<aside> ℹ️ From Polarization and the Healthier Church by Ronald W. Richardson, page 35-37

• Dealing in a healthy way with difference and disagreement.
• Being a healthy leader.
• Avoiding polarization and “tugs of war.” </aside>

The main problem in relationships is not that there are differences. What matters is the level of anxiety people bring to the encounter they have around their differences. Those with higher levels of anxiety will have more difficulties and more sensitivity to each other. They will struggle with the differences and there will be more polarization.

Anxiety is defined as the experience of threat, whether real or imagined. Real threat, also called acute anxiety, is about some danger that is imminent, possibly life threatening, as when very real flood or tornado warnings are in effect. In a riot situation, a real threat is getting beaten up, or knifed, or shot by an opponent. Imagined threats, also called chronic anxiety, are real to the person experiencing them, but most often they are distant and not even very likely to happen (like fearing every rainstorm will lead to a flood). When emotional systems get out of balance, it is normal for there to be some degree of anxiety. Any lack of balance in a system can create a sense of threat.

Whenever there is a sense of threat, whether it is real or imagined, we become anxious. We are not always clear about the origin of our sense of threat. A certain number of people have greater difficulty discriminating between a real and an imagined threat. For example, claustrophobics cannot explain why, in small spaces, they have a sense that the walls are closing in on them, but the threat is real enough for them to use the stairs rather than an elevator. Rationally, they know the walls will not collapse on them but that does not reduce the intensity of the anxiety.

Anxiety is a very uncomfortable experience. When we feel it, we immediately look for its cause and try to eliminate it, but it is not that simple. Under the influence of anxiety, it is difficult to think in systematic ways. We focus on specific parts of the system as a problem. We tend to think in terms of direct cause and effect. We think, for example, that other people (like an acting-out adolescent) cause our anxiety, and we react to these people rather than examining our own feelings.

Anxiety is socially contagious. It moves through an emotional system separately from the initial stimulus. People who listen to talk radio (on the left as well as the right) experience anxiety about threats they would never imagine until they hear some passionate speaker expound on it. Then they are caught up in the reactivity through the influence of the togetherness force. Anxiety passes from group to group and from one generation to another. It moves horizontally across cultures and vertically through time. Look at the impact of the Great Depression on the children of the parents who experienced it.

The onset of anxiety provokes physiological and psychological changes in a person. We call it stress. Chronic anxiety also affects a person's psychological well-being, and, if it persists over time, it affects their biological functioning as well. It causes wariness, guardedness, suspicion, tension, more susceptibility to stress, as well as physical symptoms. It wears away at us. We are less resilient in our responses to acute anxiety from the normal stresses of life, and this keeps us, as we say, "more on edge." It impedes our ability to think, to be flexible, and to function effectively.

People on both sides of the riot situation were deeply influenced by their anxieties, both acute and chronic. Some were more anxious than others, but in all cases, their anxiety stimulated them to act. During the riot itself, some ran away and hid while others aggressively engaged in direct fighting with "the enemy." Few of them thought clearly about the situation in broader, more systematic terms.

Church communities are susceptible to chronic anxiety; factors that affect the spread of anxiety in a congregation include:

• the severity and magnitude of the stressor;
• the degree of perceived threat;
• the state and condition of the relationship network in the church;
• the average level of fusion of the group members; and
• the ability of leaders to act in a more mature and non- reactive manner in the face of pressures that are feeding the anxiety.

In chapter six, I tell the story of a church that handled this anxiety well.

When just one leader can better manage his or her own anxiety, staying well connected emotionally to the others in the church, in particular to key leaders, it has a calming effect on the larger system. With both an anxious congregation and anxious leaders, difficulties develop. For example, it is normal to be anxious and reactive when a leader in the church is angry with us. We get defensive and make excuses, or struggle and fight back, trying to win the argument and prove we are right. Or we choose to yield rather than to argue, but that can lead to resentment on our part. Another choice, however, is to move toward this person with interest, demonstrating that we understand and appreciate the energy and concern he or she has expressed and that we are willing to explore the issue. My low level of anxiety and reactivity with the white parents, as I moved toward them with interest in what they had to say, eventually helped them to be less reactive and more thoughtful themselves.