In a parish like All Saints Honolulu it is easy to be plagued by that phenomena which C.S. Lewis describes as “The Inner Ring” —that overwhelming desire to be a part of some group-within-a-group where the really real things happen. Our lives (especially at places of belonging, like church) undergo the constant ebb-and-flow of “the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside.”
The “Inner Ring” phenomena casts a kind of illusion, confusing us about the goal of life in the Body of Christ.
If you are “outside” of the ring (or, at least, if you perceive yourself to be so), you long to “get into” that Ring… or perhaps to foment your own ring. “Why can’t I be a part of that?” we wonder.
If you are, or perceive yourself to be, on the “inside” of a ring; you feel (artificially) splendid. “We’re just so close, this tiny group of us” we think.
But both situations are deeply transitory, ephemeral, spectral, unreal.
C.S. Lewis notes the way in which getting “inside” the inner ring often serves only to extend the sense of being “outside”. He gives the example of a sophomore “finally’ getting accepted in the “cool crowd” only to find their journey wasn’t over:
“…when you had climbed up to somewhere near it by the end of your second year, perhaps you discovered that within the ring there was a Ring yet more inner, which in its turn was the fringe of the great school Ring to which the house Rings were only satellites. It is even possible that the school ring was almost in touch with a Masters’ Ring.”
The “Inner Ring” is a pernicious force and merely being aware of it is not enough, for it is easy, once one has the vocabulary, to start seeing “inner rings” everywhere you go —even in places where degrees of intimacy and disclosure are necessarily guarded (e.g. marriages, military intelligence communities, surprise birth-party planners, etc.). “Oh look at them! That’s an inner ring if I ever saw one” we might say when in reality it’s just a Brians family vacation.
There also must be room for varying degrees of intimacy among groups of people. Not everyone will have, or can have, the same degree of friendship with everyone. Some people will be closer than others. We cannot allow envy to marshal our opposition to inner rings against innocent things like friendships, marriages, and business partners.
How much of being “on the outside” is just in your own head? And oh, how easily a small cadre of folks “on the outside” can form a new “inner ring” with their bitterness and sense of rejection serving as the gyre of their movements.
In a different place (the Screwtape Letters) C.S. Lewis notes the way in which any confraternity, even if its the confraternity of feeling left-out, can quickly become its own little cabal (remember it’s the Screwtape Letters, so the speaker is a demon and the Enemy is, in fact, the Lord):
“Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the 'Cause' is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal. Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy's own purposes, this remains true. We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self‑righteousness of a secret society or a clique.”
Not only is this also not healthy, also an inner ring, but it also runs on the false assumption that The Inner Ring is in fact an inner ring at all. Anyone who’s been in an inner ring knows the vagueness of that position: who’s in? who’s out? where are the boundaries? who’s in charge? is their another more inner ring? etc.
Here’s the chief problem with inner rings: they are an illusion of closeness but not the reality. They are flimsy things, duct-taped together with posture, mutual affection, unified envy, pretenses, and very tenuous alliances.
As our parish body grows I’ve been reflecting a lot on this this and other related themes. It would, for instance (and as we’ve discussed quite frankly in parish meetings), be easy to create the sense of an inner ring at All Saints, drawing a demarcation between “the founding crew” and “the newer folks” or between “the clergy families” and “the laity” or between “the cool young folks who always hang out all the time” and “the rest of us who can’t b/c we have families and more rigid work schedules” … the list can go on with almost infinite iterations.
What’s the answer for us? We cannot be a church that, as we grow beyond “everyone knowing everyone” longs for the good ole days when we were all one big clique. That’s neither a historical truth (we’ve never been a clique) nor is it desirable as a goal.
Six things present themselves to me as helpful answers to the conundrum:
We must contend for a real closeness among individuals and celebrate it. We will all have certain relationships that are more intense in their degrees of intimacy than others. We must not begrudge this but be glad for those who have it.
If those closenesses are to be real and healthy and not the foundation of inner rings they must follow the John 12:24 principle. This or that group’s love and closeness with one another, if it is in fact real love and true closeness, should turn the members outward beyond the group and towards the wider parish. Chris and Noah’s depth of relationship is proven when Chris and Noah lay-down their closeness in order to meet new people, develop depth with folks beyond their friendship, going forth in the Power of the Spirit of their mutual love to care for the world. Intimacies can be solid and yet porous. The depth of our leadership team, as another example, fruits most gloriously when it lays-down our enjoyment of hanging-out with one another in order to invest in the parish, welcome new folks, and equip the saints for the service of the church.
We must all confess the ideal / idol of an inner ring of best close friends just doesn’t exist. Don’t aim for it, imagine it exists, or allow the devil to make you feel you’re in and/or out of it.
We may not be able to be a church where everyone knows everyone deeply. But we can be a church wherein everyone is known by others, where pastoral care is given freely and ably by many for all, and wherein real personal transformation takes place.
We must dispense with the notion of an “ideal church size.” Church size impacts relational dynamics, and our response to those dynamics can be healthy or unhealthy, but size alone is not the chief metric of goodness or badness. St. Augustine, for instance, preached to packed crowds which filled the church building and flowed outside with people standing outside for hours just listen and participate through the windows. How do you pastor a church like that? I don’t know, but it can be done, it has been done, and it is not a uniquely modern problem.
What we must do at All Saints is respond to the church that God has given us with faith and obedience. By his Grace our church is growing, and this brings a messy throwing-asunder of our well-established relational dynamics. Amen! Come Lord Jesus. Our response must be animated by a willingness to embrace the messiness and press-on in knowing and following the Lord Jesus together into the future He has for this flock of His.
