WORKING DRAFT
Building a Just World, Soul by Soul
The economy is changing in fundamental ways and
creative action is required to bring forth a just and
loving alternative. Churches have a pivotal role to
play in supporting new ways of being in the world and
creating alternatives to injustice. We are offering to
train transformational leaders in an Inquiry process
designed to support churches wanting to help create
an economy that works for everyone.
The economy is broken. It works well for the wealthiest 5% but
poorly for the rest of us. Why don’t we have the economy we say
we want? One that pays fair wages; one that cares for everyone;
one that celebrates diverse perspectives; one that rewards
creativity; one that rewards contributions to the common good;
one that has just enough inequality to motivate us?
While there are as many perspectives on this question as there are
economists, there does seem to be broad consensus that the
economy is in for fundamental change. What might that change
look like? I believe, as Christians, we want the economy to look
more just, compassionate and sustainable. Our project is to offer
a process that churches can use to help bring forth just such an
economy. We’re not talking about a big, world-shaking program,
but a process of deep spiritual change at the personal and
community levels.
An important premise of this work is that churches can play a
pivotal role in bringing forth a more just, compassionate and
sustainable economy by using the role given us by Western
culture. We, more than any other institution, have been given
permission to shape the perceptions, values and actions of
individuals. While we have surrendered much of that authority to
business and marketing, we can still reclaim it. We must reclaim it.
Despite the decline of the church over the last half century, we still
“own” the great stories that provide a context for our individual
meaning-making stories. Western concepts of justice, fairness,
morality and honesty have been articulated through the Christian
lens. But the Christian sway over these basic categories of thought
is diminishing rapidly. Science, secular humanism and market
capitalism are rapidly usurping the church’s authority. Still, the
church possess a clout these more secular perspectives lack: call it
discernment, wisdom, spirituality, or whatever you like.
Spiritual/religious institutions have social permission to challenge
people at their deepest levels. Churches can ask people to delve
into inner parts of themselves as no other institution can. In
return we are expected to offer appropriate support. It’s time we
put our power to use to help bring forth a more loving economy.
The process we are offering is humble and long term. Yet we
believe it has the potential to yield benefits a hundredfold. One
way of contextualizing this project comes from David Korten. He
suggests three approaches to bringing forth the economy we want:
1) change the rules (e.g., use government regulation to change
how the economic game is played); 2) direct action (e.g., create
institutions, businesses, and markets that operate differently in the
world); and 3) change the story (e.g., change our culture’s idea of
success, prosperity, fairness, etc.). Our project is a subset of the
third strategy, change the story. We are not suggesting particular
changes in the economy, nor are we redefining the Christian
narrative. Our process is based on the ancient process of Inquiry.
Inquiry is integral to the contemplative traditions in all the world’s
religions. We use a contemporary form of Inquiry advanced by
Harvard psychologists Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. The process
helps individuals and groups delve into the invisible assumptions
they hold that prevent them from making the changes that would
help bring forth the economy they say they want to have.
To say this differently: each of us lives a story of our lives. This
story tells us what is important in our lives, what is good or bad,
whether we are worthy or unworthy, smart or dumb, beautiful or
ugly. We write our personal meaning stories within the context of
the larger culture’s meaning-making stories. Western culture’s
meaning making stories have largely come from Christianity: the
Ten Commandments tell us that theft, murder and adultery are
bad; the Gospels tell us that mercy, generosity and kindness are
good. We construct the personal stories of our lives from these
larger cultural stories. The thing is, a lot of our story is
constructed unconsciously. We don’t get to choose our culture and
we make lots of assumptions long before we have the capacity to
decide which parts will serve us and which ones won’t. In other
words, we live through a hidden architecture of meaning-making
that filters what we see, hear and feel, how we should react, what
is good or bad, etc. long before it enters our conscious awareness.
(As Paul said, “now I see through a glass darkly”, or “For what I
will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.”)
These assumptions are largely invisible to us because we don’t see
them, we see through them. These invisible assumptions about
the world (and the self-protective actions they inspire) often
undermine our most noble commitments for change, not because
we are bad, but because we are complex.
We don’t know what needs to change for an economy to become
more just, compassionate and sustainable. But we trust that
caring people creatively working together can create a more just
economy if they are not tripped up by their personal and collective
hidden assumptions; assumptions that can derail their most noble
aspirations. Kegan and Lahey work from the premise that we are
complex individuals capable, as Paul suggested, of doing both what
we want to do and what we don’t want to do. Our highest
aspirations are often, even regularly, undermined by an invisible
immunity to change. Our inquiry process seeks to open
individuals, groups and communities to creative possibilities they
might not consider while confined to their hidden assumptions and
invisible immunity to change.
Purpose
Our purpose is to train small teams to lead transformational
change within their churches. These transformational change
agents will help groups and individuals “not get in their own way”
as they strive to bring forth an economy that works for everyone.
They will facilitate the Immunity to Change process for groups
working on programs to humanize the economy. Whether the
programs are community dinners, poverty reduction, child welfare,
or healthcare they are vulnerable to hidden assumptions and
expectations received from our culture and personal histories. The
Immunity to Change process helps surface and alter those
assumptions so that building a more loving economy can progress.
Along the way, individuals will deepen their spiritual connection
through this powerful discernment process and churches will begin
to reclaim their historic role as transformers of human
consciousness.
Immunity to Change Overview
Investigating our Immunity to Change starts by inviting individuals
to work on a personal issue to get a feel for the process and its
power.
We open with complaints. They’re fun, we’re well practiced at
them and complaints help to surface the issues that are most
important to us because we wouldn’t complain if we didn’t stand
for something. This early step can give individuals and
communities an important insight: “we are not just whiners and
complainers, we complain because we stand for something.”
Our next step is to look at the values and commitments revealed
by our complaints, what we call our Noble Commitments. In the
first step of this process we focus on what Kegan and Lahey call
“adaptive” changes, in contrast to “technical” changes. Adaptive
changes don’t just solve an immediate problem, they change the
basic way we act in the world.
We then explore what we do or don’t do to prevent our adaptive
changes from happening. Understanding our responsibility for not
making the changes we desire is not about blame or resolutions to
change; it is an avenue for deeper understanding. When we
imagine doing something different, what anxiety does it provoke?
And what are the self-protective commitments underlying our
anxiety about acting differently? Finally, we follow those selfprotective commitments into the architecture of our meaningmaking system. That system is built upon Big Assumptions that
are typically invisible to us.
Each step in this process naturally brings deep “aha’s” from
participants. Each step is both healing and transformative on its
own. But the larger point is to actually shift our Big Assumptions.
In their book Immunity to Change, Kegan and Lahey articulate an
iterative process of safe tests, data collection and reflection that
bring the validity of Big Assumptions into question. We add to that
strategies developed in a church setting including role-playing,
imagery, and other inquiry processes.
Training Process
Developing a team of transformational change agents in your
church is a two-stage process.
Step One:
We begin by introducing your church community to the Immunity
to Change process. During a two day workshop, interested
members of your congregation will engage the process individually
and collectively. You will explore important adaptive changes you
would like to make, first at the individual level, then at the group
level. We will explore the actions we all take to subvert the
adaptive changes we most want to make. With the laughter of
mutual understanding we will examine the self-protective
commitments we all hold. And with awe and reverence, we will
dive into our Big Assumptions, the ones we live through and
seldom look at, much less change. In the spirit of knowing the
truth that will set you free, our journey will give your community a
sense of the power of this process and its potential for deep
transformative change.
The initial workshop does not allow time to begin the ongoing
process of questioning and altering our core assumptions. The
next step involves training a small group of transformational
change agents within the church.
Step Two:
Once you’ve had time for communal discernment, we will return to
train a small group in the Immunity to Change process. These
individuals will work with the congregation to unearth their
individual and collective immunities to change as they seek to
bring forth a more just, caring and sustainable economy. Not only
will they learn to lead individuals and groups into their Big
Assumptions, they will teach strategies for challenging and altering
those assumptions.
All of this will be supported by on-going, online training and
collaboration among participants.
Conclusion
Churches, especially progressive churches, have a deep
commitment to social justice. Most are clear that social justice is
impossible without economic justice. Many churches have
programs to help individuals and families suffering under economic
distress, but larger, systemic changes are required. Churches can
play an important role in this change, just as they did during the
Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s. Part of helping create an
economy that works for everyone is challenging the hidden fears
and assumptions we all hold. Our job is to help you unearth and
change those assumptions so you can be more effective change
agents.