Not being at the General Synod in York and having work to do (which stops me from sitting at a computer all day long following developments on Twitter), I am not sure of the details of yesterday’s voting on Women Bishops. I am suspicious enough of the reporting (having heard on the radio that the Archbishops’ amendment fell in the House of Laity – it was actually in the House of Clergy), but am not yet clear about what is going on.
What I don’t understand, however, is why the ‘system’ or process of synodical government is OK when it works in your favour, but not when it doesn’t. Clearly, people have to decide what to do in the light of particular decisions, but there is something odd about accepting votes in your favour as legitimising your stance whilst claiming votes against as demonstrating that the system/process itself is wrong.
I understand that the Archbishops subjected their amendment to the process and did not see it as a test of loyalty. How mature is that? Misguidedly – when it is then discussed in such childish (win-lose) ways?
I was in the BBC Radio 4 studio yesterday for the Today programme. We (Ben Summerskill and I) were in the studio with Professor David Wilson, the criminologist. He was talking about the Raoul Moat saga and rejected the sympathy that some people were expressing because of Moat’s cry that he didn’t have a dad. Professor Wilson said that Moat’s behaviour was typical of a ‘paranoid narcissist’ (I wrote it down) who saw everything in terms of power and control. Violent to his girlfriend and child, he was now trying to push the police to kill him in order to compound his own denial of responsibility and push the guilt onto other people. Sounded clear enough to me.
Then he used a phrase which I thought might get picked up in the ensuing conversation about the Church of England: ‘future foreshortening’. I assume this is a term used in forensic psychology or criminology. It describes someone like Moat blaming other people for taking away the future, making death inevitable, ending the possibility of a new/different future.
Important note: I am NOT equating church responses with paranoid narcissistic criminological psychology – just using the language as a jumping off point!
I wonder if this language might be useful in standing back and looking at how different parties are now looking at the Church in the light of the Synod’s decisions thus far? (The process still has a long way to go, so I am not assuming that yesterday was an end-game.)
It is easy to blame others for ‘foreshortening my/our future’. But that is to play victim – exactly what Wilson was describing as part of the power-control narrative of Moat. This puts responsibility anywhere other than on ourselves and this – at least in Wilson’s world – looks suspiciously like rather suspect behaviour. Are we all narcissists really?
I am not making a case for this. I was just intrigued by the language Wilson used in the studio and wondered whether it shone any light on the phenomena (and the conscious or unconscious motivations behind them) we are witnessing in the Church. I obviously recognise that this raises unwelcome questions, but, on the other hand, they might just help us to see what we are doing differently. I am trying to think it through from the position of one who disagrees with decisions made – I am NOT making accusations or imputations.
I would be interested to think this through further (even have it debunked) and would welcome comments and observations. I suspect that whichever way certain decisions go, the reactive behaviour that follows might be worth questioning in order to understand it.
July 11, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Nick,
I see the media coverage of the failed vote for the amendments as sheer opportunism. Listening to BBC Kent this morning Religion programme it appears that “Traditionalists” (whoever they are?) are now considering leaving the Church because there will not be adequate protection from them when Women Bishops are appointed.
What they ignore is that it is not finished and that there are further votes to be taken tomorrow on the balance of the legislation.
I for one hope that we can have both! In other words Women as Bishops with the full Episcopal Authority within their Diocese. And some form of Code of Practice which allows those Parishes who cannot in good conscience accept the oversight of a Women Bishop some means of being given oversight on a Sacramental Basis by a Bishop who does not ordain Women.
I know that this is a messy fudge, but the Church has always been good as making compromise work – why not in this case.
One thing we must not do is to give into blackmail from those threatening to do whatever if they do not get their way.
As for the Media – I can see why Rev Pitcher left the Daily Torygraph.
July 11, 2010 at 1:20 pm
[...] Nick Baines has commented: ……I was in the BBC Radio 4 studio yesterday for the Today programme. We [...]
July 11, 2010 at 4:33 pm
I think the language of ‘foreshortening our future’ describes very well the reactions to the failure of the three amendments of those wanting special protection from women bishops . There is to be a Code of Practice, and as one speaker said yesterday, what would be the point of a woman-bishop appointing someone unacceptable to look after those opposed to her ministry. It is up to all sides in the disagreement to make the Code of Practice work. John Saxbee asked the Synod (and the Church) to rely on grace, not law. Why can’t some members of the C of E do that?
July 11, 2010 at 6:03 pm
I am reminded of the Karpmann Drama Triangle, and wish we could all think on that before reacting. An emphasis on prayer might also help, but would that make me a hopeless idealist?
July 11, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Helen, an idealist can never be hopeless! I agree with you.
July 11, 2010 at 8:06 pm
I liked this
http://jeremyfletcher.wordpress.com/
July 11, 2010 at 9:55 pm
No idea what the Karpmann Drama Triangle is (see post 4) but I think that this is an interesting post and one to be digested.
Still not sure if you’re right or not, but setting it in the context of perceived rather than real futures is intriguing, especially given that newspapers/ other media/ websites/ whatever have to be written very quickly and ‘need’ quick, certain futures more than uncertain ones.
July 12, 2010 at 8:18 am
[...] helpful – there was also quite a bit of hot air, and the over-use of the word misogyny. And Nick Baines wondered out loud whether, when discord occurs over issues like this, there were any useful parallels to be made with [...]
July 12, 2010 at 8:19 am
“Future Foreshortening” is new to me and a tricky phrase to interpret and apply in context.
In the case of Mr Moat it effectively brought on death, but presumably the concept also connotes the determination to close an argument. In meetings one sometimes seeks to do this by proposing that that “The motion now be put” – which I rather assume is what what is happening at Synod.
It is a device that is sometimes good when everyone is basically agreeing and only prolonging the discussion to “showboat” to a constituency elsewhere, but it also has the element within it of closing debate, particularly if one sees one’s preferred option being slowly eroded by a subtle or complex arguments which might ultimate prove persuasive if left to be developed unhindered.
Would I be right in assuming that we should consider the concept
in the same psychological area as “passive/aggressive” responses?
If so, any group that deploys a threat to leave if its way is not followed might be “guilty” of either/both kinds of behaviour.
There is a sense in which both responses suggest a kind of fragility of self esteem or lack of confidence in one’s position. It is as if the continued engagement in the argument itself and the possible or continuing loss ( or threatened loss) of position/ control/ self confidence is so overwhelming, painful and unbearable, that one would prefer to lose than have the tension continue.
As such one might see it related to either self harm behaviours or forms of emotional bullying. In the former one endures pain to distract from a greater or feared pain,. In the latter one threatens, one blusters, one feints, but ultimately the stomach for the fight is not present and flight is preferred to fight. It might account for some of the primitive emotional and physical senses of discomfort associated with such a visceral commitment to some disputes.
The opposite – the willingness to hold one’s ground and accept the consequences – even “punishment” – necessary for success. It is partly why I have admiration for great boxers. They have what the Duke of Wellington used to describe in his troops as “bottom”. Today we might describe it rather more genteelly as “grounding”.
July 12, 2010 at 10:51 am
[...] of England | Tags: bishops, Church of England, General Synod, Language | Leave a Comment Yesterday I asked whether the language of ‘power/control’ and ‘victim’ in the context [...]
July 12, 2010 at 12:37 pm
[...] Nick Baines wondered out loud whether any useful parallels could be made with narcissitic personality disorder. (I think probably not…) [...]
July 16, 2010 at 6:59 pm
As I understood it the phrase ‘future foreshortening’ described a state of mind where actions were considered and taken only in the light of their effect on the immediate situation – ie the person in question is not considering a longer term future at all, the future is ‘foreshortened’ to the next few days or even hours or minutes.
Clearly decisions you take are going to be different if you are only considering the very short term effects and outcomes.
In the context of recent Synod deliberations, I would take it that someone who is ‘future foreshortened’ (?) would vote only for things that appeared to be best in the short term, believing there to be no long term. Presumably because there is seen to be no long term future for the C of E?
In any case it brings to mind a statement I heard ++ Rowan make at a national Fresh Expressions gathering in Lincoln a couple of months ago – ‘For all we know, we are still the early Church.’
And I think this has the same underlying perception as your question/comment Nick – that too many people are acting on the assumption that we have already passed our peak and are heading for organisational oblivion.
There’s a narrative that most churches hold of a ‘golden age’ when the choir was bursting at the seams and the church was the social hub of the neighbourhood which is echoed in more large scale statement about the end of Christendom – as if Christendom was the golden age of Christianity.
I am heartened by having an Archbishop who believes the best is yet to come and is working towards it.
October 16, 2010 at 12:24 pm
[...] no responsibility- it is all being done to us’ has reminded me of the posts I wrote about ‘future foreshortening’ and the hierarchies of [...]
November 1, 2010 at 1:51 pm
[...] have no responsibility- it is all being done to us’ has reminded me of the posts I wrote about ‘future foreshortening’ and the hierarchies of [...]