Read an Excerpt
Spiritual Leadership
Why Leaders Lead and Who Seekers Follow
By THOMAS G. BANDY Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2016 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5018-2560-6
CHAPTER 1
WHY SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP?
The idea that certain kinds of people gravitate toward certain kinds of leaders has been around for a long time. There are exceptions and degrees of commitment, of course. People (as individuals) are complicated and changeable. However, people (as groups) are remarkably consistent and predictable.
There are patterns. The typical follower of this leader has these characteristics. The typical follower of that leader has those characteristics. Conversely, this group of people tends to look for, believe in, and listen to this kind of leader; and that group of people tends to look for, believe in, and listen to that kind of leader.
There are trends. Certain kinds of people are more responsive to certain kinds of leaders. Certain kinds of leaders seem to be more empathic toward, and understanding of, certain kinds of people. They seem to know some contexts, certain needs, and distinct attitudes better than others. If you follow the career of a leader, you can anticipate who they will gather around them and where they will be most effective.
The idea that certain groups of people gravitate toward certain kinds of leaders has always been most visible in politics. Politicians have a better reputation among some groups of people than others. They appear to understand certain groups better than others, and people believe that some politicians can more accurately represent their interest and concerns better than other politicians. This leads politicians seeking election to spend more time and money among these people in these contexts, rather than with other people in other contexts. There are overlaps and exceptions, of course, because groups have overlapping interests and politicians have overlapping messages. Yet there are clear trends, and politicians and voters follow those trends.
The categories or groups have been defined using almost any one or combination of pure demographic categories: age, phase of life, economic class, educational attainment, profession, marriage and family status, race and ethnicity, urban and rural residency, and so on. This is why the idea that certain kinds of people gravitate to certain kinds of leaders has been applied to almost every other sector of life in addition to politics.
• Age groups gravitate to certain kinds of media, entertainments, and technologies; and writers, entertainers, and technicians deliberately cultivate certain age groups.
• Different kinds of students select specific kinds of teachers (even in the same subject); and certain kinds of teachers seem to communicate more effectively with certain kinds of students (even in the same faculty).
• Single, cross-cultural, high school urbanites tend to watch different television anchors, or read different newspaper columnists, than married, settled suburbanites with college degrees.
• Doctors gather patients for whom they have particular empathy and expertise, and patients search for doctors who seem to better understand their issues, situations, and relationships.
• Some police, fire, and emergency civil servants are more effective, and more widely respected, in some contexts and among certain groups than others.
• Even lawyers appeal to specific target markets, based on the anticipated needs and vulnerabilities of different kinds of people; and clients choose legal representation not because they have expertise but because they understand certain kinds of people and have a reputation for success among them.
The point is that there are patterns and trends in every public sector that shape relationships between leaders and followers.
The multiplication of lifestyle segmentation in recent decades has taken the idea that certain groups gravitate to a certain leader to a whole new level. The emergence of lifestyle segment research generally follows the emergence of the digital age and mobile global village. We now collect vast amounts of data for every single human being who shows up on the grid (i.e., 99 percent of humanity), and we can use that data to track their movements, monitor their choices, and anticipate their needs. At the time of my writing, there are about seventy-one to seventy-five distinct lifestyle segments in North America (more if we expand research, as multinational corporations have already done, to include the entire Western world). These are groups defined by behavior:
• Attitudes
• Tastes
• Preferences
• Habits
• Retail Priorities
• Political perspectives
• Recreations
• Relationships
• Work ethics
• Medias
• Family planning
• Housing options
• Outlooks on life
• Religion
Go to any shopping mall food court and observe how different people gravitate to different kinds of foods and hospitality, and you get an inkling of what lifestyle segment research is all about. Not only restaurants, but also schools, universities, hospitals, social services, corporations, stores, political parties, and government agencies at every level have gone way beyond demographic research. They are studying lifestyles.
Different lifestyle segments gravitate to different kinds of leaders. It is a complicated study and at times is more art than science, intuition than survey; but there are patterns to discern and benefits to be gained by the knowledge. It's not just profits. It's about relevant services, delivered in a timely fashion, with appropriate technologies, by specially trained people.
It seems self-evident that leaders are necessary in every public sector. We really do need teachers, managers, executives, politicians, legal representatives, entertainment icons, and more, in all sectors, at every local, regional, and national level.
Yet today there is an exception or, at least, a question. We need leaders to address our physical, emotional, relational needs. But do we really need leaders to address our spiritual needs? We need leaders to educate our minds, organize our lives, sustain our health, protect our well-being, and improve our marriages and parenting. But do we really need a leader to shape our soul (assuming that we have one)?
Why Does Spirituality Need Leadership?
The postmodern trend is that most everyone wants spirituality but that very few want religion. Although surveys vary from region to region, as many as 80 to 90 percent of respondents claim to be "spiritual people"; but only 10 to 20 percent of respondents think religious doctrines or church attendance are important. That trend continues, with the United States following the direction of England, Western Europe, Australia, and Canada.
So the question seems urgent. Does spirituality really need leadership? Isn't it personal? Unlike other public sectors, spirituality is the one area of life for which individuals can, and perhaps should, take complete responsibility. At least one appeal of other great religious traditions like Islam and Buddhism is that leadership may be useful, but it is not necessary to the spiritual life.
• The "Five Pillars of Islam" define the core of Muslim spirituality but are remarkably individualistic, mobile, and noninstitutional: affirmation that there is no God but God and that Muhammad is his Messenger; individual prayer at regular intervals each day; sacrificial generosity toward the poor and needy; fasting and self-control during Ramadan; and pilgrimage to Mecca if possible. The mosque and the mullah may be useful, but strictly speaking, they are not necessary.
• The "Eightfold Path to Enlightenment" defines the core of classical Buddhism, but these too are remarkably individualistic, mobile, and personal: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. The schools and the teachers may be useful but again, strictly speaking, not necessary.
It is certainly true that for many Western people today, the lack of urgency about leadership in spirituality has more to do with laziness. Aside from whatever wisdom they can share, the mullahs and monks do provide a rigorous measure of accountability for personal spiritual growth. For those who really do take Islam or Buddhism seriously, leaders are important even if, strictly speaking, not necessary.
It is Christianity that has insisted that spirituality requires leadership in the form of priests, pastors, prophets, and more. However, the reasons for this urgency are probably different for pre-Christendom and Christendom Christians. After the fourth century, the church required leadership for spirituality primarily as a means of governance, organizational and doctrinal unity, and permission to experience the fullness of grace. In the earliest and apostolic Christian movement and communities of faith, prior to the fourth century, leadership was necessary for other reasons. Leaders were role models for spiritual discipline and faith, sometimes dying horrible deaths for the sake of the gospel. They were important teachers and mentors, but they were also examples of teleological living and existential courage. Their sainthood depended less on what they said and what they did; but most importantly, it depended on what they risked, sacrificed, and represented. Leaders were the personification of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The post-Christendom world has returned to pre-Christian assumptions about leadership. After over 1600 years of Christendom, leadership is no longer needed for spirituality if it only provides control and permission to access grace. We all know — as the earliest disciples and martyrs knew — that grace is readily available to anyone who confesses Jesus as Lord and is prepared to walk in the way of Christ. However, we all know (or intuit) — as the earliest disciples and martyrs knew (or intuited) — that we need not only the wisdom of the apostles and their mentees but also, and more importantly, the examples of their courage to face life and death and their transparency to grace. We need them because we literally see through them the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is as if we look through a pane of glass — distorted and imperfect yet transparent to any who just looks — and through that leader we see Christ.
What Do Seekers Seek?
It is here that lifestyle segment research has become so helpful. This immense database of demographic, psychographic, and behavioral information has tracked and described the diversity of human need more concretely than ever before. I have discussed this previously in my books See, Know and Serve the People within Your Reach and also Worship Ways: For the People within Your Reach. We are able to define social trends, explore behavioral habits, and discern different kinds of needs, issues, questions, and worries that dominate the lives of any given lifestyle segment in any given context.
There is a connection between the people in a lifestyle segment and the existential anxieties that dominate their lives, shape their spiritualties, and ultimately drive their quest for God. These existential anxieties are like software platforms that run invisibly in the background behind all the activities of daily living. Consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, these anxieties influence their choices, their methods of choosing, their measurements of personal success, and their worries about personal failure. They precipitate their most urgent life questions; they shape their spiritualties; and they guide their search for meaning and quest for God.
The eight existential anxieties are: emptiness, meaninglessness, fate, death, guilt, shame, displacement, and estrangement. These anxieties dominate real life situations that can be discerned in every lifestyle segment.
Lifestyle segments are complex and fluid. It may be the people in any given lifestyle segment are dominated by more than one anxiety. It may be that individuals in any given lifestyle segment may be experiencing new anxieties, and these are often related to their migration from one lifestyle segment to another due to changes in phase of life, economic status, intimate relationships, cultural assimilation, and other factors. Yet the existential anxieties and resulting life situations are still discernible and trackable.
I have previously argued that this predictability is visible in the choices people make, in any given lifestyle segment, regarding worship. Worship does not emerge from theology or a sense of duty, but from the existential anxieties that beset human beings and define the experiences of grace they yearn to receive.
The core of the Christian faith is that any experience of grace and any encounter with God is anticipated and revealed in Jesus Christ. We call these "incarnational experiences." We experience the fullness and mystery of God in Christ, who is simultaneously and mysteriously human and divine, and it is in the encounter with the "real presence of Christ" that our existential anxieties are met and out life situations improved.
Western Christianity has tended to emphasise the incarnation and resurrection of Christ (Christmas and Easter) as the key insights into his human and divine nature. Eastern Christianity has included the transfiguration of Christ as an essential third element that indicated not only the nature but also the purpose of Christ. His nature is the perfect unity of human and divine attributes. His purpose is to ultimately transform us into a similar nature. The West talks mainly about grace; and the East also talks about deification.
Grace has always been an important part of Christian expectation in the modern world, but deification is becoming an equally important part of Christian expectation in the postmodern world. The story of the transfiguration of Jesus promises something more for the spiritualties of different lifestyle segments. Grace implies renewal, so that what exists can be made better either through grace working through human wisdom and morality, or through grace working miraculously in spite of human ignorance and immorality. That was more than enough for modern people. Postmodern people are looking for more than "more than enough"! They are cynical about human behavior no matter how it might be "renewed" and believe that nothing short of radical transformation is needed for social change or individual salvation.
The Eight Experiences of Incarnation reflect this yearning for radical change. It also connects with postmodern spiritualties that see something of the divine already within the human, so that human nature is not thoroughly corrupt but inherently beautiful; and postmodern spiritualties that see something of the human already in the divine, so that heaven is not a rejection of the physical world but a completion of what is already beautiful.
Different lifestyle segments yearn to experience different kinds of incarnation, that each address different kinds of existential anxieties:
• The discarded, perhaps rejected, living at the margins or far from home, are driven by the anxiety of displacement to seek the fullness of God as Rescuer. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping that Christ will deliver them from peril.
• The lonely are driven by the anxiety of estrangement and seek the fullness of God as a Constant Companion, brother or sister or true friend. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping Christ will return them to community and link them with authentic relationships.
• The lost are driven by the anxiety of emptiness to seek the fullness of God as Spiritual Guide. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping that Christ guides them through the ambiguities of life to find purpose and direction.
• The flawed are driven by the anxiety of meaninglessness to seek the fullness of God as Perfect Human. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping that Christ will not only reveal the virtues of truth, goodness, and beauty as a teacher but also personify virtue itself as a role model.
• The dying are driven by the anxiety of death to seek the fullness of God as Promise Keeper. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping Christ will inspire them with confidence for tomorrow and eternity.
• The trapped are driven by the anxiety of fate to seek the fullness of God as the New Being. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping Christ will be the "Higher Power" that breaks their shackles and makes all things new.
• The guilt-ridden, perhaps broken in body and spirit, are driven by the anxiety of guilt to seek the fullness of God as Healer. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping Christ will make them whole and convey serenity.
• The abused or victimized, perhaps by violence or poverty, are driven by the anxiety of shame to seek the fullness of God as Vindicator. Some lifestyle segments are primarily hoping Christ will raise self-esteem and bring justice.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Spiritual Leadership by THOMAS G. BANDY. Copyright © 2016 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
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