Ryan,

Insofar as you are trying to "strike a blow for the return of a serious church hierarchy," I don't see where Shirky has provided much help. The ideas here are good as a start, but they need to be taken further. So far, there is only the defense of the right of a few churches among many to have a hierarchical structure if they want to; to say nothing of the church's responsibility to speak with authority to the world. Essentially, the defense offered here is post-modern.

It is not the case, as you have suggested, that post-modernism hates hierarchical systems; rather, it hates hierarchy among systems. And this is very inconsistent of it. A defining characteristic of post-modernism is that it will not admit to any metaphysical explanation for reality. They all agree that reality is actually out there, but it is nothing more than a jumble of meaningless facts. Meaning and truth are constructs imposed by the individual or the community. What may be true for one is not true for another. All truths, however, are equally valid. Hence, the need for egalitarianism among systems. Within a system there may be a hierarchy because this is true for all involved therein.

The idea of picking only two between diversity, freedom, and equality is well taken. Having all of them is impossible. But, for a Christian who believes in absolute truth, the question is not, "Which combinations are possible?" but, "Which combination is right?" If it is a mere matter of possibility, then your argument against Marxism doesn't hold: they have simply opted for a different combination (you may argue that they have only picked one, but there is nothing that says that anyone has to pick two- this is just the logical maximum). But, unlike the post-modernist, the Marxist will not be so ready to let others have their own choice. Marxists do believe in a metaphysical explanation for reality: dialectical materialism. They would also ask the question, "Which combination is right?"

As it turned out, they got it wrong. But then, the post-modernist wouldn't agree. There are no wrong answers (notice the inconsistency again?). The Cold War was a modern phenomenon. Each side saw the other as a threat to its own existence. Had it been post-modern, neither side would have cared what the other was doing. Russia would not have been Marxist, just a place that really liked Socialism. And that would have been true for them. But, to get back to the church. You have picked the right combination. Still, this is more than a matter of mere preference. The choice is not about what is true for like-minded Protestants. It is about what is universally true because of the manner in which God has structured and interpreted reality. This structure and interpretive grid is the Covenant. Egalitarian it is not.

Now that the choice has been made in this manner, post-modernism becomes less dishonest. It removes its mask to reveal a thoroughly modern presupposition. There are no metaphysical explanations for reality except for this one. A consistently Covenantal theology cannot agree with this and, consequently, will not be tolerated within a post-modern society. A Liberal church will join with post-modernism. A Fundamentalist church can't even define "metaphysical explanation;" besides, their separatist tendencies make them non-threatening to a post-modernist society. Even many Reformed churches either embrace or are no threat to post-modernism. Why would they be when Covenant breakers are limited to those who have actually left the church? Evangelism in all such cases is reduced to, "Try Jesus, maybe he can be true for you, too."

Only a church that is faithful to the Covenant will have the audacity to tell the society in which it exists that they are all Covenant breakers in Adam. All stand in need of repentance and must turn to Christ. While I might agree that today's hatred of authority has contributed to the decline of a serious ecclesiology in the Protestant church, I would limit this to a decline in the hierarchical trappings. Today's hatred of authority is, in my estimation, the result of a serious decline in the substance of ecclesiology.