Leaving The 'Church Collective'

A friend and fellow geek, (yes I'm looking at you Dallas!) commented on my last post about the similarities he sees between the church and the Borg*. And that reminded me of a post I wrote a couple of years ago, comparing the Borg's drive to assimilate other species with the church's zeal to impose "unity" on its members. Naturally enough, that got me thinking more about such things generally, and the Star Trek universe particularly.

[*For those non-geeks among us, Memory Alpha explains: "The Borg were a pseudo-species of cybernetic beings, or cyborgs, from the Delta Quadrant. No single individual truly existed within the Borg Collective (with the possible sole exception of the Borg Queen), as all Borg were linked into a hive mind. Their ultimate goal was the attainment of 'perfection' through the forcible assimilation of diverse sentient species, technologies, and knowledge. As a result, the Borg were among the most powerful and feared entities in the galaxy, without really being a true species at all."]

And that got me thinking about the character, "Seven of Nine" from Star Trek's Voyager series, a Borg drone and one of a sub-group of nine humanoids, all of whom had been captured and assimilated into the Borg collective. After being rescued by the crew of Voyager, Seven was faced with the challenge of learning to be a unique and individual being again.

Naturally enough, she struggles with the process - initially finding the loss of the hive mind confronting in the extreme. She is forced to become an independent individual, learning to live without the constant guidance and instruction of the hive mind.

In one particularly poignant episode, it is revealed that the 'Nine' borgs once crashed on a planet and were consequently cut off from the collective. Freed from that influence, the survivors discover that memories of their previous lives start to emerge. Remembering their lives before assimilation - that they were once free and independent people, with names instead of 'designations' - they decide they don't want to be 'rescued' and re-assimilated by their Borg brethren.

But, while the others of the 'Nine' were assimilated as adults, Seven was only a child when she and her parents were captured. Life as a Borg drone has been all she's really known so, not surprisingly, she acts like the little girl she once was. Seeing the others acting independently, she reacts in fear and panic, eventually forcing the others to rejoin the collective against their wills, and inflicting unthinking damage on them in that process.

Now to me, this seemed like a perfect metaphor for the experience of leaving the institutional church. Not only do those who leave have the sometimes difficult task of discovering who they are outside the 'hive mind' of the church, but they also have to contend with those who react in fear and try to force them back.

It can feel strange and lonely when you first stop operating as part of a 'church collective'. Exploring how to be yourself outside the institution can be challenging. Asking previously forbidden questions, finding new 'answers' to those you did have permission to ask, even finding that you might need to live without the old certainties, can all make for a stretching, even difficult time. You might even make a few mistakes! But that's ok. It's all part of the process of finding freedom and your new place in the world.

So when you face the inevitable naysayers who are fearful of others making an independent choice, and who try to impose their ways upon you again, you can exercise that new-found freedom and make your own decisions. You are not obligated to obey the collective, you can listen to the voice of the Spirit gently guiding you, and you can boldly go where maybe you've never gone before...


Disclaimer: I am not saying that freedom cannot be found within the institutional church. I am saying that I couldn't find it there.

Resistance is Futile. You Will be Assimilated.

In a post I wrote a little while ago, I proposed that christians behave like Daleks when they insist upon unquestioning submission from others. Today I'd like to suggest that when they mistake uniformity for unity, they end up acting like the Borg!

According to the Star Trek database, the Borg are "a cybernetic life-form thousands of years old which is part organic, part artificial life… Born humanoid, they are almost immediately implanted with bio-chips that link their brains to a collective consciousness via a unique subspace frequency emitted by each drone."

These are creatures which live, think and operate as a collective, having no individualism and no self-identity. They brook no opposition to their plans, merely absorbing and integrating any other lifeforms they come across. Any race who have the misfortune to be discovered by the Borg are totally subsumed. Each individual loses all sense of being distinctive and ends up just like every other Borg drone. Now you might think this is incredibly aggressive and violent, but apparently, "the Borg only want to 'raise the quality of life' of the species they assimilate".

Do you see where I'm going with this?

How many churches insist (whether spoken or otherwise) that every member adhere to the particular set of doctrines approved by that specific group?

How many church members have been "thrown under the bus" by leaders who insist on conformity to their particular 'vision'?

How many people have been made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome at church because they didn't dress right, or speak right, or act right? Or think right!

How many times have hostilities broken out between brothers and sisters because they have a different understanding or interpretation of scripture?

And how many times has the church justified this type of behaviour (like the Borg), claiming it's all for the good of those they target?

Jesus prayed that his followers would be one, just as he and the Father are one. But he and his Father are not the same as each other - they don't need to be. They are different but united. Unity speaks of many parts coming into union, making a complex whole.

Uniformity on the other hand implies an attempt to make everyone the same - uniform - just like the Borg.