Visionary Leadership: It's a sad day.... Bishop Tutu banned from speaking at St Thomas University in Minnesota

I have a friend who once commented that if you life the kind of life that Jesus lived, you need to expect the kind of treatment that Jesus got... He has a rather disturbing, but true, catch phrase that says "If you live the truth, you'd better look good on wood, because sooner or later people will want to crucify you".

Well, this is not exactly comparable to the suffering of Christ, but heck, people hate to hear the truth!

Today it was reported that St Thomas University refused to host retired Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu because of comments he made about Israel's treatment of Palestinians!

This report from the Star Tribune explains what transpired:

A plan to invite Desmond Tutu to speak at the University of St. Thomas next year was scuttled by university officials who did not want to offend the Jewish community over the Nobel Peace Prize laureate's views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, university officials confirmed Wednesday.

In addition, Cris Toffolo, an associate professor who supported inviting the South African archbishop and activist was removed as director of the St. Paul university's justice and peace studies program in August.

She remains on the faculty.

Tutu's visit will be shifted to Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, according to a local group that had planned to bring him to St. Thomas.

Doug Hennes, vice president for university and government relations at St. Thomas, said the Rev. Dennis Dease, St. Thomas' president, made the final decision not to invite Tutu after consulting with his staff.

"He [Tutu] has been critical of Israel and Israeli policy regarding the Palestinians, so we talked with people in the Jewish community and they said they believed it would be hurtful to the Jewish community, because of things he's said," Hennes said.

The truth hurts - but sadly, it also sometimes hurts those who stand for it...

Technoratti tags: tutu, Desmond Tutu, Israel, Palestine

It disturbs me... Another instance of visionary leadership

I subscribe to a number of email list groups (google groups and yahoo groups). Perhaps one of the most active groups is that for gay, and gay friendly (affirming), Methodists in Southern Africa. It is an open group, you can read our discussions and posts here.

Since our conference the list has been abuzz with discussion. The one thing we have in common is our passion for the Gospel of Christ, and a desire to see the values of Christ's Gospel fairly, courageously, and lovingly reflected in our Church's ministry. However, along with that common passion comes many different perspectives on how this should take place.

For those who have been following my posts on this discussion (and the comments that others have made in response to those posts) you will know that there has been some concern that we have placed the unity of the Church before our calling to be a prophetic institution of justice and grace. I have prayed, and thought, and journaled, and read, and engaged with these two positions (unity in the Church vs. prophetic and Christ honoring ministry in spite of disagreement). I am struggling to know which way to go...

Today I came across this quote (actually part of a poem) by Martin Niemoller (a German theologian who became one of the founders of the Confessing Church, and was imprisoned between 1937 and 1945 in both the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps)

"First they came for Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."
Rev Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)

Here is the post from my friend Peter Grassow, one of the most prophetic and Christ like ministers I know: (this post is taken from an open forum - you can read the original here)

I belong to a divided church.
And some of you who read this will understand how Sundays sees our nation divide - with black people going to black church services, "coloured" people attending "coloured" services, and some white people going to church (most do not go to church at all).

But this is not the division I think of - I am referring to the division between straight and gay people. The Methodist Church of SA has chosen to maintain a distance from gay people. No - this is not overt: as my Bishop' pastoral letter says : " We must, and I do, care for them pastorally and with sensitivity." But this is exactly the divide: "we care for them".....us and them. "They" are not understood as being "us". In fact, after the humiliating treatment dished up by straight Christians, I am surprised that there are any gay people left in church.

And to add insult to injury, the MCSA has affirmed that we must be "one and undivided". But this is not about being in unity with gay people. No, this is about maintaining our unity with those who are anti-gay. Our desire to remain united with the anti-gay lobby outweighs our desire to be one with the gay members of our church. And so we have compromised truth in the name of unity. And we have not
even questioned the ethical correctness of this unity.

Here is my pain: the statement that "we are one and undivided" was a statement of courage in the face of the 1958 Apartheid Government's desire to divide our church on racial lines. We had moral courage - then. We adopted this statement, in the face of a threat by white members to leave our church. We understood that this was a particular kind of unity. It risked division in the name of a greater unity - a
unity with the truth of the Gospel of Jesus.

We have lost this. I am convinced that the mantra "one and undivided" has become our excuse to do nothing. We are so afraid of losing members that we would rather forfeit Gospel truth.

Once again, I am challenged by visionary leadership... Gospel truth must come before ecclesiological unity. If only I had the courage...

courage, Methodist Church, South Africa, leadership, gay, Christian

Great moments of visionary leadership in Southern African Methodism - an application of the 1958 statemet 'one and unidvided'

The notion of Church unity, and visionary leadership, has remained on my mind today. Here is a picture of another visionary leader in Southern African Christianity, and in particular in Southern African Methodism. The picture shows a young Peter Storey - below is an extract from a paper I presented recently in which I argued that the Methodist Church's courageous statement to remain 'one and undivided' in the face of the South African Government's racial separation and the impending group areas act, was an act of great courage! If only we had that courage now. Here's the picture, and the excerpt from the paper expounding on it.

One of the most vivid examples of how 1958 statement of intention was applied in a local Church context was the exemplary struggle of Peter Storey between 1956 and 1981 to work against the Nationalist Government's forced removal of coloured people (mostly Methodists) in Cape Town. The multiracial congregation, Central Methodist Mission, in Buitenkant Street, was significantly disrupted by the forced removals. The Church naturally opposed the removals in every possible way. Yet when the removals were eventually enacted in 1966 the congregation decided to remain united in spite of the forced removals. Ministries of care and support for those who had been removed were set up. Transportation was arranged to bus the congregants the many miles from the settlement areas to the Church so that multi-racial services and meetings at the Church could continue unabated. A plaque was put on the front of the Church, facing the busy Green Market Square, that read:

All who pass by remember with shame the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six and other parts of this city, and were forced to leave their homes because of the colour of their skins. Father forgive us...

It was during this period that the some stark theological divisions began to surface within the mainline denominations in Southern Africa. While the Methodist church maintained the principles of unity and inclusiveness at its highest levels, and drew attention to it in their official statements, this was sadly not the case in most local congregations, and also not adequately reflected in the leadership of the denomination.

Unity is costly, but so is the cost of truth, as Pete reminded me in a recent post.

Visionary leadership - it takes courage!

This is a picture of me with Dr Ernest Baartman, the visionary leader who founded the Black Methodist Consultation in 1975 (you can read my Oxford paper for more on this).

This was visionary because he had the courage to see what the Church needed (black leaders) in an era when others could not, and would not, see it. He was visionary because even though he knew this would be a dangerous, and threatening, endeavor, he was sustained by what few others, even many of his black colleagues, could not see - the vision of a predominantly black denomination, in a white dominated country, lead by black leaders. This could have cost him his ministry, but because he could see what God wanted he swam against the stream, and did the extraordinary thing that helped to transform our Church for the generations that followed.

It takes great sensitivity to see what others cannot see. It takes courage to make that vision become a reality, even in the face of great adversity and opposition.

I witnessed such leadership briefly at our Conference last week when Dianne Moodie courageously reminded the Conference of the pain and struggle that clergy and laity experience because of the Church's rejection of people - the majority could not feel her pain. I heard it in the voice of Alan Storey as he urged the Church to create a small ray of light in the midsts of darkness, by allowing 1 minister and 1 church in every District to openly minister to gay people with the Church's blessing - the majority could not see the need, I wonder what will happen to all the gay people who are Methodists in our nation? Will they simply give up and leave the Church? I saw it in the bravery of Mbuyiselo Stimela, the only Black minister who has openly supported the cause to make the Church more hospitable and welcoming to gay persons of all races and colours - our colleagues could not see his courage, instead they have threatened and belittled him. I saw this in my friend Barry Marshall who argued with passion that the Church cannot be in 'conversation' over the matter of persons with a same gender orientation while the voices of these people are silenced, rejected, and ignored - the majority did not hear the silence, but at least he spoke. I am seeing vision in the correspondence of my friend Kevin Light who can no longer compromise the community that he serves by ministering 'through pastoral loopholes' - sadly I fear that he may move on from our Church, or be forced out, perhaps he will lead many to follow him. He is right when he says that the only persons who are made vulnerable by 'loophole' ministry, are those being ministered to. Ministers can claim ignorance at transgressing an unspoken law, but once a pastoral act is deemed unlawful, it is those who are ministered to that bear the brunt of such rulings.

I don't know if I have the courage, sensitivity, or insight, to see what others cannot see, and make that vision a reality.

Of course I have read about such vision many, many, times in Scripture, in the slave Moses who leads slaves to a promised land. In a sheep herd, David, who slays a giant, because God says he can. In a teenage virgin who gives birth to a saviour, even when everyone else believes that she is crazy adulteress. In the life of a King who is born in a stable, who does not destroy his enemies but dies for them... Yes, these are all visionary leaders - people who see what God sees, and then find the courage to make God's vision a reality. In fact, one of them is God... Thank goodness God can see what others cannot. If it were not for that admirable quality I would never have found His grace!

We need more people like Dr Baartman, like Dianne, Alan, Mbuyiselo, Barry, and Kevin...

What follows is a reflection of how this principle relates to a particular passage from Scripture... By now you may have given up reading... I won't hold it against you!

Trevor Hudson and Jenny Hillebrand left a comment each, a few posts back, thanking me for my frequent blog posts - a friend of mine calls blogs 'personality spam'! I think he is right, most often my posts are simply a means of processing my feelings, thoughts, fears, desires, and hopes... If any of it is wortwhile to anyone else that's a huge bonus! Thanks for reading.

Today I sat with one of our students, Nkosinathi Nombula, preparing him for his New Testament 2 examination. One of the questions in the exam asks the student give advice to a woman who has read Ephesians 5:21-33. She is being abused by her husband and has come to believe that she must continue to endure the abuse because this section of the Bible says she must submit to him and respect to him. Thankfully the examiner understands that in order to get a more responsible insight into what the Pauline text is saying to its readers one must read it in the context of the issues that the whole of the letter to the Ephesians is addressing, and particularly within the context of Ephesians 5 and 6. If you have the time please read Ephesians 5:21-33 and ask yourself what advice you would give the abused woman. Well, Nombula and I spent some time working through the question and established a few things. First, I reminded him that the letter to the Ephesians must not be directly related to the 'popular' understanding that Paul was a paternalistic chauvinist - not that Paul was liberated in the modern sense. However, it is important not to read the text too simply from within the framework of our contemporary prejudice of Paul's views of women. It is likely that this letter was not written by Paul himself, but by a later, more sophisticated Pauline author or redactor - simply because of the complexity of the grammar, sophistication of the ecclesiology, and because of the similarities in content and structure to the letter to the Colossians, upon which many scholars believe the letter to the Ephesians is styled. Secondly, we were reminded that the central issue in the letter to the Ephesians was that of God's purpose for the Church which can only be achieved by the costly sacrifice that will be necessary in order to be truly united (many scholars agree that the 'hermeneutic keys' (i.e., those keys that unlock the interpretation of the rest of the letter) are Eph 1:10 and Eph 4:13). So, the author crafts his argument about the cost of unity between Jewish and gentile believers in the first few chapters of the book (a mixture of admonition, prayer, and encouragement). Then between Eph 4:1-6:20 the author gives practical suggestions about the cost of this unity. Now, this is where the radical bit comes in! Many have emphasised Eph 5:22 (that wives must submit to their husbands), yet the emphasis of this passage is to be found in the dynamics of the four examples of costly unity that are presented. The dynamic is fundamentally about power and powerlessness! The power of husbands, versus the powerlessness of wives in that era - the emphasis is NOT just upon the wife submitting to her husband, rather here the author takes a bold and radical step of confronting the powerful with the truth that as long as they oppress the powerless, they abuse and harm themselves. This must have taken courage in an age when the authority of men went unquestioned. But of course, the powerless are empowered when the powerful curb their power, so he also has some advice for wives. Next he speaks about the relationships between the authority of parents over their children. Can you imagine how the respectable members of the Ephesian Church would have reacted to being told they must not exasperate their children, as if their children have rights!? He then goes on to further press the point by challenging slave owners to adopt a vulnerable and open relationship with their slaves. That must have taken courage in a time when the authority of slave owners over their slaves went unquestioned. Last he addresses the relationship between 'the spirits' that so often lead us powerfully into darkness and slavery, and the 'the Spirit' that brings us life and freedom. Of course we often teach Ephesians 5 in isolation from the Ephesians 6 (as if the way we treat our wives, husbands, children, and those who work for us has no spiritual impact), conversely we make the mistake of thinking that the armor of spiritual warfare has nothing to do with the words and actions that characterize our unity and love for one another...

You see, visionary, courageous, leaders can see what others cannot. What does God want you to see that others cannot?