NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI is rarely hailed as a notable theologian — indeed, his most famous book, The Prince, was banned by the Church: placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum by Pope Paul IV.
But its central insight was that, whatever else you want to say about leaders, in leadership, perception is more influential than reality. Because of this, he has been pilloried as the patron saint of PR. But I think his insight on the primacy of perception has much to teach the current Church.
When your toddler thumps his brother, you tell him to say sorry. When he does so in a sarcastic tone of voice, then obviously makes faces at his brother behind your back, you construe that his apology is not heartfelt. For you to believe him, you watch for evidence of contrition, and behaviour that shows that he is mending his ways.
In many areas of church life, contrition for safeguarding failures has been evident; and the mending of ways has led to the introduction of myriad new policies, practices, and training, designed to drive out opportunities for safeguarding failures in the future.
YET no one seems to believe that the Church of England is truly sorry for what has happened. Machiavelli explains why: because, while the reality is compelling and self-evident, we are always more swayed by perception. In particular, we believe in change only if we see it coming from the top, because, as followers, we watch our leaders like hawks. That is why Machiavelli wrote about princes, not processes.
This is partly to do with psychological phenomena such as those described by Art Kleiner’s Core Group Theory, which points out that humans are mesmerised by their leaders, and tend to indulge in both conscious and unconscious copying of their choices and behaviour. It is why, if you ask a group of people to draw a leader in their organisation, they will independently come up with uncannily similar depictions, right down to clothing brands, personal style, and accessories.
One chief executive whom I knew received cufflinks one Christmas. He was rather annoyed, because the gift meant that he had to replace all of his shirts. Nothing was ever said about it, but he remarked, ruefully, that, by the end of January, he had noticed that the rest of his senior team had somehow switched to wearing shirts with double cuffs, too. This also explains the games of hierarchy and churchmanship played over the humble clerical shirt and collar.
But our need for leaders to show us the way is also because, for humans, actions will always speak louder than words. Most of us have heard of the 7-38-55 rule, publicised by the psychologist Albert Mehrabian: that, in interpersonal communication, words account for just seven per cent of the impact made, vastly outweighed by the tone used (38 per cent) and the accompanying facial expressions and body language (55 per cent).
This makes intuitive sense to anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a weaponised “I’m. Fine!” It’s also why, if you stand outside pointing up at a tower and say “Look at the ground,” everyone will look at the tower, because that is where you are directing your physical attention.
On Christmas Day, the Archbishop of York’s sermon called on the whole Church to “walk the talk” (News, 3 January) and translate its words into action: show me! So, how might contrition be shown? When Mary lavishes nard on the weary feet of Jesus, everyone is outraged. But they get the message, because what is needed to signal a change of heart is highly visible, extravagant contrition. And, today, this needs to come from the top — specifically, from the House of Bishops, whose collective silence has been deafening.
I WROTE about remorse after the pandemic (Comment, 17 December 2021), observing that, in Anthony Bash’s Remorse: A Christian perspective, he observes that remorse has no “verb” form, but repentance has: it is only when remorse provokes repentance that it can be metabolised, through positive action witnessed by other people — through showing.
It is the public character of this repentance which resonates with Machiavelli’s observation about perception. But, to have any integrity, extravagant contrition should play not only to the gallery, but to the truth that the performative necessarily becomes formative.
This is why we have liturgy and religious practice: so that we might change our stubborn hearts through dogged performance. Metanoia (repentance), after all, is not just about saying sorry: it is about what Bash would call a change of moral orientation: a transformation that evidences contrition. Mere showiness does not, ultimately, convince, which is why apologies on their own do not suffice. On the other hand, public repentance accelerates the metabolism of remorse, because it is witnessed. It can thereafter never be unseen, and raises an expectation of changed behaviour which acts, in turn, to encourage it.
So, what would extravagant contrition look like for this Church? The Bishops walking barefoot to a national service of contrition? Everyone at the General Synod who can do so, on their knees as a visible act of contrition? A national day of contrition in the Church’s calendar?
In the 1986 film The Mission (cue “Gabriel’s Oboe”), Mendoza, the slave trader played by Robert de Niro, is doing penance. For killing his half-brother, he has to drag a heavy pack of weapons and armour behind him on the Jesuits’ long trek through the jungle. When his burden gets caught up in the undergrowth, one of the priests (played by Liam Neeson) cuts it free, and it falls down. But Mendoza climbs back, retrieves it, and continues. It is not until later, when the tribespeople whom he had formerly enslaved cut his burden away, that his penance is over.
So, before we get too carried away about how Instagrammable this all needs to be, maybe we should ask those who have suffered abuse within the domain of the Church of England: what would extravagant contrition look like to you?
Dr Eve Poole is Executive Chair of the Woodard Corporation. She writes in a personal capacity.