily invest into humanitarian projects or the support of

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 cross-cultural missionaries, while other churches don’t see any relevancy in
supporting projects outside their own four walls. Your church also
operates out of a political system. Any pastor who goes into a church and
doesn’t realize that there is a political decision-making process in that
church, is a pastor who is soon going to lose his or her job. Some churches
may have a few powerful families without whose consent nothing
happens. Other churches may have the appearance of a democratic
decision making process, but it is ultimately the pastor who decides where
things go. Your church finally operates out of an economic system. ere
is a way in which money is dealt with and how the offering is apportioned.
Have you ever met any church treasurer who – at the gut level – didn’t
believe that the money somehow belonged to him?13

articulated and unarticulated systems

Every structure of human society operates out of these three systems. But
not only that! Not only do they operate out of those three systems. Every
structure of human society has both an articulated system they give
allegiance to and an unarticulated system that they never talk about, but
out of which they actually operate.14

Take your church for example.

Your church will have an official way to make decisions. In the Assemblies
of God Churches, for example, there are the congregation members, then
the deacons, then the pastors who are accountable to the section leaders,
who are accountable to the division leaders, who are accountable to the
presbyters, who are finally accountable to the superintendent. So the
Assemblies of God denominational structure is built on a Pyramidal
Decision-making Structure. At the same time, the Assemblies of God
Denomination values a certain degree of congregational autonomy. So
within each Assemblies of God church there’s the congregational assembly
who is supposed to make decisions regarding the corporate life of the
church – within denominational guidelines, of course! But do you believe
that this is really how decisions are made? Most likely not, because every
local congregation will have its own real way to make decisions! ere are
those churches which cannot get anything done, if the treasurer or a
certain deacon or the church’s matriarch doesn’t give his or her blessing.
e church may go through the motions of convening a general assembly.
But if that particular person is against any given suggestion, the likelihood
is that the suggestion will be killed, even if the majority of the
congregation approve of it.15

Take another example. e U.S. constitution reads: “We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed

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 by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these rights
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

at’s the United State’s official value system – its official religion. But is
that the way it really works? Is this official religion truly lived out in the
United States?16 e founding fathers in the United States, for instance,
applied these “truths” only to white, property-owning males. Today, many
people have coined the United State’s dominant religious system the
“American Civil Religion”. Whoever successfully pursues the “American
Dream” is valued and rewarded by society, whoever doesn’t or can’t -
whether out of conviction or racism or any other hindering cause – is not
taken seriously. Brian McLaren, author of A Generous Orthodoxy, and a
progressive evangelical thinker pointedly remarks about his own country:
“Sometimes I think there is really only one Christian denomination in
America: American Civil Religion – a consumerist, militarist, therapeutic,
colonial, nationalist chaplaincy that baptizes and blesses whatever the
richest and most powerful nation on the planet wants to do.”17

So we see that every system has an articulated as well as an unarticulated

system out of which people actually operate.

the three components of any system

ere is one more thing that we need to understand when we talk about
the systems and structures of a society or any other human institution. We
need to understand how a system is built, what makes a system work, what
the components of a system are. Each system, whether religious, political
or economic is made up of three components.

1. Values: Each system has commonly held values that are articulated.
As we already mentioned above, there are also the unarticulated values
by which that system actually operates. Values by themselves are not
enough, however, to make a system work. You need to have a
structure.
2. Structure: Each system has a structure which carries out the system’s
values by institutionalizing them. Values and structures are still not
enough, however, to make a system work. You also need to have
individuals.
3. Individuals: Each system has individuals that make the structure work
by implementing the system’s values and making sure the established
structures are upheld.18

Only if all three components are present is a system a system. Take again
the articulated values of the U.S. Constitution as an example.

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 Values: e articulated values of the United States constitutional preamble
express that each person of that society is to be regarded as equal and
possesses rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What kind of
structures did the United States create to institutionalize the values
expressed in its constitutional preamble? How did the country go about
making these values livable and applicable?
Structure: It created three government branches with checks and
balances, to ensure the equality and rights of all people in its society.
• e Legislative Branch composed of the House of Representatives
and the Senate (both of which make up Congress) is in charge of
establishing laws and ordinances. Senators and Representatives are
chosen via a “one person-one vote” process.
• e Judicial Branch composed of the Judges and Law Enforcement
is in charge of enforcing the laws and ordinances. Judges are chosen
by Congress.
• e Executive Branch composed of the President and his/her
Cabinet is in charge of formulating policies in accordance with the
established laws and ordinances and carrying out the policies and
other governing functions to the benefit of the nation. e President
is chosen via a combination of two processes: “one person-one vote”
and parliamentary votes.
Individuals: Yet, this structure would be meaningless without people who
would manage this structure. It’s no good to have a Senate without
Senators or a Presidential Office without President. It is peoples’ job to
make sure that the systems work.

Human beings cannot function without systems that structure and order
life. We cannot stand disorder and disharmony for very long. erefore,
we structure ourselves. If we weren’t given any systems to operate on we
would invent them. As God is a God of order, so we are desirous of order
and structure. is is what is meant by saying that the systems are God-
given. at even the systems form part of God’s creation. In the
following session we’re going to take a closer look at what the Bible says
God intends each of the three systems to look like. is doesn’t mean that
God has created a particular way a system functions. For example, God is
not the creator of socialism, nor has he invented capitalism. He is not
pro-Monarchy, nor anti-Democracy. He doesn’t favor a pyramid structure
of religious leadership over an ecclesiastical base-community structure.
God doesn’t create the particularities of how any of the three given system
functions. He left this up to us humans when he gave us dominion over
this world. In other words, God allows us to be creative in the way we
structure any human institution’s religious, political and economic systems.

Under one condition: His purpose for any of these three systems -
including each system’s values, structures and individuals - to contribute to
the establishment of Shalom.19

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 exercise
e following little exercise may help you determine the values, structures
and individuals that make up the systems of your church or organization.

• What are your Church’s or organization’s principal articulated values and

beliefs? What are its actual unarticulated values and beliefs? Do the
two coincide? If not, in what ways do they differ? Why?
• In what ways are those values and beliefs carried out? What structures
has your church or organization established to institutionalize the values
in order to make sure that they are actually carried out?
• Who are the individuals within your church or organization that are
committed to these established structures and have been put in place to
live out and implement these values and beliefs in the life of your
• church or organization?20
• Do the religious, political and economic systems of your church or
organization and each of the three systems’ values, structures and
individuals contribute to the establishment of Shalom within your
church/organization, within your community, within your nation and
within your world?

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 endnotes

1 Based on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of Power

2 Linthicum, City of God, City of Satan, 47
3 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
In many countries around the world, the church could not be counted among the
‘religious systems. Christianity is too marginalized to be a significant values-creating
system for any but its own constituency.
4 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
5 See John Perkins, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, p ?
6 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
7 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
8 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
9 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
10 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
11 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
12 Based on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of Power
13 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
14 Based on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of Power
15 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
16 Based on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of Power
17 Brian McLaren, quoted in Shane Claiborne, Irresistible Revolution – Living as an

Ordinary Radical, 1
18 Based on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of Power
19 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power
20 Based in parts on classnotes from course by Robert Linthicum, Building a People of

Power

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