I was deeply encouraged by a Bridge Builders course in Conflict Transformation last week. The first lesson was that conflict is normal and inevitable in any community where people depend mutually on each other. The second is that we have a choice about how we handle conflict. We can either ignore it and sing ‘I am H-A-P-P-Y’ together. Alternatively, we can embrace it, sacrificing our own wants for the sake of others.
One element of the course drew inspiration from the work of the American psychiatrist Scott Peck, author of The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace (1987). Scott Peck suggests that communities mature through four stages. The first, ‘Pseudocommunity’, has all the trappings of peace and harmony – but only because negative emotions are suppressed. Such a community defines itself by holding fast to generalisations that are more aspirational than reality and defy conscientious observation; ‘Newcomers are welcome’ is a classic example. Scott Peck would question the extent to which this is true. A second phase, ‘Chaos’ occurs when people begin to speak up, share their true feelings, and show their vulnerability. This gives rise to disagreements that force the community to either regress back into pseudocommunity, or to dispense with the charade and live with a feeling of upheaval. The third stage, which might be viewed as ‘Grief’ or ‘Emptiness’, begins when rather than simply listening and accepting difference, members of the community strive to welcome newcomers and accept the anguish of that comes with dying to self. Herein, I suspect that people live with the range of emotions outlined by Kubler-Ross, in her On Death and Dying (1969); denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Finally, a ‘True community’ is one that has reached a place of peace and healing, where people are genuinely able to be themselves, knowing that they are accepted and able to embrace conflict wherever it surfaces.
We discussed this pathway at our Pioneer Hub café service. We are nervous about labelling churches; however, the logic of Scott Peck’s work suggests that every church will be somewhere on a continuum and will be tempted to regress. Crucially though, we also recognise that a preparedness to embrace conflict evolves as we grow as disciples. Do we recognise that our part in transforming conflict is to model to others how we respond when it surfaces? Meanwhile, I see a certain irony in that whilst anxiety in the inherited (historic) Church traditions arises often from our need to safeguard our theology, process, and function, Jesus Christ seems to direct our attention to the quality and depth of our relationships with each other, and with those who are so often overlooked. It would, of course, be clumsy to take a polarised position, placing the inherited church in opposition to what is emerging: we need to learn from each other. Even so, perhaps the focus on reaching newcomers, listening to needs, serving, and nurturing the kind of relationships that build community, is something that the inherited church needs to hear. How much of how we hold ourselves, and what we offer, is more of a pretence rather than reality? If the journey towards true community involves us embracing an ‘a thousand little deaths’ as we let go of ego, bias, power, control – everything that we see as validating us as we face conflict – what part of you will die today, so that someone else can truly live?