Issues Facing Missions Today 9: A 'Biblical Theology of Leadership'?
What is ‘a Biblical theology of leadership?’ The phrase is found everywhere, even as the
title of courses of study. It is
accepted uncritically as a meaningful concept and coherent idea, something that
carries the authority of Scripture, and something that we should pursue as a
matter of first importance in churches and ministries today. Some would even describe the missionary task
as the training of leaders, and the grist for grinding out such a product would,
we are told, be found in the Bible.
Serious problems—I will note only two here—arise for
such an undertaking, however. First,
more serious reflection is needed on what is meant by ‘a Biblical theology’ of
anything. The second point noted here
will be given a more careful look through comments made by John Howard Yoder
before the focus on ‘Christian leadership’ became so popular. One reason for focusing on Yoder’s work is
that he wrote well before all the language of ‘leadership’ for Christian ministry
came into vogue, and his warnings are as apropos as ever.
1. ‘Biblical theology of …’ Projects.
The first problem to consider is the very concept
of sticking a noun at the end of a phrase that begins with ‘A Biblical Theology
of….’ Biblical theology needs to address
what the Bible addresses, and if the Bible does not address the subject, we are
not likely to come up with a Biblical theology for it. We hear, for example, of ‘Biblical
counselling,’ as though the Bible actually teaches believers how to counsel
others. Some advice from Proverbs might
be listed, a passage here and there regarding restoring someone who has sinned
to fellowship or passing judgment on recalcitrant sinners in the church might
be discussed, but this piece-meal collection of texts does not amount to a ‘Biblical
theology’ for the subject. A similar
issue might be raised for ‘leadership’—just where does Scripture offer a robust
teaching on leadership as we might find about Christ or the church?
The contours of a critique of this approach to the
Bible, to ‘Biblical theology of …’ projects, might be listed in a few
points. (The subject begs for greater attention.) First, Biblical theology needs to establish
what the subject matter is, what the correct terminology is, what accounts for
synthesis and where the diversity is, and so forth. Our curricula must begin with Biblical
theology per se, not with our topic
of interest and then some Biblical reflection on it. We must not show up with our
own project derived from a social science and expect to extract a theology from
the Bible to nuance it slightly in this or that direction. Second, Biblical theology needs to be
explored in terms of diversity and unity within the canon. We may well find that there is no unified
view in Scripture on a given topic, such as church governance. There may be significant differences between
the Old and New Testaments on our subject matter: King David is hardly an
example of ‘leadership’ for New Testament times, let alone for a pastor or
political leader in our day. Third, we
must avoid assuming that the narration of story actually offers Biblical
authority on a certain topic. In all the
Biblical narratives where people take some leadership role, how many of them
are actually offered as teaching on the subject at all? Fourth, metaphors for leadership that arise
in the Bible have limited use and must not be pressed into service beyond how
they might be used in specific passages.
Nor should we latch onto a single metaphor—metaphors help balance each
other, and every metaphor at some point breaks down.
2. ‘Leadership’ Studies?
Go back to the 1970s and the word to use would not
have been ‘leadership’ but ‘ministry.’
The language of ‘leadership’ appears to have shown up in Christian
circles from a non-theological field of study altogether—business. As such, the study of leadership is a social
science and can be studied through sociological, anthropological, and psychological
lenses and applied to various contexts, such as business—or the church. Academic textbooks used to study leadership,
like counselling textbooks, come from non-theological fields of study. One should not assume that Scripture will
dove-tail neatly with such studies, and one should not even assume that
Scripture can do much more than critique such studies.
As things played out in the 1980s, Scripture was
used to qualify these social scientific studies on leadership by adding the term
‘servant’—‘servant leadership.’ The
classic passage for this is Mark 10:43-45, when Jesus says to his disciples,
43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become
great among you must be your servant, 44
and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to
be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
‘Servant leadership’ has come to mean learning
from the social sciences how to gain and exercise power for others, and then to
alter this slightly along Christian lines as we reflect on being a servant to
others as we lead. Thus ‘leadership’
language allows people to continue to talk about power and explain it from a
social scientific perspective, and ‘servant’ language is brought in as the Christian
element to curtail any abuses. Yet, well
before we found ourselves in this situation, John Howard Yoder offered a
helpful criticism of power in Christian understanding.[1] Consider some of his comments in his The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel, originally
published in 1972.
First, Yoder criticized a natural ethic, an ethic
that was non-confessional. He spoke of a
‘hermeneutic of peoplehood’ to emphasise that ethics stems from the confession
of a particular community (pp. 15-45).
By application, the notion of something that we might speak of as ‘leadership’
in itself and then add on some ideas from Christianity would be wrong-headed
from the start. A Christian
understanding of community, with its confessional starting-point, would sit
uncomfortably with, if not actually be incommensurable with, a non-Christian
understanding of communal relationships.
Second, the language of the New Testament for the believer
is that of ‘discipleship’ and ‘imitation.’
This involves servanthood instead of dominion and forgiveness instead of
hostility (p. 134). The very definition
of Christian existence is sharing this understanding of the divine nature (Col.
3.9; cf. Eph. 4.24). Forgiveness is
based on God’s forgiveness of us (Eph. 4.32; Col. 3.13). Love (not a ‘leadership’ virtue) sums up the
essence of what it means to imitate God’s character and actions. This is concretely understood in our dying
with Christ and sharing in his risen life (life (Rom. 6.6‑11; 8.11; Gal. 2.20;
cf. 5.24; Eph. 4.20‑24; Col. 2.12‑3.1). We are to imitate Jesus’ serving of others (Rom.
15.1‑7; 2 Cor. 5.14ff; 8.7‑9; Eph. 5.25‑28).
Even more intense than an imitation of Jesus’ service of others is Paul’s
understanding of apostolic existence in terms of suffering with Christ (Phl.
3.10f; 2 C. 4.10; Col. 1.24; 1 Th. 1.6).
Such a calling is exemplary for all believers. Yoder spells this out with a number of examples and some Pauline texts:
*Sharing in divine condescension (Phl. 2.3‑14)
*Give your life as he did (Eph. 5.1f)
*Suffering servanthood in place of dominion
*Accept innocent suffering without complaint, as Jesus
did
*Suffer the hostility of the world with or like Christ,
as bearers of the kingdom cause (2 Tim. 3.12; Phl. 1.29)
An alternative understanding of power faces death
as the ultimate challenge to success.
Yet Paul understands death in a remarkably different way. Death is liberation from the power of sin (Gal.
5.24). Jesus’ death was also the fate of
heroes of the faith, the prophets (1 Th. 2.15ff). Far from being defeat, death could be understood
as victory (Col. 2.15; 1 Cor. 1.22‑24).
Yoder interprets 1 Cor. 7 as, to some extent, a
discourse on revolutionary subordination.
He says,
[Paul’s] motto of revolutionary subordination, of
willing servanthood in the place of domination, enables the person in a
subordinate position in society to accept and live within that status without resentment, at the same time that it calls upon the person in the superordinate
position to forsake or renounce all domineering use of his status. This call is then precisely not a simple
ratification of the stratified society into which the gospel has come. The subordinate person becomes a free ethical
agent when he voluntarily accedes to his subordination in the power of Christ
instead of bowing to it either fatalistically or resentfully. The claim is not that there is immediately a
new world regime which violently replaces the old: but rather the old and the new order exist
concurrently on different levels. It is
because she knows that in Christ there is no male or female that the Christian
wife can freely accept that subordination to her unbelieving husband which is
her present lot. It is because Christ
has made all men free and the freed man is on the same level with his slave,
that their relationship may continue as a humane and honest one within the
framework of the present economy, the structure of which is passing away (1
Cor. 7.31) (190f).
There is,
here, a deeper theology than the choice between complementarianism and egalitarianism
in marriage or other relationships. Both
of these are negotiations of power: either an understanding of how one person
exercises authority over another (no matter how benevolently) and the other
submits, or an understanding of how power is shared. Yet, in my own view and perhaps Yoder’s as
well, Paul is rather concerned about how to extract the evil from relationships
that arises over power. Christ’s example
for believers offers just the alternative needed: a foregoing of power through
submission and love.
To take
another example—a very common one in our day—when we try to balance a college faculty
with a collection of genders and ethnicities in the spirit of our times, our
approach entails addressing our real and imagined inequalities through the
balance of power among interested groups.
‘If only we could have a diverse faculty, with their power and status in
the community….’ At best, this is a
middle axiom, as ethicists might call it—a half-measure on the way to what is
needed. It is more likely merely
tokenism, a pretense at addressing weightier matters. Yet, what is really needed is a progression
beyond the balance of power to a foregoing of power politics altogether. What is needed is a vision of service,
sacrifice, and suffering that can be transformative for Christian community. Believers related to one another in community
as ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters,’ not as a balance of Jews, Gentiles, males,
females, slaves, free, Scythians, Greeks, and Romans.
While Yoder
explores his concerns with power on a number of other issues, his study of
Revelation in particular identifies the problem with a ‘leadership’ approach to
the Christian life. He notes that the
message of the book is that the slain
Lamb, not brute power, moves history
towards its goal. Jesus
renounced...the
untrammeled sovereign exercise of power in the affairs of that humanity amid
which he came to dwell. His emptying of
himself, his accepting the form of servanthood and obedience unto death, is
precisely his renunciation of lordship, his apparent abandonment of any
obligation to be effective in making history move down the right track.
However we
might want to nuance this last quotation—for Jesus’ Lordship does need to be
explained—Yoder is certainly correct that Jesus chose a path that was faithful
to divine, self-giving character instead of an exercise of power for the sake
of political effectiveness. Therein lies
one of the great problems with ‘servant leadership,’ for it seeks power in
order to be effective for righteousness, justice, or some other great virtue.
Take the pastor, president of an
organization, leader of a Christian community, chief executive office—whatever we
call him or her—who sees the problem to overcome the need to gain a greater
freedom in the exercise of authority. If
that can be accomplished, one imagines, then great things could be done for the
Kingdom, for others, for God. Some have even
spoken of the need not only of a theology of leadership but also a theology of
followership—how to be good followers.
This frames the entire discussion in terms of power, who has it, who is
to submit to it, and how it can be exercised for great good.
The cross of Jesus Christ is an expression of the very character of God. Because of his divine identity, not despite it, Jesus emptied himself, taking on the form of a servant, and humbled himself to the point of death (Phl. 2.6-8). We cannot call this ‘servant leadership.’ It is, moreover, the way God works in us so that we might be enabled to will and work for His good pleasure (v. 13).
[1]
John Howard Yoder, The Priestly
Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel. Notre Dame:
Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1984.
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