The Bureaucracy and the Glory

Pentecostal Power, Administrative Potential, and Using the Structure Against Itself

When bureaucracy fails to persuade us as wisdom, or subdue us by power, it appeals to our sense of having great untapped potential. Some assistance from Acts 2 and Romans 13. Part Six of an ongoing series.

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The Fall and Rise of Egypt: Using Power Against Itself

One of the aspects of this story, as we’ve telling it, that has surprised me is the consistent appearance of Egypt, first as world power, then as refuge, and soon, Christian paragon. After the end of the history which the Bible tells, Egypt’s star will continue to rise, becoming home to some of the brightest lights in Christian theology: Alexandria, second largest city in the nation, will be home to Athanasius, Origen, Cyril, and innumerable other luminaries of the early Christian world.

This is not accidental, I think, that Egypt would have this story, for it speaks to the way in which those things which have been lost might yet be found again. As far afield as bureaucratic designs go, they are not ultimate, and indeed, their administrative designs might even be used against themselves. Consider, for example, that it is administrative power which sends the midwives in Exodus 2, who then use the very biases of categorization—that the Hebrews are strong breeders—against Egypt in order to save Moses.

Here too we find this same theme, as the administrative genius of Rome becomes the very vehicle by which the glory of the Spirit is able to travel to the ends of the earth, without ever leaving Jerusalem. From Acts 2:

⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,^{[b] 10} Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”

It is not so much that Egypt or Rome ceased in their bureaucratic ways: the regimes of Rome, and of all the subsidary regions of Rome, are legendary. But what it is interesting is the way that the Spirit makes use of such behemoths for alternate modes of power. Here, as in Exodus, we find that an administrative culture built on oppressive tax structures and institutionalized violence has facilitated a possibility of God’s redemptive work, here by bringing the ends of the earth to Jerusalem.

Two Kinds of Glory: Potential and Actual

From the start, the glory of the Spirit and the glory of the adminstrative structure stand in contrast. The former is actual, known by signs and wonders, by authority over demons, sin, death, and division. The first chapters of Acts explode as the Holy Spirit is poured out in language, prayer, and healings.

The latter—the bureaucratic structure—cannot always rely on spectacle (for that cannot be manufactured too often), nor can it rely on naked power (for this would undermine its own credibility). Rather, it has to rely on potential results: it can point to past successes, to its manifold apparatus, and to the possibility of it performing again in signs and wonders if need be. But really, you don’t want Rome to do that: instead of fire and wisdom, Rome’s signs and wonders bring blood and thunder. And so, potentiality for success becomes the hallmark of bureaucracy: it’s performed in the past, and could do so again, if you give it enough time.

A similar dynamic appears in Paul’s letter to the Romans, in the contrast between the notoriously difficult passage in chapter 13 on submission to governing authorities. The bureaucratic structure of “governing authorities” here turns on its functions: their authority is not absolute, nor ongoing, but related to the functions of taxation and law-keeping within the Roman world. In other words, if one isn’t breaking laws or withholding taxes, the power of the governing authority exists not as ongoing and actualized power, but as a potential one: a threat rather than as a consistent companion.

The governing authorities have no jurisdiction in this passage over innumerable aspects of life, and so, the Christian relationship to them continues on as if they were not. And—as frequently happens in the New Testament—even their actualized power is denied when Paul and the apostles break the laws or are charged with public trouble-making: God can raise the dead, so do your worst.

In Romans 16, by contrast, we are entreated to a long list of friends and familiars with whom Paul is acquainted, all of whom are entrusted with the ability to carry on, whether or not Paul ever returns to them. It just is.

As he writes in Romans 15: 14: “I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.” The potentiality of the bureaucracy is countered again with the ongoing actuality of the Spirit’s work in and through the church at Rome. Whether or not Paul appears, and whether or not Rome follows through on its threats, the work of the Spirit will continue.

The Power of the Spirit in the Shadow of the World

The ongoing structure of the Spirit’s work—one of a living network—persists, and makes use of that which the bureaucratic structure has intended for another end entirely: the glory of Rome consists not in what is doing now, but in what it has done and could do again. The glory of the Spirit is in the ongoing and living work in and through the body.

Named among the members here are sites for which we have no record of apostolic visits, and yet, listed here are innumerable sites of Christian cultures which have been verified by literature and archealogy: one can only conclude that the Spirit makes use of these travel systems, in the persons of the converted, to create a new network buried within the administrative culture designed to not recognize the network. For to be Roman or Jewish was recognized within the administrative structure, but this new category of “Gentile Jew” or perhaps “Jewish non-Jew” didn’t have a place to live, except that it kept on living anyway.

This impotence and ubiquity of bureaucracy, I think, is how we begin to understand bureaucracy as one of those features of the world which functions as an ambassador of the spirit of the world: it is no accident, I think, that Babel is meant to function as a stand-in for what all humanity is doing, and thus, the bureaucratic spirit as that which the Christian should be constantly aware of.

In this way, though, its pervasiveness—both as a structure and as a temptation—should not inspire fear or dread, and certainly not resignation, but an eye-roll. It will wag its finger at us for not fitting into the categorization schemes, but ultimately, not be able to suppress it. For all its attempts to proffer itself as wisdom, to cow us by power, or to woo us with its tales of valiant origins, bureaucracy exists ultimately as potentiality and not as actuality. It still needs us to both believe it and keep doing it for it to function.