Verse one: "Later on God tested Abraham's faith and obedience." Apparently, loyalty tests didn't begin with the medieval rulers who spread false rumors of their own impending deaths in order to ascertain which servants would be loyal during times of crisis. Nor did the practice end with Senator McCarthy's hearings or President Reagan's penchant for lie detector tests. Authority figures always distrust their subordinates; and God, according to the author (or authors) of Genesis, was no different from anyone else.

"Abraham!" God called.

"Yes, Lord!" Abraham replied.

"Take with you your only son — yes, Isaac whom you love so much — and go to the land of Moriah and sacrifice him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I'll point out to you."

Now, brother and sister bureaucrats, as you know, the Great CEO in the Sky was not asking for what one might call a "small sacrifice." Abraham was 100 years old when he had the uplifting experience of successfully impregnating his wife, Sarah, who at age 90 was herself no spring chicken. In addition, the birth of the child gave Abraham and Sarah much joy — so much joy that they named him Isaac, which meant "laughter." I suppose you could say that the Great CEO in the Sky was asking him to kill laughter. Perhaps that's why many organizations are so devoid of humor. (For instance, have you ever noticed that the annual reports of formal organizations are seldom as funny as the way those organizations actually operate?) The desire to kill laughter may be the reason why employment advertisements often seek "no-nonsense" managers. Can you think of less interesting or more incompetent managers than those who pride themselves on not engaging in nonsense?

Anyway, "The next morning Abraham got up early, chopped wood, saddled his donkey, took with him his son, Isaac, and two young men who were his servants and started off to the place where God had told him to go.^[2] On the third day of the journey Abraham saw the place in the distance."

Now, brothers and sisters, I ask you, does the whole situation make much sense? Did Abraham say, "Can you explain why you want me to kill my boy?" or did he plead, "Kill me instead," or did he ask, "How about letting me have some time to talk it over with Sarah? She might have some feelings about this, too, you know." As you are probably aware, the answer is no. Thus, Abraham's unquestioning obedience to his superior established and gave holy sanction to the age-old bureaucratic dictum: "It is more important to obey authority than to behave sensibly." Adolph Eichmann and many of the rest of us are thereby bureaucratic kinfolk to God's executive vice-president, Abraham.

But the story of organizational intrigue does not end there. "Stay here with the donkey," Abraham told the young men, "and the lad and I will travel yonder and worship and then come right back."

Significantly, in this story we can see the genesis of several commonplace bureaucratic thought patterns. Abraham relegated the two young men — the representatives of the personnel department — to a peripheral role, perhaps because the grisly task involved a major moral issue. Possibly, he feared that the young men would get in the way by offering moral or ethical alternatives. Worse yet, they might stage a rebellion. Regardless of his motivation, it is clear that he had no need to worry. Those who would consent to stand around passively holding a jackass during a time of moral crisis pose no threat. They do, however, serve as long-term role models for others who might follow.

Returning to the story: "Abraham placed the wood for the burnt offering upon Isaac's shoulders, while he himself carried the knife and the flint for striking a fire. So the two of them went on together." It is important to note that Isaac carried his own "walking papers," unaware of his role in the impending restructuring of the organization and the coincident reallocation of key personnel. In other words, he didn't know he was about to get fired, both literally and figuratively.

The story becomes even more complex in verse seven, when Isaac asked, "Father, we have the wood and the flint to make the fire, but where is the lamb for the sacrifice?"

Abraham answered with a lie — a clear, unequivocal act of deception — when he said, "God will see to it, my son," knowing full well that God had already made the decision about who would be the sacrificial lamb. His answer is representative of the standard, bureaucratic reassurances a superior might mendaciously give to a subordinate who is worried about an RIF.

Abraham evidently had learned an early version of Boren's law, which states: "When in doubt, mumble. When cornered, obfuscate."^[35] An updated version of Abraham's reply to Isaac might be: "What we must do is consider your question in the light of the pros and cons, given the exigencies of the situation, to ensure that the best interests of all are met within the framework of the long-term developmental plan, the financial issues so central to the problem and its solution, and the political climate under which a wide variety of conflicting crosscurrents operate." Later on, Abraham probably said to his associates, "I didn't actually lie to him. I just didn't tell him everything I knew."

Faced with such babble, Isaac capitulated. Or, in the metaphor of a much later minor prophet who wrote about organizations as phrog farms (see Chapter 3), Isaac — following the model set by both his father and the personnel specialists — became a toady and kissed the phrog. Apparently, in the fog, Isaac was unable to see which direction the phrog was facing and was also unaware that phrog kissing is a seductive activity that seldom leads to lovemaking but generally adds to the warts on the kisser's face.

Regardless of Isaac's perceptiveness or lack thereof, the Scripture says: "They went on. When they arrived at the place where God had told Abraham to go, he built an altar and placed the wood in order, ready for the fire,^[3] and then tied Isaac and laid him on the altar over the wood. And Abraham took the knife and lifted it up to plunge it into his son, to slay him."

Then, brothers and sisters, the story takes a very interesting twist, because it says, "At that moment the Angel of God shouted to him from heaven, 'Abraham! Abraham!'"

And Abraham, ever sensitive to the wishes of his boss, answered, "Yes, Lord."

"Lay down the knife; don't hurt the lad in any way," the Angel said, "for I know that God is first in your life — you have not withheld even your beloved son from me."

Now, to begin with, I'm always intrigued that the message to stop the sacrifice came from the Angel of God, not from God himself. In fact, it seems as if any time a boss makes a stupid mistake, he sends his administrative assistant to try to rectify it. Anyway, Abraham obeyed the directive relayed by God's administrative assistant, noticed a ram caught in a nearby bush, and sacrificed it instead. Most organizations find scapegoats when they make dumb errors. Sometimes it is Oliver North. Other times it is a ram.

Then, if you continue to read, you will find that the Great CEO in the Sky used his administrative assistant to relay another message. This missive announced a bonus for his loyal subordinate: "Because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son from me, I will bless you with incredible blessings and multiply your descendants into thousands and millions ... all because you have obeyed me."

Now, I ask you, what could we call Abraham's willingness to kill his beloved son without a reason other than complying with his boss's desire that he pass a loyalty test? Well, Soren Kierkegaard, the protestant existential theologian, in an essay entitled "Fear and Trembling," calls Abraham's willingness to obey God's command an extraordinary, virtually incomprehensible act of religious faith.^[36] Kierkegaard and many other theologians seem to agree that Abraham's unquestioning obedience to God's unreasonable command is a prototypical act of religious faith, one that offers a model for only the most disciplined believers, regardless of the religious tradition they espouse.

"But," you may ask, "how does the story of Abraham's act of religious faith have anything to do with contemporary management and organization?" Well, brothers and sisters, if you do have such a question, I will try to answer it.

You, sir — you near the aisle — will you get me a glass of water? Now you — you, there, in the front pew — do you have a neighbor? Ah, good. What's the neighbor's name? Abe? What a coincidence! And does Abe have a son? He does? What's the son's name? Ah, Ike. That's a good name. Well, suppose you go home tonight and your neighbor comes through the gate in the back fence and says, "I just heard a voice calling to me from the trees in the backyard. It's God talking, for sure. He wants me to kill my only beloved son, Ike, and roast him on the barbecue pit as a way of proving my loyalty to him.^[4] I need to borrow a knife with a serrated edge so I can make a quick, clean cut; and I also need to borrow some extra firewood. Ours is wet and doesn't burn easily. I'll send Ike over to pick it up. If he asks why I want firewood in the middle of a summer heat wave, just say, 'God only knows.' I'm going to send a couple of young men over to keep him occupied while I repair the barbecue pit and build the fire. I need to work fast because I want to get it done before Edna returns home. She tends to get agitated when I do things like this."

Now, what would you do in a situation like that? Yes, I agree with the lady in the left balcony, who shouted, "Call the police! Have him put in protective custody or sent to the funny farm!" Right. Because he is crazy, nuts, bonkers, and, ultimately, certifiably insane. Oh, amen, sister, amen.

But, dearly beloved, let's not permit the story to end there. Once you get Abe tranquilized, transported, incarcerated, and certified as mentally ill, you go home, go to bed, wake up the next morning, and go to your office.

Upon arrival, you are greeted by your boss — the organization's president, who says, "I'm going to put you to the test. I want you to fire fifty people. If we do it now, the bottom line for the fiscal quarter will look a lot better."

Let's assume that you are a tiny bit more assertive than our brother Abraham, and you say, "But sir, why? They haven't done anything wrong. They have worked hard, have done their jobs well, and have been faithful, hard-working employees."

To that your boss replies, "Be a loyal team player and do it because I told you so. And besides, if you do it competently, in a way that nobody gets too upset, no grievances are filed by the union, and the troops don't get restless and pull a wildcat strike on us, I will bless you, your division will multiply, you will get a 10 percent increase in salary, and I will name you executive vice-president."

After that explanation, what do most of us do? Right, as the lady in the choir said, we respond to the boss with: "Give me the list of those you want to get rid of" or, metaphorically, "Where do I collect the firewood?"

What is the essential meaning of the foregoing three parables for those of us who, knowingly or unknowingly, adhere to the catechism of contemporary organizations?

Clearly, Abraham's willingness to kill his only son solely on God's behest is frequently termed an act of religious faith. I also think Abe's willingness to kill his son Ike would generally be called an act of insanity. But I believe it equally likely that your willingness to fire fifty employees for the purpose of "making the quarter look good" would be called an act of hardnosed managerial skill and would be an example of an action many managers believe is required to make organizations function effectively. But I ask you, what are the differences in the essential thought processes and underlying value systems of Abraham, Abe, and those of us who would take such action in our managerial and organizational roles?

It seems to me that there is no difference. Each thought pattern reflects the belief that it is more important to obey authority than to think on our own. Each reflects the belief that lying and deception are legitimate forms of managerial behavior in organizational settings. Each reflects the protagonist's conviction that he or she is not responsible for his or her own actions. Rather, God (or some other authority figure) is responsible. In more contemporary terms, God can delegate authority, but he can't delegate responsibility. In that sense, comedian Flip Wilson, who became famous for saying, "The Devil made me do it"; the banal Nazi automaton Adolph Eichmann, who achieved a dubious immortality by contending, "I was only following orders"; and that paragon of religious faith, Abraham, who achieved prototypical religious status by demonstrating his willingness to kill his only begotten son, are bureaucratic brothers. Furthermore, to the extent that we demonstrate, through mimicking their actions, our implicit approval of their patterns of thought and the values that support them, we have become a part of their organizational family.

The story of Abraham, in my opinion, tells us little more about the essence of God than the ritual, laudatory press release tells stockholders about the essence of the CEO of Amalgamated, Incorporated. Rather, as the prophet Carl Jung tells us in "Answers to Job" and "Christ, a Symbol of the Self,"^[37] our conception of God — the ultimate authority figure — is frequently clouded by our unconscious desire to release ourselves from accepting the responsibility for our actions toward one another and, in a more important sense, as Erich Fromm contended in Escape from Freedom,^[38] to avoid the anxiety of being accountable for the choices we make as we go about our daily lives in all kinds of organizations. In other words, the story of Abraham and Isaac, which probably was concocted by an ancient image consultant, tells us nothing about God but does tell us a great deal about our desire to be released emotionally from accountability for hatred and consequent inhumanity toward our children, our families, our friends, our colleagues, and our bosses. As a result, so long as we can blame God, the devil, our parents, or the CEO — and, following the course set by Abraham, call our cop-out an act of faith rather than murder — we can always plead the Eichmann "defense" and receive the approbation that the custodial representatives of the secular gods offer for it.^[5]

Lest you think that I exaggerate how much managers abdicate responsibility for inhumane decisions, I point to the reaction to a "sermon" I preached to managers some time ago. My "congregation" generally was from the personnel or the managerial priesthood of a variety of Churches of the Bureaucracy. One of the priests, in obedience to the commands from the god he worshipped, had recently sacrificed approximately fifty Isaacs from his organization in an effort to make the financial quarter look good. In great fury, he responded to my homily with a scathing denunciation of my thesis that firing Isaac, in the context of obedience to a capricious god, is an act of evil. Rather, he argued, firing faithful, competent, hard-working employees for the basic purpose of improving the short-term financial performance of the company would provide for their spiritual growth. (I think he specifically called the RIF a "personal growth experience" for the sacrificial lambs.) He argued that the slaughter would be growthful for the employees, because (1) it would teach them not to rely on any one employer or to put their trust in any one organization; (2) it would force them to learn new skills, which might be marketable elsewhere; (3) it would bring families together by forcing them to work together in order to survive; (4) it would teach them the ultimate truth that life is unfair; and (5) it might even drive them into the loving arms of the formal church in an effort to cope with the pain and suffering they would probably experience. In short, he concluded: "Firing others in such a way is ultimately a religious act, and it is for their own spiritual growth that it is done."

He received a standing ovation. May God have mercy on his soul. (God does have mercy on his soul; otherwise, God would be the greatest phrog farmer of them all.)

In an effort to keep you and me from joining Kierkegaard in his melancholy depression, let me say that I believe that there is hope. We need not be forever trapped by the story of Abraham and Isaac. We can write our own new story. God has given us the potential to reflect both his majestic anger and his unfathomable grace. Once that new story of Abraham and Isaac is written, it may provide us with moral, ethical, and spiritual guidelines for managing organizations in a manner consistent with God's essence, which is our own, assuming that we believe God made us in his image.

Of course, we would want the new story to portray respect for authority and realism, while it encourages us to be both responsible and accountable for our own actions. We also would want the new parable to be written so as to enhance the possibility that the organizations we build not only survive but flourish. Here's how the "New Myth of Abraham and Isaac" might go:

Brothers and sisters of the Church of Perpetual Bureaucracy, rather than railing against the deception, the blind obedience to authority and a capricious God who demands that we violate the truth in ourselves and him — in short, rather than cursing the darkness of our self-generated bureaucratic heritage and calling it faith — I suggest that each of us go plant a cabbage on God's behalf.

Amen.