Created To Lead: Human Possibilities

THE IMAGO DEI AND HUMAN FULFILLMENT SERIES - Part One

Ed Brenegar

May 26, 2024

CREATED TO LEAD: THE IMAGO DEI AND HUMAN FULFILLMENT SERIES

Part One: Human Possibilities

Part Two: Paradigm of Humanity

Part Three: Relationships of Impact

1 - Jesus Meets a Woman at a Well

2 - Resolving Institutional Conflict

3 - The Source of Meaning

4 - The After-Dinner Untold Story

CREATED TO LEAD

Part One: Human Possibilities

INTRODUCTION

In the late 1980s, I left traditional Presbyterian parish ministry to serve as a college chaplain and founder of a student leadership program at small church-related college. In many respects, entering into the world of higher education was like moving to a foreign country. Two experiences during my seven years of service there affected my perspective on the world.

The task before me was to create a chaplain’s program that would represent the church in faith and worship on campus. There were many persons of faith on the campus, but no community of faith. There were plenty of expectations about what should happen, but not a significant commitment to participation.

I was also hired to create a leadership development program for students. I was four years into my own study and reflection on leadership. I thought I knew what I needed to know to create a program that developed leadership on the campus. For three years I failed. I am surprised and grateful that they didn’t fire me.

The other experience I had was the situation of being pressed into teaching the New Testament Survey class when the chair of the college’s religion department had a heart attack two weeks before the beginning of the semester. I quickly realized that what I learned in my Master’s level seminary program was not going to provide me a way to teach students who largely had no knowledge or experience of faith, church, or the biblical text. Everything that I knew about the Bible and the history of the Christian faith was based on the assumption that this was a default base of knowledge resident in American culture. Everyone knew the name of Jesus, but the other prominent figures of the Bible - Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, and John - were unknown by many in the class.

Two lessons came to me because of these two experiences.

If you are going to teach a course about an ancient religion where the students lack a basic knowledge, tell stories. Every thing these students in a college level Bible course needed to know could be conveyed through story telling.

Having failed to produce identifiable campus programs in leadership and faith development, I realized that my perspective was dominated by the notion of recruiting individuals into the program. In the collegiate culture of the early 1990s, this was clearly not going to work. As a result, I enrolled as a part-time student in a seminary doctoral program for ministers where I could develop my own course of study.

The following paper was written for one of my seminary classes. I sought to make sense of two streams of thought within the Christian tradition. One was an understanding of the place and value of humanity. The other was the purpose of humanity.

I wanted to know why the church historically had elevated the value of humanity over the rest of creation. And what are the implications for the philosophy and practice of leadership. Here is the beginning of the idea that leadership is a function of human life. Less than a decade later, I had come to say that “all leadership begins with personal initiative to create impact that makes a difference that matters.” Whether you need a theological rationale for your own leadership endeavors or not, here it is.

This introduction replaces the original one. The paper is divided into two parts.

Part One looks at the description of humanity as made in the image of God and its relationship to leadership.

Part Two goes deeper into the meaning of this idea of humanity as the image of God in the world.

THE IMAGE OF GOD IN HUMANITY

The Judeo-Christian tradition has interpreted human life as a creation of God. The account of the creation of the world and humanity in Genesis 1 has formed the assumptions and guiding principles for how Christians and Jews, and still, to an important degree, Western society, have thought about the meaning of life. In the order of creation as outlined in the Genesis text, during a sequence of five days, God creates all animals, plants, minerals, land, water, air, the universe, space, and time. On the sixth day, a man and a woman are created, and it is said,

"Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." (Genesis 1:26-28)

This passage makes a sharp distinction between humanity and the rest of creation, placing it under their care and responsibility. What is significant is the uniqueness that all humanity bears the image of God. This distinction gives dignity and meaning to human existence. The intention is to make clear that what distinguishes men and women from the animal world is their destiny to live out God's likeness. Jurgen Moltmann notes,

"what makes the human being God's image is not his possession of any particular characteristic or other...it is his whole existence. The whole person, not merely his soul; the true human community, not only the individual; humanity as it is bound up with nature, not simply human beings in their confrontation with nature-it is these which are the image of God and his glory."[1]

Theologians and social scientists have debated this question of what human nature is without reaching a consensus because of the lack of common ground. Wolfhart Pannenberg writes about these different perspectives:

"Modern anthropology no longer follows Christian tradition in defining the uniqueness of humanity in terms of God; rather, it defines this uniqueness through reflection on the place of humanity in nature and specifically through a comparison of human existence with that of higher animals"[2]

Humanity's relation to nature is unique as described by Moltmann.

"Nowadays it is generally given a two part answer: man is a biologically defective creature and, at the same time, a culture-making creature....As a biologically defective creature he is open to the world without a protective environment, overstimulated by signals from the external world and uncertain in his instincts...He is clearly not already born with his real nature, but it is his task to find what his nature is."[3]

This description of the natural condition of human beings implies that there is always a situation of incompatibility and conflict with their surroundings and that, in a positive sense, the future always holds the promise of becoming more adequate to live in this world.

While theologians and social scientists debate about human nature, natural scientists, physicists, and mathematicians have begun to move closer to the perspective of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Some scientists have reached the conclusion that the presence of human life on Earth is a special occurrence. The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, as it is termed, is

"the conclusion that a physical world which is fruitful in evolving complexity out of simplicity, to the degree that an almost homogeneous ball of energy becomes, after fifteen billion years, a home of self-conscious beings, is not in scientific terms 'any old world', but rather one which is very special in the finely turned balance of its law and circumstance....(It) suggests that quite small variations in any of these fundamental specifications of our world would have rendered it anthropically sterile."[4]

Thomas Torrance has referred to the Anthropic Principle to demonstrate the centrality of humanity's place in God's order and meaning of Creation as

"an unexpected feature in the expansion of the universe from its originally dense state and in the finely-tuned structure of subatomic particles....In other words, the universe has been so finely balanced and harmonised throughout all space and time against all the odds as to become the universe that it is and ought to be, a home for man with his science and his faith.
What ever we make of the anthropic principle, it is clear that the central role give to man in the expansion of the universe and the disclosure of its hidden meaning becomes very pressing on the quantum boundary of created reality, where it is brought home to us that this universe of ours is a stratified structure of different levels of contingent reality interacting with one another in such a way as to constitute its wonderful multivariable order."[5]

This is not a static creation, which holds no possibility for it to be radically different. It is dynamic, meaning its potential growth also brings the threat of danger, change, growth, and the end of the world as we know it. The change that is implied in Moltmann's description means that the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and settings is an important aspect of human nature. If plants and animals are restricted by their instincts to a dependence on their environment, then human beings find relative and unpredictable freedom for the same reasons. This is one reason why nature is an object of inspiration and awe for people. From the earliest times, they sought to explain their world in terms that make sense of the natural phenomena around them, even to the extent of divinizing this order of nature. Within this world of change is the oft-unarticulated sense that humanity's place in this order is unique and special and a leading indication of the presence of imago Dei in humanity.

What is remarkable is that with the implanting of the image of God came a command to care for and rule over the natural world in which they were so vulnerable. It was not the strongest being that became lords of the earth, but the one with the least dependable instincts, yet with the keenest, sharpest, most developed intelligence. The one who could interpret and appreciate the design and order in the mind of God, which is seen in nature itself. Consequently, the leadership of creation is given to those who, most importantly, can recognize the true beauty and origin of the natural world.

WHAT LEADERSHIP MODELS DON'T ANSWER

Leadership in the church, as well as in secular social science, has been approached in predominantly pragmatic ways. Thousands of books have been published that promote the various styles of ministry and leadership of Jesus, the disciples, and figures from the Old Testament. Writers have been correct in assuming that the best way to teach leadership is by modeling. And what better model than Jesus Christ himself? Leighton Ford, in his recent book, Transforming Leadership, has written:

"It is my deep conviction that the understanding of Jesus' leadership is not only important but essential to our time. He was able to create, articulate, and communicate a compelling vision; to change what people talk about and dream of; to make his followers transcend self-interest; to enable us to see ourselves and our world in a new way; to provide prophetic insight into the very heart of things; and to bring about the highest order of change."[6]

This is an important attempt to demonstrate that leadership is not just for those in positions of influence and authority but is within the realm of all persons.

The general weakness of the "Jesus as exemplar leader" approach is that Jesus is reduced to a model that too often justifies the author's preferred style or method. Jesus was more than a great teacher, healer, prophet, preacher, and political revolutionary. Leighton Ford has identified ten distinct leadership styles that Jesus utilized to demonstrate this point. As the Son of God, Jesus' effectiveness was the result of his relationship with his heavenly Father lived out through the mission of his life. It was not this or that particular style of ministry that provided the key. It could be said that he is the supreme disciple, except that he was more than that as well. These approaches, though, are useful to practically assist pastors and teachers in developing the leadership skills of their parishioners.

Leadership science, on the other hand, has depended on survey research in psycho-social human development to develop its models. Theories and models for leadership have emphasized how to develop people for their optimum effectiveness and satisfaction. This, as well, is a worthy and appropriate approach to leadership development. It has brought to the forefront how the human dimension either assists or inhibits organizations in their mission.

These models are inadequate to answer the question:

What is the impetus in history toward leadership?

The traditional answer that this is how human objectives and goals are met seems insufficient. Is human action meaningful solely as a utilitarian process? Do we really want to believe that the meaning of human existence is defined by its achievements?

There must a fundamental reason that rises out of the very essence of human creation. My conviction is that each person has been created with a fundamental constitution for leadership. It is this question that the Christian doctrine of the image of God in humanity can answer.

Reference notes:

[1]Jurgen Moltmann. God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God. (San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 1985.), p.221.

[2]Wolfhart Pannenberg. Anthropology in Theological Perspective. Matthew J. O'Connell, trans. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985.), p.27.

[3]Jurgen Moltmann. MAN: Christian Anthropology in the Conflicts of the Present. John Sturdy, trans. (London: SPCK, 1971.), p.5.

[4]John Polkinghorne. Reason and Reality: The Relationship Between Science and Theology. (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991.), p.77.

[5]Thomas F. Torrance. The Christian Frame of Mind: Reason, order, and openness in theology and natural science. Introduction by W. Jim Neidhardt. (Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1989.), p.59-60.

[6]Leighton Ford. Transforming Leadership: Jesus' Way of Creating Vision, Shaping Values & Empowering Change. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1991.), p.15.