A ruminative reccomendation.

I worked for one of the most fissiparous parishes in Melbourne until a couple of years ago.  At the outset my job was to build a new choir from scratch, and all I inherited were three people who declared their desire to be shot of the place. By the time I left, there were nine people turning up on a regular basis, of whom about half had learned to sing and read music through their membership of the choir.  This allowed the performance of simple polyphony from week to week, and gave strong leadership in hymns and other congregational music.  One day I was called to a meeting with a churchwarden and the vicar and offered the choice between taking an immediate settlement or being sacked in three months' time.  I was pushed out at just the moment when job satisfaction had become more than a real prospect.

Going to work felt like walking through fire for a very long time.  Every step forward was accompanied by a thumping regress -- most memorably, a full quarter of the choir membership walked out after a parishioner decided to walk up to the organ and begin hurling expletives at me during the first hymn at Mass.  That person never apologized, and lapsed into ingratiating praise every time we crossed paths.  No acknowledgment of the damage he had done; I think he was silently proud for knocking over a lot of hard work.

Nor was this man the only one, and I wasn't the sole target.  My most distressing memory is the parish Annual General Meeting one year, which took the form of an orchestrated attack on the vicar by a few members of the congregation.  This resulted in his taking extended sick leave, and destroyed his marriage as the prelude to his departure from the parish nearly six months later.  At the AGM he was not permitted to say a single word without being verbally abused.  Every possible sensibility was offended on that occasion, and in the events following.

People behave strangely in churches, and the smaller the parish, the more intense the fighting.  It's usually the people most committed to a definite vision of a place that kick up the biggest stirs.  They mangle every functioning thing in sight, with a special emphasis on clergy and musicians.

This is why I was pleased to receive a copy of When Sheep Attack by Dennis R. Maynard.  Maynard is an Episcopalian priest who has a wider career in consultantancy, where he has worked across the US and Canada (more info here).  The premise of Sheep is that there is an identifiable set of behaviours displayed by parish antagonists, and that the purpose of this behaviour is the breaking down and subsequent removal of successful leaders -- the emphasis is on clergy, but the ramifications for other professionals involved in parish leadership, such as musicians, is obvious.

The essential argument of the book is that these antagonistic behaviours are prompted by the sorts of embedded power structures which contribute to the familiar pattern of inertia in parish life.  Clergy (and others) whose activities promote growth in numbers and vitality threaten these structures.  It rocks the boat, which sets off a spiral of controlling behaviours. Furthermore, a parish which has disposed of one vicar is likely to do so again.  Maynard uses the term 'dry drunk' to describe the behavioural pattern of parish antagonists:

The characteristics of those on a Dry Drunk parallel those identified by our participants as those of their antagonists.  High control needs, anger, resentment, envy and jealousy with an egocentricity verging on narcissim.  Underlying this behaviour is an unattainable standard of perfection for the person they choose to project all their resentments on.  The obsessive-compulsive part of their personalities removes any possibility of forgiveness.  they won't let go of any real or imagined wrongs done to them.  Revenge becomes the driving force in their lives...the behavior patterns of the Dry Drunk can and do occur in people who have no history of any substance abuse.  Folks who have never done a thorough spiritual and moral inventory of their own lives get caught in the controlling behaviors that inevitably lead to anger, resentment, and revenge.  Because they have not dealt with their own sins they become fixated on the real or imagined sins of others...Dry Drunk behavior is possible in people who are chemically sober but still need to be healed spiritually themselves.

It should be emphasised that these behaviours are set off by a successful leader, not by your average run-of-the-mill parson with no great expectations of transforming the world by pumping up the parish program.  Antagonists prefer things to remain dull and quiet with not much happening, and react against a successful leader who brings in newcomers.  It's their church, and they want the casting vote against any sort of growth in the congregation.  Paradoxically, these are the very people who mutter darkly about how numbers are down and 'we need more young people,' the problem being that once you get these young people, they're not the 'right' young people.  Every possible attempt to bring about the desired result is landmined to the hilt.

Maynard's suggestion to anyone caught in the firing line with these people is to put procedures in place to counter gossip and innuendo tactics (covenants to stop triangulation, making sure that rumours are countered publicly with fact, make sure the probity of financial matters is beyond dispute, exposing the financial contributions of the antagonists as a way of answering their inevitable slurs about fiscal rectitude), chase the antagonists out, or get out while you still have your health.  Dry drunks are cunning, and will eventually manage to subvert any potential source of support, poisoning the well of goodwill that should flow from a successful program.  I experienced this: the churchwarden at the meeting where I was offered jump or push had been protesting his unreserved support for the music program only days beforehand.

There are other issues raised in the book, such as 'untouchable' staff members (including retired associate clergy; we might add to this the political animals who inhabit the choir stalls), who can be a lightening-rod for discontent.  The use of mugging tactics on committees, public confrontation, dropping suggestions to previous employers and ongoing harassment after you leave are all familiar to anyone who has thought long and hard about their experience after an intensely difficult posting.

Looking more widely, I would suggest that this book has a strong explanatory potential for anyone wanting to gain a productive a grasp on the tactics abroad in the prosecution of present arguments within international Anglicanism.  This slim volume should sit on the shelf next to books such as Chris McGillion's The Chosen Ones, Muriel Porter's New Puritans, Michael Hampson's Last Rites, Wesley Carr's The Priestlike Task and Stephen Bates's A Church At War.  It makes a useful commentary to the arguments presented by each of these authors, as it draws the treads of each of these books into a useful and coherent framework.  Antagonist behaviours are on proud display at every level of the church, and I think Maynard cracks the problem very elegantly.  I'm of a mind to make a gift of this to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as well as local prelates and every leading musician I know.

Clergy and musicians often fail to take care of themselves, and because of the intense investment of goodwill involved in a successful music program, musicians are especially prone to attack.  It's not simply enough to get on with the job, and to do it well.

Anyone with an interest in group dynamics will find this an illuminating read.  If you have survived more than five minutes in the boxing ring with a group of bullies, this will be a very healing book. It may prove to be the best $20.00 or so you'll spend this year: consider it an investment in your peace of mind.  You are not alone.

You can read an extract and order the book from this page on Amazon.