by Martyn Percy

Third in a series of four reflections

The famous psychologist Jonathan Haidt once said that to understand the governing narratives of our time, we needed to “follow the sacredness… find out what people believe to be sacred, and when [you find that, and the people gathered], there you find rampant irrationality”.

Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality [RSI] is also the acronym for Repetitive Strain Injury. They have some similarities, the most obvious of which is that they are painful and exhausting. Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality is everywhere, or so it seems. It describes the current state of abortion debates. Both sides are vehemently pro-life. Gun control in the USA is another. Both sides believe gun purchase and ownership should be controlled, but have very different ideas
about who should have a gun, when, where and why.

In our own country, Brexit delivered in spades on Rampant-Sacred- Irrationality.  Did our best interests as nation lie in one version of freedom and identity (that was anti-EU) or the other version that was pro-EU. People who have family – or who had been friends for decades – have split irrevocably on the pivot of Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality. Like some ancient or modern civil war, we find kith, kin, neighbours and friends creating dividing lines that separate those who adhere to their sacred (that cannot be questioned or debated), and those that challenge it, who must be repelled at all costs. Debates on gender, sexuality, transgender, ethnicity and religion also pivot on Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality. If my experience and identity is my right to
own, and cannot be questioned, then it becomes sacred. To challenge it, or seek compromise, will be interpreted as a violation. Suddenly, and somehow in contemporary culture, we have reached a point where everyone has a sacred right to be entirely believed.

Many also think that the right to be believed includes the right to be right. That can be irrespective of the reasoning, facts and hard data. Our brains are fully part of our bodies, and when our thoughts are challenged or perhaps attacked, the mind responds in the same way that the body does to an assault. Our minds close down to protect us from the blows. The mind forms a steel-like cordon around our thoughts, and then thinks about how to respond by going on the attack. Much of this cognition is self-justifying, rather like the reasoning for a just war might run. Thus, our inner voice might say “well he said that, and he would think that, wouldn’t he…? Because he’s against me on this matter, so that point was designed to upset me and torment me on that other front”. If your mind decides your thoughts and beliefs are being attacked, it is more likely you will close down than open up. Such attacks and assaults are more likely to harden resistance, close down debate, and create a toxic culture of right versus wrong,
true versus false, and leads us to go hunting for what is wrong and false about the other person.

The rational response to alien ideas is to either try and understand them, or admit we don’t, and shrug them off. But our minds defend us, and all too often, alien ideas are treated as threats to our existential reality. In much the way that our bodies might respond to any perceived threat. Here, we see that even a person with just different views to us can be perceived as an antagonist. In part, this explains why can feel so aggressive towards people we disagree with. Truth-decay in leadership starts when those in authority start to talk about ‘alternative facts’, or simply dismiss science, hard evidence and solid data.

We are used to hearing our politicians try this, and it has steadily eroded our trust and confidence in them. We no longer believe what they say, even when they tells they are right. The culture of spin, dissembling and briefing has eroded moral, social and political capital to a huge degree.

That our church leaders now do the same is not only sad and shocking, but also distressing because it will produce the same culture of mistrust. Yet we now encounter, consistently, bad lessons learned from politicians and PR gurus, put on the lips of what were presumably once upon a time, good bishops and decent people who had a sense of truth and justice rather than brand-loyalty. But nowadays, it is all about maintaining some fiction of perfectionism. My friend and colleague Professor Nigel Biggar think quite differently about faith and politics. One of us would be characterised as more right-wing and conservative. The other, left-wing and liberal. Leaving aside that neither of us trust these labels or categories, it would not take much to flush out our differences. (Although far more unites us than would divide).

But how are churches – and the Church of England, especially – to resolve persistent divisions within a culture soaked and saturated with its own Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality? There are lessons to be learned from the past. The American Civil War (1861-1865) pitched the southern Confederate states against the northern Union states. The practice of slavery in the United States was one of the key political issues of the 19th century, and it a primary cause of
the Civil War. For Anglicans – Episcopalians in the USA – the division was painful. The
economy of the southern states depended to a large extent on slavery. The
northern economy did not. Episcopalians split down the middle on this, albeit
only for the duration of the war. But the legacy continues to this day. Incidentally, all denominations split like this during the Civil War, and many in the American churches, including Quakers in the southern states, were more persuaded by the economic arguments for slavery than those for emancipation.

Many in the Church of England also supported the separatist Confederates. We perhaps forget too easily that even after slavery was abolished in Great Britain, many individuals and companies continued to invest in such labour overseas. Churches and mission societies did too. Slaves were economic units for investment and the means of production.

The Church of England unable to come to terms with the current issues posed by Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality. It screams that church should be “safe”, and that there is no greater priority for its function and service than safeguarding. It then proceeds to make a shambolic job of delivering on this. But you cannot challenge that, as the tropes are bound up with Rampant-Sacred-irrationality.

There is a reason that no Bishop can speak sensibly, rationally or intelligently on the subject. Enquirers are either fed meaningless pastoral guff, or gloopy committee-speak. But everyone knows that safeguarding in the church of England lacks any brain, soul, heart or humanity. As a concept, it is a zombie that devours complainants, respondents, victims and the accused. It feeds off the flesh of the church. There is no accountability. The church enshrines the rights of those who oppose equality on gender and sexuality. The separatists are protected – including their own Bishops – because it is held that their beliefs and right to self-determine their identity cannot be questioned. Rather like the Confederates ordaining their own Bishop to care for the pastoral needs of slave owners, it is hard to challenge the tension between personal legitimacy and corporate agreement. At the end of the American Civil War, the Episcopalian Church was reunited, and meekly but fully accepted that Confederate Bishop as an equal.

An uncritical accommodation of Rampant-Sacred-Irrationality culture risks undermining the rule of law. Smokers may well be distressed that cigarette consumption in public has effectively been outlawed. Yet the re-introduction of smoking zones in restaurants or pubs, or for that matter, in cinemas or on public transport, is not fair to the rest of population.

Neither is sexism or homophobia fair. Sometimes, decisions are made for the common good that must overrule individual or collective appeals to personal claims on rights. We all have to breathe the same air, and share the same living space. But the Church of England still has a soft spot for affirming
discrimination in a variety of forms, and it makes provisions for those who want to perpetrate these on grounds of tradition. But like smoking, we might discover that this results in the death of us all, not just the smokers.