Good feelings, bad leadership

Here’s the story of two Robs. Both men were entrusted by constituents to speak for them, to lead a group according to established principles. Our two leaders are assumed to have solid historical and documentary foundations for the values they call primary. And both Robs were turned aside by things unrelated to the stewardship they were given.

Our first Rob is a Republican Senator from Ohio. Rob Portman recently announced that he favors same-sex marriage. A socially liberal Senator is not remarkable except that Mr. Portman is the first Republican Senator to support same-sex marriage. Even that is not the most notable aspect of Senator Portman’s announcement. He had a “change of heart” on the issue because of his homosexual son. Rob Portman couldn’t have given you a good reason for whatever conviction he held on same-sex marriage a year ago because his conversion was not based on reason. While I sympathize with the love of a father for his son, Mr. Portman will make policy decisions that affect Americans far beyond his own child. If he had promised to follow his heart or to do what seems best for his own nuclear family during his most recent campaign I might suppose he’d have lost. Most voters would rather our leaders have substantial reasons for the things they do on our behalf. If a Senator decided to introduce a public works bill based primarily on his cousin’s need of employment, what would we say about that?

Our second Rob was a pastor, is still a preacher of sorts, writes successful books, and defined “relevant” for quite a large number of evangelical pastors. Pastor Rob Bell left his Michigan church last year in the wake of a popular book that cast doubt on the reality of hell. In a recent sermon at an Episcopal church, Bell took a next logical step by explaining that evangelical churches were wrong, “ghettoized” he said, and would die unless we changed our message on same-sex marriage. Rob Bell’s reasoning seems different but is similar to Rob Portman’s. Bell is motivated somewhat by affection of younger, more liberal Americans but also by antipathy for the views of more conservative Christians. That is not the motivation that Bell’s congregants or readers formerly expected of him. Because he was a pastor and writer on pastoral subjects they might reasonably assume that he would be compelled by the written Word of God rather than the pull of relevance or contempt for irrelevance. Our earnest desire to gain a hearing must never be accomplished by changing our essential message. While I acknowledge that even a biblical view of marriage is not our primary message, we cannot abandon doctrine that flows out of the gospel without undermining the essentials of the gospel. The truth of the Bible is interconnected.

Making decisions based primarily on what we find emotionally repellant or attractive is a sign our times but it is not a characteristic of leadership. We commonly base budgets and elect leaders based on these emotions. Elected leaders are in turn emboldened or restrained by opinion polls that change daily. Polling numbers on Americans and same-sex marriage do not indicate that we are a nation of thinkers. Americans find such “reasoning” more popular in public policy or religion than we do in business or engineering, though. I am glad that the people who design bridges or fly airplanes don’t trust their feelings about what’s level or straight. But we shouldn’t get the idea that sloppy reasoning about morals and policy will cause no catastrophe.   

Convictions about what’s essentially true must precede and trump our feelings about applying truth. Do you think Moses had any pertinent feelings, fear maybe, when he ordered the Egyptian pharaoh to let the Hebrew children go? Yet Moses had spent some years in the desert, hearing God and deciding what he believed. Can you imagine Elijah having any trepidation at all about confronting his entire nation on Mt. Carmel? Again, Elijah had spent an extended time alone with God, deciding what was always true. Was Jesus really tempted during his earthly ministry? Yes, and he also spent time with God, listening to him and deciding that God’s revealed will would direct him rather than any lesser thing. These leaders all faced negative polling numbers and emotional pressure during their ministries but they didn’t turn aside.

I’m not suggesting that U.S. Senators should be required to spend 40 days or three years in the desert or even that all pastors have to spend three years in a seminary desert, but I am suggesting that those who haven’t decided what they believe are unfit to lead others. Once they’ve formed such opinions—convictions really—they shouldn’t change them often. And when they change convictions, it should be because their essential view of truth has also changed. In nearly every imaginable case, it’s then appropriate to resign whatever positions those former convictions won them.