I have been spending a lot of time in recent weeks considering the whole subject of leadership. There is, as I will spell out in a future post, a crisis of leadership in the Church, at least here in the UK, and I suspect further afield. But, with those thoughts filtering in my mind I realised there are some important lessons to learn from President Trump who holds a position often described as ‘The Leader of the Free World’.
From the outset, I have to say that the lessons we can learn from him are entirely negative. In my opinion, Donald Trump is singularly unfit for any leadership position, let alone one in which he has so much influence on the world stage. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I don’t agree with Paul’s statement in Romans 13:1 that, “there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” However, recognising the providence and sovereignty of God does not oblige us to necessarily support or approve of those who he, in his infinite wisdom, raises up.
What has surprised me greatly in recent months has been the support and approval of Trump by Christians. not only in America but also here in the UK. It would seem that because of his strong opinions on such matters as gender identity, same-sex relationships and his, albeit somewhat wavering, opposition to abortion, many are willing to ‘turn a blind eye’ as it were to the many and major defects in his character. After all, his good ‘friends’ Putin and Kim Jong Un agree with him on those moral issues, but western Christians don’t fawn over them in the way they do over Trump. He also talks openly about the Bible which, I am sure, endears him to many Christians, but the problem is the glaring disconnect between his profession and practice, something which, of course, we all struggle with but just not on the world stage
There are at least two major character defects which I maintain make Donald Trump unfit for leadership; character defects that I have also observed in Christian leaders and which should ring loud alarm bells.
First, based on all the evidence – and there is much of it! – Trump has a non-existent relationship with the truth. He is certainly not a man of integrity, but rather is a pathological liar. He lies on an industrial scale and much of the time seems to be persuaded by his own falsehoods. You simply cannot believe anything he says and my own observation is that you can always tell when Trump is lying, because his lips are moving.
But personal integrity and honesty are the very bedrock of effective leadership. While Ephesians 4:25 is addressed to all believers, how much more so to those in positions of influence and leadership.
“…having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour.”
The Bible speaks in very strong terms about how the Lord view dishonesty:
“Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD”
Proverbs 12:22
My experience is that Christians, and Christian leaders, all too often play fast and loose with the truth. We use exaggeration and half-truths, for example, and yet these are designed to deceive and mislead. I think of a leader in a Christian organisation who was trying to persuade a supplier to give a better deal than some of his competitors. he told this supplier that he had a lower quote than he was being offered and when asked what the lower quote was said, “I have in front of me on a piece of paper…..”. the problem was that what was written on that piece of paper was a figure he had made up and written down.
I think of a non-Christian social worker who helped my ailing mother who lived in a Christian care home but who said she would never trust another Christian, because the staff had lied to her about my mother’s situation.
I think of the elders of a church who, when their pastor left, told the church there were no issues between him and them and that they had parted on the best of terms, despite emails and correspondence showing a major breakdown in the relationship and lies being told about him by the other leaders.
Of course, truth is not only about our words, but about our whole lives. What comes out of our mouths is an overflow of what is in our hearts. To be in leadership it is incumbent that, by God’s grace, we seek to live lives of integrity and truthfulness, in every respect. While, sadly, we fail all too often in this regard, this should be the goal and overall characteristic of our lives.
In other spheres of life, in almost every other vocation or profession, there can be a mismatch and disconnect between your personal life and your professional competence. You can be philanderer and yet a brilliant surgeon, for example. Not so in spiritual leadership. As Andrew Bonar wrote, “In great measure, according to the purity and perfections of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents which God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”
In my next post I’ll highlight a second major problem with Trump, one that is perhaps worse and more consequential.
