Hoarded Authority

Our Roots, Pt. 20 has introduced the topic of centralization vs. delegation; authority vs. autonomy. As the series progresses we will see how the Adventist Church has ranged from one end of this spectrum to the other and back again over the course of its history as it sought to achieve a balance between these priorities. It is an issue that has played a significant role in Takoma Park’s governance dispute, but exactly what that role has been is not so easy to discern as it might otherwise be because there has been a dissonance between the verbalized positions and the actual behaviors of the pastors of Takoma Park and the Potomac Conference leadership; more specifically, these leaders have said that they favor delegation and autonomy while their actions demonstrated authority and centralization.

The key nuance in this situation is that these leaders are increasing their power by claiming to favor the power of the people. Being at the lower end of the administrative structure, the more power our pastors and conference leaders can deny, ignore, or take from the higher levels of the administrative structure through lip service to the delegation/autonomy argument, the more they gather to themselves to make themselves local centralized authorities. Said another way, by telling the upper administration to back off this “local matter” they get a free hand to be more autocratic in their local activities. But they don’t stop there. Through selective acknowledgement of only convenient facts they have also managed to take power from the congregation by claiming to be supporting the congregation’s power.

When this nuance is recognized it reveals a carefully planned pattern of behavior where before there was an illogical contradiction between their words and actions. This recognition is key to formulating a coherent response to behavior like this. Otherwise you find yourself disagreeing with the behavior but finding the words with which you would object coming out of the mouths of those you disagree with—only twisted in a way you can’t put your finger on to make them seem to support the disagreeable behavior. Let’s look at a few examples of this in Takoma Park’s situation.

One of the earliest examples of authoritarian behavior on Pastor DeSilva’s part was deciding to reverse the business meeting decision to exclude the governance change from the vote on the Borden Report. Yet since that illegitimate vote he has consistently defended the governance change by saying, “The church voted it!” With this argument he is defending his refusal to let the congregation exercise its autonomous power in order to undo his autocratic action by claiming to be supporting that very autonomous power. Nuance at work.

Pastor DeSilva has all along disregarded the letters of advice written by General Conference personnel which told him he was wrong. Why? He claimed they had no right to interfere in our local business, at least not without going through him. By disputing the legitimacy of the letters he promoted his own power at the expense of the General Conference’s. Nuance at work.

Pastor DeSilva has pointed to the existence of the church board and accountability council as evidence that he is not being autocratic; after all, we have these lovely democratic governing bodies! This argument fails to take into account his manipulation of the election processes which resulted in staffing these bodies with yes-men, the systematic flaws of the accountability council which make unbiased decisions impossible, etc. This gives him the appearance of governance by the people while still being able to do what he wants. Nuance at work.

The Potomac Conference had no qualms about exercising influence over the Takoma Park Church by recommending the services of Paul Borden or by coming to Takoma Park to urge acceptance of the new governance structure when it was presented. Yet when the legitimacy of the new governance was questioned in the Group’s appeal to the conference they were suddenly unwilling to trample our congregational right to self-determination by giving a decisive answer. Their vagueness on that occasion allowed Pastor DeSilva to continue doing as he pleased. Nuance at work.

When the Potomac Conference urged acceptance of the altered governance they promised it could be reversed in three years if the congregation wasn’t satisfied. The conference promised to facilitate the exercise of the congregation’s autonomous authority—in order to exercise their own influence in the moment. The promise was later broken. Nuance at work.

So how can this pattern of behavior be stopped? First, recognize it. Second, point it out. Third, keep the attention on the leader’s actions and their results rather than their words. Their words will change more quickly than you can keep track, but they can’t hide their actions. We fully realize that this formula is easier to state than to implement. That’s because of the incredible subtlety of this pattern of behavior, the subtlety is why it is so effective, and its incredible effectiveness is why it absolutely must be addressed.