Experts vs the Collective?

Andrew Keen has a new book entitled The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture. In his book, he points to some of the dangers created by the internet and things like blogoshpere and Wikipedia. Of course, I didn’t read the book; I read a review of the book by Michael Rogers on MSNBC’s website, which probably proves Keen’s thesis about the dumbing-down of our culture!

Think about Wikipedia here. As you likely know, Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is written, edited and rewritten by its users. The information is “peer-reviewed” in the sense that anyone can correct and add to information in its articles. It is “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” according to its homepage. The “collective” provides its own checks and balances for accuracy, so there is no need an “expert” to edit the information. Keen worries that a “cult of amateurs” becomes the authority on information, and then points to its own work as authoritative. So like American Idol becomes the authority on music, so the collective becomes the authority on information.

What Keen is worried about is things like the loss of objectivity in reporting on news. Of course, as I was reading this, I was translating his points to church? Who provides checks and balances on what the church teaches and practices? We would say, of course, that God and His word is the authority for the church, and that is true enough. But who decides what God means and what the Bible says when there are disagreements in teaching and application? You may have noticed that people and groups equally committed to God and scripture sometimes disagree. So who is the “editor” of what the Bible means?

• Is it the “collective?” Is the church a kind of Wikipedia in which every member constantly writes and rewrites an understanding of how we are to live scripture? Are we not all accountable for what we believe and how we live? Is not theology an ongoing process in which all Christians participate?
  

• Is it local leaders? Does God not God gift each church with leaders that are called to feed, shepherd and protect the flock of God? Are elders called to pastor? Aren’t preacher’s called to teach? Is there not a leadership that goes on in every church where “the collective” is instructed, taught and guided by those called as leaders?
  

• It is “the experts?” Doesn’t God also gift the church with scholars who are themselves gifted in areas of language, church history, theology and the like? Should the church not listen to those who have expertise in ways that local leaders never will?

The answer has to be “all of the above?” The church is “a Christian collective” that writes and rewrites our story in the world and to the world. But God has given us local church leaders to teach and shepherd us. And God has given us “experts” and scholars that serve as resources to the church. What God hasn’t done is left us alone as individuals to figure all of this out for ourselves.