I have been reading Thomas Friedman's book, The World Is Flat this week. I have found it completely engaging. As a history of the 21st Century, it is cheeky and humorous. I cannot help but enjoy that. But what is interesting is the focus on the "flattening" through technological, economic and political transformation. Not surprisingly for Friedman, the principal focus is technological, but it is not the technology the flattens the world, giving access to opportunity to more and more people. No. It is the tremendous collaboration that, for example, internet technology affords that flattens. Internet technology is a tool and may simply have no virtue of its own. It could have just as easily been used to dominate. It may prove itself in the end to be such a tool. But that is not Friedman's concern. That's mine. Anyway...
The use of internet technology is only one example of "flattening" upon which the author focuses. There are others. But collaboration, I believe, is the great flattener, the opportunity-making force that brings the world together into Friedmand optimistic summation of the first half decade of the 21st Century.
This will come as a surprise to some readers of my wee blog, but collaboration is one of the reasons that I am Baptist. No, I was not mugged by a team of evangelicals on dark night in Chicago. Collaboration is a virtue of the Baptist tradition. It is how we understand the priesthood of all believers. It allows for volunteerism...free association of individuals into congregations, congregations into regional associations and denominations and finally denominations into national and global communities of faith.
Now, of course, not all Baptists understand collaboration in this way. "Right order" will take it's place...and a great hierarchy will emerge. "Right theology" will have its say. But I will suggest that, as a Baptist, that to allow a hierarchy, no matter how well ordering it may be, to stand in the way of the collaborative nature of the priesthood of all believers is a huge mistake. The same can be said for theology. Collaboration is hierarchical most certainly. There will always be hierarchies of sorts (popularity, administration etc). Theological litmus tests are an absurdity and only serve to isolate the community of believers into sectarian groups, trimming collaboration to such a small number of people, that the world is once again round, imposing and only what is visible to us matters.
As members of the Body of Christ and as equal participants in the priesthood of all believers - The Great High Priest "flattened" our access to God you know - collaboration becomes a virtue, perhaps even a spiritual practice. As Baptists, I would like to think we could exemplify what Friedman is highlighting in his book. Equal access to God, the Church, scripture and the Tradition...an open-source approach to community may actually be beneficial in the end. It takes courage and a willingness to be changed. Are we finally ready?
I'm just wondering.
Posted by tripp at April 3, 2006 06:15 AM