When the Mask Slips

One conversation about a thing is just a conversation. A second one that week is a curiosity. A third one tells me it's time to write about it.

It's hard to say why, but the thing this past week has been the question of why a congregation, having done a great deal of work to become healthy again after a crisis, misconduct, or other experience of unwellness, would suddenly fall back into old unhealthy habits. I've seen this lead to congregational splits, negotiated resignations, and leadership implosions. Often happening in the blink of an eye.

Now you'd think, after having experienced something hurtful or harmful, and having invested a great deal of time and effort (and probably money) in changing patterns, behaviors, and often leadership and staff, that they'd be on guard and pay attention. And for a long time, I thought it was carelessness or lack of caring that led to this kind of backsliding into old, unhealthy habits.

But these three conversations with colleagues, an Instagram reel from an HR expert, and an article about fragile masculinity surfaced something I hadn't considered: the role perfectionism and the appearance of competence.

We like to think we are competent, and are often ashamed when we think we are exposed.

I say "think we are exposed" because often that's not the case at all; in an article by Professor Chesko (Speech Prof on all the socials), he describes the instance of a couple whose car gets a flat; neither of them know how to change it, so the woman calls AAA. While they wait, someone stops by to offer assistance. While the woman says "yes" her boyfriend says "no" and they wait another 45 minutes for AAA to show up. The woman was not at all judging her boyfriend, but he saw this offer from another man as a direct exposure of his incompetence and expressed his shame through rejecting help. Chesko writes

"I think this is what people miss when they roll their eyes at “fragile masculinity” as a phrase: The fragility is structural. If your whole identity as a man is built on being the one who handles things, who knows things, who provides things, then any moment where someone else can do it better is an existential threat. Not an inconvenience."

I am not saying that we are all falling into the manosphere here; I am noticing what Chesko says about fragility, and how I think because of modern Western culture, none of us are immune to this. And exposing possible incompetence can show up any time, anywhere. In the Insta reel I watched, the problematic manager oversold her expertise in Excel, and instead of asking for help to learn, thus exposing her lack of knowledge, she faked it all the while letting her team down and eventually losing her job due to incompetence.

In our congregations - especially liberal congregations that prize knowledge, expertise, and an acute ability to not be fooled or manipulated - finding out that we missed the misconduct, mishandled the crisis, misjudged the situation, or misunderstood the complexities is felt deeply as a failure. We think we have been exposed as incompetent, blind, foolish, imperfect.

And that just will not do.

Where does this come from? Well, my hunch is that despite all of our talk about nothing being perfect and that we are whole in spite of/through our brokenness, we are also always told to improve, be better, look better, do better - and more, be accountable when we screw up. Some atonement theologies suggests there is only one way to get better, and the way it is preached in some places causes a permanent belief that we have fallen short. Corporatism tells us that someone has to be responsible and that accountability implies punishment. And so when we miss the manipulation or misjudge the situation, we know something went wrong and someone has to be held accountable. And we do not want it to be us, because that will expose us.

So we triangulate. We talk in small groups and form factions. We hide mistakes. We blame others. And yes, that's unhealthy.

So when we break those habits, we think we're on the path to something better. But we are one misunderstanding away from feeling that shame and failure again. And when we change the system, create new processes, hire new people, adopt covenants of behavior, call out and call in missteps, those changes feel like an implicit judgment. Just like the boyfriend who wouldn't accept help, we think a new process is a moral judgment on us.

To change our ways means to admit we were not competent in that instance. So we stiffen our resolve, all the while feeling tender and fragile. Which means when something (often quite small) pushes on those tender bits, we react. We go back to what worked before so we can feel competent and in control again.

Soon, what was health is sick again.

And when the congregation gets sick again, someone has to pay - because the underlying ways we understand competence and accountability haven't changed, even if we tried to change behaviors.

Sigh.

I'm sorry to say, there is no magic wand. I don't have all the answers. Heck, I don't have most of the answers.

But I do know that what there is, is careful, thoughtful work. Relationship tending. Honesty. A willingness to let go of our image of ourselves as competent and aware and resistant to being fooled or being out of our depths.

It's slow work. And maybe that's the hardest part of it - the patience and care it requires to actually heal, actually hold on to each other while you make different choices with and for one another.

I know it's possible. I know congregations that weather this and are acutely aware that the work must continue, that attention must always be paid, that relationships matter most in this work.

I have faith in us.