Beyond Toxic Hierarchy

Hello there. My name is Dennis. I'm not sure what Mum and Dad had in mind when they named me after Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Maybe they just needed something to holler to get me home at suppertime. I mention this to reassure others who were given legendary names, ignoring the fact that some of the stuff those guys got up to was not OK. In particular, there were a number of old testament rulers and prophets who would be convicted of war crimes if they were on the scene today. Their appearance in the story is, I think, a consequence of toxic hierarchy, a system of social organization in which the most self-absorbed personalities rise to positions of authority and presume to speak for God. If one of them was your namesake, don't try to emulate the imperfect past. Just come when Mum calls.

How do we keep hierarchy from being toxic. Since Moses, around 1300 BCE, a few things have happened. I don't do history. It's too detailed, like painting a picture of a forest, every leaf on every tree; and then when you are done, discovering that it all looks different and you have to start over. I don't have the patience for that. I paint with a spray can and get on with things. So, fst, fsst, fssst, about 1300 years after Moses, Jesus looked back and thought some things were improving; for example, people were more obedient. But not all of what they were doing was OK because obedience laced with selfishness looks plain nasty as people find fault with each other and throw stones. Jesus set about fixing it. 

First thing he did was change the way people were thinking about God. The God of Moses had been remote, jealous, controlling, judgmental, vengeful, tribal. In Jesus mind, God became part of the family, present, approachable, enabling, generous, merciful, welcoming, inclusive. 

Second thing he did was amend the motive for obedience from reward and punishment, to gratitude and love. 

Third was to replace a detailed legal code with principles: fairness, reciprocity, compassion, the Golden Rule. 

Fourth was to flip hierarchy upside-down, making the leader into the servant of the people. 

Last thing was to give individuals responsibility for the peaceful social order we all desire (John 14:12). Time to grow up and make good things happen instead of leaving it up to the authorities  or God.

Of course, that way of seeing the world wasn't popular with the privileged and powerful. So Jesus was disposed of in the usual way, nailed to a cross like other criminals. However, Jesus' new way of relating lived on in tension with toxic hierarchy until the present. We are still working on this problem, and much of what we are doing is still not OK. 

Wikipedia reports on the state of democracy.

Only 8% of the global population is living in a full democracy. 

37.3% are subjects of flawed democracies. 

17.9% are in mixed regimes. 

Authoritarian regimes account for 36.9% of the world population. 

P.S. recent events (2025) have tipped the balance away from democracy even further.