This exerpt comes from Michael Hardin's Facebook "Primer on Hermeneutics (6)" Michael and Lorri Hardin are the founders/directors of Preaching Peace.
In a first naiveté we believe what we have been told by others. Our worldviews are formed by others. We mime the way they structure reality. In the maturation process it is possible that the mimetic following of the Model (the authoritarian pastor, the charismatic youth leader, etc) which are constituted by double binds (“Be like me but don’t be me”) create a certain amount of cognitive dissonance, enough that one begins to “question authority.” The leader is at the top of the mountain urging everyone else to get to the top of the mountain, but the fact is that in this pyramidal or hierarchical structure there is only room for one at the top. This can create intense emotional frustration which is what causes many to leave first naiveté.
The mimetic emotional crisis, whereby one disengages from a Model (whether real or imaginative), when one breaks away, is a ‘death process.’ When those who leave an institution which has been structured on sacred violence break away, they are potential “witnesses” to its underlying dysfunctional reality. Thus they must, according to the Institution (or pastor/priest) be shunned, avoided and are marginalized as those who have “gone after the devil”, “listened to the voice of satan”, etc. The first naiveté pastor/leader needs to control those underneath her/him.
So it is that many who walk away (or run, as the case may be), often experience a deep loss as if someone had died. Many have described their leaving of the Institutional Church with such language. I find this instructive and believe that Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s model of the Five Stages of Grief can help explain the emotional state(s) that accompany this shift from first naiveté to critical distance. Her model, known as DABDA has five stages:
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
These are familiar to most folks and thus need no explanation (if you do explanation please see the Wikipedia article for Elisabeth Kübler-Ross). In my experience those who have moved from first naiveté to critical distance are almost always in one of the first four stages. It is only at the final stage of Acceptance that the transition to second naiveté can occur. For my purposes in this post, stages 2-4 are the most important.
When people leave the Institutional Church, when denial turns to anger, then this is the place where they are most exposed to scapegoating their former life and those still embedded in a first naiveté. This anger can easily be masked with a “laissez-faire” attitude, an Alfred E. Neuman, “What me, worry?” stance. This is the stage where one experiences degrees of Schadenfreude when other former leaders “fall.” Persons who remain in this stage may fancy themselves as liberated and set free from a first naiveté but they are actually still psychologically identified with the original group/pastor. They are still seeking the ‘top of the mountain.’ Here, the need for recognition becomes quite apparent and lack of recognition reinforces this anger. (This is where you see the ‘left-wing wanna be authors’ all touting their insights as though they really had something new to say, when they are just rehashing the same old thing done by millions of other disgruntled ex-church-persons).
Stage 3 is the stage where persons who can no longer handle the discomfort of critical awareness are most likely to revert back to a first naiveté. Stage 3 is a pivotal point. It can either be the place from which the person moves forward or regresses. Some who have made the backwards transition from critical distance to first naiveté, in this Stage, long for the ‘glory days’ of the past, for intellectual certainty or the emotional bonding (however dysfunctional) they experienced in the ‘group-think.’
Stage 4 is the part of the journey where people simply drop out. They will have nothing more to do with “religion.” God talk means nothing to them. Theological questions which admit of no easy solution become the ‘rationale’ for not only walking away and staying away from first naiveté, but also function to keep one mired in the Depression that is Stage 4. Far too many people have remained in this stage, both in the academy and in the world. From an alleged ‘critical’ stance outside the Institution they claim to be able to diagnose the ills of the Institution and often do so both with the residual anger of Stage 2 and the wish-fulfillment of Stage 3. This is where work is produced that is most often detrimental to those who have either made the transition to critical distance or are entering it (and no, I will not name authors).
Stage 5, Acceptance, is the last stage of grieving the loss of a first naiveté, and the first step in second naiveté, or a grace filled world. Stage 5 is not yet second naiveté, it is the preparatory step. It is from the vantage point of Stage 5 that one can begin to do an honest evaluation of both categories, first naiveté and critical distance. Stage 5 is where people begin to emerge from their cocoon and open up to a world of new possibilities.
Neither first naiveté nor critical distance are end points on our spiritual, emotional or theological journeys; they are places we enter and exit.
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On a personal note I am finding that I seem to have some FB friends who are stuck in Stages 2-4. Not only are they critical of those who they perceive as stuck in first naiveté, but they are also express a volatile anger at those who have moved to a second naiveté. From their perspective those who have moved on to a second naiveté look as though they have gone back to a first naiveté, thus their criticism of those who will not toe their critical line. They thus engage in setting up boundaries, just like those in a first naiveté, where those who don’t justify their world views and criticisms are to be shunned, mocked, etc.
It is these types of folks that seem to give me the most trouble. I understand their anger at the Institution; I will not, however, throw the theological baby out with the bath water. I understand their bargaining with God, their longing for ‘the flesh pots’ of a first naiveté, their anger at not being able to go back, their desire for something more and the illusion that they have found it in critical distance; I will not, however, affirm their irrational criticism of theology as a discipline. I understand their depression, and why they would want to simply tune out and turn off anything that has a “God” element to it; I will not, however, remain in despair with them and thus validate their theological suicide or deicide as the case may be).
My whole project is to help those embedded in a first naiveté move not TO but THROUGH critical distance to the grace filled reality that is a second naiveté. If you think moving from first naiveté TO critical distance was the point of the journey you have short-circuited the process and are denying yourself (and others around you) the opportunity to leave the cocoon of critical distance. Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living.” So figure out where you are so you can move on. The journey awaits!
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