SHOOTING ECCLESIASTICAL ELEPHANTS

Before creating such classics as 1984 and Animal Farm, George Orwell was a policeman in the dusty village of Moulmein in Lower Burma. Once an elephant temporarily went berserk and tramped about wildly. The villagers ran for the authorities, who happened to be Orwell on duty alone. As he walked, rifle in hand, to where the beast was last sighted, thousands fell in behind him—clamorous, festive, anticipating the ripe spectacle of an elephant shoot.

Orwell found, however, a quiet animal who now seemed intent on nothing more than grazing. “I did not want to shoot the elephant,” he wrote. “I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. … At that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn’t be frightened in front of ‘natives’; and so, in general, he isn’t frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse. . . . And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do. There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim.”

When someone is angry at us, this at least indicates we are still considered significant. To be laughed at, however, to suffer another’s discounting snicker, to have others deal with us in an amused, patronizing manner—these blows to our worth leave us barren and diminished. For us, as for Orwell, that will never do.

So it happens that elephants of many kinds are shot in the desperate effort to avoid the humiliation of someone’s scoffing laughter.

We ministers feel the eyes of the “natives” upon us, whether they be the congregation, the board, or a long-time church secretary. We are sensitive to potential derision. This might indicate weak self-esteem, or it may reflect a healthy protectiveness of our emotional integrity. Whatever the case, it is disturbing to witness ministers shooting ecclesiastical elephants in a desperate attempt to avoid some form of diminution.

Although there are many potential targets, the most common is the former pastor.

Dispatching gentle giants

When previous ministers are idealized and honored, their successors often labor under the fearful expectation they will be found wanting by the natives—discounted, humored, merely tolerated. One pastor felt so threatened by such a possibility that he shot at his predecessor during the first council meeting: “In six months I’ll erase the memory of your former pastor!” Such confrontive grandiosity seeks to squelch dismissing affronts even before they arise.

Others may shoot their predecessors only after enduring much frustration, and only then with covert aim. One pastor, who outwardly maintained his composure during a year of being called by the former pastor’s name, quietly began to dismantle successful programs the former pastor had initiated. You don’t need an elephant gun to dispose of an ecclesiastical elephant; there are many ways to avoid anticipated or fantasized smirks. If we must be seen as strong, if we fear depreciating laughter, then we become vulnerable to the inner impulse to destroy ecclesiastical elephants, even if they are gentle giants.

Killing rampaging beasts

What about former pastors who “tramped about wildly” causing chaos and pain as Orwell’s elephant did? A successor may feel pressured to shoot the ecclesiastical beast to please angry church natives. Indeed, some congregations call pastors not only to rectify past damages but also to join in their dia tribes. Such a pastor is protected from the group’s derision only by merging with them, even when it feels inappropriate.

In such a situation it is especially tempting to blast away at the former pastor to cover up one’s own lack of organizational ability or inadequate leadership capacities. By presenting a horrendous scene of prior mismanagement, the new pastor postpones being found wanting. Yet such self-protecting marksmanship may well ricochet. Angry natives once encouraged are hard to placate and may rampage in the future themselves.

In later years, Orwell looked back on this event from the vantage point of maturity and emotional distance. Killing the elephant, he saw, was an impulsive action, born from the gut rather than the head. Feeling had dominated his thinking. Careful analysis rather than impulsive avoidance might have found more than one alternative. Perhaps he could have spared the elephant and saved face.

We who are prone to snipe at ecclesiastical elephants for self-maintaining reasons also need to remember we are worth more than derisive laughter could ever take away. Protecting and enhancing that worth is a lifelong project, not something achieved through momentary reactions.