Friday, May 31, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Leaders And The Names We Call Them
Someone recently let me know that they wouldn't be commenting on my facebook posts anymore that have to do with theology, Christian leaders, etc. because they were frustrated with how I was speaking poorly of Christian brothers, etc. - particularly those in leadership. It got me thinking more about how the followers of Jesus are to approach Christian famous people who have been given the responsibility to lead in churches or ministries. If that leader has said things or does things that undermines the message of Christ, the Gospel, the church universal, or are just plain mean - what are we to do? We can,
1. Remain quiet and stay out of the fray.
2. Speak up and say something to defend or criticize that leader.
3. Try to redirect our energy towards more constructive activities.
4. Create a better way of doing things and then do them.
I'm sure there are multiple ways to respond, but one response that usually gets a bad rep is criticism. Criticizing a leader, or even going further and calling them names that identify what we don't like about their actions, does take center stage a lot. Sometimes we satirize their actions (Simpsons) in order to playfully but substantively critique them. Sometimes we outright say what they have done wrong. There are multiple ways that we do this indirectly or directly, but nonetheless, it happens, and yet doing so usually receives its own criticism - the critique that we shouldn't malign our brother and sisters (especially leaders) publicly, even if the criticism is true. I wonder...
To satirize is a legitimate form of subversive non-violent resistance, and might I say one of the best ways to do so. Non-violent resistance is a virtuous action that people who follow Jesus are called to participate in when necessary. Power, when it is abused, calls for action to restore the abuser to proper stewardship of their power. If they continue to abuse that power and/or influence and ignore the warnings, then they are to be called to account and probably have their power taken from them.
To satirize is a legitimate form of subversive non-violent resistance, and might I say one of the best ways to do so. Non-violent resistance is a virtuous action that people who follow Jesus are called to participate in when necessary. Power, when it is abused, calls for action to restore the abuser to proper stewardship of their power. If they continue to abuse that power and/or influence and ignore the warnings, then they are to be called to account and probably have their power taken from them.
My tradition (evangelical/baptist) never taught me this. They taught me the opposite - unquestioned loyalty to authority, ordained leaders, men whom "God has placed in leadership," etc. What if these people have abused their power and have little to no desire to change? We may need to satirize their actions or even go so far as to name call those who are unrelenting in their abuse of power because of their insistence in avoiding the responsibility for wrongs committed.
Name-calling - isn't that juvenile? Yet Jesus's example with name-calling calls out to us. Those who were "hard of heart" were the religious leaders who wouldn't respond when given the chance to correct their actions and they did so on multiple occasions. On top of that, they portrayed themselves as the ones who were upholding morality and were spokesmen for God himself. They even went so far as to protect their positional leadership by discussing how they could lie to keep it, an historic good ole boys club. Sadly, religious leaders today struggle with the exact same dynamics.
Leadership Rule #4 - One has to assume that leaders will and do lie to cover up their mistakes and/or unethical decisions. It is one of the guarantees of stewarding power over other people - we will be tempted to cover up the wrongs we commit due to insecurities, legitimate mistakes, carelessness, selfishness, etc. That temptation is eventual and incessant - as a leader, it will never go away. Here is the syllogism to prove my point:
1. A person who is entrusted with power will be tempted to abuse that power by making either mistakes and/or unethical decisions.
2. Humans make mistakes and unethical decisions
3. Therefore, a person who is entrusted with power will abuse the power by making mistakes and/or unethical decisions.
All forms of leadership are not exempt from this syllogism, including Christians in leadership, but what they do with it is what matters. Leaders need to get over the fact that they are going to screw up or be responsible for someone else's screw up. I have found that in Christian communities, the leadership tends to respond with these three options,
1. Intents vs Actions: As leaders, we tend to appeal to our innocent and initial intents and thoughts regardless of what our actions conveyed. Too many leaders appeal to this and forget that the road to destructive leadership is paved with our good intentions.
Name-calling - isn't that juvenile? Yet Jesus's example with name-calling calls out to us. Those who were "hard of heart" were the religious leaders who wouldn't respond when given the chance to correct their actions and they did so on multiple occasions. On top of that, they portrayed themselves as the ones who were upholding morality and were spokesmen for God himself. They even went so far as to protect their positional leadership by discussing how they could lie to keep it, an historic good ole boys club. Sadly, religious leaders today struggle with the exact same dynamics.
Leadership Rule #4 - One has to assume that leaders will and do lie to cover up their mistakes and/or unethical decisions. It is one of the guarantees of stewarding power over other people - we will be tempted to cover up the wrongs we commit due to insecurities, legitimate mistakes, carelessness, selfishness, etc. That temptation is eventual and incessant - as a leader, it will never go away. Here is the syllogism to prove my point:
1. A person who is entrusted with power will be tempted to abuse that power by making either mistakes and/or unethical decisions.
2. Humans make mistakes and unethical decisions
3. Therefore, a person who is entrusted with power will abuse the power by making mistakes and/or unethical decisions.
All forms of leadership are not exempt from this syllogism, including Christians in leadership, but what they do with it is what matters. Leaders need to get over the fact that they are going to screw up or be responsible for someone else's screw up. I have found that in Christian communities, the leadership tends to respond with these three options,
1. Intents vs Actions: As leaders, we tend to appeal to our innocent and initial intents and thoughts regardless of what our actions conveyed. Too many leaders appeal to this and forget that the road to destructive leadership is paved with our good intentions.
Solution - stop telling people what our intentions were and deal with the implications of our actions. Posture change - accept that our lack of intention is as much a problem as is ill intent.
2. Benevolence vs. Justice: As leaders, when we are faced with the opportunity to pursue justice, even at our own expense, we are many times tempted to overlook justice and replace it with benevolence. Benevolence that doubles for justice is actually form of violence. To ignore the wrong done and then seek repair through benevolence only compounds the painful implications of the injustice and may cause more pain than the initial action. To ignore injustice is to claim that we cannot see the hurt it causes and thus cannot see the people enduring the hurt - which ultimately means that the part of them that hurts doesn't exist. When we replace reconciliatory justice with benevolence, we are avoiding either complicit or implicit guilt by sugar-coating that guilt with what looks like a virtuous response - which in the end is no virtue at all.
2. Benevolence vs. Justice: As leaders, when we are faced with the opportunity to pursue justice, even at our own expense, we are many times tempted to overlook justice and replace it with benevolence. Benevolence that doubles for justice is actually form of violence. To ignore the wrong done and then seek repair through benevolence only compounds the painful implications of the injustice and may cause more pain than the initial action. To ignore injustice is to claim that we cannot see the hurt it causes and thus cannot see the people enduring the hurt - which ultimately means that the part of them that hurts doesn't exist. When we replace reconciliatory justice with benevolence, we are avoiding either complicit or implicit guilt by sugar-coating that guilt with what looks like a virtuous response - which in the end is no virtue at all.
Solution - avoid the inclination to be benevolent as a first response to a cry for justice.
Posture change - seek first the kingdom of God and let benevolence follow as an implication, not a solution.
3. "Soft" truths vs. Honesty: Many times, a leader makes a bad decision and when the need to fess up arises, the leader's power over other people gives that leader options other than bearing the responsibility themselves. Passing the buck down to the most vulnerable and least leveraged is a time honored method of maintaining continuity in positional leadership and all leaders are tempted to do so. We have all seen it happen either to us, to someone else or to the someone(s) that we did it to. It is always tempting to use our positional power to escape the vacuum of complicity once a mistake or unethical decision is made. At the same time, we don't want to be seen as outrightly negligent, so we take some responsibility, but just enough to maintain our innocence nonetheless.
3. "Soft" truths vs. Honesty: Many times, a leader makes a bad decision and when the need to fess up arises, the leader's power over other people gives that leader options other than bearing the responsibility themselves. Passing the buck down to the most vulnerable and least leveraged is a time honored method of maintaining continuity in positional leadership and all leaders are tempted to do so. We have all seen it happen either to us, to someone else or to the someone(s) that we did it to. It is always tempting to use our positional power to escape the vacuum of complicity once a mistake or unethical decision is made. At the same time, we don't want to be seen as outrightly negligent, so we take some responsibility, but just enough to maintain our innocence nonetheless.
Solution - practice the discipline of confession by admitting we are wrong even if at times we are not. Posture change - look at people in the eye when you are tempted to lie to them or about them.
Back to name calling. People in power who persistently pursue soft truths, benevolence and good intentions as their path to responsibility don't deserve name-calling, but instead they need name-calling, among other things. This is to call them back to their responsibility to reconciliation that is honest, just and respectful of their actions, not their intents. Ultimately they are not only showing respect to the people wronged but also to themselves
Jesus seemed to know that hard hearts needed a heavy hand at times and that soft hearts only needed a gentle word at other times. Because we are prone to struggle with doing the opposite of what Jesus did, we need disciplines that will form us otherwise. In review, here are a few option outlined previously
Back to name calling. People in power who persistently pursue soft truths, benevolence and good intentions as their path to responsibility don't deserve name-calling, but instead they need name-calling, among other things. This is to call them back to their responsibility to reconciliation that is honest, just and respectful of their actions, not their intents. Ultimately they are not only showing respect to the people wronged but also to themselves
Jesus seemed to know that hard hearts needed a heavy hand at times and that soft hearts only needed a gentle word at other times. Because we are prone to struggle with doing the opposite of what Jesus did, we need disciplines that will form us otherwise. In review, here are a few option outlined previously
Solution - Stop telling people what our intentions were and deal with the implications of our actions. Posture Change - Accept that our lack of intent can equal ill intent.
Solution - Avoid the inclination to be benevolent as a first response to a cry for justice.
Posture Change - Seek first the Kingdom of God and let benevolence follow as an implication, not a solution.
Solution - Practice the discipline of confession by admitting we are wrong even if at times we are not. Posture Change - look at people in the eye when you are tempted to lie to them or about them.
Final Solution - If none of this works, be prepared to be called names and learn to accept the titles.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Postmodernity is for White People?
In reading a recent critique of a Radical Theology conference, framed as privileged religious discussions, I read some good points. The ongoing critiques of postmodernity because of ethnic concerns is at point frustrating. It is true that postmodernity is primarily a "white, western" concern, but at the same time, we can't ignore that postmodernity is primarily a cultural force that is shaped, owned and entered into by white, western cultures - emphasis on primarily.
The reason is that it is a rejection of "modernity" - something that very few cultures outside of the western world had to endure following the Enlightenment. It is fair to critique movements like Radical Theology for being white, male and privileged, but always with a nuance that the modernity/postmodernity shift is primarily a Western issue.
If you haven't been marred and de-humanized by modernity then you don't need to return from it. This does not mean that non-western cultures have not been de-humanized or oppressed by the influence of modernity on the Western world, but that the ability to oppress and de-humanize the other is in direct correlation to the internally destructive forces of modernity that the Western culture then externalized into projection - self-hatred became hatred of the other, self-effacing dehumanization became subjugated de-humanizing of the other. We need the non-western world to heal from this derangement - i.e. Liberation Theology, but we also need internal conversations and reparative therapy - i.e. Radical Theology, Derrida, Rollins, Foucault, Zizek, etc.
In many ways, postmodernity is a return to a kind of situated tribal affiliation posture that allows for dynamics to re-enter the Western world that have never left the Majority world. This is a good thing, but it may require that the Western world work through postmodernity in collusion with non-western ideologies - yet at the same time understand it is distinct and needs its own spaces to do so at times.
Hence the need for a conference like the one being critiqued - as long as we can accept that it is reparative therapy from the influence of modernity and not privileged bourgeois speak.
The reason is that it is a rejection of "modernity" - something that very few cultures outside of the western world had to endure following the Enlightenment. It is fair to critique movements like Radical Theology for being white, male and privileged, but always with a nuance that the modernity/postmodernity shift is primarily a Western issue.
In many ways, postmodernity is a return to a kind of situated tribal affiliation posture that allows for dynamics to re-enter the Western world that have never left the Majority world. This is a good thing, but it may require that the Western world work through postmodernity in collusion with non-western ideologies - yet at the same time understand it is distinct and needs its own spaces to do so at times.
Hence the need for a conference like the one being critiqued - as long as we can accept that it is reparative therapy from the influence of modernity and not privileged bourgeois speak.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Complementarian vs. Egalitarian...
I then moved over a period of about 2-3 years to an egalitarian position in my approach to gender relations. One main reason - a priori reasoning. It seemed conventionally true that women were in leadership in all capacities from economics to politics and education to information technology. Why would they be not permitted to exercise their gifts and abilities in a religious sphere if they were expected to do so in every other sphere? My new conventional thinking took me in the opposite direction and I became an egalitarian, rather I held the position of egalitarianism when it came to issues of gender.
The problem is that I'm married and will have been for 4 years this month. I have discovered that the marriage partnership is unique and exists nowhere else and to top that, it is the most difficult relationship to keep on a partnership status I've ever been in. It seems that human nature dictates that we would rather see people below us or above us. To see a human being in direct contact with us as an equal is truly one the hardest disciplines I've ever engaged in. Our marriage has been an experiment in egalitarianism and we've failed.
Don't get me wrong, we aren't giving up, but the binary categories of complementarian and egalitarian just don't work. There are days when my wife takes leadership in our home and there are days when I do. There are areas where I take the lead and she has to submit to me for our home to work well and there are areas where she takes leadership and I submit to her. Then there are the areas that we have to partner in and neither of us can take leadership - like parenting, like buying a home, etc. Those are the hardest to work on because we truly do have to be partners.
I wonder at times whether we need to be one or the other on the binary scale set up by gender partisanship battles. I'm not sure that I can stomach hyper-patriarchalism or hyper-feminism, but do some homes work better on different points of the spectrum formed between egalitarianism and complementarity? There are so many factors to consider when forming one's convictions. Is it possible to be functionally complementation while convictionally egalitarian or functionally egalitarian while convictionally complementarian?
Leadership Rant
Leadership Rant: Ever since I was young, I cringed whenever the conventionally quipped leadership lessons were taught or preached. There is something wrong with the Maxwell leadership stuff and I think I'm getting close to why it is so frustrating. Do you remember statements like:
"Character is who you are when no one is watching" - that's dumb. If that's who I really am then I'm a monster.
"The 3 C's of leadership - Character, Competency & Commitment" - The problem with these three C's is that they mean entirely different things to different people - thereby saying nothing really substantive to anyone except for what we want to hear.
So here is my shot at 3 leadership lessons (alliterations included).
#1. Leaders are not supposed to hold a higher standard in order to be models for the rest of us. They are to cultivate a higher standard because human nature dictates that when power over other people is given to a human being, that human being will eventually abuse the power given them unless they have a higher standard stopping them. The moralism perceived in the modeling done by most of us can be done without having actual real character. Being a real role model is at best a by-product of practices designed to keep our dark passenger from administering the power entrusted to us.
#2. The M&M's of Insecurities - We all have insecurities. They are the reason that we as good people do the worst things without any justification to other people, especially when we have power. When you are given the opportunity to lead, insecurities are:
"Character is who you are when no one is watching" - that's dumb. If that's who I really am then I'm a monster. "The 3 C's of leadership - Character, Competency & Commitment" - The problem with these three C's is that they mean entirely different things to different people - thereby saying nothing really substantive to anyone except for what we want to hear.
So here is my shot at 3 leadership lessons (alliterations included).
#1. Leaders are not supposed to hold a higher standard in order to be models for the rest of us. They are to cultivate a higher standard because human nature dictates that when power over other people is given to a human being, that human being will eventually abuse the power given them unless they have a higher standard stopping them. The moralism perceived in the modeling done by most of us can be done without having actual real character. Being a real role model is at best a by-product of practices designed to keep our dark passenger from administering the power entrusted to us.
#2. The M&M's of Insecurities - We all have insecurities. They are the reason that we as good people do the worst things without any justification to other people, especially when we have power. When you are given the opportunity to lead, insecurities are:
1. Magnified
2. Multiplied
3. and are no longer Manageable.
#3. The 3 C's of Insecurities: Insecurities will emerge and what you do with them when they do, will mark your ability to lead. It's best to look them in the eye early on and even put measures in place that give us:
1. Confession (agreeing with your limits and with what is broken in you regularly)
2. Complementarity (allowing people who are better than you to be better than you)
3. Creative Collaboration (inviting the ability for possibilities that exceed our abilities)
2. Multiplied
3. and are no longer Manageable.
#3. The 3 C's of Insecurities: Insecurities will emerge and what you do with them when they do, will mark your ability to lead. It's best to look them in the eye early on and even put measures in place that give us:
1. Confession (agreeing with your limits and with what is broken in you regularly)
2. Complementarity (allowing people who are better than you to be better than you)
3. Creative Collaboration (inviting the ability for possibilities that exceed our abilities)
Thursday, May 09, 2013
Infantilism At Its Best
Miroslav Volf recently posted a quote - "Mere flatterers they all are: preachers, politicians, business owners, preachers, artists who give people only what people want." --Socrates
Sometimes we as people want to be told off by our preachers only to reinforce the desire to avoid telling it to ourselves. It's easier to return weekly to hear what we should do from an external source than to daily cultivate internal disciplines which provide us with who we should be. Failing to break out of this dynamic causes arrested development and we forfeit our contribution to the world's need for wisdom with meandering obedience - a process that we actually desire in order to avoid growing up.
When it comes to transforming the world into what God had originally desired, it would seem he wants wisdom more than obedience. Wisdom is not without obedience, but obedience cannot be a final telos for one to arrive at. Rather it is the ritual practice of pre-embodied wisdom that plays its part in delivering us to wisdom.
Just because a "preacher" draws large crowds of people whom he/she gives direction to, doesn't mean that they are a successful "pastor." Don't give your glory to another, rather let it be manifested for the betterment of the "other" in our pursuit of wisdom.
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17: 20-23
Sometimes we as people want to be told off by our preachers only to reinforce the desire to avoid telling it to ourselves. It's easier to return weekly to hear what we should do from an external source than to daily cultivate internal disciplines which provide us with who we should be. Failing to break out of this dynamic causes arrested development and we forfeit our contribution to the world's need for wisdom with meandering obedience - a process that we actually desire in order to avoid growing up.
When it comes to transforming the world into what God had originally desired, it would seem he wants wisdom more than obedience. Wisdom is not without obedience, but obedience cannot be a final telos for one to arrive at. Rather it is the ritual practice of pre-embodied wisdom that plays its part in delivering us to wisdom.
Just because a "preacher" draws large crowds of people whom he/she gives direction to, doesn't mean that they are a successful "pastor." Don't give your glory to another, rather let it be manifested for the betterment of the "other" in our pursuit of wisdom.
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.
May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." John 17: 20-23
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