The Church is Not Resilient: On Antifragility & Mitosis

Photo by Daniel Tuttle on Unsplash

The Body of Christ is not resilient. It is also not fragile. In this piece, I will attempt to build a case that the church is best understood as antifragile, a concept made popular by Nicholas Taleb and others.

Lately, there has been much anxiety in the waters of the United Methodist Church. Particularly on social media, a context which amplifies practically everything to the catastrophic, many Methodists come across like exposed nerves. This is true no matter which "side" you take in denominational disputes.

Institutionally oriented centrists, already navigating a system with severe trust deficits, have been deeply affected by the pandemic and ideological divisions that have exacerbated already unpleasant trends in giving and attendance. They are understandably concerned about keeping the tent broad, not simply for whatever theological reasons may be proffered, but also in order that maximum resources continue to flow. (This is likely why some who had supported the Protocol have now reversed their position.) 

My progressive friends (especially in more conservative regions) worry if there will still be churches to serve once the dust settles, and how potential infighting may affect their local congregations. Lastly, my more conservative colleagues are anxious about staying or leaving the UMC, and the costs (financial or otherwise) of taking either path. In the wake of the Protocol’s likely demise, much is uncertain and left to the individual desires of Conference leaders. And for all United Methodists, the concern about churches, small groups, and other entities dividing, and the possibility of breaking fellowship with life-long friends, is a grievous reality with which we must contend.

Jesus' Promises to the Church

In all of this anxious maelstrom, we may be tempted to forget that God is faithful. Jesus promised his disciples that where two or more were gathered, he would be with them (Matthew 18:20). He promised Peter "the gates of hell" would not prevail against the church (Matthew 16:18).

I believe we can and should hold on to Jesus' promises, which are reflected beautifully in the opening lines of Baptismal Covenant III in the United Methodist Hymnal:

The church is of God,
and will be preserved to the end of time,
for the conduct of worship
and the due administration of God's Word and Sacraments,
the maintenance of Christian fellowship and discipline,
the edification of believers,
and the conversion of the world. (45)

Because the church is “of God,” it isn't going anywhere. The Body of Christ will be preserved. Often this conviction is shared with the statement that the church is “resilient.” Instead, I will suggest that antifragile is a better descriptor.

Antifragility vs. Resilience

Antifragility was popularized by the financial guru and polymath Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. Jonanthan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff began their recent book The Coddling of the American Mind by ruminating on the concept. In sum: things that easily break we label fragile, like an antique vase. Other items are hard to break; we describe them as resilient because they can withstand a great deal of force, like the shatter-resistant glass on an iPhone.

Antifragility, however, is not the same phenomenon as resilience. There is a critical distinction between that which can withstand a great deal, and things that grow from force, trauma, or disorder (antifragility). As Haidt and Lukianoff describe it,

 ...Taleb asks us to look beyond the overused word “resilience” and recognize that some things are antifragile. Many of the important systems in our economic and political life are like our immune systems: they require stressors and challenges in order to learn, adapt, and grow. Systems that are antifragile become rigid, weak, and inefficient when nothing challenges them or pushes them to respond vigorously. (The Coddling of the American Mind, 23)

Haidt and Lukianoff begin their opening chapter with an example from the world of medicine. Recent research has shown how the human immune system is antifragile. In other words, it thrives on (and in fact needs) the struggle of fighting off various germs and foreign substances to become strong. Take peanuts, for instance. It turns out that children who are not exposed to peanuts at a young age have a far higher likelihood of developing a peanut allergy than children who are not properly exposed to them. Decades of fear about peanuts became a self-fulfilling prophecy, as our immune system was not exposed to peanuts and thus did not develop the capacity to incorporate them into the system.

In Antifragile, Taleb uses the example of weightlifting. By exposing one's body to incrementally heavier loads in exercises such as the bench press, squat, and deadlift, our bodies adapt their muscles and joints to be able to tolerate the weight. The body gains from the stress of the exercise. Both of these are examples of antifragility, not resilience. 

Similarly, the church across time and space has often grown in the face of challenge. In the early centuries of Christianity, Tertullian famously observed, "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the faith." Later, the monastic movement arose to maintain a radical witness when martyrdom became unlikely. The relative comfort of imperially sponsored Christianity, a different sort of challenge, became the womb for new institutions of strict fidelity. Likewise, councils and creeds took shape when the Body of Christ was met with challenges to the faith "once and for all delivered" (Jude 3) from groups like Arians, Marcionites, and Donatists. In the face of false teaching, the church clarified and strengthened its doctrine. The church is antifragile. 

Just as antifragility is a better way to name the strength of the church, I believe there is a better way to describe the present United Methodist divide.

A Better Narrative: Mitosis

I have long admired the writing of Bob Phillips, a retired Navy Chaplain and UM Elder in Illinois, who has written some of the most consistently original and helpful reflections on the structural issues facing the United Methodist Church. His work applying Wicked Problem theory to our division is the most accurate and value-neutral way to conceptualize our denominational quagmire that I've encountered. 

In a similarly winsome vein, he has urged us in recent years to welcome a mitosis rather than mourn a schism:

No one of sound mind or theology seeks or welcomes schism. It is a religious version of burning the village, and the villagers, in order to save them. There is another way, another reality. It is a different word, freighted with hope, life, and scriptural truth. It can transcend theological divisions, not by win-lose scenarios but in practical and expansive ways. It is the spiritual mitosis of the church, rooted in the nature of God-created life that sustains itself by cell division and reproduction ("Seven Major Benefits From the 'Mitosis' of the UMC").

Phillips encourages us to remember our history. Denominational mitosis has yielded fruit time and time again in Methodist history. The AME, AME Zion, and other churches formed to safeguard the dignity of African-American Methodists and preserve a vital black Wesleyan witness from the institutional racism of the larger Methodist body. The Salvation Army has done much to serve the poorest of our neighbors since William Booth left the Methodist fold. 

The church I currently serve was formerly a Methodist Protestant congregation. As the name implies, the Methodist Protestants left the Methodist Episcopal Church (before the Civil War split the church between Northern and Southern factions) because of disagreements over episcopal authority and the desire for more lay authority in leadership. When these three branches reconnected in 1939, it was the Methodist Protestant influence that led to laity having a say at General Conference. The Methodist Protestants also ordained women long before the main Methodist body. We could go on about contributions from our Wesleyan Church, Nazarene, and other siblings.

The point is this: it is at best short-sighted and at worst disingenuous to praise God for the contributions of these other bodies while refusing to entertain the notion that our current division may be necessary, if not beneficial to all (in the long run). I have never met a United Methodist that looked down their nose at the AME Zion or the Wesleyan Church as schismatics unworthy of fellowship. Similarly, we have reason to trust that the Spirit will use our present mitosis for Kingdom purposes. 

After all, to be a Protestant is to countenance institutional division to some degree. This is so, even if we recognize God's desire (made clear in Jesus' prayer in John 17) for a oneness among Christians that suggests more than a merely spiritual unity. Unless UM leaders are actively trying to re-join Canterbury or dip a toe into the Tiber, I fear that much of the ink spilled about the tragedy of division is either wilfully blind or deceptively insincere. Instead, I propose that Wesleyan Christians of all stripes have reason to hope despite our divisions.

Conclusion: Hope For the Church in a Time of Mitosis

In The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton described a church that is not simply resilient, but a church that thrives in chaos and outlasts death itself. Part of this is often quoted, but the full context is helpful:

Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave. But the first extraordinary fact which marks this history is this: that Europe has been turned upside down over and over again; and that at the end of each of these revolutions the same religion has again been found on top. The Faith is always converting the age, not as an old religion but as a new religion (“The Five Deaths of the Faith”).

Chesterton here echoes Tertullian's observation, quoted above. Because of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the faithfulness of Christ, the church is not fragile. 

Local churches, even denominations, come and go. We have seen too often how once-vibrant congregations "rise and fall," especially when the character flaws of its leaders are exposed. We grieve the East-West Schism; we may wonder if the Protestant Reformation opened a Pandora's Box that can never be closed until the reign of Christ; we can lament the division in our own Wesleyan family, past and present. But above all this we can see God's gentle providence guiding and empowering the church in all its various forms, across continents and epochs, for faithful ministry. The body of Christ is not fragile; she does not fall apart in the midst of strife. By God's grace, the church is also not diamond-hard or unyielding. The church, like the human body itself, is antifragile. 

Because it is antifragile, the church grows from and adapts to challenge. Taleb argues that our institutions need such testing. "Just as spending a month in bed . . . leads to muscle atrophy," he notes, "complex systems are weakened, even killed, when deprived of stressors" (quoted in The Coddling of the American Mind, 23). By God's grace, the church does not shrink in times of persecution and stress, but expands; in times of mitosis, she divides but does not become less, because—like the bread we break at the table, and like our very lives—God can sanctify and make fruitful even broken vessels. 

I am staying in the UMC. This was not a difficult decision for me, even though people I love will be in a different denomination within the next year or so. None of us will find ourselves in problem-free institutions. All of us will discover that God's grace will be sufficient. And it is possible that this shock to our system—both in the continuing UMC and the emerging Global Methodist Church—will cause productive stress from which God will reap much fruit from both bodies.

I recall a sermon from Cardinal Dolan given at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. This was years ago when terrorists had been bombing Nigerian churches regularly on Sunday mornings as people arrived for Mass (eerily similar to the awful attack which just took place in Owo, Nigeria, on Pentecost Sunday). Cardinal Dolan shared that his brother bishop in Nigeria was asking the international community for aid and for prayers. But when the Cardinal inquired about the state of the church in Nigeria and expressed concern about how the faithful were responding to the constant threat of religious terrorism, the Nigerian bishop responded, "The churches have never been more full."

This reminds me of a scene from C. S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. In a moment of great testing, Aslan whispers to Lucy, "Courage, dear heart." May we, too, hear the gentle voice of the Spirit, the Comforter, reassuring us in the midst of this storm. May we find solace in the knowledge that, by the gracious providence of God, the church is not resilient. The church is antifragile.

Rev. Dr. Drew McIntyre is an Elder in the Western North Carolina Conference and the pastor of Grace United Methodist Church in Greensboro, NC. To read more from Drew, visit his blog: https://drewbmcintyre.com/.