PCA Conversations

by Jeremy Jones

John Gottman is one of the premier marriage researchers in the country and his book The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work has been enormously helpful to me, not only in my own marriage, but also in trying to help married folks in our church.  Gottman’s basic argument is that the heart of marriage is intimate friendship, commitment, and the deep interpersonal unity that results.  Through his research into nearly 4000 couples at his ‘love lab’ at the University of Washington, Gottman has identified a cluster of behaviors that are the true culprits in causing divorce and marital breakdown.  He calls these “the four horsemen of the apocalypse”: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.  These actions over time produce “negative sentiment override” in which everything the partner says or does (or has done) is interpreted in a negative manner.

The really important insight here is that these everyday patterns are the real sins that kill the heart of a marriage and produce the conditions of loneliness, pain, and physical/emotional distance in which adultery, abuse, and desertion typically take place.  Thus, the first step in repairing damaged marriages is to replace the four horsemen with good communication patterns.  Then the conflicts that have been handled poorly can actually be discussed in a fruitful way.

But there’s more: once the four horsemen are corralled, Gottman has specific advice on handling areas of conflict and disagreement within a marriage.  He says that most of the lingering disagreements between couples are rooted in deep value differences that are closely tied to each person’s past experience.  In this situation, the only way to move forward is for each person to listen to the other as they talk in depth about why they hold the values the do.  Gottman says that if this kind of safe space can be created for honest discussion and sharing then the listening process can engender (at least) some measure of mutual understanding and empathy for the differing values held by the other.  Finally, as the four horsemen are replaced by empathetic understanding, the couple can begin to negotiate their different approaches to issues and find ways forward that satisfy to some degree their differing values.

What does this have to do with the PCA?

A lot, I think.

Gottman’s analysis of marital conflict gives us a helpful framework for understanding the current tensions that exist in the PCA. The different conflicting ‘parties’ in the PCA are like marriage partners whose relationship has been deeply damaged by the presence of “the four horsemen”: criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling.  (Actually, if we add incessant gossip and slander then that makes six, but who’s counting?)  While all of us presumably know that such things are bad, few of us pause to reflect on just how damaging these sins are to relationships within our church; Gottman slows the tape down, so to speak, and shows in painful and graphic detail exactly how these sins corrode relationships of love and trust.

But there’s a further application of Gottman’s work we need to make. While sin is certainly sufficient to produce these kinds of destructive behaviors in all of us, “the four horsemen” often rage during church conflicts where both sides see debated issues very differently. (Unfortunately, the fact that our system of polity is court-based and legal in nature only makes adversarial stances and strategies all too easy.)   I am suggesting that, as may be obvious, our disagreements are rooted in different theological or ecclesial values held by the parties in question.  Much of the time, even in more constructive dialogue, all the conversation partners attempt to do is clarify their points of agreement and disagreement, while offering a critique of the other’s position; while this kind of ‘charitable debate’ format can be helpful, Gottman’s insight into the dynamics of crumbling marriages suggests that it’s not enough.

So, what’s the point?  Simply this: the differing parties within the PCA need an analogous form of marriage counseling along the lines Gottman suggests.  Safe spaces must be created for conversation in which each ’side’ can honestly describe the ecclesial values they hold dear and, more importantly, why they do so.  There must be a commitment first to understand the other and why they believe the way they do.  Such an exercise, undertaken in reliance on the Holy Spirit and with a posture of humility, prayer, and repentance, could actually produce genuine empathetic understanding between people, instead of angry debates and rapid dismissals. Presumably, these kinds of conversations could enable the differing parties to discover just how much they do have in common theologically.  Further, such honest talk would surely bring to light much relational sin of which to repent. Perhaps new friendships would emerge with the strength to withstand further discussion. If such reconciliation occurred between the polarized PCA parties, fruitful negotiations could then go forward and (perhaps) creative solutions or settlements be found to many of the issues that vex us.

Of course, at the end of all this, deep differences - even at the level of values, vision or theology - would probably still exist (as they continue to exist in most marriages!); but the process would leave the partners in a different place than where they began.  And that couldn’t but be a good thing.

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Jeremy Jones is the Associate Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee. He was formerly the RUF campus minister at Emory University.