Exploring Ecumenism

What is the Ecumenical Problem?

I want to say more about the whole as it relates to the Christian faith.  It is not an ideal form of Christianity.  It is the whole behind all the parts that we encounter.  It is incomplete without the parts and unknowable in the sense that there is no single interpretation of the whole.

Yesterday I suggested 'networks of Christian traditions' as a description of the Christian faith.  This is not a satisfactory description but may be helpful to enable us to get a hold of what the whole might be.  The problem for those who wish to approach this from a conventional or Newtonian worldview, is that as each of us sees the whole through the lenses of our own tradition plus our personal experience, then everyone is going to see it differently.  Presence on page 51 puts it like this:

The problem-solving mind-set can be adequate for technical problems.  But it can be woefully inadequate for complex human systems, where problems often arise from unquestioned assumptions  and deeply habitual ways of acting.  Until people start to set their own handprint on such problems, fundamental change rarely occurs.

This strongly implies that it may be advantageous that everyone has a different view of the whole.  This does not mean that everyone is equally right or that their view remains static.  Indeed one of the aims of ecumenical conversations is to enable people to learn more of other traditions and hence of their faith as a whole.  Remember also that ecumenical conversations often result in a deeper understanding of ones own tradition.  Clearly there is much more to explore here.

In the meantime we need to take stock of what we do not know.  There are three things (at least!).

We do not know what the whole is ...

It is easy to say the whole is the Christian faith.  Maybe it is but even if it is, we are still left asking what is the Christian faith?  Each Christian (and maybe others) will bring their own insights from their experience, their tradition to bear on their view of the faith.  As ecumenists are we dealing with just this one faith or the whole of creation (oikoumene)?  And whatever it is, how does it hang together, how do we make sense of it?

We do not know what the parts are ...

The easy answer is 'the traditions' but they themselves can be split into many smaller groups.  Or is it the relationships between the traditions?  Or relationships with the wider world?  To choose the traditions as a sort of unit of the Christian faith invites the ecumenist to look inwards.  But how much looking outwards can we endure before the whole vision becomes unmanageable?

What is the ecumenical problem?

Some believe it is 'full visible unity' and argue, convincingly, that it is a favoured goal because it is a clear goal.  Others might argue it is reconciled diversity or even reconciliation with the whole of creation.  Others dissent from all of these.  These differences are not going to go away and ecumenism threatens to become increasingly frustrating whilst they are not acknowledged.  This means we need to find new ways of describing our goal(s) as ecumenists.

Redirection

Yesterday I mentioned the importance of being able to suspend our views in order to make space so that we can hear what others are saying.  Suspension is the first step towards increased awareness or deep listening. 

Suspension on its own does not necessarily lead to great change until the listener begins to see patterns in what they are hearing.  As these patterns emerge, the listener can redirect their attention to them.  This is the second step, known as redirection.  As the boundaries between seer and seen dissolve, the source of the reality they encounter becomes clearer.  (Presence, page 43.)

It is important to be aware of what is meant by 'source' here.  It is the reality of what is behind the object or relationship but it should not be thought of as some sort of Platonic ideal.  There is no single truth underlying the world as we perceive it; because the world is in constant flux. 

1. There is some element of connection between seer and seen.  I am a part of the systems I observe.  This clearly parallels the experience of scientists who study quantum mechanics and have found that as observers they are in fact a part of the system they are observing.  How much more so in human or soft systems, where the observer is inevitably related to the system through relationships and the baggage they bring to making their observations.  Of course this means our experiences will be 'different for everybody'.
2. Similarly these systems, for example networks of Christian traditions, change with time.  This means that all of us have a part in changing the system and of course the system will change us. 

How much easier would ecumenism be if we were able to freeze all change so that we were able to agree to changes?  The problem is that even were we able to do this, changes initiated by us or others beyond our control can render change futile or irrelevant.  As Presence (page 45) succinctly puts it:

When people who are actually creating a system start to see themselves as the source of their problems, they invariably discover a new capacity to create results they truly desire.

This should have profound implications for ecumenists.  It challenges us to be aware that we are a part of the problem but also that when we understand this we might collectively be in a position to map a way forward. 

It seems to me this view takes seriously the challenge of human sinfulness whilst at the same time allowing for the possibility of real change.  I will in a later post show how for Methodists this makes sense as an instance of John Wesley's doctrine of sanctification.

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.

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. 

Soft Systems

Is it true that all human systems are divergent?  Soft systems is the term given to human systems; not all divergent systems include human activity and so this is how I will understand the term; divergent human systems.  Of course, there have been times, many times during history when people have tried to forge convergent systems out of human nations or organisations.  This can be seen in companies and churches, in armed forces and nations.  Sometimes it is possible to maintain an image of convergence for a while but always in time, their divergent nature becomes evident.  For those leaders who do not understand how systems work, this can lead to tyranny and oppression.

So, what are the characteristics of soft systems?  They are difficult to measure using quantitative measures.  They are apprehended through stories, views and perspectives rather than things that can be measured.  Neighbourhood regeneration identifies both outputs and outcomes.  Outputs are things which can be measured.  They are what the funding bodies pay for.  They expect to see so many meetings or clients or people into work.  Outcomes though are less tangible but more important.  What has been achieved through the activity funded?

Qualitative data is difficult to analyse and consequently is difficult to use in planning.  However, this is true only where qualitative analysis is constrained by the expectations of quantitative analysis. 

Qualitative analysis is based upon making choices.  Each choice generates more options for other choices but in doing this a picture of the consequences of making choices can be built up, from your own perspective or that of others.

This does mean any individual's analysis will include a subjective element but at the same time it can result in analyses of considerable subtlety and depth.  We have to accept qualitative systems cannot produce objective pictures but it is possible to follow a thread of narrative; it is possible for the analyst to be open about the choice they have made and show how they have arrived at their conclusions.

A big advantage of qualitative analysis is that it allows us to glimpse the world through the eyes of others.  A subjective approach does not constrain us to our own subjective choices but allows us to ask what choices others might make.  It is an invitation to view the world from another's viewpoint.  It is sad that so many formal talks focus on finding solutions rather than seeing from the perspective of others.  The change likely to flow from this is quite different from our usual understanding of change.

Churches and Taylorism

I want to clarify what I said about churches and Taylorism in a recent post.  Churches are not and never have been similar to businesses employing a Taylorist approach.  My point is that there are sufficient parallels between churches and traditional manufacturing businesses for there to be a degree of unconscious confusion. 

Aspects of Taylorism have entered the public imagination and often when the role of management in churches is debated I get the impression it is this model that is being criticised as unsuitable for churches.  On the principle that there's no smoke without fire I suspect that a lack of awareness of the range of approaches to management can lead to this confusion shared by some leaders and some of their critics.

Churches can be deeply hierarchical.  An immediate objection is that church hierarchies predate modern manufacturing businesses and so also Taylorism.  Churches were never intended to be led in this way but that does not mean that churches are immune to the influence of this approach.

Another similarity is that just as Taylorist businesses produce thousands of standard products so churches, sometimes across the world, produce standard activities to a timetable or lectionary.  The model of authority descending through hierarchies to be consumed by thousands of consumers must be seductive at least to some leaders.

Despite these similarities churches cannot in practise perform to the Taylorist model.  The reason for this is not theological but economic.  It is the threat of redundancy that enable Taylorist managers to achieve their goal of a standard product.  Workers who will not comply lose their jobs.

Churches face a very different reality.  They do not employ their congregations and although it is possible to discipline their ordained ministers, the members are far harder to control, especially as they pay the bills.  Consequently church hierarchies must resort to other sanctions if they wish to control the beliefs and activities of their congregations.  Leaders with a Taylorist mindset will employ any means to do this but others will see the need to use discussion and debate as a means to arrive at a consensus. 

This is one reason why reception is important.  Decisions cannot be imposed and in even the most top down traditions there still has to be consent from the ground up.  People might accept a degree of coercion but in reality it will not do as a means to conduct long-term change.

I offer this explanation of the tendency for churches to be top down in their approach to change.  This model of change is likely to be the default position of any leader who knows nothing of organisations or management.  For ecumenists, the search for effective ways of finding consent for the results of ecumenical talks is complex and needs close examination.

Convergent and Divergent Systems

It is important to understand the distinction between convergent and divergent systems.  Convergent systems are often thought of as closed systems.  They are in some way separated from the wider universe and so it is possible to control their performance.  To a degree the idea of a closed system is an illusion.  Every system must be a part of the wider universe and will to some degree be influenced by the wider universe.  However, a convergent system will be closed enough to enable the parameters to the system to be set.  So, for example, it is possible to design an engine to specific tolerances because an engine is a system which can be isolated sufficiently to enable engineers to do the calculations and come up with a solution.  Sometimes, the solution will be approximate and the resulting engine will be seen as a step towards the desired engine.

In other words a series of designs (over time or by different engineers) will converge upon certain types of engine.  There may be more than one solution or there may be better designs yet to be discovered but in principle a single solution or set of solutions will emerge.  Technology may be a limitation on these systems, eg Charles Babbage was able to design his difference engine but unable to find parts that were accurate enough for him to assemble a working engine.  Crucible steel was invented when watch makers found contemporary steel was too brittle to make watch springs.

The fact that engineers work within tolerances shows that these convergent systems are to some degree open to wider universe.  Better designs might improve the performance of engines but there will always be limitations; the aim is to minimise them so that systems can be designed within any given tolerances.

Divergent systems are different not because they are less accurate but because there are multiple solutions.  Instead of one or a few possible outcomes there are numerous possibilities and the more that is known about the system the more possible outcomes there are.  In general human systems are like this, so are many natural systems.

It is easy in a business with a hierarchical management system to believe you are in effect working in a convergent system. Employees will do as they are told or else they won't be paid.  If the business involves manufacturing, it is likely most employees will perform a number of repetitive activities.  This is known as Taylorism (after its inventor) and the method deployed is time and motion studies leading to tighter definition of activities for each worker.

But most human systems are not like this and any business with this type of structure today will, if it still survives, find this inflexible structure undermines its long term survival prospects.  The problem is that many managers do not understand this and still have a Taylorist model in mind when they attempt to manage an organisation.  Churches are not exempt from this.

Human systems are divergent.  There is no single model for human systems.  Sometimes these are called soft systems.  It is possible to analyse and understand them but through a different approach to convergent systems.  I will describe them in a future post.

Unity in Diversity

The British Council of Churches between the late 1940s and 1989 was largely Protestant and its vision was of full visible unity.  This vision was supported by other parts of the world where uniting churches, eg the Church of South India, demonstrated that it was possible for Protestant churches to unite.  In Britain this vision was supported by the Methodist Deed of Union in 1932 and the birth of the United Reformed Church in the early seventies.

Since 1989, with the new Churches Together approach, the model of the Council of Churches, decisions made independently of the parent churches, has given way to churches making their own decisions together.  I described this in an earlier blog.

Imperceptibly, the emphasis has shifted from unity to diversity; to unity in diversity.  The problem has been to find a model of reconciled diversity that is not seen as a means to avoid the complexity and difficulty of full visible unity.  Even unity in diversity has to be made real in some tangible way.

I think the problem in part is that the movement from a focus on unity to a focus on diversity is not simply a shift in emphasis.  Unity is a model based upon control.  To place all churches under one model of governance implies this.  It also implies that if we work at it hard enough we will in time solve the remaining problems and find the model that will bring all the churches together.  This is to see the human relations under God as a convergent system.

Unfortunately human systems are divergent.  Diversity implies no single centralised control and no overall solution to the problems we face.  The approach is one of devolved centres that seek to identify and join in the movement of the spirit through their dialogue or conversation.  Unity will emerge from the interactions of many players rather than the reception of decisions made through formal talks.

Clearly this will be unsatisfactory to many but we have to ask ourselves how likely it is that formal talks will unite all the churches (rather than a few) and that they will stay united.  The diversity model implies we will stumble upon unity rather than plan it and this itself might seem unsatisfactory.

Divergent systems are sometimes known as soft systems and it would be helpful for ecumenists to understand them.  They will, I'm sure, be described in a future strand of this blog.