Unsustainable Complexity: Insights from Ecology and Anthropology on the Dynamics of Complexity in Church Systems

Cycles of growth and decay are observable in both human and natural systems. In these cycles increasing followed by decreasing levels of system complexity are also observed. These dynamics have been studied by both ecologists and anthropologists. Of particular interest for this paper is the work of ecologist C. S. Holling and the anthropologist Joseph A. Tainter. This paper explores whether insights of natural and human systems from these disciplines may be useful when considering how complexity increases, is sustained, and decreases in church life.

If insights from these disciplines are applicable to church life, it suggests that a strategy of conscious simplification of church structures, and the devolution of power and authority downwards to more autonomous units of church, would be a preferable strategy at all levels of church life at this point in the church’s history where resources available to the church are insufficient to maintain inherited and now maladapted systems of organisation. Such a strategy contrasts with the strategy currently most dominantly espoused by National Church Institutions of the Church of England of seeking growth through increasingly centralised management and control of resources.