Vicar's Letter - October/November 2004 - Clear leadership

By the time that you read the next edition of the magazine (if you do), the American Presidential elections will have taken place and we shall know who will lead the most powerful nation on earth from 2005 – 2008.  Maybe, to be in the midst of it is to have a very different experience, but the snatches of coverage that have been included in British news reports can seem almost surreal, given the significance for the whole world of the outcome.

I do not know for whom I would vote, were I an American citizen, but one aspect of the ping-pong of exchanges between the two main contenders does strike me as having a greater relevance than the electoral process.  Mr Kerry, the Democrat nominee, we are told by the Republicans and some commentators would be a weak leader, because he has no clear and simple attitude to the big questions and that he changes his mind on the questions that weave their way through American politics. 

Whilst it is true that we need our leaders to give clear leadership, it is, none-the-less, a fact that few if any of the issues are simple in character.  In both moral and practical terms, there is a mire of considerations to weigh one against another and every decision is going to be the best on balance; it is very rare that an immediately clear solution presents itself.

This is no more the case in the arena of national and global politics than it is in the more local sphere of decision-making.  Those who tell you that a question is simply answered, more often than not, are misleading you.  As Lenin once observed, everything is connected to everything else, and when one takes a view that is not narrowly focused on a few highly selected factors, we soon realise that even many of the simplest decisions that we take can make a much wider impact than the small circle of our immediate concern.  If we take responsibility for the consequences of our actions, we need to take these broader horizons into account.

Christians, in particular, should be sensitive to the effect that their words and actions can have.  Whilst it is true that angst-ridden inertia helps nobody, we need to be gentle and measured in the ways that we state our case, particularly on those questions that touch on the profounder aspects of peoples’ lives.  Not least, we must demonstrate a humility about our opinions that properly reflects the provisionality of our views. 

None of us has full access to all the factors that bear on an issue: to know about something, is not necessary to appreciate the full power of a circumstance.  The suggestion that Biblical interpretation at any one point or the mind of ecclesiastical hierarchy can be definitively the last word has been discredited time and again over the centuries as the Church assimilates the lessons of progress and the world around us and the experiences of the people we meet.

Certainty always has allure for many people and leaders who can dangle such apparent sureness attract much support; but actually good leadership does not manifest a simplistic reduction of issues to black and white choices where that distorts the situation.  Rather, we should look to those who take decisions on behalf of communities, great and small, to demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of the complexity of the society in which they operate, together with a willingness to adjust and develop their attitudes in the light of new information and experience.

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