My recent post on zombie movies revealed, not unsurprisingly, that not many of you are fond of the zombie genre. The point however remains that when social structures fall apart, people form communities to help them survive. And we will always form such communities, even if we have to invent zombies to give them purpose. What I saw on the playground in 5th grade I see in ministers still.
Playground social dynamics at Lloyd-Mann Elementary School in Loveland, Ohio in 1966 meant that my security and importance were found as a part of Billy’s gang. Don’t picture here a group of ten-year old, leather-clad thugs. We were just middle-class suburban kids playing ball with Billy during recess. Billy was a big deal, though, and we were a big deal by association. Being a part of Billy’s gang kept us safely distant from various school zombies, such as girls and others. Such association did come at a cost. What Billy did, we did, and what Billy valued, we valued. We accepted the cost, however. I, for example, stopped taking piano lessons not because music was unimportant to me, but because sports, not music, was important in Billy’s gang.
Gangs like Billy’s form in suburban playgrounds and among pastors just as they do on inner city streets. I’m told that “the perception of increased reputation and social status” and “the promise of money, drugs, and/or . . . cultural pride and identification” drive the formation of urban gangs. Money and drugs may not be the currency of 5th graders or pastors, but they’re pulled gangward for substantially similar reasons. Pastors seek association with the cool kids and the ideological lines that form around them, as much as any 5th grader or teen. Whether we align ourselves with the Tim Keller gang or the Lig Duncan gang, the payoff is the warm sense of being a part of something important beyond the humdrum of the regular rhythm of pastoral ministry. The Ministry-Has-Been-Feminized gang attracts some, and the Women-Have-No-Voice gang attracts others. Some of us want to be included in the Successful-Pastor gang, the Church-Planter gang, or the Social-Justice gang.1 To give the gang cohesiveness, each gang populates the world with its own variety of zombies who threaten what the gang values.
Ministry gang members don’t spray-paint cryptic graphics on abandoned buildings, but they mark their commitments nevertheless. Those who post pictures of themselves drinking whiskey and smoking cigars with their buds are declaring their gang membership. Those who repeatedly repost calls to social justice are painting a symbol on the wall. Churches and their pastors embed gang markings under the “resources” tab on the church web site, declaring to those in the know whether they “follow Paul” or “Apollos” or “Cephas” or “Christ” or their modern equivalents.
A woman once asked me to listen to her pastor’s sermon on marriage. In listening, I understood what had caused her concern , but what struck me was that the pastor was not really speaking to his people. He was giving voice to his gang credentials. Gang membership is retained or lost by ideological conformity. Convictions regarding certain theological and ecclesiastical matters give admittance into the gang. Questioning or changing one’s views may invite exclusion. Conformity is essential, even if it means quitting piano lessons, or silencing our doubts.
C. S. Lewis understood gangs and their power, what he more artfully called “The Inner Ring,”2 from his experience in school and in the academy, and he wrote to alert us to them.
“I believe that in all men’s lives at certain periods, and in many men’s lives at all periods between infancy and extreme old age, one of the most dominant elements is the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside.”
“Often,” he says, “[this] desire conceals itself so well that we hardly recognise the pleasures of fruition.” To us who are functionally still ten year-olds finding our way on the playground Lewis says, “The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it.” The hold Billy’s gang had over me was severed only when I fought, and was pummeled by, Billy’s second-in-command, his cousin Mark.
To step away from the inward tug to belong need not require violence, but it does call us to accept the lonely pursuit of authenticity. Lewis observes that
“If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it.”
To pour oneself into what is true to one’s own heart and calling, to nurture what is one’s pastoral craft, without concern for one’s broader image or acceptance is the path of wholeness, of integrity, and of authenticity. Around such commitments associations will form, but these associations won’t define who we are, or be defined by who we aren’t. Lewis calls what will form around such associations friendship, something far more substantive than that which comes from any gang.
It’s not easy to break our gang associations, and I doubt any of us can totally shed our gangward inclinations. But in being aware, and in shedding what we can, that is when we can be the somebody God has created us to be.
This is to say nothing of the very exclusive “I-read-Greatheart’s-Table” gang.
C. S. Lewis, “The Inner Ring”, in The Weight of Glory. All quotes come from that essay.
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Such good thoughts. Thank you.