Disclosure and Silence

I read Diarmaid MacCulloch's seminal book Silence: A Christian History about a year ago. At the time I was very struck by the amount of space he gives to the silence of not naming, forgetfulness and shame. It was an aspect of silence I had not previously considered very much and especially not in connection with whole traditions or institutions. As he points out it is possible to build whole identities through 'things casually or deliberately forgotten' and this often happens for the sake of institutional survival at the expense of the individual. 'Life is rarely comfortable for the little boy who says that the emperor has no clothes.'(p.191)  

MacCulloch explores, in particular, three acts of forgetting, namely Christian attitudes to slavery, the Western churches' attitudes to the Nazi Holocaust and the concealment of clerical child abuse in the Roman Catholic church. He identifies these as 'circumstances which no amount of historical relativism can condone' and looks at the way shame and silence have become tangled in both the causes and the retrospective evaluations of these phenomenon. I was interested at the time I read the book because I was involved in work on modern day slavery. Sadly, the upturn of far right movements in Europe and the USA and the on-going disclosures about abuse in society and in the churches mean that his observations have stayed very much at the front of my mind. In the current climate of disclosure his words seem prophetic. 'As we know from many walks of life, the powerful often have a lot to hide, and they strive to regulate the right to silence.'

But there is another side to the story of silence and the book also explores that. Silence often lies at the heart of religious experience and, for Christians, the silence of Christ at his trial and in his crucifixion is more powerful than any power 'of this world or even the next.' (p8) There is at the centre of Christianity a profound paradox in the Christ who is called the 'logos' or Word and who comes with a message and the same Christ whose very message leads to crucifixion and is the cause of his voicelessness. W.H. Vanstone has written at length in his book The Stature of Waiting about the silence and powerlessness of Christ from the moment that he was betrayed and handed over to the authorities; it was a silence in death that led to resurrection and the establishing of Christianity. Christian traditions from the Desert Fathers and Mothers through the mystics to later movements such as the Quakers have understood silence to lie at the very heart of the human experience of the Divine and as such to precede anything that can possibly be said.

And this is where I have begun to wonder about the true nature of silence and words and their relationship to power. In many parts of the Christian tradition it seems that words precede silence almost as though the purpose of the silence is to allow space for meditation on the words. What then very quickly grows up is a whole enterprise that is directed to examining, explaining and defending particular words and concepts and using them 'correctly'. But what is their source and who or what controls the notion of 'correctness'?

In a few traditions there is an emphasis on the emptiness of silence and a recognition that the practice of silence (and rather a lot of it too) is the most valuable thing that a seeker after truth can participate in. From this flows a quietude that results in certain states. One is the state of what I can only describe as reserving judgement - a recognition of the respect due to the vision of another person as they too emerge from silence. It may be that two people try to speak of what they have each experienced but there is no preconception of content. What is heard is then weighed in further silence. From this brief description it is obvious that any power relationship between prescribed teachings and doctrines and the insight of individuals is non-hierarchical. It is also obvious that discernment of truth takes a great deal of time and continues to evolve in ways that are the responsibility of all concerned. Anyone who has attended a Quaker business meeting, for example, will know both the strengths and the frustrations of such a process and they will be struck by how counter-cultural it all is.

Yet, to continue with my example, it is not ultimately true that traditions who ground their being in silence are without influence in the wider world. In fact, quite the opposite. Quakers are a small group, world-wide, and are probably best known for their largely silent worship. They do speak and they speak in measured and careful ways, occasionally to great effect. The work of the Quaker United Nations Office is one example of this happening. Jonathan Woolley explains the work of the office in a short video here outlining the distinctive work of Quakers in bringing representatives of the many NGOs and offices at the UN together in unthreatened space where they can 'connect as human beings'. From this and the research undertaken by the Quakers flow practical and political initiatives which reshape attitudes. Work is currently going on in peace building and the prevention of violent conflict, climate change and its human impact, human rights and the plight of refugees, disarmament and resource distribution.

Silence is a necessary condition for the emergence of truth and attitudes that transcend conflict, separation, dissembling and shame. It seems we have ever needed people of silence but we are slow to recognise it and slower to dare to sit in profound and protracted silence as a precursor to action. Only through the silence of heart and mind that precedes the humility needed for respect can a way forward be found between parties caught up in the abuse of power. That journey will start with the recognition that the exercise of power must change.