Faith, Leadership and Public Life. Preston Manning

Faith, Leadership and Public Life - Preston Manning


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that we will use the persuasive and legislative powers of elected office to impose our Christian values and beliefs on those who do not share them. And the biggest single criticism from the Christian community of me as a professedly Christian legislator in office was that I did not use the persuasive and legislative powers of my office to do precisely that.

      The irony in all this is that if the general public actually knew what Jesus of Nazareth himself taught on this subject, if they knew of his own personal and categorical rejection of that option when it was presented to him at the outset of his own ministry, they would see him and genuine Christianity as the great guardians against the very thing that they fear. The further irony—a tragic irony—is that when well-meaning Christians advocate the use of the coercive power of the state to bring in the kingdom of heaven they are actually taking not Jesus’ side but the side of Satan when he advocated precisely that position in the wilderness temptation.

      But what true believer, zealous for the cause of right and desirous of seeing the kingdom of heaven on earth, can resist the temptation to grasp the power and the authority of the state if it appears within reach?

      Does this mean that Christian believers should not be involved in secular governments or the politics of the world or seek to advance the values and truths that proceed from the word of God in the secular, humanistic, and materialistic political and cultural arenas of our times? Not at all! But let us recognize that the Jesus way of advancing those values and truths—of advancing the kingdom of God, of securing public support for a spiritual agenda—is fundamentally different from the way urged upon him by Satan in the wilderness. More on this Jesus way in subsequent chapters.

      1.5 TRAINING: ETHICS

      Introduction

      The language of his book will strike the modern reader as quaint and out of another era, which it is. And Bruce occasionally digressed into giving his side of various theological disputes that were apparently important at the time but no longer resonate with us. But the depth and breadth of Bruce’s descriptions and insights into exactly how Jesus of Nazareth, in three short years, took a motley crew of twelve young men and moulded them into the founding members and leaders of an organization, the Christian church, which has lasted over twenty centuries and greatly affected the lives of hundreds of millions of people, are profound and instructive.

      Nevertheless, now looking back over twenty centuries, it is truly astounding to see what this humble band became under his tutelage and what was accomplished through them. What might those of us responsible for forming, motivating, and managing small groups of people today—especially for religious or political purposes or for operating at the interface of faith and public life—learn from Jesus’ methods and example in this regard?

      Lessons in Leadership

      As Bruce observed, the record of the work of Jesus contained in the Gospels has two distinct dimensions—a public dimension in which he spoke, taught, and acted in public and dealt with public audiences and a more private and intimate dimension in which Jesus devoted himself specifically to the training and cultivation of the disciples. Be reminded, Bruce said,

      It is this second dimension of Jesus’ work that Bruce examined and explained in great detail. Three aspects of the training of the disciples that I find particularly relevant to those of us with interests in public service, whether we are believers or not, pertain to the inculcation of high ethical standards, the management of ambition, and the reform of existing practices and institutions. In this chapter let us begin with Jesus’ approach to the inculcation of ethics and its contemporary relevance.

      The Inculcation of Ethics


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