The Hunch, The Compulsion and The Overwhelming Pain

When I put my head above the parapet earlier last year on the issue of Equal Marriage I did so because of a hunch. It wasn’t a fully formed argument nor was it clear but it was there. I am unsure where it exactly came from but it seemed to be a strange positioning against same sex marriage or, to be more precise, against those who were promoting it in the media. This was made strange by my gut reaction to same-sex unions which is fully positive. I said then that I opposed the Equal Marriage legalisation due, not because of any discomfort with homosexual relationships but because of the tenor of the public discussion. I was finding myself saying those distasteful words: ‘I’m not homophobic but..’ I didn’t know what I felt exactly but I knew I needed to say something about my discomfort.

My views were not only dismissed but were found and attacked. I was attacked, personally for expressing such views. I was insulted and bullied. Vitriolic words were sent to me. Within this I tried to remain calm and collected… and then I failed. I lashed out and in my aggression I found myself plunged into more despair and upset because I felt I’d let my God down, for whom I’d give up the praise of any human to be with.

When I fell and I tried to deal with my shame and began the necessary confessions I was taunted and abused further. All this not by fascists, not by Nazis but by ‘liberals’!

It was so strange. With one voice they spoke of their desire (and a correct desire) to be valued, accepted and understood by their society. Underneath their voice, however, was a divisive tone which essentially wanted me to stop talking. My feelings were of no value to them because of who they thought I was. Ironic. Those who wanted equality for all, tolerance and acceptance were making me feel so outside of society; out-dated, abnormal and alone.

They were protected by a vast majority of people all screaming that they are a minority. They fail to acknowledge publicly that, in fact, they are a powerful minority. This is not a conversation about majority and minority because I have come to some clarification that such terms mean nothing anymore. There’s a powerful minority in power and don’t speak for us the majority, ‘the people’. But, also we are a minority trying to overthrow the majority oppressive view. It’s all perception, misdirection, game playing and non of it real truth! The only thing that such conversations about placing ourselves in different configurations of majority/minority do is divide. But we want to be one, don’t we?

An even more upsetting thing about these times was that because I didn’t want to stand fully, unquestioningly with a political liberal agenda, I was cast out and looked upon as a fundamentalist or ‘conservative’. I use the term ‘conservative’ in a derogative term because that is where our media seems to have led us to, which is interesting. With this perception people assumed so many things of me and pre-judged me. ‘Homophobic’, ‘bigot’, ‘fascist’, ‘pathetic’.

Even writing these things is making me dismiss it all as ludicrous. How dare I speak in such terms! You can’t be bullied because you’re ‘the standard’, you’re ‘normal’, you’re the thing that everyone is trying to be ‘equal’ to: white, male, heterosexual, middle-class.

At the same time I feel like I deserve all that they are saying to me. Maybe you are closed-minded, prejudiced, irrational, stupid. Maybe they have a point; maybe I need to change and forget… the hunch.

It still sits there deep in my belly that something in this whole process doesn’t quite add up. Something doesn’t feel right. I want wisdom; pure unadulterated wisdom. Wisdom that is of God (which many people won’t appreciate or understand.) Wisdom comes from waiting, from silencing myself and the world around me to sit in the abyss of silence and re-engage, truthfully with the world through the Holy Spirit (which many people won’t appreciate or understand.) Wisdom that is from that outside place and realm; an imagination that can think of a real alternative to problems in stark contrast to what we re-conceive of half-realised patch-ups in our limited concept of reality.

I thought this was about language; in a way it is. We have no shared custom of language anymore. Is it any wonder that concepts such as ‘justice’, ‘freedom’ or ‘equality’ can be owned by both sides of an opposing debate. Words such as ‘marriage’ and ‘love’ are strongly believed to be understood by a speaker but it is not the same concept, one to another. In this environment it becomes impossible to speak because the shared understanding of what words mean is gone. The whole debate is vacuuous because no one shares life and I find myself returning, increasingly, to that Jewish spiritual insight, ‘it’s all meaningless.’

The hunch comes from Stanley Hauerwas. I return to his writing again and again (mainly Community of Character!) Along with him; John Millbank, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the quiet, compelling life and spirituality of Thomas Merton. It’s all a big mess in my head that drives my passionate heart to beat to this inescapable rhythm that seems to put me into conflict with this liberal force surrounding me. I don’t have to fight. I don’t have to say anything. I could stay quiet and ‘live and let live’… but as my wife told me “you would if you could but you can’t, can you?’

She’s right. The hunch has become a compulsion…

I am no closer to resolution. I still feel uncomfortable about the content of the debate on Same Sex Marriage despite knowing and feeling the desires of couples desperate to proclaim their love from the rooftops. Then there’s my wife’s voice again. She puts it simply, ‘I don’t know what my opinion is. We’ve cherry picked our way out of the Bible that it doesn’t matter. I’m called to love God and love my neighbour and I’ll do that.’

YES! Let me unpick that…

the church’s first social task in any society is to be herself… to be the kind of community that recognizes the necessity that all societies, church and political alike, require authority. But for Christians our authority is neither in society itself nor in the individual; it is in God. (Stanley Hauerwas)

The issue with the liberalism that is so prevalent in the media is it promotes self built stories. Whatever you ‘feel’ is right is right. “This is my experience”. I have read a book recently, which I was asked to review, on homosexuality and the church. It was a good book with some helpful contributions and reminders but it’s main argument was essentially: ‘This is how I experienced it and you can’t argue with that.’ No discussion in case I dare question the authors self-perception; self-identity!

In social debate personal stories are emotional bombs; set them off and no one has a chance. The story is a powerful weapon in our society because we have no standard story which can compare all stories to. ‘Tradition’ is lost out of fear of being dogmatic and unchanging. The problem is the baby of shared history has plummeted with the bath water.

Liberalism is successful exactly because it supplies us with a myth that seems to make sense of our social origins… A people do not need a shared history; all they need is a system of rules that will constitute procedures for resolving disputes as they pursue their various interests. (Hauerwas)

With no need to ascribe to a shared tradition/story there’s no requirement to agree what is right or wrong. Personal experience and opinions are sacred because without them where are we? The Same Sex Marriage debate shows our society for what it is; desperately lost, with no map, no common language, people talking at cross purposes, not listening, not reflecting on what is at the heart of this problem, what is linking this with all our problems.

Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one. (Ludwig Wittgenstein)

 

The most coercive aspect of the liberal account of the world is that we are free to make up our own story. The story that liberalism teaches us is that we have no story. (Hauerwas)

Individuals all trying to cohabitate with other individuals. We don’t know who we are. We have no shared history, no common language, no desire to be radically dependent on another. This is because there is so much division. Walls comfort us, barriers protect us. If we lose them we are open and vulnerable to attack and so let us agree to live in our separate lives, managing interactions through protecting laws so we can continue to feel ‘love’. This love, however, is cheap. It fails as soon as you’ve experienced it. It’s cosy for a moment and then is sand. It is all meaningless…

… But a people who have learned that strenuous lesson of God’s lordship through Jesus’ cross should recognise that ‘the people’ are no less tyrannical than kings or dictators. (Hauerwas)

We have no one else to blame for the sad, empty, disappointing existence we experience than ourselves. We have created a system of society by which we can constantly remain in conflict whilst feeling like we’re making progress towards peace. We praise the legislation on slavery, gender equality, racial equality, sexual equality… None of these have been achieved. “We’ve made steps towards them, though.” The final step, in all of these issues, remains the hearts of the other people you share the planet with. Value in the eyes of another comes not from legislation but from trusting, long term, committed relationship. Our society refuses this in its promotion of individualism, subjectivity and dismissal for any need for shared history. The closest thing, and probably the only thing, close to this authority is the Bill of Human Rights which has no universal basis except itself. It requires another authority. This is a bizarre state of affairs that this document and the beliefs held within it are un questionable, except that it is fallible because it doesn’t mention sexual orientation in it and so we add and amend, reinterpret to fit in with what it should say because it was human’s who made it, right?

The root of this problem is that we feel our authority is to be found in humanity. The problem is that humanity is not trustworthy. We are fickle, broken. We could equally do good as do bad. The foundation on which we build our society is transient and movable. The Bill also uses language which, as we are seeing, is interpreted by a society made up of human’s with mixed motives. The same, of course, could be said of the Bible but the strength and protection of the Christian tradition is an understanding that you read it with God, through God the Holy Spirit, testing it with tradition and Divine revelation.

And the final arrow the sticks into my body as I teeter on the parapet is the most painful. I look and see that the same confusion is found within the Church as well as without. They proclaim the values made of straw and the principle standing on shifting sand. The Body of Christ apes society and culture in a desperate attempt to be ‘relevant’, to feel ‘acceptable’, ‘valued ‘ and ‘loved’. It dresses up in a mini skirt and high heels and walks out into the night proclaim “I can do what I like with my body because of the freedom bestowed upon by my own innate dignity.”

I find in myself being asked the question “What would you do?” or ‘What’s the answer to?” I want to say “I’d start from somewhere else” or “I’d ask a different question.” I don’t know where that place is or what the question might sound like but I know that anything we do won’t make us ‘happy’ or at ‘peace’.

But as I say that I am reminded that I am a Christian who believes strongly that Christ entered into our world, not where he would have (in fact, did) start from!…

You see even in saying that I find myself recoiling because that concept is hijacked by a liberal understanding of the incarnation. The incarnation has been grasped by a liberal theology which promotes a type of humanism. It is very popular because it can be used by society at large with no feelings of threat or challenge because it essential tells secular society that God thinks that everything they are doing are morally right. Jesus is being brought in from the wings in the Same Sex Marriage debate as the ultimate secular humanist and he wasn’t. He upset human society.

Jesus was the bearer of a new possibility of human and social relationships… the incarnation is not the affirmation of God’s approval of the human… but God’s breaking through the borders of man’s definition of what is human. (Hauerwas)

Where does this leave me?

To be honest; I’m done. We are so far from any meaningful equality and no concept or authority which can be the moral goal, the virtue paradigm. We can build one up but it will fall like all the other moral idols we have had in the past. Our heroes are falling, one by one and with each toppling crisis we are buried struggling always to stay afloat except…

The formless void. The dazzling light which seems to penetrate the rubble of our lives. The only constant. It is there, silent because words cannot encompass nor conceive it. When in its presence it compels beauty from within you and you weep because it is so painful to sit knowing how far short you are from its radiance. Through it you see necessary difference held in perfect harmony as three persons dance in one unity. Everything is brought into sharp focus and you laugh at how distorted your view of reality was and Love… Love sings so pure you can hardly bear to hear it. It is unrecognisable and you laugh because whilst you were sure what it was, now you realise you were sat in the dark talking of things far beyond our capabilities and you see yourself and everyone so messed up and far from the target and particularly yourself…

Oh Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.

On Secularism

Secularism, as a philosophical and political concept, has had a long history within the Western world[1]. It first appeared in Ancient Greece in the writings of Plato[2], and was further developed during the Reformation in the 16th century with Martin Luther and John Calvin[3] and later by modern philosophers, Immanuel Kant[4], et al. It is clear from the literature that secularism started as a way of managing pluralistic societies where various theistic assumptions were held. Jürgen Moltmann suggests,

Outside the modern world, there were and are no religionless politics…The secularization of the modern state which Christian and Islamic fundamentalists lament is a religious achievement springing from the religious liberty of modern men and women; it is not an irreligious evil.[5] [6]

As with most philosophical and socio-political theories there are various forms in which it is found.[7] With the limitations of this essay I have chosen to engage specifically with the National Secular Society (N.S.S.) whose claim that ‘secularism is the best chance to create a society in which people of all religions or none can live together fairly and peacefully’ instigates this study.

I will use the N.S.S. charter and their other documents[8], explicitly highlighting a key issue of the inconsistencies in their proposals. From this perspective I will draw a comparison between the ideas put forward by the N.S.S. and those of liberal democracy, as depicted in Stanley Hauerwas’ Community and Character. Whilst exploring the assumptions of liberal democracy, I will debate whether a) it is a political system that leads to peaceful life and b) the N.S.S. can construct a polity that supports fairness for all in the context of a pluralist society. In doing this I will further highlight the contradictions between their charter and the foundations on which secularism is constructed and begin to question the N.S.S.’s implicit suggestion that society can be at peace only when everyone submits to an autonomous legalistic, ethical framework based on the ‘objectivity’ of secularist worldview. This will lead me to conclude that one appropriate Christian response is to live out a social ethic based not on restrictive denial of competing belief, whatever tradition or culture, but on open discussion, which will provide a fairer and more peaceful society.

Secularism, Liberal Democracy and Humanism

The separation of religion and state is the foundation of secularism. It ensures that religious groups don’t interfere in affairs of state, and makes sure the state doesn’t interfere in religious affairs.[9] [10]

The N.S.S. has set itself up as the public voice for those ‘working exclusively towards a secular society.’[11] Its charter consists of ten clearly defined aims of the organisation (see appendix i), which will act, along with Hauerwas’ classification, ‘All I mean by secular is that our polity and politics gives no special status to any recognizable religious group. Correlatively such a polity requires that public policies be justified on grounds that are not explicitly religious’ [12], as my definition of secularism.

Ultimately, secularism purports that there needs to be a separation of religious belief and political ethics. This, for the N.S.S., is articulated mainly on the macro-level of social polity but, as societies are made up of individual citizens, this requires a privatisation of religious belief on the micro-level. Hauerwas’ definition suggests that public policies, in a truly secular society cannot be justified on religious grounds. This is challenged in the documentation of the N.S.S.

Religious people have the right to express their beliefs publicly but so do those who oppose or question those beliefs.[13]

This statement is contradicted, however, in the N.S.S. charter when it states,

Religion plays no role in state-funded education, whether through religious affiliation, organised worship, religious instruction, pupil selection or employment discrimination.[14]

If religion is refused a role in state-funded education then it denies religious people a right to express their beliefs in that public forum. E.F. Schumacher argues that our ‘modern’ society is based on Enlightenment ‘scientism’ which, he suggests, denies any importance in ‘metaphysical’ questions such as “What is man?” In answer to this question the ‘modern man’, Schumacher suggests, may well answer

…Nothing but physics and biology. If this were true there would be no point in discussing “education”… What can be the meaning of “education” or of “good work” when nothing counts except that which can be precisely stated, measured, counted, or weighed?[15]

He goes on to explore the un-quantifiable aspects of our lives, which the modern man needs to give an answer to. Without a metaphysical framework

We modern people, who reject traditional wisdom and the existence of the vertical dimension of the spirit, like our forefathers desire nothing more than somehow to be able to rise above the humdrum state of our present life.[16]

He argues persuasively that if we maintain this non-metaphysical materialism then education fails to equip our young to ‘rise above [their] own humdrum, petty, egotistical selves.’ Schumacher asks,

What, in these circumstances, can be the purpose of education? In our own Western Civilization… its purpose used to be to lead people out of the dark wood of meaninglessness, purposelessness, drift, and indulgence, up a mountain where there can be gained the truth that makes you free.[17]

What this all leads to is a suggestion that behind the N.S.S. charter is an atheistic assumption that denies the engagement with a metaphysical aspect of the education of our young. If we, as a society, adopt this charter then we subject the next generation to a worldview that denies them the opportunity to gain ‘truth that makes you free.’ Schumacher ends with a keen observation,

Maybe all I want is to be happy… For happiness you need the truth that makes you free – but can the educator tell me what is the truth that makes me free?[18]

In denying the participation of religion within the public education of our young, the N.S.S. is not only contradicting their claim that ‘religious people have a right to express their belief’ but also expressing a desire to remove an acknowledgement of the metaphysical aspects of our humanity from public policy.

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn, a Russian writer, ‘takes the classical view that it should be the function of politics to direct people individually and collectively toward the good.’[19] With this in mind he, like George Will, state, ‘we are right to judge a society by the character of the people it produces’[20] which does not mean, as Hauerwas is quick to point out,

…that it is the function of the state to make people good, but rather to direct them to the good. Politics as a moral art does not entail the presumption that the state is a possessor of the good, but rather that the good is to be found in a reality profounder than the state.[21]

If we continue down this line of argument it becomes clear that we must ask, “what role does morality and ethics play in the N.S.S. charter?” Hauerwas addresses the dismissal of Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard address and the question of the metaphysics of humanity.[22]

Some have suggested that Solzhenitsyn has confused a social and cultural critique with a political critique. Yet to dismiss Solzhenitsyn in this way is but to manifest the problem he is trying to point out. For we have assumed that we can form a polity that ignores the relation between politics and moral virtue.[23]

When reading the supporting documents of the N.S.S. it seems they have no explicit concern of morals or ethics, or rather they are attempting to rise above such issues and become a ‘framework’ encompassing all morals and ethics,

Secularism simply provides a framework for a democratic society. Atheists have an obvious interest in supporting secularism, but secularism itself does not seek to challenge the tenets of any particular religion or belief, neither does it seek to impose atheism on anyone. Secularism is simply a framework for ensuring equality throughout society – in politics, education, the law and elsewhere, for believers and non-believers alike.[24]

If we read this statement alongside the view that politics must be concerned with the moral character of its citizens, then to deny any ethical direction, atheistic or not, within a polity is to ignore the responsibility to develop moral and ethical agents within its society. Hauerwas and others see this as

…an extraordinary moral project that seeks to secure societal co-operation between moral strangers short of reliance on violence… In the interest of securing tolerance between people, we are forced to pay the price of having our differences rendered morally irrelevant, for recognition of such difference if the basis for fear and envy. As a result, our nature as agents in and of history is obscured.[25]

Hauerwas’ depiction of liberal democracy serves us well in critiquing the implied assumptions of the N.S.S.. His chapter, “The Church and Liberal Democracy”[26], is an excellent observation of the many inherent inconsistencies within this polity, which I do not have the space to fully sketch out here. His main argument, however, is important if we are to offer some appropriate Christian response to the N.S.S. charter.

…liberalism is a political philosophy committed to the proposition that a social order and corresponding mode of government can be formed on self-interest and consent.[27]

It is clear in the literature on the history of secularism, which I would argue underpin the N.S.S., that the 18th and 19th century philosophy of Kant and others leads society to pursue individual happiness.[28] [29]

The problem with our society is not that democracy has not worked, but that it has… We have been freed to pursue happiness…[Solzhenitsyn] thinks it is the inevitable result of a social order whose base is the humanism of the Enlightenment, which presupposed that… man [does not] have any higher task than the attainment of his own happiness.[30]

If we follow this aim to its natural conclusion, however, we come across the deepest incompatibility of the N.S.S. charter. It is clear that the N.S.S. desire people to experience freedom, of ‘religious belief’ and ‘expression’[31], but ‘the great ironies of our society is that by attempting to make freedom an end in itself we have become an excessively legalistic society.’[32] With this in mind let us turn again to the explicit aim for the N.S.S., to seek a state where,

There is one law for all and its application is not hindered or replaced by religious codes or processes.[33]

The religious freedom, and the moral and ethical freedom that grow out from our metaphysical frameworks, inevitably leads to conflict when one comes in contact with another opposing view. In order for us to live peacefully, it seems, we require a legal authority on which to call upon at such times,

Liberalism is successful exactly because it supplies us with a myth that seems to make sense of our soicial origins… A people do not need a shared history; all they need is a system of rules that will constitute procedures for resolving disputes as they pursue their various interests.[34]

Ironically, within such a legalistic society ‘there is no need for voluntary self-restraint, as we are free to operate to the limit of the law’[35] but this then requires a lack of freedom to pursue our own happiness. To clarify this contradiction I could say it in this way; ‘The ethical and political theory necessary to such a form of society [is] that the individual is the sole source of authority’[36] but this form of society requires a primacy of legal authority to restrict citizens from fully expressing their freedom in ethical action[37] in fear of creating internal conflict. Hauerwas offers this response,

[the church’s] first social task in any society is to be herself… to be the kind of community that recognizes the necessity that all societies… require authority… [and] our authority is neither in society itself nor in the individual; it is in God.[38]

The N.S.S. claims it allows authority to remain with the individual to choose his/her religious belief and to hold to their own self- determined metaphysical framework for their moral and ethical development. It cannot, however, maintain such a view when establishing public policy and so claims its own beliefs as the necessary authority by which to resolve disputes. We can compare such a view with that of humanism,

Humanism… declares an optimistic view of the capabilities of men and women: they are entitled to moral autonomy… and are known to possess rights which dignify the individual without the need for reference to any transcendent authority …the sacralising of welfare provision and the cultivation of what are now called ‘caring’ attitudes assume quasi-sacramental status in the new Religion of Humanity…[Humanism] is about the sovereignty of humanity and its imagined needs, and not about the demands of God at all.[39]

Moltmann admits the difficulties of such a view when he says,

The great dreams of humanity which accompanied the ‘discoveries’ and the projects of modern times from their inception were necessary dreams, but they were impossible ones. They asked too much of human beings.[40]

Within this form of society it seems that, in order to achieve peaceful existence whilst maintaining individual freedom of belief and moral assumptions, it is necessary to construct a political framework of rules and laws which force citizen’s to subjugate themselves under as a necessary authority. The Christian community, as with other religious groups, have a problem in this respect; we submit only to the authority of God .

The hallmark of such a community, unlike the power of the nation-states, is its refusal to resort to violence to secure its own existence or to insure internal obedience. For as a community convinced of the truth, we refuse to trust any other power to compel than the truth itself.[41]

Before outlining an appropriate Christian response to the initial claim of the N.S.S., there is a more direct inconsistency between the views expressed by the N.S.S. which I would like to highlight. My aim in drawing out these contradictions within the charter has been to establish my argument on the incompatibility of the N.S.S.’s stated assumptions and, therefore, question that their social framework is logically valid.

Individuals are neither disadvantaged nor discriminated against because of their religion or belief, or lack thereof… The state does not engage in, fund or promote religious activities or practices.[42]

In the first of these premises the N.S.S. claim the secular state neither ‘disadvantages nor discriminates’ individuals whatever their religious belief or practice but how can this be when they simultaneously state that individuals can receive engagement, funding or promotion by the state in activities on non-religious grounds but not on religious grounds? In this, very possible situation, one is discriminated against because of their religious affiliation, belief and practice. This means that N.S.S.’s charter fails to be logically valid.

To begin my conclusion I’d like to use a quote from John Adams, one of the founding fathers of the secular state of the USA, which says, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.”[43] This suggests that any secular state requires a moral or religious framework, which is strangely absent from the N.S.S. or, rather, is, despite its claims to the contrary, atheistic. This materialistic assumption, despite not being articulated, leads to a society that fails to develop citizens of moral character. Its democracy is based on ‘facile doctrines of tolerance or equality’ but the church’s society ‘is forged from our common experience of being trained to be disciples of Jesus’[44] under the sole authority of God.[45]

Despite Moltmann’s positive view that, ‘the freedom of the church from the state, and the self-assertion of the church in the face of political religion or state ideology, are the best securities against totalitarian state, because they do not allow the state, which is a human creation, to turn into a monstrous Leviathan’[46] [47], I cannot see how the proposal of N.S.S. will allow its citizen’s to pursue moral goodness whilst religious belief is denied its voice in matters of public policy out of fear that such expressions create conflict. The Christian response, therefore, must be to ‘help us to experience what a politics of trust can be like. Such a community should be the source of imaginative alternatives for social policies that not only require us to trust one another, but chart forms of life for the development of virtue and character as public concerns.’[48] For in such a society, ‘discussion becomes the hallmark… since recognition and listening to the other is the way our community finds the way of obedience.’[49] 

[1] We must also appreciate the use of this polity within the modern Indian culture and other Eastern societies but its origins are in Western philosophical tradition. It is interesting to note that the secularism in India and elsewhere has not got the same atheistic assumptions as it does in the West in modern day.

[2] Plato, Desmond Lee (tr.), The Republic (London: Penguin Books, 1987)

[3] Harro Höpfl (tr. &ed.), Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991)

[4] Immanuel Kant, Allen Wood & George Di Giovanni (trs. & eds.), Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason and other writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)

[5] Jürgen Moltmann, Margaret Kohl (tr.), God for a Secular Society: The Public Relevance of Theology (London: SCM Press, 1999) p.212

[6] Moltmann also outlines the history of secularism from ‘the messianic hopes’ of the modern world buoyed by the new discoveries of the Americas and the scientific advancements brought about by Christian scientists Sir Isaac Newton, et al. Robert Miller also argues this in Arguments Against Secular Culture (London: SCM Press, 1995) p.180-185

[7] Paul Toscano likens secularism to a religion: ‘For each secularist, secularism will be defined a little differently… It only mean that secularism, like Christianity, is a religion of many froms, manifesting itself in many sects.’, Invisible Religion in the Public Schools: Secularism, Neutrality, and the Supreme Court (Utah: Horizon Publishers, 1990) p.46

[8] “National Secular Society’s Secular Charter”, National Secular Society, http://www.secularism.org.uk/secularcharter.html ,“About The National Secular Society”, Ibid., http://www.secularism.org.uk/about.html  and “What is Secularism?”, visited on 23rd April 2012.

[9] “What is Secularism?”

[10] See also Moltmann, God for a Secular Society

[11] “About The National Secular Society”

[12] Stanley Hauerwas, Community of Character: Toward a Constructive Christian Social Ethic (Notre Dame: Notre Dame Press, 1981) p.72

[13] “What is Secularism”

[14] “National Secular Society’s Secular Charter” item (f)

[15] E.F. Schumacher, Good Work (London: Jonathan Cape, 1979) p.112

[16] Ibid., p.113-114

[17] Ibid., p.113

[18] Ibid., p.117

[19] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.75

[20] George Will, The Pursuit of Happiness and Other Sobering Thoughts (New York: Harper and Row, 1978) p.3

[21] Hauerwas, Community of Character, ff. p.248

[22] Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “A World Split Apart”, address at Harvard University, Harvard Gazette, June 1978.

[23] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.75

[24] “What is Secularism?”

[25] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.120

[26] Ibid., pp.72-86

[27] Ibid., p.78

[28] This philosophy was written into the American Declaration of Independence and is now universalized into the Declaration of Human Rights.

[29] C.f. Schumacher’s observation mentioned above.

[30] Ibid., p.75-76

[31] “What is Secularism?”

[32] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.75

[33] “National Secular Society’s Secular Charter” item (b)

[34] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p. 78

[35] Ibid., p.75

[36] Ibid., p.78

[37] See Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.115 and also Martin Rhonheimer, ““Intrinsically Evil Acts” and the Moral Viewpoint: Clarifying a Central Teaching of Veritatis Splendor”, The Thomist 58 (1994) p. 1-39

[38] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.83-84

[39]  Edward Norman, Secularisation (London: Continuum, 2002) p.1-3

[40] Moltmann, God For A Secular Society, p.17

[41] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.85

[42] “National Secular Society’s Secular Charter” item (c) & (g)

[43] Cited in Hauerwas, Community of Character, p. 79

[44] ibid., p.51

[45] This is obviously shared by other religious organizations.

[46] See Thomas Hobbes, Richard Tuck (ed.), Leviathan: or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p.114

[47] Moltmann, God For a Secular Society, p.40

[48] Hauerwas, Community of Character, p.86

[49] Ibid., p.85

There Is No Majority.

A picture that vaguely communicates a part of this post.

A picture that vaguely communicates a part of this post.

As a white, British, middle class, heterosexual male many would say I am privilege to have a culture and society constructed for me. In many ways those people are right. I look at those in seats of power and authority in our society and I see humans in the same demographic. This demographic is not the majority, it is a minority but so is every other kind of concoction of identity a society of different people creates. My particular cocktail of identifiers entitles me to an ‘easy life’ but it refuses me a voice in parts of public discussions about discrimination and human rights.

I would love to give my voice to a number of disenfranchised people and ask society to give them a chance for work, respect and ultimately for peace. I do give my voice to such people; those struggling for work due to the lack of education and some bad decisions which are held against them, those people who, by the arbitrariness of biology, have different chromosomes to me, those who’s life and circumstances have shaped them and moulded them to fall in love with a person of the same gender as them and not the equally complex factors that made me fall in love with my wife. I give my voice to them and would ask society to give them a chance for work, respect and ultimately for peace.

It is for this reason I can support the decision made by the Church of England to have women ordained into a seat of Bishops. It is for this reason I will continue to work with my brothers and sisters who don’t see it the same way to build a community where both, different views are at an agreed consensus and not majority rule (which never exists anyway!) I give my voice to ensure that women and men, different for physical reasons as well the plethora of experiences, contexts, etc. that makes one person different from another, are respected as human beings with the pains, anger and frustration that comes from facing different people. I want all people, male and female to find peace and this is where my voice may be lost…

It is for the reason stated above that I want this government to think seriously about how they take money out of the public purse without considering the vacuum they are creating. My voice is given to those people who are being forced to work through their dependency on reserves and welfare, in a culture geared towards consumption whilst they look around and see the culture has not changed and there are many still dependent on others sources of finance. I give my voice, my privileged voice, to those who are confused by the mixed messages they are receiving from this government to have austerity but to keep shopping and enjoying luxury dinners because that is ‘good for the economy’. I want all people rich and poor to be given a chance to work for even pay, politician or labourer, and to give all the respect of being human with the pain of misfortune and circumstantial events and bad decisions to be forgiven and cared for. I want all people to find true peace and this is where my voice may be lost…

It is because I want to give my voice to disenfranchised people that I want to see respect given to people in same sex relationships because they are human beings shaped by the culture they are in and the lives they have led just like me, a heterosexual. I want my sister, my dear friends and the people they love respected. They should not be refused work because of their sexual preference if it has nothing to do with how well they do or would do that work. This restriction should not come into play unless it’s pertinent (I can’t think of a job where it would… there might be one but I can’t think of it.) like an Italian being chosen over an Asian to be a waiter in an Italian restaurant. I happily give my white, British, middle class, heterosexual, male voice to these various identifiable people to ensure they have a chance to work, respect and ultimately peace but in this last instance my voice begins to be lost…

My voice is heard when it is the same as those in another minority. The moment I become different I am treated as an enemy, named a bigot, misogynist, blind, cruel, pathetic. I am silenced. I am made to feel guilty because of these strange external factors that make me like those who have a seat in power in this society. All of a sudden my voice, listened to and worthy of a chance to offer opinion in one moment, taken from me when I begin to say something that is contrary to the current popular voice. That guilt is strong and I am scared to voice my dis-ease with the way in which our society is living together.

I look at our current government I see them responding to that same guilt because they are being told, like me, that we don’t understand and we will never know what it is like. They, the white, British, middle class, heterosexual men are so desperate to be liked, to share the majority voice, that they are rushing to appease division and lead us to peaceful cohabitation. They want to be seen as the voice of the people and so they try and gauge the largest opinion and go with that. They will fail.

The way these moral decisions are being worked out is on a utilitarian model of moral ethics. It reminds me of Charles Dickens’ ‘Hard Times’ where Dickens satirizes the stupidity and violence of such a system. The greatest good? We oppose the system when we are the small voice but when we are the large voice we state it as ‘fair and just’ and should be followed. More people wanted female bishops so why don’t we have it? Less people wanted this Conservative Government and yet we get it? We protest and change our approach depending on where we see ourselves; a majority or a minority.

We are all so complicated that simple solutions don’t exist. Simple changes never work. Shakespeare wrote, ‘Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.’ I agree and this is why I want time spent speaking in the General Synod until consensus not majority wins. It is why I want a discussion about what our society looks like and where the real changes need to be made until consensus and not majority wins. It is why I want time spent on talking through the Equal Marriage issue until consensus and not majority wins.

It is in the desire for all people, male or female, rich or poor, gay or straight to find peace that I think my voice will be lost because I am a Christian and I see communal living differently to many.

I believe in a God who is ontologically communal; i.e. trinitarian, consisting of one being, three persons, this means that God has difference held in unity as His perfect nature. Stanley Hauerwas outlines John Milbank’s view that,

the Christian faith owes no allegiance to the idea of the univocity of being, which can only uphold difference coercively and violently, but is instead moved by a trinitarian understanding of God, an absolute that is itself difference, inclusive of all difference, and thus able to affirm difference in a peaceful manner. (Stanley Hauerwas, Performing the Faith, p.87)

Creation, in my perspective, stems from a God who is pure peace and yet who has difference in His very nature. Creation, in my perspective, is ontologically an expression of that Divine nature and therefore peace is achievable without destruction of difference. When creation acts in accordance with this principle of ‘difference held by its internal harmony’ then it acts in accordance with its true nature.

Milbank suggests that non-trinitarian views of the world are different. Difference ‘enters the existing common cultural space only to compete, displace or expel’;’in the public theatre, differences arise only to fall; each new difference has a limitless ambition to obliterate all others, and therefore to cancel out difference itself.’ (John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory, p.376) We are, without an understanding of creation being ‘a positive expression of God’s limitless inclusion of all difference’, reduced to ‘secular peace… a tolerable regulation or management of conflict by one coercive means or another.’ (Performing the Faith, p.88)

I have tried, on a number of occasions, to voice my judgements on a situation be it General Synod’s vote on how we allow Women Bishops or the Equal Marriage debate and have been met with confusion and aggression. I am always wary of violent protest and aggressive fighting for rights. I am wary because it is not peace and peace never comes from violence; violence comes from violence. This opinion is always met with a loud ‘you would say that because you’re white, British, middle class, heterosexual male.’ I am judged and my voice is silenced. I want peace. Peace is a life lived as we are created to be. We are created in the image of a God who is pure difference and peace.

The manner in which we make moral and ethical decisions is what makes such decisions morally right or wrong. There does not exist a right or wrong action separate to the existence of a moral character.

I am for women bishops but I am also for the minority voice who are against because they deserve respect and peace. I am for same sex relationships but I am wary of the Equal Marriage Bill. I am for the poor, the lost and the broken and I am for us all acknowledging that this group, over all the others is not only a consensus but also the only real majority, indeed unanimous, group this world possesses.

I will end with Hauerwas,

Because the Christian multiple is not a multiple set dialectically over against the one but is instead an infinite flow of excessive charitable difference emanating from, and finally returning to, a single divine spring, differences are preserved rather than eradicated. Charity is the resource that makes the blending in God of all differences possible. (Performing the Faith, p.89)

Synod Works… Frustratingly

On Tuesday night the Church of England voted against the legislation that would allow women to be ordained as bishops. That sentence needs clarifying on a couple of points before I continue…

‘the Church of England voted’: the General Synod is the legislative body of the Church of England. The General Synod meets two or three times a year for four or five days depending on issues arising. It is organised into three distinct ‘houses’; bishops, clergy and laity. General Synod is made up of representatives of all 44 diocesan synods organised in a similar way but over a smaller geographical area; the members of which are nominated from deanery synods, which are smaller still.

For a significant motion (like the legislation for women bishops)to be passed it needs to be voted in all three houses by a clear majority, 66% of the vote. This is where there has been some discussion in the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote. When I say ‘the Church of England’ I mean the decision making body of the Church of England and not the whole Anglican populous in this country.

‘the legislation that would allow women to be ordained as bishops’: the Church of England has already voted in favour of the ordination of women as bishops in theory by the majority spoken above. It is now a matter of making that expression of intent a reality in practice. The legislation being discussed on Tuesday was an attempt at this practical aspect. The Church of England wants women bishops; we haven’t discovered how to do that with integrity for the whole church body.

As the dust settled around this vote there have been some reactions expressed in public that are understandable but not necessarily wise. There have been some expressing a desire to scrap or change how votes are taken in General Synod to allow everyone to have a say. Some have suggested that the bishops should be able to override Synodical decisions. Some have suggested that the Church of England is weak and fails to lead its people. Most of these opinions express, for me, a lack of understanding of what is happening. We, as the church, are not organised so that our leaders have power. We are organised so that our leaders serve. As a leader in the Church of England I serve; I serve broken, fallible, emotional and unpredictable people who demand things that may not be good for them, who express things which haven’t necessarily been processed and thought through but I serve them nonetheless. Would I act or say what they do and say? No but I am called to serve them but… I’m also called to help them to grow and transform themselves from what they are now into the  likeness of Christ. It is a difficult and long process of holding and waiting. This process is made harder by the fact that I too am needing the same thing. I am broken, fallible, emotional and unpredictable. 

We, as the church, have a social narrative which underpins our discussions; the principle of ‘I am a fluid entity in search of solidity in another.’ What this means is one principle behind our society in the church is the understanding of self as changeable. If we are unnable to change then we refuse the power of the God we believe in who transform us daily by His Spirit.

So the reactions have been boldly claimed and emphatically announced but are they right?

One question arising from Tuesdays shock vote is over how the laity, sitting in the house of laity, are nominated and from what demographic. Synod is understood to be a representative body speaking on behalf of the whole communion in this country. How can the vote against the motion vastly contradict a previous vote in favour by 42 diocesan synods out of a possible 44? It must come down to which laity is sitting on General Synod.

Although the question needs to be asked we do not need to change the synodical structures. The system works and Tuesday’s vote shows that it works. The solution to the ‘problem’ is to encourage more members of the church to respond to the call of God to change the world from a seat of responsibility. Mark Russell once told a seminar at Soul Survivor Conference that there are two ways to change the world; from bottom up and from top down. He suggested we need to do both in order for change to stick. This is profoundly true and is one reason why I’m so keen to sit on synods (deanery and diocesan only…for the moment!) What Tuesday night shows us is that those sitting on the laity have put themselves forward to be responsible and they have acted. They went through the system and got to General Synod by nominations and votes. We, as the Church of England, put those people there by our votes. We cannot then ask who is representing us in the various houses. We got what we voted for. If we wanted a different outcome we need to look at ourselves and ask; is it me who needs to speak?

I was deeply encouraged by the amount of my lay friends taking an interest in the synodical governance of the church after Tuesday. It no longer was a dry, impotent body but one that has an impact on our mission, our life together and our worship. Synod is important and powerful. If you are upset and angry about the vote on Tuesday and you are not on a synodical body (deanery, diocesan or General) then maybe you should test a call to stand up and represent.

It is deeply upsetting that it was such a painful motion that finally woke us up to our responsibility and missed opportunity to speak. It was as if shouting from the bottom up just wasn’t loud enough; we  need to also join the voices at the top to ensure the centre (and it really was the centre in this vote) hears what is being discerned. After all this is said, synod works. It ensures that the whole body is united in a decision. If one part hurts the whole body hurts, or in this case if one part of the body is uncomfortable, unsure and angry the whole body is. We have been too lax in our responsibility to discuss and connect together. We mock and belittle the point of meetings and synods but then are upset when they don’t speak for us. Being elected onto synods is not like government elections its about being willing.

My time on deanery and diocesan synod has been frustrating but only when I sit and listen to the voice in my head which says you have nothing to say on this issue. I have sat and listened to some bizarre opinions during synod but always they are listened, counter balanced and discussed.

The other reaction that came from Tuesday night was one that upsets me more than any other: This feeling that we need to ‘get with the program’. That a government body who say with their lips they listen and respond to the people but in their action fail to respond to the vote against welfare cuts, NHS, war in Iraq and many others is hypocrisy of the highest order. The political process in the house of  parliament is so separate from the  people that it relies on opinion polls and gossip to make a decision. The Police Commissioners vote is just one proof of this. Equal Marriage is being passed despite reservations by a large part of our society…

And here I am, arriving at my main point. Synod works because it forces us, as a Christian family to be aware of the minority and to ensure that the decision we arrive at is collaborative. The vote on Tuesday shows us not that we need to force, bully or violently oppress a minority voice but, frustratingly, continue the discussion. Yes, this faction may not want to discuss the issue and may enjoy the hostage situation in which they hold the power but, nonetheless, we must. Justin Welby said in his first press conference after the announcement of his move to Canterbury that we are to disagree in love. This is what that looks like!

We in the church don’t do what government do which is twist and distort opinion and PR to suit our own will but rather face up to the conflict, to enter into the pain of living together. Nor do we respond in the knee jerk way that popular culture does. We are not like the Jeremy Vine Show which any voice, if shouted loud enough and insistently enough gets what they want. Synod ensures a deep collective discernment and if it is not completely collective we wait, we heal, we forgive and we unite in love. We allow the shouters and impassioned voices are heard and wait for them to shout themselves into silence and then we wait for the dust to settle and discern what is the wind and what is our own frantic movement causing the dust to fly.

What this means in terms of moving forward is not about forcing this motion through to the detriment of this ‘insignificant minority’ but rather about continuing the process of disagreeing in love. We have come along way since the motion was first introduced; we’re heading in the right direction. The response should be to continue to love one another, painful, upsetting, confusing and frustrating as that always is but that’s what we do as the body of Christ.

As I process all of this along with my brothers and sisters, there’s so much to say but that’s not what’s needed. Silence, contemplation and prayer, that’s what’s needed. Our society has nothing that unites them and so the fear in these situations kicks in causing frantic change and rash decisions but we, in the church have one thing that unites and it comes into its own in situations just like this. Synod works because it forces us to admit that no matter how hard we shout it is in silence and calm surrender that we can, as a whole body move forward together into the presence of God who will transform us increasingly into the likeness of Christ… frustrating, isn’t it?

If

There’s a question that puts fear into many people’s heart, forces others to put up defense mechanisms and for others encourages the opinion that the one who is asking the question is naive and foolish. I believe this question, however, opens us up to inner transformation and the reception of joy and wonder. This question, when entertained and digested, changes our view of reality so that all we experience is brought into question. What is this question?

What if…?

Konstantin Stanislavski, a Russian theatre director, actor and writer on acting method, discusses the ‘magic if’. This kind of questioning allows an actor to transcend their perceived realities/ actualities and enter into the realm of possibility/potentiality. What is interesting about this technique, in light of philosophical understanding of ‘truth’, is it calls into question what we know about our experiences. Too often, in life, we believe only that which is actual, empirical, stable and tangible.

Rene Descartes’ search for true knowledge led him to dismiss anything that he could doubt in anyway. After discarding perception as unreliable he arrived at the famous belief ‘I think therefore I am’. Descartes’ conclusion is based on an understanding that if he doubted, then something or someone must be doing the doubting, therefore the fact that he was able to doubt proves his existence. At the most basic, Descartes knew he was a thinking thing. Despite my reservations about how this theory has been adopted and adapted by philosophers since (enforcing a natural turn to individualism and self centredness), it is useful in beginning the process of understanding the world around us as questionable.

The Matrix popularised this concept in 1999 as the protagonist, Neo, is pulled from his perceived reality into the real world. All that he had experienced up to that point was a fabricated, controlled and projected world which only existed in his mind; his real body was being farmed and used as a battery for alien beings. His discovery and explorations all start with the potentiality of such truth; he asked ‘what if…?’

What if I’m not who I am told to be? What if this is not the only way? What if it’s not true? What if it is true?

I grew up in a house where the search, the discovery, the process of learning was embraced and encouraged. In our family understanding and learning was the main aim of life. This has shaped me to be a person who asks questions, who never ceases to test, reflect and explore (much to the frustration of those around me!) Such questioning is not a challenge to authority nor is it a rejection of tradition; for me it is an awareness of and search for Beauty and Truth in the world around me.

As I continue to settle into this new community in York, I am re-discovering how uncommon such an outlook on life this is. I have been fascinated by how many people react so strongly to simple questions. People have felt threatened, challenged, insulted by me as I grasp hold of things, turn them over in my hand, investigate, prod, probe but ultimately with an attitude of wonder and intrigue. My wide eyed excitement at learning and experiencing something; trying to identify the uniqueness and intricate truths about something, enjoying it for what it really is and trying to find that which will make it mare real, more truthful.

What ‘what if’ questions do is open up our minds to the possibility of an encounter with the unknown. The reason this is scary is because the known is safe, comforting, stable. It is a rock on which we can have some foundation. We all have, however, just under the surface of our consciousness, a deep awareness of the changeability of life, the existence of flux; truth is not as certain as we thought it might be. The moment we entertain this thought our hearts begin to race and fear sets in. In matters of faith this becomes difficult to take. How can God be our rock, our firm foundation, whilst at the same time be ‘unknowable’ and transcendent. God refuses to be held, pinned down, confined and articulated fully. His relationship with human beings, throughout the Bible’s narrative, is one of playful, part-revelation. Ultimately His approach to encounter is one of ‘glimpses’ rather than fully and unrestrained.

I digress.

Innovation and creativity always starts with a question. The power, however, is not in the answers to such questions but the journey it starts. People often misunderstand the role of questions. As a theatre director, my role was to guide actors through a process of discovery, an invitation to enter into a world of awareness to the stimulation of their environment. An alert, aware, responsive actor is a prepared actor; the same is true of human beings.

Here’s where the question becomes powerful: We walk around on this earth taking so much for granted, assuming so many things, leaving most ideas, objects, beliefs unexamined. Socrates was right,

An unexamined life is not worth living.

‘What if’ questions begin the process of examination and contemplation. This process is scary, unsettling, overwhelming and uncomfortable but it is only by entering into this space that you find a strength so transcendent that you can remain calm even in the deepest storm. Living the question, in my experience, is becoming aware of the beauty, wonder, and amazement of the world around us. The smallest thing becomes of infinite importance, you hear words with all their meaning, you see faces with all their history, you see the potential of every person, even yourself.

People today close themselves off to the unexamined out of fear and trepidation whilst, at the same time, they close themselves off to new discovery, life giving encounter, affirmation, understanding of what is really going on. That which seems frightening, overwhelming is in fact an invitation to receive a gift; life.

Peter Brook finishes his book ‘The Empty Space’ with the following thought,

In everyday life, ‘if’ is a fiction, in the theatre ‘if’ is an experiment. In everyday life, ‘if’ is an evasion, in the theatre ‘if’ is the truth. When we are persuaded to believe in this truth, then the theatre and life are one. This is a high aim. It sounds like hard work. To play needs much work. But when we experience the work as play, then it is not work any more. A play is play.

I’ve been struck by how many people have questions and they feel uncomfortable with them. They are told by some unknown force that questions are bad and should be eradicated. I find the opposite to be true; answers destroy life. Rowan Williams suggests,

Christ may indeed answer our questions, but he also questions our answers.

I have returned again and again to the realisation that life is best experienced as a playful exploration and creative journey. Answers are the end of growth, searching and newness; questions begin journeys, discoveries and new life. In the theatre ‘what if’ questions wipe the slate clean and begin things again. Questions invite relationship with someone. Questions, when handled as gift, encourage our souls to sing with wonder, humble adoration and openness to all that is around you.

As I ponder my place in this new ministry I am aware that the world doesn’t need a church to answer their questions but one that creates a safe place to seek, explore and experience the Unknown. A church which asks the questions of society’s answers is a church embodying Christ Himself.

There is no longer male or female

As the debate on how women will enter episcopal office is delayed until November it struck me this morning how this conversation questions an assumption of leadership that is prevalent throughout the church. The issue of leadership and how we talk about such a topic has baffled me for some time and I continue to struggle to articulate my discomfort with it. Essentially it circles around the, as far as I see, overemphasis on ‘leadership’.

Since Easter friends and colleagues have been jetting off to participate in leadership conference after leadership conference. Christian leaders have met all across the country to discuss how we can be better leaders and to encourage us to lead the church and to hear the best ways to lead…

I have not been to any of these conferences, partly because I know I’d be frustrated and sin by not loving my brothers and sisters because of their ‘misplaced passions’; this means that my reflections are not pointed at any one of these conferences. Indeed the conferences, in and of themselves, are not the problem but the popularity and vast array of them communicates something that needs to be questioned. Many of my friends and colleagues have come back with stories of encouragement and inspiration and I really don’t want to deny them the power and truth of those experiences. I do, however, want to briefly explore the question, “Is focussing on leadership detrimental to equality and unity of God’s church?”

HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton) Leadership conference was a two day event taking over the Albert Hall with seminars and talks from leaders across the world. This was followed, two weeks later, by New Wine Leadership conference, this one taking three days. What was interesting was that the people who went to HTB Leadership Conference also seemed to go to New Wine Leadership Conference! Alongside these national events there have been countless diocesan training events and programmes to help encourage leaders within the church. The intentions behind such programmes are good and healthy but like most things, only in moderation. As I hear about more and more of these events I have become increasingly uncomfortable and see it as betray a cultural shift towards an, often explicit, belief that to further God’s Kingdom we need strong leaders.

Why do we need so many leaders? Where are the servant conferences?

I was ordained a deacon last week and, as I approached the day I took on Holy Orders, my prayers circled around being made nothing, empty, naked before God; Stripped of any talent, ‘gift’, strength, competences, everything which made me feel I could do or be what was being asked of me. I wanted to say, “My one desire to seek you and to be transformed into your likeness. I want to be more and more Christ-like.” Philippians offers a great guide to being a disciple of Christ.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was* in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:1-8 NRSV)

My first and only call is to follow Christ, not to lead. We are disciples, a people chosen, not because of what we can do but because of God’s good pleasure. We are chosen to follow Him, to be transformed into His likeness and what did he do? He humbled himself, he emptied himself, he took on the form of a slave. Paul urges us to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ as He did these things. I can find no place in Scripture where Jesus commands us to lead in strength; in fact, I can only see him command us to be like slaves, to put ourselves last, to serve. To have a conference specifically focused on improving yourself for leadership, equipping you with gifts of leadership is an anomaly in my eyes. Firstly it’s a gift given by God not demanded by us. Secondly if we study the gift and not the giver then we are surely committing idolatry. I am not suggesting that these conferences are not considering God in them but the moment we talk about how we use a gift our eyes are taken off the giver. Thirdly, and most importantly, this fascination with this one role when we have yet to grasp fully what it means to be a humble disciple of Him is building a tower on weak foundations.

I spent my preparation time for ordination reading Thomas Merton and a theme that continued to encourage me is summed up when he quotes John of Ruysbroeck (I apologise for the dated gender exclusivity!),

The interior man enters into himself …to apply himself to a simple gaze in fruitive love. There he encounters God without intermediary. And from the unity of God there shines into him a simple light. This simple light shows itself to be darkness, nakedness and nothingness. In this darkness, the man is enveloped and he plunges in a state without modes, in which he is lost. In nakedness, all consideration and distraction of things escape him, and he is informed and penetrated by a simple light. In nothingness he sees all his works come to nothing, for he is overwhelmed by the activity of God’s immense love, and by the fruitive inclination of His Spirit he… becomes one spirit with God (John Ruysbroeck, The Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage II)

I would suggest our one task is to contemplate God, to seek His reign in our lives. What unites us together, so Paul suggests in his letter to Ephesians, is our identity in Christ. We are united when we cast off all other things that define us and distinguish us and we are known only as ‘in Christ’. Paul also says in Galatians,

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28 NRSV)

Here is where our focus on leadership may be disrupting our unity in Christ. If we separate ourselves on those who are leaders and those who are not, we are divided as we have put our ministries before our discipleship and the simple command to love God. The moment we segregate ourselves off in the belief that one disciple can’t or shouldn’t be listened to or served we deny their part in Christ, Merton asserts.

Without contemplation and interior prayer the Church cannot fulfill her mission to transform and save mankind. Without contemplation, she will be reduced to being the servant of cynical and worldly powers, no matter how hard her faithful may protest that they are fighting for the Kingdom of God. (Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer)

Steven Croft famously states,

The word leader is now being used not only as a substitute for the Anglican titles priest or presbyter but also in preference to the much more common expressions of minister (meaning ‘servant’) or pastor. This change of use in the way we describe the ordained should give us pause for thought… As John Finney points out, one Greek word which is never used to describe Christian ministers in the New Testament is the word archon, the normal secular greek word for a leader in business or politics or industry. (Steven Croft, Ministry in Three Dimensions)

As we consider the headship of the Church let us all stop and reaffirm that our only head is Christ and let us contemplate Him above all else. Let us cast off these designators of male and female, educated and uneducated, northern and southern, ordained and lay and begin in unity of Christ admitting the truth of our condition as dust enlivened by the Spirit of God by His grace and good pleasure for the praise of His glory and nothing else.

One may ask about the role of the ordained. I see my ordination as the church, here on earth, publicly declaring that they affirm me as a model of discipleship. This may sound like a glorious thing for my ego but if you consider what is being said it becomes scarier than you first thought. I am to be the model of discipleship. All people will now look upon me and judge the Christ I profess to emulate; that’s a massive responsibility and one that I fail at many times each day. The congregation I now belong to have me as a living example of what it means to serve and follow Jesus (pray for them!) This leads to a side not on why more people should consider ordained ministry and why we need to begin a big conversation as to the role of ordained ministers in the church… not for now though!

Back to my main point; Our one call is to be disciples of Christ our one and only head. We must seek to be united in Him as equally deserving/undeserving of His grace. Scripture seems to suggest that we are called not to ‘lead’ in the secular sense but to serve, to love, to consider others above ourselves and more than all that, to see ourselves as sinners before a gracious God who alone can transform us and the world.

I’m Calling a Session! (part ii)

I think we have some tools to come to some preliminary suggestions as to whether Devoted and Disgruntled is primarily a conference or a community. My conclusion, however, is based on one last observation and realization that I came to whilst at DandD and that is the overwhelming articulation of loneliness and lack of organic relationships with each other as artists.

I have experienced the freelance lifestyle and my personal impression was that it was a lonely existence interspersed with intense intimacy for short periods of time that, over time and repeated frequently, left me alone and scared of intimacy and commitment. I wanted others to know me deeply and to be vulnerable in my work but my experience told me that my interactions with others fed me for a time but everyone, in the end was using me, just as I was using them for personal fulfillment.

This is a process called individualization and it’s been noted frequently by sociologists and cultural commentators as the major destructive force within a consumerist, capitalist society. Add to this society a vocation that requires collaboration on deep ‘spiritual’/‘emotional’/‘human’ expression which itself requires a large amount of vulnerability on the part of the person and the group, it is no wonder that the theatre, as a collective of artists, is full of people damaged, lonely and deeply confused as to what it means to be a person.

I bring up this individualization because of this connection it has to our attainment of personhood. Here ‘personhood’ is distinguished from human being. John Zizioulas, an Orthodox theologian, conceives of the human being, purely as the biological entity of skin and bones, etc. To gain personhood one must develop, or allow to emerge, a deeper ontology. This, he proposes, is in our connection to others and to God. Let us make a massive side step for the moment on the subject of God but look at the ‘person’ stemming from our essential sociality. I have written a lot recently (Big Bible blog) on our identities being inexplicably linked to our sociality and I use those arguments here as a basis of my point. From my experience as a freelancer the more isolated and emotionally distant I became from people the more lonely and desperate I became. My inner parts cried out for intimacy but society was shaped that I would be individual and so I sought intimacy in the temporary and associative relationships with others without knowing I needed an organic relationship.

When I got married I publicly and contractually denied my individuality by agreeing to remain in communion with my wife; we became ‘one’. This meant that I could not have emotional barriers between us, vulnerability was a deliberate act every day. If I couldn’t be vulnerable on every level of my life then I was individualizing again. This may come across as aggressively extreme but I think its important to speak in these terms to depict the problem we find ourselves in as a society.

For DandD to be a community there needs to be a vulnerable connection between the parts. Each ‘individual’ needs to take the risk and participate in an intimate exchange of selves, willing to be shaped and impacted by the other. With the numbers present at DandD7, this would be impossible to achieve, hence why I want to know if it was ‘primarily’ a community. Was it my experience that, at DandD7, people were showing signs of being determined by others or by the ethos of the whole? I cannot say for I was not at each connection or able to be intimately engaged with every part all of the time. Is it possible, in the context, to experience that intimacy, etc.? I would say only if it is assumed that it is a possibility.

The principles that Open Space use, however, may help us to discern whether the intention is to establish a community or if they only will achieve, at best, a committed group of conference goers.

The Principles are

  1. Whoever comes are the right people …reminds participants that they don’t need the CEO and 100 people to get something done, you need people who care. And, absent the direction or control exerted in a traditional meeting, that’s who shows up in the various breakout sessions of an Open Space meeting.
  2. Whenever it starts is the right time …reminds participants that “spirit and creativity do not run on the clock.”
  3. Wherever it happens is the right place. …reminds participants that space is opening everywhere all the time. Please be concious and aware. – Tahrir Square is one famous example. (Wherever is the new one, just added)
  4. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have …reminds participants that once something has happened, it’s done—and no amount of fretting, complaining or otherwise rehashing can change that. Move on.
  5. When it’s over, it’s over …reminds participants that we never know how long it will take to resolve an issue, once raised, but that whenever the issue or work or conversation is finished, move on to the next thing. Don’t keep rehashing just because there’s 30 minutes left in the session. Do the work, not the time.

There is also one law: ‘The law of two feet’ or ‘The law of mobility’,

If at any time you find yourself in any situation where you are neither learning nor contributing: Give greetings, use your two feet, and go do something useful. Responsibility resides with you.

This law creates a vibrant environment of exchange in ideas and ‘bumble-bee’ cross pollinations. My own critique would be that this law has an inherent individualization underlying it.

“I am in control of my own experience”

Phalim McDermott, Artistic Director of Improbable and chief convener of DandD, believers that the law of two feet is not just about leaving,

Sometimes people concentrate on “The law of two feet.” as being about leaving somewhere: it might be a session, a person who is dominating a conversation, a topic that goes off somewhere you are no longer interested in, all these are things one might want to move away from. However it’s good to remember it’s a law of TWO feet….Maybe if you focus on where you are going to or where your presence has gone.. Then you could realise it might be rude to have already left a less than present self amongst the group. Or perhaps it’s even arrogant to assume people will even notice that you left.

What the law of two feet does do is enable the whole to function and feed itself. The parts need to be attuned to where the information may need to be passed to in order to grow and develop and create. When this happens then the second foot is an important engagement of the individual with the whole. It is not clear, however, if this indeed is how it is used.

In conclusion, I want to say that DandD has the exciting potential to be a community; an enduring organic whole which determines individuals and creates persons who can dare to be vulnerable and dependable with each other. At present, however, due to its size and it essential nature as a task orientated event it remains, for me, primarily a conference. This is not to deny its community aspect of intimacy but those relationships are fostered and grown elsewhere. This is a positive thing and I am so glad that communities are forming around these principles and the ethos of openness outside of DandD but it, on its own is not primarily a community.

I am willing, even hoping, to be corrected. This conference was such a blessing to me and to the people involved and has the potential to do so much more constructive and life-affirming work for the participants. There’s only simple stps that need to be made if DandD wants to pursue the primacy of organic rather than associative but most participants seem to engage on the associative aspects due to their continual fear and acceptance of our individualized society .

Can church ever use Open Space Technology? You’ll have to read my dissertation. What can be said at this time is that Church is also both organic and associative but, like DandD it is, sadly, primarily an associative social structure and not a space for intimate connections and freedom to vulnerable explore what it means to be connected as a person.

I’m Calling a Session! (part i)

It was on my way down to a conference called Devoted and Disgruntled 7 that I read,

one can distinguish between ideal types of organic and associative social structures. A person is born into an organic social structure, or grows into it; by contrast, a person freely joins an associative social structure. The former is a ‘living organism’ whose parts depend on the whole organism and are determined by it; the latter is ‘a mechanical aggregate and artifact’ composed of individual parts. The former is thus enduring, the latter transient. In short, organic social structures are communities of being, while associative social structures are alliances for a specific purpose.

I was heading down to DandD7 at the invitation of my sister who has been participating in it for several years. DandD aims to be a gathering place for theatre makers and performing artists to discuss and explore major issues surrounding the arts industry. The reason I was traveling the 271 miles from Durham was to experience a organizational framework used at DandD called Open Space Technology.

Open Space Technology was discovered by an American called Harrison Owen. The story goes that he had set up a conference to explore issues stemming from his paper about “organizational transformation” and ran two successful events. On the approach to the third conference he found he was not relishing the idea of all the work necessary to put on such a large scale event; agendas, speakers, etc. It was then that he realized; most participants of the previous years’ conferences said the best part of those events were the coffee breaks, which Owen had not organized. Owen then sent out a one paragraph invitation to anyone to come and discuss ‘organizational transformation’ and 100 people turned up.

The seats for delegates were set out in a circle and the time was booked. Apart from this nothing had been set in place; it was open. The basic premise is it’s a meeting based on the dynamics of a coffee break.

Open Space, therefore, is distinctive in its lack of an agenda past the initial problem which needs to be discussed; in DandD’s case ‘What are we going to do about theatre and the performing arts?

Before getting to DandD7 I asked my sister why she had invited me? She said she thought that Open Space Technology may well help me in my research to formulate some ecclesiology (lit. words about church) which denied the use the rigid hierarchy which, in my opinion, stifles creativity of a group and denies full participation of every member in a community. What was interesting in her description of Open Space was the deliberate use of the words ‘her church’ and ‘her community’.

When it came to Saturday morning my over arching question was: To what extent could DandD be described as my sister’s church?

I need to briefly explain my use of the word ‘church’ in this context. Church is both a building and a gathering of people, usually made up of Christians. The word comes from the Greek ecclesia, which means ‘gathering’ (or to be specific ek – out and kaleo – to call). The Christian associations were a later addition to the concept and in that respect I will play down this element for now. I do want, however, to hold onto the connection this term has with ‘community’ because it was this idea that encouraged my sister to use the specific word ‘church’.

In order to answer my question I wanted to discover whether DandD is primarily seen as a conference or a community. I use the term ‘primarily’ deliberately as it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that it was always going to be both. Indeed, most gatherings are a mixture of these two ideas. What I am keen to do here, however, is to discern whether it is possible to use Open Space purely as a community framework without the conference element and thus be able to agree with my sister that this is primarily a community she is a part of not just a conference she goes to religiously.

If we take these terms in the general sense they overlap in a number of ways. In the specific, however, I would be keen to posit unique attributes to each in order to communicate something important for my sister and many others whom I met at DandD7.

A conference, in this instance, encapsulates a business, mechanical artifact used to interact with others akin to the associative social structure we read about early. A community, on the other hand, is a gathering of people who participate in a level of intimacy brought on by experiencing liminality as a group. Community therefore, in this argument takes on the typology of the organic social structure.

For my sister she used words that would attribute themselves easily into the community/organic social structure model. Was this an adequate description of what happened? I was intrigued because Open Space Technology has its genesis in the conference world, where the task, it seems, is a primary focus with relationship as a happy by-product. Owen has, however, used it in community groups and in peace negotiations where, one could argue, relationships come first with the specific task as a necessary structure which is held to lightly.

Turning again to the quote I read before there are some clear qualities that separate organic social structures from associative. In the former the ‘parts’ depended on the whole organism and are determined by it, i.e. the whole adds or requires the part to have certain characteristics by its relationship to it; its focus is on being. The latter has no call for the individual part to depend or be determined by the whole; the individual can remain separate and singular. The associative social structure’s focus is on fulfilling a task without requiring an ontological connection.

At this point I would like to say that I am fully aware that I am attributing concepts and labels to things which may not, necessarily be the case. My observations are based, purely, on two days and an introductory investigation into the purpose and priorities of both Open Space and DandD. I would like the reader to be acutely aware that I am processing this and opening up a ‘session’ online. Please do correct where I have been unfair, ignorant or arrogant.

Just Shut Up and Do It!: a manifesto

At an Open Space Conference/Community called Devoted and Disgruntled for theatre and performing arts practitioners, I called a session with the above title. The group came up with the following statements of intent…

The right people would like to articulate:

We believe that theatre is a living, organic force that we participate in a physical and effective communion with.

We are both united and multiple in a creative mystery.

We don’t want to be lonely anymore! We will seek pleasure in relationships with others. We want to be able to be vulnerable and playful with ourselves and with others, physically, emotionally, intellectually and financially.

We don’t need money to make theatre (but it helps!)

We need money to publicise theatre (but not always!)

We will continue to faithfully wrestle with each other and the deepest, unspeakable desires, frivolity and pains of life in a potent dance.

Now is the time we say “it’s over” and at the same time “it has just begun!”

Viva la revolution! (for now)

If we can’t…we may as well pack up and go home

We sit around talking about how the systems we work within are stifling and stubborn; fixed and inflexible.

We sit around talking about how these might be different and we dream of a future where everyone is equal and we are honored, respected and loved.

We sit around talking about models of leadership that might release others into work and happiness, fulfillment and life.

We sit around talking about newness, freshness, imaginative approaches but…

Once the talking stops so does the dream and we settle back into the system because it works and its not so bad and it is all we know.

Ensemble means ‘together, at the same time’. It means to be alongside and to be considered collectively; not one thing before another, not one thing above another; parallel. One might even suggest a connection in the concept between para and semble.To be in semblance with something is to draw beside to be called beside; parakletos?

Collaboration may seem like a buzz word but let us not forget that to be in collaboration with someone is to co-labour with someone; to share the tasks of life, to share in the burdens and joys of reality. We, as Christians, desire to be called co-labours with Christ in the promotion and construction of the Kingdom of God. It is here that the rubber hits the road. If we do not collaborate, come alongside, work together, be one in the task then we may as well pack up and go home.

But we want to; we seek it; we sit around and talk about it but…

Once the talking stops so does the dream and we settle back into the system we find ourselves in.

I have too many books wanting to promote collaboration and models of leadership that will sustain this interrelationship, this polis. Each time I open a book, full of hope and possibility, I am hit by disappointment when they buckle under the question:

But is it workable?

Here is the enemy. This one question, asked too soon, or even at all, cripples and asphyxiates the dream. This is the Genesis question which causes the fall.

One personality, one charisma will always come to the fore in any group and to squash it is counterproductive. Leadership, direction, decisions are needed to drive a community forward to proceed in life and work.

Ensemble does not deny leadership, it encourages it in every member, it seeks to destroy the cult of leadership, the worship of personality.

This, surely is not workable! No one can be of like mind and so there will be fractures and disagreements.

If we cannot live together with a difference of opinion; if we cannot imagine one person never attaining the wisdom and discernment to lead; if we cannot see a development of this in a person; if we cannot stand alongside someone as they make their first tentative steps into sharing in the experience of being depended upon, the power to impact another human being; if we cannot reject the worship of personality and be humble and honest to our equality in the eyes of God; if we cannot imagine the transformation and growth of any person, we may as well pack up and go home.

Ensemble does not deny the need for direction, it encourages the joy of discovery as we travel together.

This, surely is not workable! We cannot venture into the unknown without insurance, assurance of a successful journey.

If we cannot step out into the unknown without the foreknowledge of safety; if we cannot step out of the boat without a solid and provable promise that the water will hold us; if we cannot admit that failure is not the end and that any death of esteem or ‘faith’ can be conquered and redeemed, we may as well pack up and go home.

Ensemble does not deny the need to make decisions, it encourages rigorous discernment and deep listening to strive towards action.

This, surely is not workable! The task will be wrought with disagreements, unattainable togetherness. It will take time and resources, energy and you can’t please everyone.

If we cannot exist together allowing others ideas and suggestions to shape us, to conquer our own desire and hopes for the future; if we cannot imagine a place where our own, personal, deeply held convictions cannot be challenged, changed, adapted; if we cannot imagine a place where the wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest; if we cannot imagine a time when there will be no pain, no tears, no wars, where the weapons will be made into tools for creation, we may as well pack up and go home.

But the work needs to get done!

No the work does not need to get done. The work is not a means to an end; it is the end! The Kingdom of God is not a product, it is a way of working, of living, of relating, of creating. The Kingdom of God, as a community, is not a static thing to be achieved but the way in which you exist and move and have your being.

Maybe I’m an idealist, out of touch with reality or maybe I’m willing to see the reality that’s behind the broken and weakness of this world; the reality of God’s redemptive power, resurrection hope. The Kingdom of God is not a distant dream but is breaking through now. The more we wait for the final product the less we participate in the joyful process and celebration now!

But it isn’t workable! Show me a community that does this successfully.

A product does not produce itself; it’s the process that makes the product. The sooner we end this way of working or setting out on a journey the sooner we’ll realise that the intention and way in which we set out is where we judge something. If we cannot hope that our dreams and imaginations can change the world only when they are enacted in reality; if we cannot hope that the time is now and the possibility is here; if we cannot stand in front of the fear of failure and pain, disappointment and despair; if we cannot battle against all the voices that say this is an infant who’ll amount to nothing before its taken its first steps, we may as well pack up and go home.