Sunday, May 02, 2004

Bottom-up or top-down?

This may seem trivial, but as one of the priests was preparing to say the sacrament prayer today, he pulled too hard on the little pull-out microphone and it made a kind of popping sound. He was obviously embarrassed at not having pulled it out quietly enough. My wandering mind started to wonder: how did it come about that we have these little pull-out microphones at the sacrament table as standard features in chapels? Was this an idea that started somewhere local and spread popularly, was recognized higher up in the hierarchy as a good idea, and then adopted as standard? Or was it the idea of someone at the top that was propagated down to the local level?

I rather suspect it was the former. But so what, you ask? Well, there have been some programs that have been started on a local level and, when successful, became a standard part of the official Church program. This seems to be quite accepted, despite the perception of the Church as a very “top-down” organization. Does this say anything about how we should perceive the workings of revelation and the Spirit in the Church? Are there doctrinal or “theological” examples of “bottom-up” influence? If not, does this point to a distinction between doctrine & practice contra some suggestions in the relatively recent Belief and Practice thread at Times & Seasons?

Is either “bottom-up” or “top-down” influence preferable? Can both fit the model of revelation in the Church?

4 comments:

  1. Well, the first thought that comes to mind as far as "bottom up" revelation is the prophet Samuel - a boy giving revelation to the then-current high priest. That may not be the best fit, but there's at least the appearance of a similarity.

      [Comment originally posted by: Zach | Homepage | 05.04.04 - 12:38 am]

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. I think there's plenty of room for both, as expressed by OSC in my too- long post at BCC.

      [Comment originally posted by: Tom | 05.04.04 - 4:39 pm]

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  4. Relief Society, Primary, and maybe Sunday School all had origins in a bottom-up model that was later adopted and spread to the rest of the Church by top-down methods.

    I like to to think that part of being anxiously engaged is constantly looking for better ways of doing things. Thus, it makes sense to me that a Church full of anxiously engaged people would generate plenty of good ideas at both the top and bottom.

      [Comment originally posted by: BDemosthenes | Homepage | 05.08.04 - 11:45 pm]

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