Remnant Mission & Bowen Family Systems Theory
The Remnant approach to mission, as it has been developed in the Diocese of the Holy Trinity, borrows heavily from a perspective called Bowen Family Systems Theory (BFST). BFST was established in the mid-twentieth century by a Psychiatrist named Murray Bowen. He developed the theory while conducting research on families with a schizophrenia member. BFST became well known in faith communities through the influence of one of his students, a rabbi and family therapist named Edwin Friedman. Friedman’s two best known books are, Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue and, A Failure of Nerve. The second of these is on the list of the ten books that have had the most impact on my ministry—perhaps the list of five. Friedman had several Christian disciples. The best known may be a church consultant and Lutheran Pastor named Peter Steinke. Steinke’s best known book is Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times.
I found BFST to be compelling because it was the first psychological approach to the family system that explained what I saw and experienced in ministry. BFST says that all relational systems have anxiety. Anxiety is contagious. It spreads from one person to another. People tend to respond to anxiety in one of two ways. At one extreme, people respond to anxiety by trying to “make it nice.” This response is called “fusion.” Real disagreements are papered over in an attempt to keep the peace at all costs (Friedman labeled this kind of person a “peace monger”). At the other extreme, people respond to anxiety by running away—“the heck with you people; I’m outta here!” This response is referred to as “cutoff.” BFST says that when people cut off they take their unresolved anxiety with them and it will surface in some other place.
The emotionally healthy response to anxiety is called, “differentiation of self.” This is the ability to express one’s own thoughts and feelings in relationship to the anxious group without having to make it nice and without running away. BFST says that one can influence the group to change only through a long-term and persevering practice of differentiation.
The differentiating task focuses on how we function. Rather than trying to change others, differentiation works on managing our own anxiety. If a person succeeds in this task of managing anxiety, the contagion can work in the other direction. The calm of the “non-anxious presence” can begin to spread to others.
BFST enables us to see systemic anxiety more clearly, but it does not allow us to point fingers and blame others. Rather, BFST challenges each person to become less reactive to the systemic anxiety. For example, if you complain about someone’s behavior, a BFST approach would ask, “Why does that person cause you to react like you do?” And, “How will you work on managing your reactive response?” Blaming others and trying to change others merely perpetuates the status quo.
BFST has theoretical resonance with Remnant theology. Remnant theology maintains that the developing spiritual health of the Remnant has a vicarious impact on the larger church, just as BFST says that individual emotional health contributes to the health of the system. Both theories maintain that the individual member of an organic system is best able to change the system for the good by improving his or her own emotional/spiritual health and functioning.
BFST refers to the differentiated self as the “authentic self.” This corresponds with what the Christian spiritual tradition (and Thomas Merton in particular) refers to as our “true self.” BFST is not a “spiritual” theory. It focuses on what can be scientifically observed. However, BFST provides a significant test of spiritual growth and, thus, integrates well with a model for the spiritual life. A person cannot be spiritually mature and emotionally immature at the same time.
BFST exposes “faux virtue” that is common in the church. For example, BFST reveals that the anxious need to help and fix everyone is a manifestation of anxious fusion. The anxious impulse to give leads to what is called “overfunctioning.” This results in a reciprocal “underfunctioning” on the part of those we want to help. Books like When Helping Hurts (Corbett, Fikkert) have shown that giving in this manner can actually harm those we intend to help.
The painful truth of recent times is that large segments of the church have ministered in anxious reactivity to the anxiety of the surrounding culture.This has resulted in ineffective and, even, harmful witness. Consequently, the mission focus on the spiritual formation of the Remnant includes a robust framework for emotional health, rooted in BFST. The goal is to cultivate a holiness and wholeness that can exert a positive influence on the church and present a more attractive and compelling witness to an anxious world.
