Facing Wicked Problems with Vision, Faith, and Works

By Jim Kimmel

The New York Times columnist David Brooks called for a “modern social gospel” to repair our broken culture:

“The task…is to build a new cultural consensus that is democratic but also morally coherent. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that this work of cultural repair will be done by religious progressives, by a new generation of leaders who will build a modern social gospel around love of neighbor and hospitality for the marginalized.

But the work of building that culture will take decades. Until then, we, as a democracy, are on thin ice.”

Brooks’ social gospel will have to address problems that are called “wicked” because they are shockingly complex, persistent, and manifest themselves in interconnected ways at levels from local to global. 

I’ve identified eleven wicked problems we currently face and offer here a vision by which we can imagine resolutions to some of those problems. I’ve further related that vision to ministries of The Episcopal Church. Even though these problems have wide-ranging implications, I consider our focus to be primarily local, with the understanding that the implications are regional, national, and global .

Characteristics of wicked problems

1. They can’t be formulated definitively.
2. They don’t have a “stopping rule,” or an inherent logic that signals when they are solved.
3. Their solutions are not true or false, only good or bad.
4. There is no way to test their solutions.
5. They cannot be studieds through trial and error. Their solutions are irreversible so, as Rittel and Webber put it, “every trial counts.”
6. There is no end to the number of solutions or approaches to a wicked problem.
7. Each wicked problem is unique.
8. Wicked problems can always be described as symptoms of other problems.
9. The way a wicked problem is described determines its possible solutions.
10. Planners who work on wicked problems “are liable for the consequences of the solutions they generate; the effects can matter a great deal to the people who are touched by those actions.” In other words, there are consequences both for those who take up the challenge of solving a wicked problem, and for those impacted by its solutions  Source

We are in an increasing convergence of at least eleven wicked problems

1. War and potential wars.
2. Massive migration caused by and resulting in environmental, social, economic, and political disruptions.
3. Lack of a shared “story” that would provide the necessary level of cohesion in our country and the world to deal with the other problems.  
4. Cultural values that emphasize consumerism and tribalism. 
5. Individual and societal conflicts over gender and reproductive rights.
6. Persistence of racism and sexism. 
7. A complex and highly integrated global economy dependent on fossil fuels that must be phased out as soon as possible to avoid the worst effects of climate change. 
8. Our continued participation in the power paradigm that commits us to means and ends that can only continue the problems and create more. 
9. General unawareness and the underlying fear of the future.
10. Decline of democracy and the increase in authoritarianism as people look for simple answers to complex questions.
11. Climate change that will exacerbate many of the problems above and cause additional ones.

Are Episcopalians (or progressives of whatever stripe) going to solve these problems? Certainly not. But the national organizations can take moral and ethical stands. Local communities may help reduce causes and impacts of some changes and develop resilience to help hold the center in the context of major change. 

A vision to help guide us

Bishop Steven Charleston is an Elder in the Choctaw Nation and was Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Alaska.  He offers a positive vision we can work toward. 

Would you believe me if I told you we were the forerunners of a great spiritual renewal? What if I said this renewal would change our global culture at the end of this century? That it will see the emergence of a new mysticism in contrast to technology and a strong social conscience of sustainability and justice. We are at the very beginning of this movement. We will not all live to see its first moments of birth, but we will have the joy of knowing that we were the shoulders on which others stood to make it a reality. History will show that what we did today to lift up an open-minded spirituality, welcoming to all people, made a difference. Our choice to stand together, to advocate for justice, and to heal this planet will be recognized as the breakthrough. Because we did not give up, they excelled. Would you believe me if I told you that?

I collapsed Bishop Charleston’s vision into four initiatives: (1) A new mysticism in contrast to technology, (2) Sustain and heal the planet, (3) Justice, and (4) An open-minded spirituality. The spreadsheet below has those on the horizontal axis and the wicked problems on the vertical axis. Links to various Episcopal ministries are at the relevant intersections of vision and problems. 

Bishop Charleston’s Vision of the Future, the “Wicked” Problems It Faces, and the Episcopal Ministries that Can Help Overcome Them 

	Bishop Charleston’s Vision
	New mysticism in contrast to technology	Sustainability/heal the planet	Justice	Open-minded spirituality
“Wicked” Problems
War	Global Partnerships	Creation Care	Global Partnerships	Way of Love
Migration			Migration Ministries, Social Justice & Advocacy Engagement	Migration Ministries
Lack cohesive stories	Faith Formation, Global Partnerships, Storytelling
Consumerism	Creation Care	Creation Care
Conflicts over gender and reproductive rights				Way of Love, Office of Public Affairs
Racism	Way of Love		African Descent Ministries, Asiamerica Ministries, Indigenous Ministries, Latino Ministries, Racial Reconciliation
Religious hatred				Way of Love
Climate change		Creation Care
Dependence on fossil fuels	Creation Care	Creation Care
Decline of democracy				Way of Love, Office of Public Affairs
Unawareness				Faith Formation
Fear of the future				Faith Formation

What do we do with this?

The wicked problems above are neither hypothetical nor optional. They are here and we cannot pass them off to God. We caused them and we are God’s agents with the responsibility to respond to them as best we can. What’s more, they are synergistic – the perfect storm, maybe the end of a world. Dougald Hine wrote:

“The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world; it is the end of a way of knowing the world. “When a world ends, its systems and stories come apart, even the largest of them: the stories that promised to explain everything, the systems that organised all that could be said to be real. It’s not that those stories had no truth in them; it’s not that there was no reality in the description of the world those systems offered. It’s that they couldn’t hold. The things they valued betrayed them; the things they left out came back to haunt them.

The focus is not on saving modernity, or bringing it down, or rushing to build what comes afterwards, but doing what we can to give it a good ending. To let it hand on its gifts and teach the lessons that may only become apparent as the end approaches. It’s the work of midwifery: assisting with the birth of something new, unfamiliar and possibly (but not necessarily) wiser, and avoiding suffocating this new world with our projections. The philosopher Federico Campagna speaks about living at the end of a world. In such a time, he suggests, the work is no longer to concern ourselves with making sense according to the logic of the world that is ending, but to leave good ruins, clues and starting points for those who come after, that they may use in building a world that is presently unimaginable.”

I have spent my long life motivated by the social gospel, teaching and working with the assumption that we could refine and maintain the world we have known for less than 100 years. But I think now we must develop resilience to help us through very turbulent times and a vision of transformation to form a new world, perhaps similar to that of Bishop Charleston vision. 

At St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in San Marcos, Texas, I work with the School of Wisdom, the Earth Care Team, and the Young Adult and Campus Ministry. In all of those I try to instill a perspective of resilience and transformation. Resilience and transformation are both essentially spiritual. Writers such as Catherine Keller, Steven Charleston, Ilia Delio, Richard Rohr, Andrew Thompson, and many others provide a theological and spiritual basis. 

David Brooks’ call for a “modern” social gospel reflects that the social gospel has lost some of the visibility and influence it once had. However, the Episcopal Church has always been a leader in the social gospel. I developed the matrix above to help us make effective use of the decades of experience reflected in the methods and materials of the Episcopal ministries. They offer a basis for resilience and transformation. 

Jacques Yves Cousteau did not present himself as a religious person, but he said “If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.”

We are in uncharted waters and need to work together. I would be delighted to hear from you. Perhaps we can form a group that can exchange ideas and experiences. Please email me.