by Bob Phillips
A few years ago Richard Tedlow of the Harvard Business School wrote an insightful, readable book on Denial. Written for a secular audience, it offered examples of formerly rock-solid companies with long track records of success that shattered, withered or derailed. From their collective experiences Tedlow offered wisdom on how the demon Grinch called “Denial” stole the Christmas…and the future of these companies.
Sadly, denial is not limited to secular business. This demon routinely slimes and trips individual churches and entire denominations. When cooler heads one day write a history of the United Methodist Church in the first quarter of the 21st century, denial will merit a chapter of its own. Lest some giggle at the denial that has been and continues to be the bane of the UMC, this feisty creature easily can make similar inroads to the new-formed Global Methodist Church. When it becomes part of an organization’s DNA, it becomes baked into the cake of any spin-off of that organization, unless named, confronted and exorcised.
Denial is not like an intractable personality disorder. The UMC and the GMC alike can take steps in attitude and action to corner this critter before more damage is done within the UMC or fresh frenzies emerge from a GMC wounded by its presence. So, with heavy debt to Professor Tedlow, I offer a trilogy reflection on what denial is, how it can be recognized amid its chaos, and how the demon can be exorcised from the soul life of these Wesleyan theological and historical siblings. What follows offers heavy debt to Tedlow’s work and wisdom.
“Protective Stupidity”
What is denial? Tedlow cites George Orwell’s zinger that denial is “protective stupidity,” ignoring the awkward and unpleasant obvious and seeking comfort in blissful and affirming dubious. It is “twisting facts to suit theories rather than twisting theories to suit facts,” as Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes observed. Roland Benabou warns of “mutually assured delusion.” It is the tendency, inherent in all, to prefer wishful preferences to smelly realities. Its ugly cousin, confirmation bias, sets the stage for selective listening, selective indignation, and selective urgency, with the urgency often reserved to suppress those pointing to the fire of dysfunction.
How can denial be recognized? Symptoms of denial include trash talk aimed at the threat, developing a definition of reality where no one who really knows anything would actually prefer that radial tire, that Japanese car, that “upstart” denomination (as the Global Methodist Church has been called in print). The provably superior quality or service of the competitor is denigrated, denied or dismissed, much as numerous mainline leadership has scoffed at independent and non-denominational or Pentecostal churches. Today the laughable Pentecostal movement has over 650 million members, the largest expression of Protestant Christianity on earth. Non-charismatic Wesleyan evangelicals also need to heed and beware easy mockery of this movement.
Organizations in denial “celebrate the statistics they like” and ignore what they don’t like. Annual conference reports, that objectively have reported 52 years of sustained decline in UMC membership and attendance, offer intriguing spin to this blunt force data. Some annual conference reports simply…don’t report membership and attendance, or report snippets without warning lights. Other conferences report the data but without context, leaving one unsure whether the data reflects better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness or health. One conference reports its camping ministry in a single combined annual statistic, lest the shock of tiny attendance at once thriving individual events (such as the main senior high and middle school 5-day camps) create uproar and upheaval.
Leadership in denial is comfortable in shooting the messenger(s) of unwelcome news. Rounding up the usual suspects (such as attacking the racism or ‘Christian Nationalism’ of the church) is acceptable criticism. Scolding the Council of Bishop such that it takes public and collective ownership for leadership failure is not tolerated. Official church publications screen out serious criticism of “The System,” and paint a picture of a world in which actions such as the creation of a Global Methodist Church make no sense and have no justification insofar as official narratives paint the scene. As one size fits all, so one “side” of the debate fits all.
Denial leans for definition on the past and always has a good reason to resist profound change. Every time official news releases refer to the “12 million strong” UMC membership, remember this number now counts our dead ancestors. By the end of 2023 the actual membership of the US church most likely will be somewhere around 4.8 million, with attendance hovering at perhaps 24% of that figure. Or note that amid the 50%+ drop in membership, all 13 UM seminaries remain, just as they did when the denomination really did have 10M+ members in the US. A church-sponsored study of seminaries conducted roughly 4 years ago concluded that no reduction in infrastructure was warranted. The 13 general boards and agencies may tighten their belts but no profound change is envisioned.
All of these dynamics can convey to the GMC unless deep attention is paid. How will the new expression deal with confirmation bias or unwelcomed news? Hundreds of faithful churches aligning with the GMC are nearing the life-support phase in their ministry. Can facts like this be discussed with compassionate and scripturally based realism? How will the GMC draw lines, not over blessing gay weddings or sexually active gay clergy but with clergy who never seem to do an infant baptism, or churches that reject the legitimacy of female clergy (despite clear GMC teaching that affirms both infant baptism and women clergy)? How will the GMC resist the cultural captivity of right-wing politics, similar to the left-wing political captivity of the UMC…which it strongly “denies” is the case? When transfer growth concludes by mid-2025, how will the GMC report its numerical growth, or lack of growth at global, national and conference level?
Eight Insights
How can the GMC or the UMC resist and defeat the demon of denial? Tedlow offers eight insights for confronting denial. First, deal with it now and don’t wait for (another) crisis. The UMC, by January 1, 2024, will largely be past the bow wave of disaffiliations. It can choose to cuddle with its dysfunctions, having escaped the bullet of complete collapse. Urgency recedes or reboots toward vigorously shooting the GMC wolf that is nearest the UM sled. The GMC can dismiss the word “denial” from its vocabulary, confident that such is a problem for the malevolent ‘them’ and not for the sanctified “us.” Name the urgency. Claim the urgency. To do otherwise is to imitate the example of Benjamin Guggenheim, Titanic passenger of wealth who, when the ship was lurching toward doom, shrugged off a life vest, donned a tuxedo, and told others, “We’ve dressed in our best and am prepared to go down like gentlemen.” Feed and affirm the urgency and lose the tux.
Second, face facts. Don’t smother them in lipstick or aftershave. Jesus confronted the Gadarene demoniac by demanding its name. Name the demon and face the facts you wish weren’t so but are so.
Third, encourage straight talk. In the novel, The Day of the Jackal, a government bureaucrat is described as “never publicly wrong nor inconveniently right.’ Lose the ooze of language that communicates nothing. Paul tells us to “speak the truth in love,” but speak the truth and work to build a culture and climate where straight talk is valued and protected.
Fourth, top leadership must model listening and realism. Tedlow comments that when more vigorous conversation and frank sharing occur after a staff meeting that during a staff meeting, there is a problem. The captain of a Coast Guard cutter told the crew before a summer cruise with what was then a new experience of a mixed gender crew, “I don’t want to hear about the crew having sex,” which was accurately interpreted as him saying, “I don’t care if you have sex, just don’t let me know about it.” Model clarity, and demonstrate active listening at the top.
Fifth, adopt a long-term perspective. Hezekiah shrugged off the prophet’s warning of doom for the kingdom because it would happen in the reign of the King’s son. Today is good, or good enough…confront and expel such notions at all levels.
Sixth, watch your language. Doublespeak, spin phrases scream denial. Tedlow speaks of the verbal con games surrounding the 2008 market collapse. “Troubled assets” meant “worthless pieces of junk.” “Subprime mortgage” meant…nothing meaningful. “Hedge funds” by their nature hedged nothing. Ban church language and reporting that covers a church gasping for air in a spiritual ICU with fur coat statistics that are inane or meaningless. In 2025 will most GMC new members be via conversion or continued transfer from the UMC, shifting and shrinking the Wesleyan footprint?
Seventh, tell the truth. When some low-life placed cyanide in Tylenol bottles, killing several men, women and children, company leadership modeled an effective and denial-free response, assuming responsibility, rejecting excuses, pulling multi-millions in product from the shelves, and keeping the public informed in alibi-free language throughout the process. If the new is good, tell the truth. If the news stinks, tell the truth.
Eighth, Tedlow says too many would rather embrace long-term failure in safe and conventional ways than risk long-term success in daring and unconventional ways. Take the dare.
The Challenge
Tedlow concludes his book with words from James Baldwin: ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.’ The UMC and the GMC face massive challenges in living and proclaiming their visions of Wesleyan Christianity into the future. Great Kingdom possibilities exist for both, provided denial is not allowed to slip silently into the room, the process, the hearts of leadership. Call it by name, confront its presence, and cast it out. In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O”Hara says, in the face of calamity, “I’ll think about that tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day,” a bumper sticker slogan for denial. Don’t go there. Don’t stay there. In the risen Christ, “Now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation.” Let the power of Jesus’ promise point the way, “You shall know the truth and the truth (not denial) shall set you free.
Bob Phillips
Degrees from University of Illinois, Asbury and Princeton Seminaries, University of St. Andrews
Graduate of Senior Executive Seminar on Morality, Ethics and Public Policy, Brookings Institution
Captain, Chaplain Corps, US Navy (ret)
See Bob’s work on Methodist Mitosis in Methodist Review.
People Need Jesus 
Often times we get clues to what’s really going on by “studying the room,” as we say. Bob Phillips broaches a tender topic when he speaks of the “hundreds of faithful churches” near death within a newly-minted GMC. Will we talk about it? Will we talk about it without glossing the subject, without maundering, without waxing cavalier?