Category Archives: crisis

HTR: some key principles of righteous resistance

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My last post was a bit of a screed, sorry, I just needed to vent. This one is a little more considered.

I have spent a lot of time in my life thinking about questions of violence, pacifism and non-violent resistance (see here). I first engaged with these questions properly at university, where I studied Gandhi in particular, but in the long run I have probably been most influenced by Stanley Hauerwas on this question. I love his comment “Why am I a pacifist? I’m a pacifist because I’m a violent son of a bitch.” I understand that comment. I consider his ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ to be the best primer for Christians on this question, though there is much else, and of course there is an immense political literature, from Augustine to Wink, that needs to be taken account of. What I want to do in this post is share a quick over-view of what I see as four key principles for righteous resistance1, which have to be held to no matter what it is that is being resisted.

1. Violence is fallen, and only tragically necessary
In God’s intentions there is no violence, all the violence is in us. The violence is a product of the fall, of our departure from Eden, and every resort to violence represents a failure of humanity. The aim of all resistance is fundamentally spiritual, to change the ‘hearts and minds’ – the souls – of those who are being resisted. Violence is not just the use of physical force as the various social and psychological harms (eg coercive control) are also actions that qualify as violence. Violence is a reduction of a person to person struggle (I-Thou) to a contest of forces (I-It). Gandhi taught that it is an article of faith for every satyagrahi2 that nobody is beyond the reach of ahimsa3. Where violence is resorted to it is always and everywhere to be regarded as a sin. That is not to say that sometimes it isn’t a just choice, it is to insist that when we are forced to choose the lesser of two evils, the only way to prevent further corruption is to recognise that the lesser of two evils remains an evil. Righteous resistance insists upon the shared humanity of those who are being resisted. We do not hate the human for nothing human is foreign to us. In most cases it is more righteous to receive suffering rather than to give it, for this is the way of Christ on the cross, and unless we carry our own crosses we are not worthy to be counted as his disciples.

2. Imagination is primary
This is a point I take from Hauerwas, that we are conditioned by our imaginations long before we come to the consideration of specific situations. If our imaginations are filled with violence, if, in particular, such violence is held up as worthy, then we are all the more likely to indulge in a lust for violence (and yes, it is a lust, a deadly sin). This is why it is essential for our imaginations to be formed on Christ, for Jesus to be the principal source of our mimesis (Girard). In particular much of what is seen as ‘based’ Christianity seems to me to be drinking from imaginatively corrupted wells, where worldly success – military victory – is seen as righteous in an unqualified sense. Such approaches seem to me to have accepted the devil’s bargain from the mountain top. The Kingdom of Christ is not of this world, and whilst Tolkien may have overstated things with his perspective of ‘the long defeat’ it is imperative that we do not think that anything is achieved in this world from our own effort. Cromwell: trust in God and keep your gunpowder dry.

3. Never undermine the rule of law
The rule of law is the basis of civilisation, it is what I refer to when I mention ‘the King’s Peace’, and it is far more important than things like human rights or democracy – for those depend upon the rule of law in order to have any effect at all. The rule of law is the bulwark against barbarism, it is the only thing that can keep the bullies of all forms in check, it is our principal defence against σάρξ4. What this means is that even when a specific law is being opposed, as that specific law is seen as unjust (eg a racist law in 1960s Alabama) then the resister must, absolutely must, not resist the operations of the law in dealing with the resistance. The resister must cooperate with being arrested, must plead guilty in court for the offence (if they are guilty under the existing law) and must humbly accept the duly administered punishment – Martin Luther King in Birmingham jail5. Most especially the resister must not physically harm or fight with the appointed officers of the law. Righteous resistance affirms the importance of the thin blue line, righteous resistance loves the police and needs to show it. Which means that the lawless ones (eg the rioters, those who push burning bins at police behind riot shields) have no righteousness and stand condemned.

4. The struggle is spiritual
Jesus says, “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but loseth his own soul?” In the same way, what would it profit a righteous resistance if a cause ‘succeeds’ and yet simply sows greater alienation and division within a community? The path of righteous resistance cannot be reduced to a particular change of law or regulation; rather it is about the establishment of community and fellowship in place of division, strife and accusation, all the hallmarks of the realm of the enemy. The greatest problem that we face is the spiritual vacuum at the heart of the West, the soul death that preceded, caused, the civilisation death that we are living through. Yet resurrection! It is a good thing that Christianity teaches the conquering of death and we are not without hope. The most important task is to use the tools of righteous resistance to clarify what is at stake spiritually in the struggle. To bring things into the light, so that all might live in the light.

I’ll write further about what these mean in terms of our present distress.

After Southport: Secularism, Scapegoating, Starmergeddon

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I put off writing this for a while, for all sorts of reasons, much of which boiled down to feeling immensely depressed and despondent about it all. That, however, is faithless. The virtue of Christian hope is all about not giving in, about keeping on keeping on – and yes, I’m re-reading Lord of the Rings at the moment, which has that as a major theme. So, for what it’s worth, here is my take, it’s not very cheery, but when I despair I remember that it is to God that we look for salvation, and that we put not our trust in princes.

The rioting and lawlessness that followed the foul attack in Southport must be dealt with by the law, without fear or favour. On the King’s Peace does civilisation depend. Thus far I agree with Starmer, but no further. Most especially the absurd disproportion on display between the sentences given to angry working class white people, and those given to other categories, has become darkly comic. Starmer has quite clearly chosen a side against the white working classes – and, I guess following a government briefing, Mr Welby has done the same. Such things are catastrophic, and the consequences are going to be grim.

Attention has been paid to the rumours that the attacker was Islamic, which led to the attack on the Mosque, and all the consequent disorder. So there has been a crackdown on bad speech, not just incitement, but all that might be considered ‘legal but harmful’ – watch what you post says Big Brother. What this ignores is that the bad speech, the rumour, was simply a match tossed upon kindling soaked in petrol. If it hadn’t been this event and this story then it would have been another one. The firm hand of the law managed to suppress the disorder this time, but it will not always be able to do so. Indeed, the success of that suppression, and the manner in which that suppression was carried out, has added more fuel to the pile. The eventual conflagration will be more severe. In the end something will give.

Our elite supports an ideology of multiculturalism, what I, as a short-hand, tend to call the secular. The secular mindset is premised on the superiority of the WEIRD understanding of the world, within which religious belief is something that can provide all sorts of interesting colour to life, but is not of practical consequence, and best conducted in private. Secularism is in fact intensely Protestant (I might write more about that at some point – the Protestant Grammar of Wokery) and one of the most harmful elements of the secular approach is the way it is unconscious of its own theological premises and biases. After all, every world-view worthy of the name contains theological premises and biases, the point is only to uncover them and bring them into the light to see if they are good, true or beautiful, or simply to be discarded.

So our public order is structured on the dismissal of the validity of religious belief, most especially Christian belief. You can believe what you like so long as you keep it to yourself, and in the meantime the public square will support the values of tolerance, diversity and equality driven principally (this often goes unmentioned) by the need to feed more human fuel into the great maw of Mammon (industrial capitalism). Religious belief is inefficient…

Which leads to our present challenge, and the choice that will inevitably have to be made, publicly, clearly and committedly: do we preserve the freedoms and tolerances that have been granted to those hitherto treated poorly (most especially women and sexual minorities, but also ethnic and religious minorities), or do we tacitly sacrifice those freedoms and tolerances in order to appease one particular religious group? How does multiculturalism cope with a constituency that radically rejects multiculturalism? Secularism, sadly, lacks the philosophical – spiritual! – resources to cope with such a question. It is a vehicle that has been running on empty for some time, and the engine has started to sputter.

As I touched on before, this is the tragedy of the modern left. Cultural conflict is not supposed to happen in a multicultural society, we’re all supposed to just get along. Yet where there are egregious offences committed by one group against another, and where, not only are the criminal group protected by the state, but those crying out against the crimes are themselves criminalised, and oppressed, and victimised even further by the people that are meant to protect them (protect everyone) – this is not the path to peace.

One of the most heartbreaking stories I have read about the child rape gangs was of one father who went to the local police station to raise the alarm, because he was concerned about his daughter, and who was rejected by the police for being a racist. The Jay report put such truths in language accessible to (acceptable to) the authorities, but it is the specific and individual stories that need to be felt in order for what happened at the hotel in Rotherham to be understood.

Secularism cannot cope with this. Multi-cultural ideology is a cruel fiction that abolishes the possibility of peace and friendship across cultural divides. Violence inevitably follows.

Which brings me to scapegoating. The particular cultural conflict that Starmer et al are trying to suppress is a distinctive of the problems that we face in our country in our time. The underlying dark dynamics however are of much more ancient and universal character. When a society is stressed – and so many of our left-behind communities have been dealing with decades of increasing stress – and when that society starts to break down within itself, so that there is conflict with the society, then that society will eventually find a scapegoat. The scapegoat will be blamed and the previous tensions will be consumed in an orgy of newly created unity against that scapegoat. At which point that scapegoat will be purged from the group, either by expulsion or by elimination.

Now that Starmer has committed himself against a path of reconciliation (with Welby, ironically, in tow) the only question is: who will be the scapegoat?

A brief interjection: for nearly twenty years now I’ve been warning about this in sermons, and I’ve assumed that it will be the Islamic community, and I’ve said that the Christian community has to be ready to protect the Muslims (mosques and curry houses and so on) but one reflection from the last few weeks has been that I could have gotten this wrong. There is actually a group that is much smaller in number than the Muslim community, and which is much more widely resented and despised – and that is the ‘new elite’ political class itself. It’s possible that what we are headed towards is less a National Socialist scapegoating of a religious minority than a Revolutionary period of Great Fear and guillotines.

What I know is that there is an immense depth of sheer rage in the country, with insults being piled upon injuries by our clueless political class. We are in an immensely precarious position. There will be an inciting incident. Perhaps it will be something nakedly evil but essentially random like the Southport attack, but more likely it will be an Islamic terror attack, along the lines of all the ones before. Then the scapegoating will start, and the devilish mobs will whip themselves up with self-righteous fury, and shouts of ‘Crucify’ will fill the air, and only the Prince of this World will regard the outcome with joy.

This is what I have begun to think of as Starmergeddon. It is the logical end-point of the mainstream mentality of this country, it is what happens when God is abandoned: violence, disorder, hatred, the collapse of all human fellowship and friendship. I don’t know what it would take to shake the elite out of their mind-set. For when the first tremors are seen – as in Southport – then the secular view is not yet shaken in its certainties. For these are bad people doing bad things, have we not always said as much? Aren’t they revolting? And the elite continue, convinced of their rectitude. How bad might it have to become before they recognise the unsustainability of their path? How many mosques will be burned, how many asylum seekers will be lynched, just what would it take to bring them to a better acquaintance with reality? How big must the catastrophe be? Is it even possible for them to ask ‘are we the baddies?’

In my book I talked about the ‘accumulating crises of our time’ – well, the crises are now starting to crescendo. Ecological overshoot, resource wars, migrant flows, ethnic strife, economic stagnation if not collapse… such are trends that have been in place for so long that we have become accustomed to them, yet ‘if something cannot go on forever then it won’t’. I believe that in so many areas we have now reached the ‘won’t’! I do rather suspect that Peak Oil is going to knock loudly on the door and say hello too.

Which is why I have been feeling so despairing. Cassandra mode, however, is not a fit state for a Christian to occupy. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope…

God is not mocked. Reality is one of the names of God, and we are driving head first at great speed into the brick wall of reality, on so many fronts. I cannot help but think that the revival of a religious sensibility, which is the only element that might enable us to navigate the furies effectively, has already started. There are enough people, and their number is growing, who see that the tools we used to create these problems are not the ones which will enable us to solve the problems. Deep down we know the truth, and the truth is a person.

Moses only really started to make headway when the court magicians could not keep up with the signs of YHWH. I look for the day when our court magicians run out of words; that is when the divine speech will be heard: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

How to resist: a decision made on holiday

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I have been in Cordoba, pondering the Reconquista. One interim conclusion of my reflections is that I’m going to drop the word ‘Islam’ from the title of this sequence, and I’m going to go back and edit it out of previous elements. This is for three reasons.

Firstly, I have no wish to be arrested for airing opinions that are ‘legal but harmful’. On the whole I find the present political situation in the UK unbearably toxic, and I have much that I would like to share – look out for something long called ‘After Southport’ which I’ll finish writing once I’m back from Greenbelt – but I’m not going to be reckless in what I write. I’d never support rioting or attacking mosques or refugee centres, but I don’t trust the bubble and the servants of the bubble to see that, so I’m going to try to be exquisitely precise and clear. In particular nothing that I shall be writing is ever to be taken as advocating a breach of the King’s Peace. The preservation of the King’s Peace, the maintenance of the rule of law applied to all without fear or favour, it is on this that our whole civilisation (British and Christian) is built.

However, if that was my only concern then I might not change things. So the second element in wanting to remove the word Islam from the title is that I don’t want to do anything which adds to the scapegoating process. As I have said repeatedly the logical endpoint of the path that we have embarked upon is inter-ethnic and inter-religious strife when it will be the task of the Christian to defend the ones that society will scapegoat. I’m expecting that to be the Islamic community. I thought the way that Bristol residents surrounded the Mercure hotel (to defend it) was a good demonstration of what we will need to do, when the crises come. And come they will, increasingly, and more violently, for so long as the tragedy of the modern left plays out. I remain convinced that as an ideology, Islam is pernicious – but in a situation of civil conflict those concerns (and I will still write about those concerns) are beside the point. We protect the vulnerable.

Which leads to the third thing, and what I was most conscious of whilst in Cordoba. Islam is expanding in Britain because it is expanding into a spiritual vacuum. What I most want is to renew the historic spiritual centre of this land. England has only ever been a Christian nation (that is, Christianity in England predates the establishment of England as a nation). If we were spiritually robust then we would have no need to fear Islam, our spiritual immune system would be able to cope. So I am more persuaded that the locus of ‘resistance’ needs to change. It is the Starmtroopers, both physical and spiritual, that we need to tackle as a higher priority.

Spelling out what that means remains the burden of this sequence.

~

I’ve been saying this for a very long time. In searching for something else I came upon this Remembrance Day sermon from 2010:

20101114 Remembrance Sunday

We have gathered together today to remember before God those who have gone before us, who gave their lives in war in order that those whom they loved would be saved.

In the news this morning the newly appointed Chief of the Defence Staff is alleged to have said that defeating Islamic militancy – the enemy against whom our armed forces are presently fighting – that defeating them was “unnecessary and could never be achieved”. Now I know that the Telegraph cannot always be trusted in its reporting, so I don’t want to focus my remarks upon General Richards himself. I would however like to say a few words about the attitude that those words express, because, even if they are not a faithful report of General Richards’ views, I’m sure they do reflect the views of other people in this country.

To begin with, it is, of course true, that an ideology cannot be defeated on the battlefield. Particular expressions of an ideology can be – as was the case in the Second World War – but an ideology itself cannot be defeated by physical force. So in that sense of ‘can never be achieved’ I understand the point that is being made. Yet what is missed, so it seems to me, is the truth that ideologies can be defeated in their own terms; that is, they can be shown to be false if they can be shown not to achieve what they claim to achieve – and it is that, so it seems to me, which is our task.

In the case of Islamic militancy, the central claim is that the Western world is in a state of barbaric ignorance, cut off from God, as a result of which people cannot flourish. In contrast to that, those who have embraced Islam, most especially through accepting Sharia law, are able to flourish in their lives. The armed struggle is undertaken as a struggle to advance human liberty and happiness – throwing off barbaric regimes that destroy people physically and spiritually, and exchanging that state for one in which true human freedom is established. The argument is not, therefore, between one side that seeks freedom and well-being, and another that resists those things, but rather a struggle between different visions of what human freedom and well-being actually are.

Islamic militancy is a view which has very deep roots, going back at least two hundred and fifty years to the Reform movement in Saudi Arabia known as Wahhabism, and taken forward by others. It long predates the establishment of Israel, or the Western invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, and we would be gravely mistaken if we ever thought that withdrawing from Afghanistan, or abandoning Israel, would solve our problems. Most importantly Islamic militancy is not a trivial ideology, and we must not dismiss it trivially, nor is it one which does not contain any truth. In criticising the West, they are right to point out the ways in which we fall short of God’s intentions for us – because we do – and there is in fact a very great deal of overlap between the critique of our society given by the Islamist militants, and that given by faithful Christians. There is also, of course, a very great deal of difference between what is seen as the solution.

For we do still live in a place where we are free to pursue a Christian faith, even if that freedom is starting to break down at the edges. Whatever our concerns about being allowed to wear a cross if you are working for British Airways, or whether you will lose your job as a nurse if you offer to pray with a patient, we are not like the church in Baghdad that was recently attacked by Islamic militants, with great loss of life. And we have that privilege for the simple reason that people have struggled for it – struggled with force of arms, and struggled spiritually. The greatest victories for Christian faith were won by the martyrs of the first centuries, who would rather have been fed to the lions than renounce their Saviour. They were the ones who demonstrated the true nature of freedom, who demonstrated what it meant to live an abundant life, and it is their spirit that we need to emulate.

The only lasting victory over Islamic militancy will come from demonstrating that we are not a Godless society, and that, in pursuing God to the best of our abilities, as we have known him revealed in Christ, we show in our lives what it means to live as free and flourishing human beings. And what does that mean in practice? What is it that I am actually saying we need to do? To answer that, I would like to share with you a passage from St Paul’s letter to the Romans. St Paul writes:

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is noble and right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

We will not overcome the ideology of Islamic militancy by simply fighting suicide vests with cluster bombs. We will overcome it by remembering what it is that those we remember today fought for, remembering it and renewing our commitment to it – that is, the values of a Christian civilisation – which is one that takes those words of St Paul seriously. Let us not be overcome with evil, but let us overcome evil with good. Those we remember today fought and died in order that we might enjoy the freedom to pursue a Christian life in peace – so let us honour their sacrifice by renewing our commitment to our Christian inheritance, trusting in the God who sent his Son, not to condemn the world, but that the whole world might be saved through Him. Amen.

Living with lacunae

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I’ve recently had cause to ponder situations where my need to understand something has been bouncing up against limits. Where it has become clear that there is no explanation to be had, that, instead, wisdom requires a living with the absence of an explanation – what philosophers call a lacuna, a gap in the understanding. I think this is healthy, but it has made me reflect on some areas in my life where I have come to what I now think of as premature certainty, a premature closing off of the gap, a refusal to live with the lacunae.

Two examples from the United States, as they are matters far from my daily life, and therefore quite clearly areas where there is no need for me to seek any certainty, where it is easiest.

The first is the collapse of WTC7. This does not make sense to me. The official explanation is that it was brought down by fire. The official explanation has been proven false. To an outside observer it looks very like a controlled demolition, but positing a controlled demolition requires a large amount of other hypotheses which very rapidly enter into the realms of madness. If I ponder this for too long then I end up in a place of extreme cognitive dissonance. So now I say: I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand what happened. It’s a gap.

The second is the 2020 election. I remember when it happened thinking that it was odd, and in particular I remember the fact that 18 of the 19 hitherto ‘bellwether’ counties had voted for Trump, so Biden winning in that context seemed very odd (the conventional explanation for that oddness is here). The ‘down the rabbit-hole’ explanation is here. Pondering the way in which US elections are carried out – and the role of the ‘voting machines’ – makes me think that, if there isn’t fraud, that is a result of divine grace rather than a robust system. I have no idea what the truth is. I don’t know what happened. I don’t understand what happened. It’s a gap.

I’m coming to see that desire for premature certainty as the high road to delusion (and also all sorts of conflicts), and I interpret it now in the light of lateral hemispheres. The desire for certainty is a sign of left-hemisphere capture, a hall of mirrors. Whereas sitting with paradox, with ignorance, with acknowledged lacunae – this is the way.

I am slowly becoming healthy again. Thanks be to God.

Russia’s little green men

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So – I quite like playing Civilisation. Probably a bit too much. But one of the things that happens in the game, even when I want to play peacefully (win through culture or science or religion… normally the latter 🙂 is that I get attacked by another player. Which is fine, it is a fun part of the game.

But – assuming I win that fight, and as I get better at the game, that’s what happens more often – at the end of that conflict I have an army. Moreover, that army was expensively accrued, has accumulated lots of XP points, and is cheap to run, especially if they raid or pillage, in which case they become net positives on that asset score.

Of course, I could hold to my original intention and disband the army, but that would be quite a waste of resources.

I ponder this because the risk of Putin winning in the Ukraine is non-trivial (by winning I mean being allowed to continue in possession of some area of Ukrainian land). I think it’s non-trivial because the Western governing classes are generally crap, and because Putin can hold on until Trump comes in, and Trump… well, Trump is Trump. Europe needs to think about it’s own defence.

If Putin wins, he will have a large army. How will he play it?

I think Poland has already worked this out, and at least part of the UK defence establishment is fully on board. It feels like 1938 all over again 🙁

This is not a conflict in a far away land of which we know nothing. Putin has to lose, and be seen to lose. The sooner the better.

The only mercies in war

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In the context of present crises I keep coming back to the thought that there are only two mercies in war: speed and clarity. In other words, a decisive victory for one side or the other. The worst thing in war is a conflict that never resolves, like a wound that never heals, that continues bleeding and suppurating for years.

So – however barbaric and detestable it might be – the removal of Armenians from the Karabakh region due to the swift military victory of Azerbaijan back in September, that was merciful. There are people alive now who would not have remained alive without the swiftness and certainty of that military victory. Life will carry on.

The opposite end of the spectrum is, of course, Israel. I wonder what would have happened if – at various points – the Israeli government had simply said ‘sod it’ and genuinely carried out some ethnic cleansing, in the way that Azerbaijan has. I rather suspect that the overall suffering would have been less in recent decades, for all sides. Instead, in an attempt to be ‘good’ and to win the good graces of all interlocutors, the great un-endable conflict increases and immiserates all involved.

Perhaps Israel needs a bit more of the Old Testament Heart…

Tearing down the hedges

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Recently at Morning Prayer I read Isaiah 5, which describes God’s judgement upon faithless Israel, and it gives this description of God’s wrath:

“Now I will tell you
what I am going to do to my vineyard:
I will take away its hedge,
and it will be destroyed;
I will break down its wall,
and it will be trampled.”

I keep musing on the link between boundaries and holiness. We see, daily, more and more evidence of the collapse of virtue in our society, the moral bankruptcy that causes chaos and disorder. So I think: is the lack of boundaries a result of this collapse, or does the collapse flow from the removal of the boundaries? The hedges around the West have been destroyed and now we are being trampled. We are in the place of After Virtue – and, as the man said, the barbarians have been governing us for quite some time.

How to rebuild the boundaries? How to reclaim virtue? This has been my avatar (or one of them) for a few years now:

Inner turmoil

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I am in a weird place at the moment.

I haven’t been well – and am still not right – I suspect that after three years of avoiding it I have finally had a dose of Covid. My immune system seems to be ‘cycling’ several times a day, which is why at first I thought it was allergic (gluten or dust or feathers or what-have-you) but it has been nearly three weeks now. I seem to only have about half of my normal energy.

Also, though, and what is taking up much of my attention at the moment, is the situation in Israel and, even more, the protests in London celebrating Hamas (and I think that is a fair description). I’ve thought a lot about Islam in the last couple of decades. I did some academic study of it in Cambridge, and then in my curacy I was in a Muslim majority area at the time of 9/11, and that was rather formative for me. There is a heart of darkness there, and when I ponder it I start to worry that I’m Islamophobic. “What can men do against such reckless hate?”

We are facing a fundamentally spiritual crisis and – channelling MacIntyre – it is our unawareness of the nature of the problem that is the most important part of the problem. Secular thinking has run aground, the only question is what will take its place.

Such horror.

LLF: a left brain car crash

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In my studies I am starting to think about Iain McGilchrist’s work, and I have begun to work my way through his ‘The Master and His Emissary’, which is an exploration of the different functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and the impact this has had upon our culture. There is a good Youtube explanation of his work here.

Some of his comments seem especially pertinent when considering the Anglican predicament of our time. Put simply the left brain seeks certainty and order, using existing knowledge – think of a chess board, or a machine – whereas the right brain is all about meaning and relationships, ie how to discern the context in which something is understood. Where there is right brain damage then a person loses the capacity to ‘get’ a joke, to empathise with others, to understand their relationship with a wider whole.

What we have in this culmination of the LLF process at General Synod is, it seems to me, the product of two groups captivated by a left-brain dominant approach to the question at issue. On the one side we have the mechanic logic of ‘the bible says it, I believe it, that’s the end of it’ – no subtlety or nuance there. Yet on the other an equally secular and mechanical process of ‘equality and rights you bigot’. Each has an internally consistent and complete world-view, which clashes fundamentally with the other. As McGilchrist puts it (p82 of my edition): “So the left hemisphere needs certainty and needs to be right. The right hemisphere makes it possible to hold several ambiguous possibilities in suspension together without premature closure on one outcome.” The left side lacks empathy and awareness of ‘the other’ – both in the sense of other people and also in the sense of a higher authority, like God. Which is ironic – something else that the left-brain dominated are unable to appreciate.

So a left-brain conflict inevitably descends into a political struggle, with more or less transparent moves to exercise control (another left-brain feature). Those familiar with the conflict will recognise the increasingly blatant power manoeuvring on both sides.

The interesting question is always: what is to be done? I have a memory of one comment, I think from Evelyn Underhill, but almost certainly mediated through a Susan Howatch novel, to the effect that ‘when the two wings of the church have exhausted themselves fighting each other it is the return to the mystical path that brings life to the church again’.

Which is a right-brain process. What might that ‘return to the mystical path’ look like, and in particular what might it look like amidst the aftermath of General Synod? Well the right-brain is about ambiguity, and relationships, and the group, and about stories and imagination and metaphor.

So what we need from our bruised and battered and fearful leadership is a re-presentation of our founding stories, emphasising what is held in common and placing each left-brain chessboard into a much larger portrait of meaning. We need leadership of poetry not prose, communication not speech, awe and wonder not compromising pragmatics.

It may be that this needs to be done before making a conclusion to the LLF process – yes it has been dragging on for years, but fruitlessly because the more fundamental spiritual work has not been done (and the same applies to the ordination of women – that argument is now mostly over not because of a winning of hearts and minds but because of political reality).

So what might this more spiritual work look like? For me I would emphasise a few things, where I believe – where I hope! – it may be possible to forge a consensus. So: the Anglican quadrilateral; the autonomy of the Church of England; the sinfulness of taking offence; the shape of discipleship in the world; the demonic nature of the Modern world and so on. With agreement on big things (the right brain stuff) the left brain approach would find its proper place. As it is LLF is the proverbial tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Ah well. One last quotation, and I shall ‘let the reader understand’ the relevance: “The right hemisphere is also much more realistic about how it stands in relation to the world at large, less grandiose, more self-aware, than the left hemisphere.”

When the bubble becomes a boulder

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I’m pretty sure the image wasn’t original to me but it was nearly 12 years ago that I started to think in terms of there being a ‘bubble’ of mainstream opinion, and that I was outside of the bubble. The dimensions of the bubble became obvious to most observers in the UK when the bubble lost the Brexit referendum, and then spent several years trying to overturn the result.

The disconnect between those within the bubble and those outside has only increased over time; that is, the polarisation of views, the increase in the extremity of opinions voiced, the active embrace of previously unthinkable political positions, all of these developments have damaged our body politic, and I see them as unsustainable.

Most especially, the bubble has coalesced around the righteousness of the vaccines and – more in other countries than in England – an embrace of mandates. Before the developments around Covid-19 lockdowns were considered a very poor response to an epidemic virus, now they seem to be a default. A default that the bubble has embraced.

The image that comes to my mind now is that the bubble has become a boulder; those within the bubble are determined to impose their will upon society, and resistance will be crushed – more or less gently according to taste.

The boulder will itself end up smashed to smithereens as it is detached from reality – from the human and political realities most of all, but also – imho – the scientific reality around the vaccines. Time will tell on the latter front.

My concern is about how much damage will be done through that process, and how to mitigate that damage, how to increase the permeability of the bubble and enable communication between those who disagree, most especially with those who cannot see that they are within the bubble. (Yes, we are all within bubbles of some sort or another, that doesn’t negate this point. As has repeatedly been shown, conservatives understand the progressive point of view much more clearly than progressives understand the conservative point of view.) This is something that Psybertron has been writing about for a long time – how to have intelligent dialogue across the divides. A work in progress.