Exploring Ecumenism

Suspending Assumptions

Here are three more thoughts about immortality:

1. The first quote from Presence in yesterday's post, is in the first person plural.  I was following the theme of leadership yesterday and so didn't focus on how the assumption of immortality affects all of us.  The issue behind the quote from Presence is global warming and related issues.  Yes, there is a sense in which we all live as if we will live forever until something happens that causes us to recognise and challenge that assumption.  Even then it is easy to forget and lapse back into it.  It is of course one of the constraints we all encounter as mortals.  I will return to this when I move onto Wesley's doctrine of sanctification.

2. It is odd though that I should see immortality as a negative.  Christians, our atheist friends never tire of reminding us, believe they are immortal; that they have a ticket to heaven and the rest are left to the vagaries of chance and necessity.  This is deep theological water and I don't want to go into too much detail at this stage.  Suffice it for now, to link this observation to sanctification too and simply observe there is a world of difference between the presumption of immortality and the eternal life Christians participate in as a result of God's grace.

3. And then there is the point I want to focus upon today; the link I see between immortality and tidiness.  The second quote from Presence yesterday, says it all.  To be immortal is to take leave of reality and subscribe to the view that one last push in terms of my ideology or organisation is all that's needed.  Even if it were possible for a tyrant to marshal everyone into a particular mould, what happens when the tyrant dies? 

One of the earliest steps in soft systems analysis is to identify tasks and issues.  Any human system will present many areas for the activist to address.  These are the tasks, the things which need to be done.  Issues are the barriers to implementation of the tasks.  These are the conflicts and disagreements that tend to resist the desired changes.  Sometimes it is more helpful to address the issues rather than the tasks.  The issues address the reality of the soft system; make us remember that ours are not the only interests at play.

In Presence, they write about the ability to suspend assumptions.  I may be perfectly correct about the tasks I wish to undertake but there are others around me who see things differently.  There is always value in asking why they see things differently; are they onto things I need to consider before I act?

Our concern should be to learn from diversity and to see the presence of order in apparently chaotic systems.  This is quite different from attempts to impose order upon systems.  The Christian faith in the early 21st century is undeniably complex, it seems to have become more complex in recent years so that the old approaches can no longer make much difference.  But this is not to say that amongst the chaos there are not opportunities for unity; the challenge is to make them visible.

The Curse of the Immortal Leader

In Presence, on page 24, a question is posed:

"Haven't we come together to answer one fundamental question: Why don't we change?  What would it take to shift the whole?"  "We don't change because we think we're immortal."

The reference to immortality interested me because it is a theme that has recurred throughout my career.  I think the first time I encountered it was at leadership training for Citizens' Organising on 1992.  It was an item on a list of the the characteristics of a leader, 'they are aware of their mortality'.  'I am human and so I am finite' should be the mantra of any leader.  A good sign of a leader who is aware of their own mortality is their preparedness for passing on the baton to someone else.

During June 1997, I travelled around the country visiting community regeneration projects.  One of these was Moss Side and Hulme Community Development Trust.  This was the only project I visited twice during that month because I was impressed by the man who took me round.  He had just retired I think as vicar of the parish but had dedicated several decades to community regeneration in the area.  I am sorry I have forgotten his name and somewhere buried in my files I will find it some day.

What he had to say made a great impression on me at the time but the thing I remember most vividly is this.  One year later I wanted to check something with him about our conversation and so I phoned him. The phone was answered by a woman who explained that he had had a severe stroke and was no longer able to talk or participate in any way.  He had prepared her to step into his shoes and so she was now answering his phone!  She knew who I was and answered all my questions. 

I have met immortal people during my career in community development.  They have one solution to all problems and their aim is to subject everything to that solution.  Often it is a good solution and capable of significant success.  But they do not grow in their position and those around them cannot grow either, there is a sense of stuck-ness. 

I am convinced this is what the ancients meant by demonic possession.  It is a close identification with an organisation that becomes an absolute.  It can do no wrong and is the solution to all the problems.  Everything is tidy and just so; nothing is out of place.  Ultimately, things collapse around them because nothing can be that tidy. 

My fear is that there are many people like this in our churches.  They have an absolute idea of what God is like and so expect God's church to be perfect too, and indeed God's world.  There are so many mistakes in this tragic illusion.  They believe without evidence that God is perfect.  They believe everything God made should be perfect and are outraged that it is not and that other people keep on sinning.  But the worst mistake is the assumption never addressed that they are the perfect mouthpiece of God. 

There is another way; the way of mess, the way trodden by sinners, where a messy God loves a messy world.  Who would want to live in a perfect universe?  Why is their error so damaging?  An answer is on page 29 of Presence:

Most change initiatives that end up going nowhere don't fail because they lack grand visions and noble intentions.  They fail because people can't see the reality they face.

Reactive Learning

I certainly don't want to give the impression that churches don't need leaders.  Leadership is essential.  The problem is that I believe the churches are facing a crisis of leadership.  When leadership is understood as a privilege rather than as a responsibility; it will inevitably result in poorly informed decision making. 

This crisis reflects a more general crisis in leadership in the wider world.  Education generally focuses on the detail of subject areas rather than on the practicality of making good decisions.  Well informed decisions require more than superficial knowledge of a subject area, although this can be helpful it also requires deep listening.

Reactive learning is, according to Presence,  about habitual thinking, seeing the world through habitual categories.  It is odd that this is so common in the churches.  Prayer, whilst in part an inner journey, is completed when attention is drawn outwards.  Good leaders make decisions.  They are not constrained by what others think but take time to consider prayerfully before making decisions. 

Good leadership means that those who are led have a stake in decision making but do not necessarily determine the outcome.  The Quakers are clear that they do not make decisions by consensus.  They listen for the spirit of the meeting.  Where there is a controversial issue, people will naturally turn up to a meeting with their view clear in their own minds.  The aim is allow these to be spoken but then to listen for the deeper truth behind all these presented truths.  This can be done by a single leader or collectively as the Quakers do.  However, the single leader must not make decisions alone and where sufficient are experienced, it is perhaps best that decisions are made collectively. 

Whether leadership is focused on one person or shared collectively, the implications for ecumenism are profound.  Decision making cannot be effective if it is cut off from local churches.  The likely implications of decision-making are so profound for the Christian practice of the adherents to the various traditions, that it is hard to see how conversations between senior people can ever be effective.  The problem is of course that collective decision making is also much more difficult.  Is there any way that everyone can have a realistic stake in ecumenical conversations?  Is it even desirable?

Leadership in Ecumenical Relationships

Presence on page 10 argues, 'Even as conditions in the world change dramatically, most businesses, governments, schools, and other larger organisations, driven by fear, continue to take the same kinds of institutional actions that they always have.'

The credit crunch is a recent example of this, where in Britain the stated intention of the government, supported by the BBC, is a return to normal.  Which particular normal do they mean?  The last few years where people have been encouraged to take on increasing amounts of debt they cannot afford, massive inflation in house prices and all of this supporting artificially high prices in the stock markets?  On the contrary the credit crunch is an extremely painful return to normal after a few years aberrant behaviour.  No reference is made to climate change or other damage to the environment or human relationships by the behaviour that has delivered us into this problem.

Why do institutions behave in this way?  I believe it is a crisis in leadership.  We lack good role models for leadership and as leaders perceive a loss of their own authority they panic and cease to offer the very leadership they are there to deliver.  The problem is an implicit understanding of leadership as an award for good behaviour rather than as a responsibility taken on the behalf of others.  Many leaders say they believe the latter but observation of their behaviour suggests the former is their real belief.

This has two unfortunate side effects.  First, it means decisions are made by uninformed, leaders who panic because they do not understand why their actions do not lead to their expected result.  Second, many people are left out of the decision making loop who, although on their own would be no more competent than their leaders, together through a pooling of insights might be able to inform leadership.

In general, churches seem to mirror what is happening in society rather than set examples of good leadership.  Too many leaders are fearful of loss of authority and do not make full use of the experience available to them through their congregations.  Within my own tradition, we can look back to a time when lay people had a significant stake in leadership.  Through well ordered societies, classes and bands Methodists not only supported each others' spiritual development but learned how to organise.  Consequently, their learning spread into many working class movements especially during the nineteenth century.  The best leaders based their decisions on their critical listening to what was happening in the local societies.  Perhaps, this continues to the present day although the waters are muddier than they could be.

There is a blessing available to any leader in any tradition who is prepared to listen to what lay people are saying. 

The ecumenical movement should be a movement of lay people.  Indeed my conclusion after listening to the problems encountered by many local ecumenical initiatives is that their success depends upon lay leadership.  So many ambitious ecumenical initiatives hit difficulties, when key ordained leaders leave, because they have not successfully engaged the support of lay people.  Consequently, when the next ordained leader arrives, perhaps with less interest or experience in ecumenism, the previous work is devalued or abandoned.

So, whilst lay people are not trusted on the ground, their contribution to ecumenical policy is also devalued.  Progress to full visible unity is measured by the degree of agreement between senior theologians and church leaders.  As a consequence it is difficult to develop the methodologies whereby people at all levels in the churches might contribute to the growth of ecumenical relationships.

A New Cosmology?

Reflecting upon yesterday's post, about science and theology, I thought this might be a good opportunity to open up another strand of this blog: cosmology.  This is a massive subject and in this first post on the subject I will sketch in outline a theme I will develop in more detail over several (non-consecutive) blogs.

My basic point is simple; the Christian faith has known several cosmologies throughout its history and geography.  There is no a priori reason why a given cosmology might be incompatible with the faith, although there may be better or worse fits.  A cosmology is the people's understanding of how the universe works.  If a faith is incompatible with the prevailing worldview it will make heavy weather and its adherents will be marginalised to a greater or lesser extent.

Medieval European cosmology was quite different from first century Palestine's cosmology.  The latter was the basic 'upturned pudding basin on a plate' model whilst Medieval cosmology had the sun circling the earth and the 3 levels of heaven, earth and hell.  I've never read anything about how this change of worldview happened but I suspect the Medieval worldview grew out of theologians' reading of scripture, as memory of the older worldview faded.  At any event, there seems to have been little problem reconciling scripture with this worldview. 

The problems started with the worldview that grew out of Galileo's and Copernicus' observations, and in time became known as the Newtonian worldview.  This was much more than a new understanding of the shape and movements of planets and stars.  It is a mechanical view of the universe and today is probably still the most current 'gut' understanding of the universe.

This worldview differed from previous ones because it was based on empirical observations of reality rather than conjecture based upon ancient writings.  This should not invalidate it in the eyes of Christians but it has not been easy to reconcile it with scripture.  The best known responses have been to attempt to force science and scripture into a particular reading of scripture (fundamentalism) or to abandon scripture altogether (liberalism).  One of the problems is that in a mechanical universe, all categories are absolute, so God either exists or does not exist - no other possibility is conceivable.  The theological tools exist to deal with this but they are not widely known or understood.

Let me be clear about this - the Newtonian worldview is the current universal worldview.  Even fundamentalists believe in it.  For example, intelligent design is their latest attempt to force science to fit a scriptural mould (or scripture to fit a scientific mould).  Scientists have known about the deficiencies of Darwin's original theory for decades.  It simply isn't true that intelligent design (or the account in Genesis) is the only alternative.  Not only is this bad science it is also bad theology. 

The New Physics, the world of quantum mechanics and complexity theory in particular, is the new cosmology.  In my view this is a much more accommodating worldview for the Christian faith.  At this stage I simply flag this up and express the wish that theologians would take it seriously.  In the terms of classical logic, if the Medieval worldview is the thesis (many hanker after it but it is beyond their grasp; they know too much) and the Newtonian worldview is the antithesis, then the new worldview is the synthesis.  It does not take us back to an ancient mindset but leads us to a new way of seeing things which will make sense of many things that have not made sense for a long time.  The problem is that when we approach it with a Newtonian mindset, it does not appear to make any sense at all.

Ecumenism?  If we want to see full visible unity, my contention is the traditions need to change their worldview; a Newtonian approach can never succeed. 

Science and Theology

At one time theology was known as the Queen of Sciences because it explained all that there was to know.  The loss of this status was to do less with modern science and more with the inadequacy of theological responses to it.  If theologians had made the effort to understand and take part in the growth of science both theology and science might be in different places.

The incomprehension and antagonism of theologians to science is a disgrace.  Christians and especially their leaders have turned their back on scientific method.  At best they may be relatively favourably inclined but how many theologians make the effort to follow science, to keep up to date, let alone actively reflect upon it?

Instead we get a steady stream of of poorly informed statements from church leaders which consistently miss the point.  Science needs to be criticised from a faith perspective but it is rare for this to happen because most theologians don't know what's wrong with it.  By turning their backs on all but a few marginal Christian concerns, the traditions have marginalised themselves from the mainstream of debate.  At worst, some traditions have replaced a positive critique of science with a form of biblical fundamentalism that devalues scripture as well as science and effectively marginalises the Christian faith in terms of its influence for good in the modern world.  Overall, the faith is distorted and God's world is betrayed.

If we had confidence in our traditions, Christians would not fear the findings of science or other faiths or belief systems.  Why are we, the most successful faith on the planet so fearful of anything we do not comprehend or, I fear, can't be bothered to comprehend?

Let's be clear: something is false not because it contradicts a particular (self-interested) reading of scripture but because it devalues people and their place in the universe.

Presence makes the observation that the last few decades have seen the growth of something new in world history, global institutions.  Developments in science and technology have enabled this growth and also the immense damage they are doing to the planet.  They have brought about climate change, the extinction of thousands of species and are poisoning the seas, atmosphere and soil.  None of this will change until there is a change in the hearts of those who control these institutions.  I will return to this some time in the future.

The point I want to make is that the churches together are also a global institution.  This is most notably true of the Catholic Church, which at 1 billion members numbers half the Christians in the world.  But together the churches could be a powerful agent for change.  We could be but outmoded theology, refusal to understand the issues and a focus on internal doctrinal issues makes the churches remarkably ill-prepared for the task.

Recently the Pope formally acknowledged the work of Galileo.  Let us hope we can progress faster than that.  Galileo was never a threat to the faith and neither are Darwin, Newton, Einstein or any other scientist.  Scientists make mistakes but it is Christians who have perceived their work as a threat to the church.  The task is to put a new cosmology at the centre of Christian understanding of the cosmos.  It is possible, it has been done before.  The problem is we haven't got long to do it.

I had not realised how angry I am until I wrote these paragraphs.  I will substantiate what I have written here in future posts.

Pattern Integrity: Views from art and science

Today, as a change, I'm going to offer a couple of insights tangential to yesterday's post about pattern integrity.  Both of them are videos from the TED website.  This site is worth exploring as it includes videos covering a wide range of topics, many of which will interest theologians and preachers. 

The use of hands as an example of pattern interity reminded me of the video The Art of Collecting Stories by Jonathan Harris.  When I first saw this video I was rather bored by the first half but after the first 11 minutes it takes off in a completely unexpected direction.  The artist collects fractions of stories that afford us glimpses of a range of lives that are intensely evocative and somehow transcend their specific backgrounds.

I also commented upon the dificulties attendant upon being inside a system looking out.  The video The Design of the Universe is George Smoot's account of trying to understand the structure of the universe.  Several times the video touches upon the perspective of looking at the universe from a position within it.  Just like Harris, Smoot attempts to observe the universe as it is but this time as a scientist using technology and modelling as methods.

The TED site is a creative commons that aims to share its participants' 18 minute talks as widely as possible, making a contribution to our understanding of the world.  It is worth reading about their purpose.  I have speculated as to whether an ecumenical equivalent might be a possibility.  It would be a massive undertaking but even if it never became a reality it might be a worthwhile exercise to imagine what it might achieve.

Pattern Integrity

For the next few days I will explore a book called Presence by Peter Senge and three others.  The authors are a small group of people who meet regularly to share their experiences of profound collective change. 

In the early pages of the book, the authors identify a number of key ideas.  In an earlier post I discussed convergent and divergent systems.  Their view is that convergent systems determine the way most people think about systems.  Convergent systems are made up of parts.  You can lay out the component parts and then put them together to form the convergent system.  Each part can exist on its own; it is not damaged by being taken away from the whole.

Most systems are not like that because the parts grow out of the whole.  Neither the part nor the whole can exist without the other.  So, they use the example of a hand.  Hands do in fact vary a great deal but all hands are recognisable as hands.  Indeed it would be more accurate to say there is no such thing as a hand because what you have is a 'pattern Integrity'.  The pattern integrity is 'the whole of which each particular hand is a concrete manifestation'. 

I have some reservations about this idea because I fear it may be taken as a manifestation of Plato's ideal types (try this post and a few posts following it).  However, if we accept the pattern integrity does not have any reality itself but is simply the pattern that makes a hand recognisable as a hand, it might serve as an idea.  Far more important is the hand as a manifestation of the whole body; the body as a whole has integrity, the hand separated from the body does not.  Presence quotes Bortoft: 'The part is a place for the presencing of the whole'. 

The point is that convergent systems are observed (by definition) from the outside looking in.  The car mechanic is not a part of the car.  For divergent systems, the observer is inside the system looking out.  This is another distinctive trait of soft systems.

A member of any Christian tradition, approaching ecumenical conversations, does so from within the Christian faith and indeed from within a particular tradition.  Each tradition is a faithful part of the pattern integrity of the faith, complete in itself (otherwise it would not be Christian).  Each tradition is also subject to change.  Just as the cells in the hand change every few years, so the Christians who are part of the tradition will turnover every few decades.  Looking at its history we can see it was very different in the past and yet is still recognisably the same tradition.  The difficulty is to hold together both the whole and the parts in our minds so that we can see our common heritage and our differences.

Paul did this in his analogy of the body.  The faith is like a body with parts; the body is complete with all its parts and its parts are representative of the body as a whole.  When we look at the world soley from the perspective of our own tradition, we cannot see the faith as a whole.  The problem is of course that no-one can see the whole faith, our position within it prevents us from doing so. 

A holographic model of ecumenism.

In my reading over Christmas I came across the following '... the natural world, in which the whole is entirely present in any of its parts -'.  This reminded me of a recent post where I discussed the integrity of Christian traditions.  In that post I did not say much about the relationship between the traditions other than to reject the (allegedly) Protestant view of them needing each other in order to understand the whole of Christianity. 

Many people will be aware of holography, where any part of an image contains the whole image.  Holography offers us an analogy which might be more helpful than that of the jigsaw (see the aforementioned post). 

Christianity in the last analysis cannot be fully known by any individual, there is mystery, something beyond human comprehension.  Each tradition may well be complete in itself, in the sense that it embodies all that is needed for salvation.  But they are also parts of a whole, which can be glimpsed through each tradition.  It is not that all the traditions together make up the whole because they are parts of it, rather each affords us a glimpse of the whole of which they are a part.  They can do this because they are whole and part together.  (Note Sacks' understanding of Unity and Diversity.)

It seems to me there is a dual error at play here.  One is to see the part as the whole.  This is the fundamentalist view that 'our' particular interpretation of Christianity is the only genuine one, that the whole of God's plan for the universe is present in one person's (it is often one person) particular insights.  The other is to fail to see the whole in the parts.  This manifests itself in the desire for full visible unity, at least as it is currently understood.

Over the next few days I will examine this holographic model in more detail.  To reject full visible unity in favour of a vague vision of Christianity seen through its parts is not good enough.  This can only work as a model for ecumenism where Christians are prepared to make it work.  They need the tools to do this and this means the rediscovery of the power of ecumenical conversations.

Plans for Exploring Ecumenism

Just before a short Christmas break, I thought it would be good to summarise my plans.  I've planned this blog with the aim of working out my own understanding of ecumenism.  I'm hoping to add a range of ideas I've come across over the last few years and then to try and make sense of them all.  There is still a lot more to add and here is a summary of what I have in mind for the next few months.

1. More thoughts about conversation and where new approaches are being used inside and outside the churches.  I'm also hoping to explore the place of conversation in Christian theology and how this theology might assist understanding the ecumenical task (whatever it is).
2. Pick up my own tradition and explore some of the implications of Wesleyan theology, especially Methodist understanding of sanctification. 
3. An exploration of the growth of Methodism and other working class movements in Britain in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  My particular emphasis will be on the development of mutuals.
4. An exploration of modern science especially cosmology and quantum physics.  The churches need to address some of these emerging paradigms in their theologies.
5. Particular exploration of Darwinism and evolution. 
6. This will lead me to consider the implications of militant atheism.
7. Detailed consideration of the potential for ecumenism to address key issues - climate change, debt, racism.

This is a general outline and I have every intention of being side-tracked as new issues are drawn to my attention.

A Merry Christmas to all my non-readers.