The resignation of Margot Käßmann as Bishop of Hannover and Chair of the Council of the EKD earlier this week has made me think about why people resign. Or - which is probably more accurate - why the rest of us put pressure to resign on people who have got something wrong. This has always mystified me and I have always assumed I was simply missing what was obvious to everybody else: that if someone got something wrong, they deserved to lose their job or role.
I know I am not alone in questioning the link between failure and resignation – the opposite, I suppose, of the link between ‘success’ and bonus. There are several bits of this that bother me and I offer them as a first word rather than a final word, a question rather than a statement:
- If someone gets something wrong, they are not likely to get it wrong again. In that sense the safest person to have on board is one who has learned from failure or error. Of course, if serious error is repeated, that’s a very different story.
- Fear of failure can inhibit creative risk-taking and lead to limited and short-term thinking.
- The fact of having got it wrong should produce a humility that is not inimical to confidence. (I don’t trust people who appear to claim that they have been spotless; I listen to those who know their fallibility.) This is not about hubris or hypocrisy, both of which demand resignation for the sake of all parties.
Margot Käßmann believed that her drink-driving offence would render her unable to speak with authority to power or challenge ethical injustice. I question this. Christian leaders are always assumed to be speaking down to the world from a moral pedestal which they themselves have established for the satisfaction of their own ego. But this is nonsense – which a conversation with any bishop would quickly displace. None of us speaks about ethics from a pedestal: the basic starting point of Christian morality is that we’ve all screwed up and none of us has a leg to stand on when it comes to throwing stones at others. (Great mixing of metaphors there…)
This is not to say that no one can make moral judgements or hold others to account. But it is to say that leaders like Käßmann would – I believe – be listened to all the more keenly because any challenge she brings cannot be stood against any imputation by others of moral superiority.
I know this sounds silly in our current climate, but surely a wise business/institution would invest in the long-term development of its leaders, taking failure as part of the development, and thus avoiding the short-termism that dogs us today? I heard yesterday that the average tenure of a Local Authority Chief Executive is around 3.5 years – it isn’t hard to unpick the implications of that.
I can’t help wondering if the immediate clamour for the resignation of ‘senior’ people has something to do with a desire for punishment or some sort of vindictive schadenfreude – even when it might not be in the best interests of the business/institution (or of the people they serve) for the resignation to be accepted.
Which, I guess, is another way of asking why we love to heap opprobrium on those to be blamed (our new national sport) and voyeuristically enjoy watching the downfall of people who were only doing their best?
Margot Käßmann must not disappear. The Church needs her – perhaps more than even she would dare to realise.
February 27, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Saints are sinners who keep on trying ?
February 27, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Interesting thoughts. St Wilfrid might make a good case study of how God can use very human people, and he was canonized anyway.
Allowing the perpetuation of child abuse would be a resigning matter, for example, whereas making mistakes and getting things wrong is normal. Is the defining issue whether society is scandalized by the behaviour /language or attitude?
Then what is not a resigning matter today might be one tomorrow, but if you can hang on and deal with the pressure until the day after tomorrow it may no longer be a resigning issue as the immediate clamour and scandal have passed?
February 27, 2010 at 6:43 pm
“Margot Käßmann must not disappear. The Church needs her – perhaps more than even she would dare to realise”.
She is to continue as a Pastor – perhaps a job out of the limelight for a while will help people to realise that condemnation is not the way to address these issues.
She has shown courage and integrity – therefore, perhaps a Ministry in the UK for a few years might appeal. There appears to be a real need for a different perspective, say on Women Bishops and consultancy would be an option.
February 27, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Is it envy? I don’t know. It seems like anybody in any kind of public position is viewed with a certain amount of it. As if public life automatically equates with power which is something most people seem to want. It even extends to entertainers – they are supposed to act in certain ways, be ‘spokespeople’ or role models, either in their own lives or through their work when in fact they may just be trying to lead their own lives with a degree of privacy and follow a creative prerogative. It’s like people in public life are entitled to this privilege of ‘power’ as long as they stop being human. I agree, you can’t learn without making mistakes. And I suppose if you are not allowed to make mistakes you will never do anything truly creative. It’s very sad.
February 27, 2010 at 6:53 pm
I will be looking for an opportunity to get MK over here at some point – if she will come.
February 27, 2010 at 6:56 pm
Dodgy, you put your finger on the problem: when does something appear demanding of a resignation today, but not tomorrow? When is the pressure to be conceded and when resisted? It’s not easy.
February 27, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Margot did not make a mistake because she was trying to be creative and failed.
Driving after drinking an excess of alcohol is illegal and dangerous.
Anne.
February 27, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Anne, you are right – as I made clear in my last two posts. But, I might have blurred that distinction in my wider ruminations. Thanks for this.
February 27, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I wonder why her resignation was accepted by her fellow bishops? I know nothing about the institutional arrangements of the EKD-or anything else about it for that matter. But assuming it bears some relation to other churches, surely her fellow bishops could have refused to accept it and talked her through her very understandable feelings of shame and remorse?
That she wanted to resign is entirely understandable, but to do so was rash and based around those understandable but unthought-out emotions and not a conscious decision after prayer and confession, I think. how can it have been, it was all too quickly done.
But I wish she hadn’t. For herself, for her leadership and most of all for all those people who have one to many drinks and risk the drive home. Should they all resign too? What kind of message does her resignation give other than that of a punishing and unforgiving church and so a punishing and unforgiving God?
I know I am not a bishop, so do not understand what pressures you are all under. But surely even bishops deserve forgiveness?!
February 27, 2010 at 7:19 pm
MK received the unanimous backing of the Council and (I understand) her Landeskirche. But they could not stand in her way.
February 27, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Erica, I must say I disagree with you (and Nick).
Yes, it’s interesting to consider what makes a resignation offence and what doesn’t.
No one has taken me to task in my ministry, for example, for driving too often when I could have cycled; for drinking too many bottles of wine that cost over £10 when I could have given that money to the poor; or, even for whiling away too many hours browsing fundamentally pointless bits of the internet. And yet if I slept with the organist, then no doubt I would have to resign. (I haven’t, by the way.)
And of course, either way, I’m sure God would actually be more bothered by broader things e.g. my pride, than any of these, and even if I made a one time mistake of drink-driving.
Yes, all these things are true.
Yet this is a clear-cut, public sin. No one is saying her ministry is over; no one is saying that this is the worst thing ever. She’ll do a brilliant job as a pastor, I’m sure (if she’s as good as she sounds) and there’s a lucky town where she’ll end up working.
What people are saying (e.g. the journalists that applaud her) are that it is good when people publicly accept responsibility for their actions, and don’t hide/ deny them.
Resignation isn’t the only possible option of contrition, but it’s one of them.
And, frankly, she’s right that people would always have it in the back of their minds when she spoke out on various issues.
What’s so important about her being a bishop? Or rather a bishop in that particular place at that particular time? Very few people are really crucial to the church’s flourishing.
From what I can see (which is very limited), I think her move was a wise one.
February 27, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Nick have you seen bishop Bärbel Wartenburg Potter’s reflection on the issue in Spiegel – about the jealous face of sexism …
Anyway thanks for your reflections
There was some speculation about Margot going into politics now – i’m not sure about that I very much hope the church finds a role for her but there is a lot of anger and Schadenfreude around too … hope she goes on writing, speaking and preaching …
February 28, 2010 at 8:51 am
Robert,thanks for this and yes you have a point. But i still stand by mine on this occasion.
Of course if she’d killed someone while drinking over the limit – thanks be to God that she didn’t – then maybe we’d all be saying different things… As Nick said in his post (can’t remember exactly which one or exactly what) the goal posts of public opinion about what constitutes a resignation matter are always shifting and not exactly fairly or even rationally.
What is so important about her being a bishop in all this? Well I’m a Catholic by inclination and not an Evangelical so maybe Bishop Kaessman (sp?) wouldn’t agree with this, but I say her being a bishop is very important in this. Bishops (in my understanding anyway) are called to be the focus of unity and the public face of the church they are called by God to represent. And so their actions are the message their Church gives to the world on how to behave, more than that of we priests and pastors, their assistants. But it is their longterm actions that need showing as much as the immediate ones. Our world is too focused on immediate results and immediate gratification.
Yes, she showed true integrity, honesty and remorse by resigning. All totally needed and a great immediate message. But IMHO she could have done this and remained in her role to continue to show publically how to deal with this issue longterm – again as Nick has already said.
Instead that longer human journey of discovery will only now be modelled (and so be of benefit) to a small flock as their pastor, instead of to a whole denomination, county and internet audience.
February 28, 2010 at 12:54 pm
Erica and Robert,
I think Robert makes a good point, but this is because I probably didn’t make clear enough in the original post that I was moving from the Kaessmann resignation to ask questions about our immediate call for people’s heads. I should have distinguished between the specific and the general more clearly.
That said, however, I think I should also make clear that the difference between bishop and pastor is not one of status, but one of ‘reach’. I firmly believe that the work is done on the ground in parishes, led and enabled by parochial clergy. The job of the bishop (among other things) is to enable, to shape, to inspire and encourage – which then also means supporting and resourcing (as far as possible) the clergy and parishes. So, it isn’t that Margot Kaessmann climbs down some ecclesiastical ladder; rather, it is that her gifts for playing the larger (national, political, media, international, ecumenical, etc) field is reduced – thus depriving the church of good advocacy and the world of an articulate and courageous ‘voice of the church’. Of course, life goes on and this isn’t the end – but it remains a significant loss.
Sorry I wasn’t clearer in the original post.
February 28, 2010 at 6:14 pm
Nick
You are right, there seems to be an insatiable demand to trash people’s lives because of one mistake, offten not directly connected to what they do. Footballers, Politicians, Business leaders etc etc.
Avery wise boss siad to me on one occasion when i had screwed up ‘the person who never makes a mistake never makes anything, pick yourself up and learn from it and you will be stronger’.
I get worried about the hypocrisy today that anything I do is OK but anything you do will be used against you. It builds a climate of secrecy and super injunctions. I supect the underlying problem is twofold – jealousy and a thirst for power. We see it now in the vriefing against Kathy Ashton and of course the forces of hell being unleashed on somebody. Another example of a deeply fractured society.
Didn’t Jesus say “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”? Ah, but he didn’t mean it incases like this did he?
March 1, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Good points, Nick and Erica.
Thank you.
An interesting issue.
Nick, it just remains for you get yourself caught shoplifting or something, and we’ll see how it plays out in England.
Or perhaps don’t…
March 1, 2010 at 5:24 pm
Robert, I’m still recovering from the relief at you not bedding the organist…
May 29, 2010 at 7:24 pm
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