Religious Hierarchy

It is easy to forget that, for centuries, most people were unaware that they had any choice in religious matters. They were surrounded by people like themselves, and only a few ever met believers from other traditions. No more. A mosque is being built around the corner and, look, the Dalai Lama is on TV again. Thousands of religious and spiritual chat rooms and blogs have popped up. This is the age not only of the "cafeteria Catholic," but also of the cafeteria Buddhist, Baptist, and Mormon. More and more people view the world’s religious traditions as a buffet from which they can pick and choose.

In this environment, religious hierarchy is crumbling fast. The notions of consumer choice and local control have stormed the religious realm, and decentralization of faith is now the order of the day. Religious leaders who once could command, instruct, and expel now must cajole, persuade, and compete.

Protestant Christians, of course, have always been suspicious of hierarchy as a matter of principle. In practice, however, they have often let church bureaucrats run their affairs. Today, local Methodist or Lutheran congregations often ignore the dicta of church leaders, and denominational "brand loyalty" is a thing of the past. The 77 million-member Anglican Communion recently faced a schism over the ordination of a gay bishop. In response, the Archbishop of Canterbury could only try to encourage a dialogue between the feuding parties; a resolution of the crisis from on high was out of the question.

Christians are not the only ones straining against the religious hierarchies of old. In the early 1990s, the entire organized lay wing of Nicheren, the largest Buddhist organization in Japan, effectively seceded, leaving behind a rump priesthood without parishioners. Although a casual observer might assume that hierarchy is alive and well in Islam, the opposite is closer to the truth. Muslims have never developed a clear hierarchy, and they have battled over questions of succession and doctrine ever since the death of the prophet. Even the limited hierarchy that did exist has broken down. The Taliban’s leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, became Afghanistan’s spiritual leader — and even donned the cloak of the prophet — without the consent of other Islamic religious figures. Osama bin Laden presumes to issue religious rulings without formal training. Indeed, the present crisis in the Islamic world may stem from too many loud and conflicting voices, all claiming religious authority.

Even the Catholic Church — the lodestar of religious hierarchy — is vulnerable to decentralization. Pope Benedict XVI knows that the church’s traditional flowchart is in trouble, and he intends to salvage it. He certainly has a long track record, including his campaign against the Latin American "liberation theologians" who tried to enlist the resources of the church for radical social change. He was less concerned with their alleged Marxist leanings than with the thousands of lively Catholic "base communities" they were organizing all over the continent, groups that did not fit into the church’s chain of command. Now, American Catholics are also demanding more say, staging vigils in churches they refuse to allow to be closed, withholding contributions, and taking dioceses to court. Voices are bubbling up from the bottom and seeping in from the edges, and hierarchy is showing signs of decay.

The guardians of religious hierarchy understand the danger that lurks inside this revolution. Religions without unassailable leaders and with hungry competitors may find themselves marketing as much as ministering. Meeting buyer preferences may be essential in business, but it can eviscerate the integrity of the religious "product." Imagine what the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount might have been if Moses or Christ had poll-tested them. And, yet, just such carefully tailored messages may be the key to the spectacular success of the so-called megachurches, which rarely make a move without consulting market research.

Grappling with choice contributes to a religious maturity unavailable to someone who simply accepts what is passed down from above, and for that reason it could actually strengthen the capacity of the religious to cope with the challenge of secularism. Of course, the lack of recognized authority could also lead to fragmentation. But even that has an upside. Pentecostalism, for example, has no hierarchy, but its divisions and rivalries have generated an entrepreneurial energy that has made it the fastest growing Christian movement in the world. They have proven that sometimes religion without hierarchy can endure, and even thrive.