Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians Author: Justin W. Burns
Introduction The realm of Organizational Theory is a discipline of human and environmental interactions aimed at discovering the various ways that groupings of people can be structured, managed, resourced, and led into progress. In examining the various components of Organizational Theory, various patterns arise that can be used to bring insight into real world situations, allowing for better understanding and application of knowledge as a particular group of people interact and react to the environment around them. The purpose of this document is to provide insight into a specific set of organizational/human interactions, as recorded in Scripture allowing for not only a more complete understanding of the Biblical context, but providing insight into the current realities of organizational development by coupling theory and practice.

Historical Background The early church was a newly formed organization that had recruited most of its original members from the Jewish faith. As the church expanded however, converts began to transfer into the organization (church) from other religions. The church, which was centrally controlled from Jerusalem at the point where our account takes place, was faced with some decisions about how these various intersections of belief would interact within this forming worldview. We enter the stream at the point where Paul (an emerging leader) and Peter (an established leader) interact specifically for a second time, during a key point in the development of the early church. Our focus will be upon the account as recorded in Galatians, Chapters 1 & 2.

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

Review of Crisis The major point of contention here is the argument between those who are of the perspective that any convert to Christianity must first convert to Judaism, and those who believe that the new way in Christ has made the old way of the law unnecessary. Initially, in Galatians Chapter 1, Paul is writing to the church in Galatia expressing that fact that he is astonished (Gal. 1:6) that they have turned from the core content of the Gospel that he preached to them. They have fallen into the same pattern of thinking that he (Paul) has dealt with in the past in other circumstances (Gal. 1:15-24). Paul indicates that the Galatian church has been thrown into confusion, because of those who are perverting the Gospel (Gal. 1:7). In Galatians 2:2, Paul has gone to Jerusalem, to confer with the leadership of the church there, and to seek approval/blessing for the work he had been doing among the Gentiles. In Galatians 2:3-5, we find that members of the group in Jerusalem were exerting pressure on members of Pauls team to convert to Judaism (i.e. be circumcised, etc.). It is at Galatians 2:11 that the heightened controversy comes to a boiling point. Paul confronts Peter regarding his flip flop policy on interacting with non-Jewish Christians, when certain influencers from a group sent by James arrived in the area. So great was the pressure exerted by this group, that all of the Jewish Christians in the area changed their personal habits, including Barnabas a member of Pauls own team! We are left without specific resolution to this situation, although we might gather that Paul persuaded the others to his point of view, and that there was a reconciliation between Paul and Peter, as he references Paul writings as accurate and helpful in 2 Peter 3:15.

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

Internal and External Environmental Factors The early church was dealing with the challenges of operating as a new movement in a multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-political environment. Inside the church, the core values were still being developed, as there was uncertainty among some Christians regarding the need to convert to Judaism before being able to be considered a true Christian. Externally, the technologies of the day made long-distance communication difficult and lengthy, and the sociopolitical environment was beginning to take an unfavorable stance against this newly forming religious group. What should the church look like? seems to also be a concern of the early Christians as well, as they sought to understand what type of structure this new group of people was intended to have. Uncertainty, change, and conflict were all components of the organizational development of the early church.

Evaluation of Organizational Behavior In Galatians Chapters 1 & 2 we see a struggle between two opposing factions within the same organization. There is a difference in worldviews, theology, and values. The issue of who is in charge seems to also be at the heart of this conflict. The process of decision-making and how it should be designed within the Church is another critical issue as well. Change and adaptability in regards to what, when and how much also arise in our case study. There is an overarching sense of the fluidity and formative stages in which the Church was operating that gives insight into the atmosphere of uncertainty that must have existed as well. If one were to summarize the major areas of organizational leadership that are apparent in this account they would be: 1. Internal Organizational Culture; 2. Group Decision Making; 3. Multicultural Organizational Settings; 4. Issues of Power; 5. Structural Composition of Organizations.

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

Possible Organizational Theories to Provide Framework for Understanding Based upon the conditions described in Galatians 1 & 2, there appears to be several possible Organizational Theories that would account for the behaviors of the players in our Biblical account.

Changing Organizational Culture In their work Changing Organizational Culture, authors Harrison M. Trice and Janice M. Beyer report on the following concepts that apply to the Galatians account. When change takes place in an organization, there is a duality of creation and destruction that takes place, where the old order is destroyed, and the new is created. Perhaps the portion of our passage where this is most evident is in Galatians 2:16-21. It is interesting to note that Paul himself even references the concept of creation and destruction (rebuilding and destroying in the NIV Translation). Trice and Beyer further comment that cultural change in an organization results in real changes in the behavior of the people within an organization. In Galatians 2:12 Peter can be seen to have been re-cultured, and de-cultured, only in verse 14 for Paul to confront Peter in the interest of re-reculturing him! It would appear that the culture change experienced by the Jewish believers in the early church would be that of revolutionary change (on a progress scale developed by Trice and Beyer) as both Pervasiveness and Magnitude were high, and Innovativeness and Duration were variable in nature. According to Trice and Beyer, cultural change is best initiated at propitious moments where there is an obvious problem, opportunity, or change in circumstances. Paul was also an Innovative Leader by Trice and Beyers description, and was capable of helping to reculture the church as he was a leader who was self-confident, had

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

strong convictions, a dominant personality, and could preach a new vision with drama and eloquence.

Groupthink Groupthink is a concept that was identified by Irving Janis that refers to faulty decisionmaking in a group. Groups experiencing groupthink do not consider all alternatives and they desire unanimity at the expense of quality decisions. In Galatians 2:11-14 Paul pointed out the inconsistencies in Peters logic and behavior. A key factor of Groupthink is that outsiders recognize the foolishness of the groups decisions insiders do not (Galatians 1:6 is also a good example of this concept). Apparently, no one in the early church had yet challenged what was taking place pointing to the Groupthink Symptom: Not being critical of each other's ideas. In a Groupthink scenario, we find members of an organization rationalizing poor decisions, and exercising direct pressure on others, as is seen in Galatians 2:12. Galatians 1:13-14, as well as Galatians 2:15 both highlight the Groupthink Symptom of sharing stereotypes which guide the decision. The early church was a highly cohesive group, under considerable pressure to make a quality decision - which is also pre-existing condition required for the presence of the Groupthink syndrome.

Multicultural Organizations In his work Creating the Multicultural Organization: The Challenge of Managing Diversity, Taylor Cox, Jr. describes diversity as the variation of social and cultural identities among people existing together in a defined employment or market setting. It would be logical to extend this definition slightly to encompass any defined organizational setting where people

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

are existing together. In Galatians Chapters 1 & 2, we see at least two clearly defined groups of people the Jews and the Gentiles. Apparently, there were also sub-groupings of Jews who interacted with the Gentiles and Gentiles who practiced Jewish customs. It is interesting to note that Cox comments that diverse groups have a broader and richer base of experience from which to approach a problem. The tensions between all of these groups in the early church resulted in a confrontation that forced change. This is in alignment with Coxs belief that what organizations need, therefore, is an approach to change that aggressively pursues the deliberate and knowledgeable alignment of all other elements in the system with the changes in human inputs. Paul was seeking to perform just such an alignment when he makes his argument in Galatians 2:14-21 for the standardization of belief and practice within the Church.

The Power of Power James G. March discusses the idea of power within organizations in his article The Power of Power. He puts forth several aspects of the concept of power, several of which have application to our Galatians account. For example, under the heading of Community Study March discusses two different laws of social choice: 1. Social choice will be a predictable extension of past choices unless power is exerted on the choice. 2. When power is exerted, the modification of the choice will be proportional to the power. In Galatians, we see that the actions of those in question were indeed a predictable extension of past choices. When Paul exerted power in the situation, the changes that took place (though not necessarily apparent from Galatians, though ascertainable via additional sources) were proportional to the power he held in the organization. An additional thought put-forth by March is the concept of the Force Depletion Model of Power. March comments that under this scheme, it is quite possible for power to shift

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

as a result of variations in the rates of power utilization. Galatians 2:12-14 plays-out just such a scenario for us when the men from James came and exerted power over Peter (shift of power in the local context) and then Paul confronts Peter and the others (another shift of power). By James attempting to exert his power, he actually lost power, because of a shift and the concept of force depletion that states that subject to additions in the power supply the more power a particular component in the system exercises, the less power there is available for that component to use.

Mechanistic and Organic Systems In the article Mechanistic and Organic Systems, Tom Burns & G.M. Stalker differentiate between the two broad categories into which organizations tend to fall. In relationship to the first two chapters of Galatians, it seems that the point of conflict and transformation is between that of an outgoing mechanistic structure, and an incoming organic structure. As outlined by Burns and Stalker, a mechanistic system is characterized by such things as: specialized differentiation (Galatians 2:1-2, 2:9) ...hierarchic structure (Galatians 2:6) a tendency for interaction to be vertical (Galatians 2:1-2, 2:6) loyalty to the concern (Galatians 1:22-24) a greater importance attached to local rather than cosmopolitan knowledge (Galatians 2:11-13). It appears that a mechanistic system was what had developed in a major portion of the early church. In contrast, what was being ushered-in (by Paul and his associates) was a more organic structure. According to Burns and Stalker, and organic system is characterized by such elements as: contributive nature of special knowledge and experience to the common task of the concern (Galatians 1:13-17) the adjustment and continual redefinition of individual tasks through interaction with others (Galatians 1:18) the spread of commitment to the concern beyond any technical definition (Galatians 2:3) omniscience no longer imputed to the head of

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

the concern (Galatians 2:6) progress and expansion is more valued than loyalty and obedience (Galatians 2:6-8).

Recommended Solutions

1. Internal Organizational Culture The early church was dealing with who are we issues (Galatians 2:1-5). They needed to define what they were going to be and how that was going to impact the way they would act (values). As our account progresses, we find things coming to a head when Paul defines what/who the Church should be in his classic oration before Peter and the other Christians.

2. Group Decision Making Clearly there were issues of Groupthink that were a part of the Jerusalem church. Several solutions to the Groupthink process that were utilized in this account were: Using outside experts (Paul, Barnabas, Titus); Having leaders remain impartial (Galatians 2:3); Expression of True Feelings and Ideas through the civil exchange of ideas (Galatians 2:14-21); Holding a "secondchance meeting" to offer one last opportunity to choose another course of action (Galatians 2:14); Developing policies and statements that help to break the Groupthink process (Galatians 2:1521).

3. Multicultural Organizational Settings Those from the Jerusalem leadership team needed to understand that the church had become a multi-cultural entity, and that they would need to adapt to this new reality. While they

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Justin W. Burns

may have been used to dealing with fellow Palestinian Jews, they were learning that they would be encountering Europeans, Africans, etc. Learning to incorporate these people into the Church would add value and strength to the Body of Christ, and would help to spread the Gospel beyond the borders of the Middle East.

4. Issues of Power Every organization will face a power struggle now and again. Our Galatians account is just that. Would power be retained by those in Jerusalem who had faulty ideas regarding the core content of what Christ came to proclaim, or would power be distributed to others (including Paul), enabling them to more freely proclaim the Gospel, without having to wait for the corporate office to provide the OK? It certainly seems that the individual power of James and Peter was dissipated in this context, and that Paul (who became a purposeful distributor of power himself) gained new power within the Early Church.

5. Structural Composition of Organizations The early church needed to move away from the mechanistic structure that had developed in Judaism. If the church was to be a living organism, it needed to have an organic structure. It is interesting to note that Paul was the person in our case study who would have seemed to have advocated such a design for the church only to write extensively in later times about the church as a Body. Becoming more decentralized was a key step in the dissemination of the Gospel and the reproduction of the core culture of the Church.

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Applied Organizational Theory and the Book of Galatians

Justin W. Burns

Summary It is the desire of the researcher that this document will prove to be profitable in not only the pursuit of knowledge in the realm of Organizational Theory, but in the fuller understanding of Scripture as well. Considering the interactions of people in the Early Church will likely be of great benefit to local churches in our time, as they seek to develop fully devoted followers of Christ, and journey through the process of spiritual transformation and organizational development.

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