Chris Blumhofer, a writer for an online
ministry of Leadership magazine, answers this question with a resounding,
"No!" He argues that most contemporary books on leadership treat
Jesus as if he was just like one of us, i.e., a corporate CEO who lives in a
Western, capitalistic society. For example, the book, Jesus, CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership, quotes
John 10:10 and claims that, “Jesus clearly defined his staff’s work-related
benefits.” For Blumhofer, and for me, this is clearly wrong and anachronistic.
Jesus did not have a “staff,” let alone benefits for his disciples “clearly”
laid out. “Jesus was not demonstrating any principle about the year-end bonus,
revenue sharing, or 401(k) matching.” Furthermore, our contemporary notions of
work, which have to do with time, money, and productivity, have no real
connection with the work that was done during the time of Jesus. I do not think
that Jesus’ disciples were getting paid by the hour to produce the kingdom of
God.
Our pragmatic desire to find in Jesus
the leadership style that fits our own tastes is doomed to failure, and that is
exactly what these business leadership books do. They take Jesus off the cross
and put him in the conference room. However, if we took the way that Jesus led
seriously, then our leadership structures would look different. How many CEOs
would sacrifice everything they had for their entry level worker? Not many. In what
sense are our leadership theories and practices dominated by a radical, agape love? Not many. That needs to
change.
I will comment on this.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand, I am tempted to agree with the article and with you. Certainly books on leadership that just make an intellectual leap from Jesus’ circumstances and our own without any considerations for the various levels of context fail to do justice to the complexity of the biblical texts. On the other hand, however, it seems to me that the author does a fair amount of critiquing without spending as much time positively contributing to our understanding of leadership.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a better approach, instead of just reading our own contextual issues into Jesus’ story, we should take the various theoretical approaches and models of leadership and evaluate them based upon how well they comport with our understanding of Jesus within his context. Thus, a charismatic or servant model of leadership will be evaluated in terms of how well each coheres with the accounts of Jesus in the gospels. Such an approach, I think, recognizes that the primary task of the gospels is not to give us a model of leadership, but still allows us to evaluate different models in light of the biblical data. This, I think, would provide a more positive contribution than the author currently does in the article.