Those of us who count ourselves as belonging to an older age-bracket will have grown up without any familiarity with the word ‘binary’. At some point we may have had exposure to the word in a mathematics/computer setting. Not having to deal with these disciplines on a day-to-day basis, most of us lost familiarity with the word until it reappeared in a quite new context some twenty years ago. The current common use of the word is found in the discussion of gender identity. Should we take the either/or, or binary standpoint that is held by many people claiming that gender is clearly to be identified as male and female? Should we alternatively accept that gender is a far more fluid concept that we were traditionally taught to believe, and that our gender/sex exists along a continuum? The debate is not one I want to have today but clearly, were it to be explored at depth, it would draw on a number of academic disciplines – cultural studies, theology, philosophy and psychology. The debate to be had on this sensitive topic cannot ever, surely, be closed down by simply quoting two or three verses from Scripture.
For me, the interesting part of this debate is not about where any of us stand on the transgender issue. Much more interesting is the fact that many people chose to think in binary terms in the first place. Binary thinking in a philosophical context embodies the idea that everything exists as either true or false. It is the world where if A is true then B must be false. Whether it is to do with the education I have received or for some other reason, I know that this way of thinking as a way of resolving many problems is not the least bit appealing for me. Obviously there are examples of contrasts or opposites where two statements cannot be true at the same time. If Bill is absent from a meeting, he cannot be present at the same time. But there are many other examples in ordinary discussion where we find that, between two extreme opposites, there are intermediate stages or grey areas. Human beings are very good at seeing two sides of a discussion and being unable to occupy one consistent position on either. Absolute consistent thinking about all kinds of topics may be less common than we think.
In literature there is a character created by Anthony Trollope called Mr Arabin. He ends up in one of the Barchester novels as the Dean of Barchester. Set against Mr Arabin at one stage is the notorious character called Mr Slope. Mr Slope, the chaplain of the Bishop of Barchester, is a highly ambitious cleric and uses his strong theological opinions to persuade Mrs Proudie, the Bishop’s wife, of his piety and seriousness in his efforts to become Dean. Mr Arabin finds it difficult to have such strong theological convictions and he refuses to play at church politics. The author means the reader to side with Mr Arabin in his steadfast determination to be free of ambition, rancour and defined opinions. He is the classic non-binary Victorian churchman. Trollope seems to prefer this to the partisan churchmanship wrangles of his day. These were not unlike our own.
In psychological discussion it is noted that some people find ambivalence or uncertainty about people or ideas quite hard to deal with. The following account of how people deal with this is found in an article in the Wall Street Journal from early 2021 by a psychologist, Andrew Hartz. According to his account, this ambivalence is a state of mind creating anxiety and this needs urgently to be resolved. One way of resolving the tension created by such internal anxiety is to react with a psychological defence mechanism called ‘splitting’. This, in the short term, resolves the contradictions of the ambivalence by retreating into a binary or simpler way of thinking. The other person is treated or projected upon as though they are perfect and all flaws are ignored. Alternatively, they are regarded as completely evil with no trace of goodness at all. The origins of this way of thinking seem to go back (according to Melanie Klein) to the world of the infant where the mother is experienced as all good or all bad (good breast and bad breast). The healthy response to the mother moves towards to successfully holding these two extremes as reconciled opposites. That stage, recognising good and evil in the same person, requires a certain level of psychological maturity. Up to that point the safe place is to be in one of the extremes which is easier to understand and make sense of. The process of splitting creates its own set of problems. If everyone exists only as a good friend or an enemy, such things as dialogue with opposing opinions and empathy for others are harder to find. In our imaginations other people are sometimes made into an ‘enemy’, possessing hostile intentions towards us. This projected role may or may not exist in realty. When we come to things like race, sexual identity and politics we find many examples of splitting and projection going on. It is quite hard to occupy a middle place in these discussions. The extent of binary thinking (and feeling) in these worlds of debate and discussion means that some people, including myself, hesitate to enter into any of them.
Binary thinking is, sadly, rife in church circles. I am aware of those who read this blog but differ profoundly with my approach to the Bible. Many Christians live in a binary world where there is a simple choice between ‘believing’ the Bible or lapsing into atheism. Having studied the Bible over a lifetime, I happen to believe that such an approach to scripture does serious damage to the test and also dishonours the intelligence of people who might otherwise be attracted to the Christian church. When such people approach the Church for a new understanding of life and profound insights into its meaning and purpose, they find themselves facing stumbling blocks and what are felt to be insults to their intelligence. Are they really required to read the stories of Genesis as historical accounts or maintain a single doctrine of the atonement when the words of the Bible give us several models? Should we not celebrate the way the Bible introduces us to rich varieties of symbol and meaning rather than a single ‘correct’ way of interpreting it?
Apart from religious debates, the world of binary strongly impacts the world of politics. I used to think that everyone believed in the values of democracy. This was before the world of extreme right-wing ideology started to impact the politics of democratic nations. According to some pollical commentators, some ordinary people have been persuaded that their political hero (Trump, Putin or Orban) is so admired and trusted that they do not want untidy institutions such as an opposition to waste time challenging their vision. The political leader is so venerated that they have acquired an almost divine status, rendering an opposition completely unnecessary and redundant. The same right-wing adulatory thinking about leaders also sweeps through many churches. I still remember an earnest Baptist telling me that a biblical discussion group was a contradiction in terms. How was it possible to ‘discuss’ the Bible when God’s will was so clearly set out for all to read? Needless to say, the local leader had been firmly projected upon. He was ready to take on the mantel and responsibility for revealing God’s inerrant Word and in the process be treated as infallible himself.
Clergy of my generation were not trained to occupy a place in a binary defined theological universe. When we see the temperature of the CofE turn more and more in the conservative binary direction, some of us wonder whether we would now commit so readily to an institution which appears, in many places, keen to exclude the non-binary vision. The LGBT debates are only one example where we are presented as involved in some kind of betrayal rather than simply as people who do not agree with the binary arguments about sexual/gender identity. Binary Christianity in this matter knows only one version of truth. Those who do not agree with this binary vision are deemed by some to be worthy of expulsion from the institution.
The recent Lambeth Conference has not yet expelled the so-called liberal wing of Anglicanism. It has, however, become increasingly clear that, in large swathes of the Communion, tolerant attitudes on sexual identity issues and liberal views on Scripture are becoming less and less acceptable. To repeat what I have said on occasions before, the problem is not what I think about the theology of conservative traditions, but it is the problem of their refusing to accept that my theological vision has a right to exist. I feel now that I am a member of a minority political party which for the time being is allowed to exist. In time it may be destroyed or exiled when the binary version of Christianity in charge has the power to get its own way. Something similar is being attempted in American politics. The party of Trump wishes for dominance in the country just as conservative binary Christians seek to exclude liberal views in the churches. Binary Christianity and politics clearly have an appeal to many people. To return to an earlier part of this blog, it may be simply because ambivalence is a hard reality to live with. Certainty is always more popular than uncertainty and security more appealing than risk. Some of us believe that the adventure of ambivalence and uncertainty is a better option than the straitjacket of authoritarianism. This is what we might describe as the modes of thought belonging to the extreme right-wing which has taken up residence in many Christian churches.
When everything is simple answers, all cut and dried, no grey areas, life is briefly wonderful. Even better if we can have a bit more complexity and then learn the answers to a wide range of spiritual matters, what experts we will be.
Of course life is rarely so smooth as this, and with time comes the arrival of terribly inconvenient things that don’t neatly fit the circumscribed set of allowed possibilities. We have a daughter with an eating disorder, or a son who prefers his own sex, or we have a marriage breakdown in the leadership or a fraud in the impeccably respectable accounts department.
Surely the answer is to just eat properly, or date women, or stick together and forget differences, or forgive and forget the defalcations? Little by little we start making things worse not better. Our rigid binary community starts creating its own legacy of failures, which usually are suppressed, then expelled and certainly forcibly forgotten.
Such communities are in dynamic equilibrium. On the one hand you have a steady stream of newbies, drawn into the wonderfully simplistic thinking, many hoping not to have to do any thinking at all. Others believing they too can learn all the answers and never have a conundrum again. On the other hand you have a steady exodus of the expelled, shamed-out or constructive exit-eers, who cannot stand the pretending any longer or the hopelessly inadequate “answers” given to personal tragedies oversimplified.
When you look at some of the disasters the conevo world is having, such as the John Smyth saga, it truly is a tragedy. The man was able to suppress a toxic cocktail of sexual repression, anger at probable abuse in his own childhood and rigid theological “orthodoxy”, hiding in plain sight in the centre of his constituency and no one dared question anything when he inflicted his sexual sadism across the conevo world. Key to this is: questioning is not allowed. Only given answers. “He’s godly. It’s not sexual. It’s discipline, not sadism.”
The same equilibrium challenges us as we move through life. Do we switch off our questioning and accept the status quo, or do we stand up and, with grace, ask of ourselves and others the probing needed about the obvious ambiguities of life? Do we shut our ears to anything but the received “wisdom”, or do we actively listen to others and particularly those who are suffering in our midst?
“The debate to be had on this sensitive topic cannot ever, surely, be closed down by simply quoting two or three verses from Scripture.”
Really? On the contrary, the debate can be, and is, closed down by quoting a few magic words, such as “transphobe”. This analysis of intolerance and the closing down of debate misses out an almost comically exact mirror image on the self-styled liberal and progressive side.
The key issue that underlies the post-modernist assault on truth is *power*. By compelling people to say things, especially things they don’t believe, you exercise, and reinforce, your power over them.
But let’s turn to the main theme of this blog — Surviving Church. Do survivors really want to be told about ambivalence, and ambiguity, and the need for non-binary thinking? That their desperation for their voices to be heard, and believed, must give place to dialogue, and debate, and empathy? Or do they urgently want and need to have truth, not just personal truth (which is no truth at all), but simple truth, heard, and acknowledged?
I think owning ambivalence and ambiguity is a crucial step towards healing for survivors of abuse by Christians. We live daily not only with the wounds and the pain, but also with the question: “How could someone who seemed so good have done something so bad?” This is especially acute when the abuser is someone with real ministerial gifts, whom God is using powerfully. How do we cope with the fact that the Holy Spirit is evidently working through and in someone who is evil?
These issues are very real for many survivors of church abuse. It’s no wonder that many cannot sustain a Christian faith. Those who can, are left with painful questions that can’t be answered.
My own father was recognised as one of the most gifted evangelical preachers of his time in the USA (Billy Graham excepted, or course). God worked through him to bring many people to faith and to call many to the mission field or into ministry. Yet he was an abuser. I have never been able to square that and never will. The same can be said of Gordon Rideout, or Jonathan Fletcher, or countless others.
It’s taken me decades to acknowledge that along with all the abuse and trauma, I can recognise the good gifts Dad gave me: an enquiring and critical mind; a sense of humour; an interest in history, politics, current events, nature, and classical music; a passion for reading. And yet he was evil.
There’s no way binary thinking can deal with all that.
I’m delighted to see you reflect on binary thinking, not least because I’ve just been writing a version of a talk I did for the recent Modern Church conference which looks at this. Something I am suggesting there is that:
“I suspect that Christianity somehow predisposes us to look for binaries, being a
religion with a decisive moment, whether that is the incarnation, the cross, or Jesus’s
resurrection. BC/AD; BCE/CE; before/after. As individuals, baptism may be our before-
and-after moment. Binaries can be about control; about maintaining purity, and
avoiding leakage.”
Have you seen U.A. Fanthorpe’s lovely poem BC – AD?
BC – AD
This was the moment when Before
Turned into After, and the future’s
Uninvented timekeepers presented arms.
This was the moment when nothing
Happened. Only dull peace
Sprawled boringly over the earth.
This was the moment when even energetic Romans
Could find nothing better to do
Than counting heads in remote provinces.
And this was the moment
When a few farm workers and three
Members of an obscure Persian sect
Walked haphazard by starlight straight
Into the kingdom of heaven.
U A Fanthorpe, from Christmas Poems (Enitharmon, 2002)
Thank you for the reminder! It’s a moment but also a transition, a hinge… love her poems. Also the Lady Macbeth one, told from the point of view of one of the otherwise silent ladies in waiting. Voicing the silent: that’s radical!
I didn’t know this poem. Thanks, it’s fabulous.
I didn’t know the Lady Macbeth poem, and have just managed to find a short extract. Thank you!
Just to be clear: Surviving Church is not just about survivors. They have an honourable place in the blog but the blog was started before the word ‘survivor’ came into general use with its current meaning, No, the blog is about the use and abuse of power in the Church. There are over 800 posts here, They cannot all touch on survivors but they all touch on power and the numerous ways that this goes wrong and sometimes right! Binary thinking can mess people up and takes away their agency and power!
Not a lot more to be said, then. Once you abandon truth and reason as leading categories for discussion, it simply becomes a matter of who can shout loudest, and twist arms hardest. In short, a surrender to the users and abusers of power.
I don’t think anyone who has contributed to this discussion so far has abandoned truth or reason. But perhaps that isn’t what your comment implies?
That is indeed my understanding of this article.
Then I don’t think you have understood what Stephen is saying. It isn’t a fair comment on his thinking.
That’s precisely the point. In the post-modern post-truth world, there’s no such thing as
right or wrong, fair or unfair, understanding of what the article says. You’ve sawn off the branch you were sitting on.
To me, “post truth” is when a politician denies what has been seen by millions on tv, or read in print or online. I suppose if you sincerely believe the world is flat, having everyone say it’s a globe must feel like that. And I’m sure that if one believes literally in the creation stories in Genesis, it must be uncomfortable. Feeling as if your anchor has been torn up is hard. But those who have found faith while seeing things differently perhaps can be believed, in the sense that our faith is sincere, too.
If you’re saying that we must choose between ‘everything is clearcut’ OR ‘many situations are complex and uncertain’, that in itself shows binary thinking. To say that truth is often complex, and in this world bad is often mixed with good, is not to state that truth and falsehood, good and bad don’t exist. As Barack Obama has said, ‘The world is messy, and good people do bad things.’
I think we on SC are all agreed that abuse of power is a bad thing. Lies are generally bad, but on occasion may be necessary to spare someone distress or even to save lives. Those brave souls hiding Jews from the Nazis wouldn’t say to the Gestapo, ‘Yes, I have a Jewish family living in my attic.’
One of the first things you learn when taking a first aid course is that you should appear confident and calm even if you are in fact shocked and shaken. The first aider’s confidence helps the casualty by reducing their panic and giving them strength. That doesn’t mean the first aider’s ‘living a lie’ for the duration of the emergency is a denial of the existence of truth.
Binary decision making tends to originate from the lambic system, sometimes termed the emotional brain. Fight or flight? Fawn or freeze?
Humans have a “higher” brain in the cerebral cortex capable of thinking and evaluating challenges in more nuanced and often more helpful ways.
Of course the emotional brain has the advantage of speed. Response is almost instantaneous, which when being approached by a predator would be invaluable: probably scarper. However for the hedgehog who sees an approaching car on the road above, to freeze is often to be squashed.
Some Christians want to live in either of these brain areas’ responses but not both. Either we are entirely cerebral and unfeeling, or we are in a constant state of emotional turmoil. It can be difficult to extricate ourselves from either state, but we need both.
Some leaders are aware of the above and use people’s emotions for their own purposes. Evoke emotion and you will get a strong response. Appeal to lower responses and you will get narrower often impoverished thinking. This gets you want in the short term but often damages important longer term plans.
At best, binary thinking is lazy and unimaginative. At worst it is devious and manipulative. Most of us move up and down the spectrum between on a daily or even hourly basis.
*limbic*
I find binary thinking everywhere, and as to its quality, it can be assessed by the fact that it
-sees only 2 possibilities where there are often (not always – see below) many
-sees those 2 possibilities often as being the polar ones!
-therefore lacks nuance
-and becomes tribal and othering.
Avoid it.
However, where it is a matter of Is the right answer to the question Yes or No, then binary is right on the money, which is no doubt why it is (I gather) the basis of computing. We live in a world where propositions are indeed either true or false (or, of course, meaningless, but that can be seen as a subset of false) without other alternatives. I doubt there could exist any other kind of world.
I’m not sure I’m entirely understanding some of the points of this blog. Why does a baby think “Good breast, and breast”? But I can remember witnessing a female cleric who I thought was a pretty good minister taking down our gentle, saintly organist in a way that was not acceptable. What caused me much thought later, was that she was right in a way. She was making what might in some contexts been good points. But the way she did it was absolutely wrong. Did I want to be in her gang? No. Even though she was right. It took me a while to work that out. But it helped later when I had to choose whether to go with my fellow evangelicals on gender issues, when, even when they might have had some good points, they were being rigid and unloving. So I learned to get along with those with whom I did not always agree. No, not the evangelicals, but the Anglo-Catholics. Who were old-fashioned, stiff and formal in worship, but warm, open and friendly in person. I now realise that I was unlucky to meet some unpleasant and ungodly evangelicals, and lucky to meet kind Anglo-Catholics! People vary. But learning to get along with those with whom you do not agree is always good! I think human beings are complex, and in another sense, not binary at all!
Sorry, autocorrect doesn’t understand “good breast, bad breast” any better than I do!
Melanie Klein’s ideas were designed to help our understanding, but if they don’t help I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I fed a child from birth with a bottle, so breasts didn’t come into. But here goes: the baby sees comfort coming from the warm nourishment of the teat. But when withdrawn and his tummy still hurts from hunger or perhaps wind, he blames the teat with anger treating them as completely different objects in his mind. As he grows though, he begins to realise there’s a person behind the teat, a person with feelings. He begins to integrate the source of good and discomfort as actually being from the same person. He even realises he might hurt that person who nurtures him and feels sad about this. At any rate he no longer instinctively splits the milk source as from completely different sources.
If this confuses, please ignore!
Thank you! I can’t do ROFL emojis on my tablet! Please take the will for the deed!
Oh Janet. My heart goes out to you. Thank you for your valuable contribution. It sheds light on the complexity of issues. One thing I have difficulty with is when someone who has done good in some spheres, is found guilty in court but the judge gives a lesser sentence because of the good they have done. My feeling is that if I was the victim, I would find such a decision to devalue my suffering. But that is purely in court cases. Life is much measure than the justice system.
Propositions are always binary. Situations are never binary. There you have clarity (which is a wonderful thing) and also accuracy (which is an even more wonderful thing).
We hurt ourselves upon each other.
I reflect back on some of the psychotherapy I was fortunate to receive, little of which touched on these matters here, but nevertheless it was a place to offload, and my therapist absorbed a great deal in the safe confines of that room. I’m grateful.
I reflect often on Janet’s story and others’ here. In fact the suffering is palpable across the board. It is a dubious advantage to see this at times, and hard to know what to say. Sometimes silence is better? I hope somehow to convey solidarity at least.
Stephen does a difficult job and I’m thankful to him for his work here.
This discussion is now closed.
Stephen, this blog post really is a masterly analysis of the cause of so many current ills.
The genius of classical Anglicanism was to hold together opposites by valuing the whole.
I think the other thing that has happened to stress this has been that i think people are more aware that what held Anglicanism together was often buttressed by power and privilege, and thus supported by the abuses of the state which birthed it, and the state’s empire, with all that went with that.
The only other church I can think of with a similar problem of a very specific social association is the association of the Southern Baptist Convention with slavery.