Welcome back, Pilgrim! Here’s what’s happened in town since you’ve been away…
Deep Dives
Trust This: Web3 Will Deliver on the True Promise of Crowdfunding
A piece from the Defiant explaining some of the potential for web3 tooling to enable groups of people to work together with less need to rely on reputational trust in the founders’ identities. It seems like these possibilities would become very interesting (in good and bad ways) for ministries and nonprofits.
The Ownership Economy 2022
A research-backed teardown of the value created when web2 systems evolve to allow users to gain ownership in the platforms and apps. Fascinating, stats-rich and packed with potential trends for the coming months.
Is There Any Place for Ethics in the Metaverse?
A huge video from the Defiant with a number of different interviews around ethics topics in emerging metaverses. This is a field where differences of opinions abound and one where influence and wisdom from the Church seems desperately needed.
Around Web3
The DeFi Edge on crypto portfolio construction: A simple breakdown of different strategies for managing crypto diversification. Always good to check in on your portfolio. 📊
Cobie on Apecoin and staking: An offbeat voice on Twitter, Cobie’s Substack takes on a reasoned and logical tone as he presents a balanced-yet-critical look at the recent proposals for the BAYC ecosystem and what it all means for staking in crypto as a whole. 🦍
NFTNow on NFT blockchains: A quick explainer on the various chains where NFTs are exchanged including pros and cons as well as distinctives for each chain. ⛓
As For Me and My DAOs, We Will Serve the Lord
Community Contributor | JohannesTalbotus
The age of the Israelite Judges occurred during an era of great societal upheaval across the Middle East. It was an era in which once mighty, hegemonic Bronze Age superpowers faced restless peer competitors mutually encroaching on each others’ borders, as well as upstart rivals who rode the wave of asymmetric technological development which ushered in the Iron Age. If this sounds like a distant mirror of today's transition from Industrial Age to Digital Age, rising peer competition, and asymmetric warfare, that is just the familiar historical kaleidoscope at work.
In this turmoil, the Twelve Tribes of Hebrews are brought out of Egypt and settle in the Promised Land to create what will become the nation of Israel. This nation is not a centralized kingdom (yet), but instead remains a loose confederation of tribes marked by their heritage as descendants of Jacob (called Israel) and their adherence to a set body of teaching called Torah, sometimes defined as “Law”. In this land of milk and honey they find themselves surrounded by powerful enemies such as the Canaanites, Philistines, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Midianites, and many others, each of which takes a turn at raiding and subjugating the newcomers over the next ~300 years. Enter the Judges and the model of operating which can help members of DAOs today.
The 12 Tribes as a Decentralized Autonomous Organization
Let’s begin our exploration by checking how Israel fits into our framework of historical DAOs. They were decentralized in that governance of the people was distributed across all twelve tribes. Certain tribes and leaders would rise to the top and gain influence as the de facto leader, but this would last temporarily. Though some of this decentralization was caused by infighting and rivalries between them, it seems that the decentralization was also purposely baked into the system. They were autonomous in that they existed in a condition of self-government, and in fact this story can be viewed as a string of conflicts detailing how a group fought to maintain that self-government. Finally, this collection of tribes was a single organization who always maintained a separation with outside nations greater than the separation with internal tribes. Though they had differences, Zebulun and Naphtali would set them aside to fight Canaan and together maintain a status as independent Israelites.
The Twelve Tribes were unified by a Covenant, not a central authority
…not a human central authority, that is.
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
Exodus 19.5-6
As stated in Exodus 6 before the entrance to the Promised Land, the Lord Yahweh would “take you to be My people, and I will be your God.” The Lord was their single authority figure, and while Moses was alive they had personal contact with that Authority. But Moses was long since dead, and in his place stood the Covenant.
It was this Covenant, the codified Law, which bound the Twelve Tribes together as the Nation of Israel. It gave the people a sense of unity in that the Law was inclusive of all tribes, a sense of purpose in that the commands were based on well-defined actions and moral precepts, and a sense of power as a people chosen by God and blessed according to their adherence. This unity of purpose can provide DAOs today with key lessons:
DAOs do not form under a central authority, but for them to be effective they do need a core unifying ideal to bind the individuals together.
That core unifying ideal can take many forms: a statement of purpose, a mission and vision plan, a well-crafted set of OKRs. Whatever it is, it should be inspirational, directional, and actionable.
Local leaders were empowered to fulfill the Covenant and Judge the people
Then the LORD raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them... Whenever the LORD raised up judges for them, the LORD was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge.
Judges 2:16-17a, 18a
The story of pre-kingdom Israel is one of leaders who are raised up to address internal divisions and external threats. In the face of these threats, typically observed as “the people following other gods”, or “nations subjecting Israel to tribute,” a leader would rise up and form a coalition of tribes to fight back the foreign invaders. These leaders were referred to as Judges, and it appears they exercised a combination of military command and legal oversight for the Israelites. Their influence seems to have overlapped at some points, indicating their authority was not total across all twelve tribes at one time, and there are no stories of battles in which all twelve unite to form a single army, as Judges typically led a maximum of two or three tribes into battle.
This nation of Twelve Tribes was called to fulfill a Covenant to obey God’s Law, and the Judges were raised up as leaders to help the people achieve that. Studying the Judges provides an example for DAO leaders to emulate today:
Effective leadership does not imply centralization or authoritarian control. Good leadership is best viewed as the ability to mobilize a group of people to achieve a common goal.
Judges were raised up as focal points of resistance to encroaching powers, and then remained as a focal point of judgment for internal affairs. This judgment implies discernment, decision making, and direction setting. All members of a DAO are expected to act in accordance with organizational principles, but we must humbly accept that success will require unique skills and leadership qualities from certain people.
The Counter Example
In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
Judges 21:25
The period of the Judges of Israel - the “DAO” in our framework - is not portrayed as an idealized, rosy time in the Old Testament. The people largely failed to uphold their end of the Covenant. This led to repeated breakdown in their societal structures and easy conquest. At some point the combination of internal divisions and external threats seems to have wearied the people, and so they called for a king. Centralized authority was recognized as an effective tool to maintain territorial autonomy and people were willing to accept coercion to maintain unity across the Twelve Tribes. In the framework of “the State” as a centralizing authority, this marks the shift from the Israelite tribes into the Israelite nation-state or the Kingdom of Israel.
Following history past the book of Judges and into the books of Samuel, the Kings, and Chronicles tells the full story of the Kingdom of Israel. Leaving that for a later discussion, we can identify some “anti-patterns” to avoid while building a DAO:
If a DAO fails to follow its unifying mission, or if leaders turn away from that mission, the natural entropy of society will tear the organization apart.
Repeated failures of a DAO to maintain autonomy will cause its members to seek centralization as a means of protection. “Autonomy” in the Web3 world can mean many things - autonomy of action, autonomy of thought, autonomy of resources - but there is a constant need to find where our “borders” are encroached upon and remove any threat.
Conclusion: The story of Israel points towards dispersion and integration
…that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel
Luke 22:30
The story of Israel in the Old Testament serves as a model for Christians, and the more a reader digs in and reflects upon that story, the more rich analogies are uncovered. We have focused on one framework to view that history, and I would like to end this article by proposing another- the Church is “the new Israel.” We can look at this a number of ways:
The Church is “the Kingdom of Israel.” Christ reigns as our King.
-or-
The global Church is the united Tribes of Israel, with Christ as our unifying Covenant. Just as the past Tribes were to be saved from cycles of idolatry by King David, we are awaiting the day when Christ returns as King to form the new Davidic Kingdom of Israel.
If we use the latter framework, how would that influence how the Church operated today? What would that mean for our mission as a decentralized autonomous organization seeking discipleship on the cutting edge of technology, often surrounded by hostile powers and false idols?
Alpha Drop
Pr0ph3t had a conversation with a security consultant for nonprofits that touched on blockchain use cases for Christians across borders and in difficult environments. Expect to see more shortly…
Look forward to the audio archive drop of Lecture Hall Session Two coming soon.
Expect the Reformers team on Michael Whittle’s Kings and Priests Podcast later this month to discuss the project and web3 for believers!