BEWARE THE INVISIBLE ELEPHANT

Journalist John Reed called it, "Ten Days that Shook the World," which was the title of his book published in 1922. In the preface, he wrote: "Adventure it was, and one of the most marvelous mankind ever embarked upon, sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed among the peasants."

What in the world was he talking about? The radical Reed was writing about what he had witnessed, the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which the czarist regime was overthrown and Lenin established the first communist government in the world. The radical Reed was witnessing the beginning of a worldwide movement that, as he said, "Shook the world."

How did that movement work out? Awful. As R. J. Rummel writes, "Few would deny any longer that communism--Marxism-Leninism and its variants--meant, in practice, bloody terrorism, deadly purges, lethal gulags and forced labor, fatal deportations, man-made famines, extrajudicial executions, show trials, and genocide. It is also widely known that as a result, millions of innocent people have been murdered in cold blood."

How's that for a movement? Awful, bloody awful. John Reed? What a jerk!

SPEAKING OF MOVEMENTS

Speaking of movements, is Christianity a "movement?" Did Christ summon the Twelve and tell them, "With your help, I'm going to start a worldwide movement"? Did He mention the word, "movement" in the Great Commission in Matthew 28  or Acts 1:8? We answer in the negative to those questions. 

"Movement" is the English word we've put on the spread of the gospel and the establishment of churches around the world. And in that word lies the danger.

BEWARE THE MOVEMENT

A colleague at Grace Biblical Seminary and I were enjoying lunch together. We began to talk about a Christian organization from which he had resigned his leadership position and withdrawn his membership several years ago. He was on the governing board and had participated in many of the inside, not for public consumption, conversations of the leadership. It was in those meetings that he noticed a strange thing, the use of the word "movement," as in "Our movement this and our movement that."

His point was that "the movement" guided the conversations, decisions, and policies of the leadership. Whenever anything came up which called for a decision, the only questions were, "What will this decision mean for our movement?" "Will this decision, this policy, help or hurt the movement?" The movement was the ultimate reference point, the decider for everything they said and did. 

THE INVISIBLE ELEPHANT

The movement was the invisible elephant in the room. This unseen behemoth was present at every meeting; it voted on every issue; it's vote decided everything. No secretary recorded the presence of the pachyderm and no board member mentioned its name because no one could see the invisible elephant, so no one was conscious of its presence. Yet, the invisible elephant was always there, controlling every discussion and every vote. Its unseen hand wrote the minutes of every meeting. 

Just as a fish never thinks about water, so the leadership never thought about the invisible elephant. 

This is not to say that the organization had evil goals, but it is to say that what happened to the group was that the the movement became the unseen idol its members worshiped and was the god who controlled everything behind the curtain. This is what happens to movements. 

Could this be one reason why organizations fail? Do they go bad because its leadership and members start to worship The MOVEMENT? When that happens, the MOVEMENT becomes the Messiah and things go haywire fast. 

Doesn't the very concept of "a movement" inflate the human ego? MY movement becomes a point of pride. In movements, we usually find fights to gain control. We often hear, or it's implied, "This is MY movement and it's going to be worldwide, so step aside and watch MY movement stride the earth in its seven league boots." 

FOOTBALL AND BASKETBALL

Is there a parallel in college athletics? We recently read of a university whose student athletes weren't students--they took classes which never met and courses which had no requirements. Amazingly, the students made A's and B's. Those classes were let's-keep-the-thletes-in-school-courses, a sham. 

This went on for more than 20 years! For two decades the unseen elephant (the movement called, "WIN") dictated every decision in regard to football and basketball at the university.  The consuming question was, "How will this decision help us win?" and it was bye-bye education and hello esteem and money. The alumni with deep pockets were proud of the their alma mater and kept feeding the elephant more than peanuts. 

A SUBSTITUTE BIBLE

In a movement, the word of the invisible elephant becomes the Bible. To be sure, Christ was present at every meeting of the aforementioned organization, but only in a token way--after the opening prayer, the invisible elephant took control. It was like E. F. Hutton; when he spoke everybody both listened and obeyed.

Think of the once-fine Christian organizations of which you've been a member. Did they go bust because everything came down to the invisible elephant? When the invisible elephant is in the room, it's either its way or the highway. 

My friend, to his credit, took the highway.