I’m all for recognizing that the tail can wag the dog. Leadership from the rear can be as, if not more, effective than the braggadocio sword wielder on the white horse in front of the pack. However there are certain qualities of leadership that remain regardless of what form it may take: vision for one, courage for the other. Sending a pack of wild animals you’ve riled up to fight for you to storm a building after you’ve promised to march with them, then retiring to the safety of your stronghold to watch them on tv is an act of cowardice only a tyrant is capable of. All tyrants are cowards. They hide their insecurities beneath their wanton display of force. But all it takes to tame a bully is one good bitch-slap…only warriors are prepared to die on the field.
This quality of leadership – the willingness to self-sacrifice for the team, the wise and discerning look and search for that quality and revere it wherever it is found – whether on the battlefront or in the bleachers. Preachers or politicians afraid of their flock cannot shepherd them. When a leader takes a stance, it is because s/he has seen a vision, not because s/he has taken a poll. Opinions must be regarded, but never worshiped. This is the difference between Moses and Aaron, and why Yahweh will always side with the visionary rather than the crowd pleaser. If your job is to keep people happy by catering to every whim, expect to be consumed by them. Every true parent knows, the job description does not always facilitate popularity, but you hold your ground if you can see what might not be immediately appreciated but you remain sure eventually will be. Otherwise, what’s the point? The blessing is on peacemakers not pacifiers.
My beloved brother Sean Major Campbell made some rather bold statements on the hot button Jamaican topic of abortion recently. In doing so, he opened himself to repudiation from the church he serves. How can a priest be telling the church to get out of the government’s way. of policy reform? (I thought that as conscience of the nation that was part of the job description). The policy recommendations of CAPRI, the think tank he represents, for :-
a. Parliament to take secret ballot vote on repealing the total abortion ban in Jamaica, releasing individual MP’s from accountability to their constituents for decision taking;
b. legislation to be passed freeing minors to access abortion without parental consent, and furthermore be funded in doing so from the public purse;
seems like a script from hell. If church advocates for these draconian measures that arguably strike at the very nerve of the sacred values that support family life, at least as conceived under the norms that inform the Christian marriage model, then why bother to preach and encourage those values? If my underaged daughter can be free to abort her unwanted child without my knowledge and be funded in her endeavour by the state, has not the state undermined my stewardship and role as a parent? In fact, is not the state now more parent than I?
I consider my brother, whom I know to be both a deeply compassionate parent and priest, to have gone extremely far left in these recommendations, although I hold church and political leadership, or rather lack thereof, largely responsible for pushing him there. The rationale behind these recommendations is not lost on me. He makes some sound arguments and cites credible statistics that inform his position. One wonders however if preachers backed their fiery sermons which sufficient programs of compassion speaking to the plight of young unprepared mothers, – programs extensive enough to support the proposition that those fiery pulpits are more than soap boxes of pharisaical condemnation, heaping burdens on the poor without lifting a finger to help them bear it; and politicians passed laws they intended to enforce rather than empty toothless propitiation to the starched morality of an elite, out of touch with the needs and concerns of the masses, whether these draconian measures would be thought necessary to correct the condition of a people having lost all moral compass due to absence of captains with either concern for crew or clue of destination.
I don’t have the luxury of lambasting my brother whom I love and greatly respect as some fruitless tree without roots, twice dead, plucked up. I understand it his rootedness and groundedness, compassion and connection that has driven him to this place….and it is, as I hope we all understand, a very unfortunate place to be. I would rather focus on the rest of us having neither quality of courage or vision my brother aptly demonstrates, even if I consider as I do his position both erroneous, dangerous and potentially more subversive than salvific.
I recall a recent Caribbean Christian Leadership Network (CCLN) forum gathered to discuss the issues my brother tackles so head on and straightforwardly. The topic of discussion was Gender Legislation in the Caribbean and while the volatility of the issues of abortion and homosexuality and the social tensions surrounding these deeply divisive and intimately personal topics was clear, and the responsibility of leadership to create clear paths rather than aimlessly stir up strife, it struck me that throughout the entire discourse, not one of the panelists even managed to say the word ‘abortion’ or ‘gay marriage’, though that ostensibly was what we were gathered to discuss, and my distinct impression was that this gingerly approach was informed by the determination to steer away from controversy. One at least does not have to wonder what side Major-Campbell takes nor why.
There must be an appropriate time and place for controversy; for taking a stand; for making one’s positions clear, even if it means losing an election, or being excommunicated. Jesus certainly seemed to think so, whip in hand and turning over tables. Not a pretty picture of stable, steady leadership. All our traditions of faith and public policy were established at some point or nurtured by the necessity of visionary leadership driven by conscience taking a stand. What mattered was not the personal outcome, but the flag of conscience being planted in plain view, recognized or not by the present or passing generation.
But calculus not conscience seems to be the new lodestar not only in politics but also in religion.
YeKengalé 