On the death of gatekeepers

or How the church can learn from everything else

I can’t claim to be a sociologist, but I’ve certainly observed & studied massive shifts. One of the most impactful was the switch from a focus on the institution, to a focus on the individual. Over the last 200 years, the number of media options have absolutely exploded. For many of the early settler/colonizers in the US, their media consisted of what already existed in their community. Ideas could spread as quick as someone could walk, or a horse could travel. This changed with the invention of the US mail system, and again with the telegraph, and again with radio, and again with TV. However, in each of those communication systems there were gatekeepers who were the ultimate decider of what gets through, and what does not. The best and worst part of the internet is that the gatekeepers have been fully bypassed. People who are interested in creating media no longer have to go through systems to get that media approved and circulated to the masses. Radio DJs still have some influence, but have mostly lost their hitmaking ability. Newspaper editors still have sway over what stories get published, but news can come from almost any source now. Publishing houses are no longer a necessary step in publishing books.

For example, before the internet, I would have to pass through a variety of hoops to get these ideas to you. Now I can sit in my apartment, and write whatever gobbledygook comes to me, and send it out. It’s liberating and terrifying.

The loss of ‘gatekeepers’ is neither good nor bad, it’s simply a paradigm shift in our society. One of the major problems of ‘the church’, (e.g. all Christian churches, and the people who make them up), is that we are still acting as if we are in a gatekeeper model. I remember back when I was serving in Granite Falls, and how a parishioner shared some theological ideas that were not Lutheran in origin. I asked where this parishioner heard these things, and they replied that they were a big fan of Billy Graham, and it was probably an idea from him. I was very much acting in a way that assumed I was the gatekeeper for this parishioner’s theology, which was not the case. This parishioner is getting their theological education from many different sources. My preaching and teaching is only one of the many stalls in the market. I see examples of this all throughout the church (and the ELCA more narrowly).

Institutions no longer have the power they once had. Gatekeepers (pastors in many cases) no longer control the door to the marketplace of ideas. Instead, they are simply standing by one entrance, while the villagers all are tearing down the walls to build their homes, or to make their walk shorter, or because the walls are no longer relevant.

The model of ‘pastor’ as ‘gatekeeper’ worked in a Christendom world, where the church held ultimate sway over all the ins and outs of society. That’s no longer the case. We have to find a new model for Christian leadership, one that doesn’t put us as the guard at the gate, but instead as one of many hawkers in the marketplace. The walls are full of holes, and gatekeepers aren’t relevant anymore.

thanks be to God.