How do you attend to your own biases? (cont’d)

Roy

My father was a lovely, gentle and compassionate man who always saw the best in people. It was a lovely disposition but at times he was a little naïve and this made him subject to being exploited, or at least taken advantage of. If somebody spoke with confidence, was seemingly knowledgeable and assured in their words and actions my father would be easily persuaded by them. As a teenager, I witnessed both some naivety and consequent exploitation and they contributed to me developing a suspicion and mistrust of anybody who came over as representing any type of authority, or who presented strongly and confidently. As a consequence I am suspicious of people who speak with certainty, who see things in matter of fact ways, who have little time for ambiguity, nuance and paradox. I’m wary but hopefully not too cynical in my response and relationship with them.

I want to believe the best of people but what I observed of my father and through my own experiences of being used and manipulated by some people who have spoken, seemingly with authority, over my life has created a bias within me. That in turn has no doubt robbed me of receiving good things from those who had no intention to deceive or manipulate, but who’s confident and authoritative manner I found off putting. I recognise this and seek to combat its negative impact on my life.

A bigger problem is the many unconscious biases that I’m unaware of, what some describe as ‘blindspots’ – those areas of my own and others lives that I simply don’t see. I’m so grateful for my wonderful wife, together with other members of our family and my good friends, who have helped me to see the blind spots, to point them out to me so that no longer am I handicapped by an inability to see what is blooming obvious to others.

Craig refers to the Johari window, which I find incredibly helpful, (see his excellent brief description in the previous post) not least in helping to recognise the known and unknown, the seen and unseen, conscious and unconscious, visible and hidden traits, including the shadow side of my personality. I find it really helpful to take time to reflect on experiences, encounters with people, issues and circumstances and by doing so to process my own reactions and responses. 

I start most days observing the habit of a Morning Office during which, among other things, I’m asking God to create within me a clean heart and to put a right spirit within me. In the words of our Northumbria Community Morning Prayer canticle, I pray that Christ will be with me and “in the heart of each to whom I speak and in the mouth who speaks to me”. My intention doesn’t always find its fulfilment but I do genuinely aspire and intend to live well and to allow Christ, whom I am seeking to follow, to guide my paths and govern over my thoughts, words and deeds. In so doing, I’m asking for the help of the Holy Spirit to help me pay attention to my heart, to not be ruled by distorting biases that would undermine my relationship with God and damage my relationship with others.

I have found there to be great power in naming these biases and diffusing their power in the process.

So, for example, recognising that I have a strong bias towards a left of centre, more socialist political persuasion, I resist over-feeding that bias by only listening to or reading opinions that bolster my already held opinions. And that’s hard work because I’m much more comfortable with people who share and affirm my biases. However, I know that there are valid perspectives and insights that can be gleaned from those who hold a very different political persuasion. Similarly, my bias towards mystery, paradox and complexity in relation to faith can rob me of the beautiful, yet profoundly simple truths about Christ that I know can be life giving and transforming. 

It’s been very vulnerable and at times incredibly challenging to have asked people, mostly my friends, to give me feedback on a conversation or talk that I have given. Sometimes, I’ve struggled to recognise what they have observed or heard me say. However, their feedback has been invaluable to help me see how I come across to others and it also reveals some of the biases that consciously and unconsciously are continuing to shape my life.

I love sport but haven’t played crown green bowling. Possibly, with advancing years when my ability to run around the tennis courts or five aside football pitch lessens, I may take it up. I do know however that the ‘woods’ (bowls) have a bias which causes them to deviate from a straight line as they roll. The shape of the bowl pulls the wood off its straight course. However, understanding the nature and pull of these biases, a good crown green bowler is able to combat and even use the bias to good effect to get to the desired jack, (the white ball) and succeed in winning.

My hope is that with the help of the Spirit of God, I can do the same with my life.  

Simon

It seemed only fair that I should answer my own questions!

As can probably be discerned from my opening comments, I have been accused of bias on many occasions. I don’t want to get into the details, because I will be explaining a bit more about that when we look at how we practice discernment when reading the Christian scriptures. Suffice to say, I’ve learnt a bit about this over the years. 

When it comes to overcoming my own biases, it has always been through the life and testimony of people that I have known. I once met a women who was about my age and who exhibited great spiritual maturity beyond her years (we were both in our 40s at the time). I felt like I was in the presence of an old soul, and was incredibly challenged to listen to her talk about her devotion to spending time with God. I realised that at a deep level I had given up on God changing me. Furthermore, this woman had theological view that I didn’t agree with. I was deeply challenged by the sense of God within and around her and realised that I had set my priorities wrongly. I realised how closed down I was to the possibility that God might work beyond my own tradition. In this instance, this woman wasn’t trying to convince me of anything, and I was free to see God in her because we weren’t arguing.

In another instance I was listening to a gay Christian man sharing his testimony. He was married to a woman and had never had sex with a man, yet he shared so deeply from his heart that I felt something change within me. I can only describe it as being like a rock moving within my heart. I felt convicted that I had prejudice against gay men in particular. Nothing much happened that night, but I knew that through this man’s testimony, God has revealed a deep bias that I had.

*

When it comes to helping other people overcome their biases, the first word that comes to mind is safety. If people feel that their identity and belonging are on the line, or that they are under attack, being open to admit to bias is almost impossible. I think that’s why people who are already on the edge of church after being excluded suddenly find themselves doubting almost everything they’ve believed: they’ve been bottling it all up for so long in order to remain part of the group that it suddenly overflows like a champagne bottle.

This means that a person who is attacking us is never going to be open to discover their biases: they are already defending their position. It may not be possible to get them to a place of safety, so in many conversations the main challenge is to work on our own mental state so that we don’t slip into fight-or-flight mode. However, there are circumstances where folk might feel safe with us, at which point it can be a great blessing to adopt an ‘I’ll show you mine, now you show me yours’ approach. Faith can be described as a conscious bias to see God in things that others see as purely physical. If you are learning to be a listening person then hopefully over time you will get better at working out when someone feels safe in your company and maybe sometimes they will open up and ask you an exploratory question without you having to lead them to it. This is the best kind of evangelism for me.

Speaking of which, when someone becomes a Christian, they are often having to leave a world behind, and it’s vital that we are a safe community for them to be part of. That safety will need to change though, as they learn and grow, otherwise we will become just another group reinforcing our biases through fear of rejection. So the other word that comes to mind for me is openness. I’m not going to say more about that now because I think it will come up later in the series.

In the next post we address Simon’s second question.