Ecclesial leadership as friendship

32 Expressing the pain 143 Regarding the current experience of liminality: Alan J. Roxburgh, The Missionary Congregation, Leadership and Liminality, Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1997. 144 Wheatley, Leadership , ch.2. 145 Alan J. Roxburgh, Missional Map-Making: Skills for Leading in Times of Transition, San Francisco: John Wiley, 2010, 63; Gayle C. Avery, Understanding Leadership: Paradigms and Cases , London: Sage, 2004, 27. 146 Roxburgh, Map-Making, 76. Hock argues similarly in his reflections on mechanised organisations: the machine metaphor has structured society for nearly three centuries and humans have been ‘made to behave as cogs and wheels in the process’ ( One , 37). Cf. Ritzer’s narrative of control. 147 MacIntyre, After, 74. Cf. Roberts, Religion, 187–188; John Milbank, ‘Stale Expressions: The Management-Shaped Church’, Studies in Christian Ethics 21:1 (2008), 117–128, 128. 148 Budde, ‘Rational’, 102. 149 Additionally, the empirical realities of increasing administrative and legal compliance burdens upon the local church cannot be ignored: to deny a place for management functions in ecclesial life would be unwise. Yet, as I have explained, these matters are properly considered as secondary. It is not that management functions are unimportant but rather that how we engage them should be determined by the answers we give to what I consistently call the ‘primary (leadership) questions’. Although answering the secondary questions of ecclesial structure and co-ordinating processes is not my focus, chapter 9 will at least outline possible ways of pursuing these questions in a manner consistent with the proposals presented.

In the previous chapter, I named a representative strand of the dominant consciousness regarding ecclesial leadership, exploring what has been happening. The infiltration of managerial narratives within ecclesial leadership discourse and practice was attributed to two factors. First, ecclesial leaders have sought to escape their own marginalisation by reframing their activity in terms of facilitating managerial priorities. 1 Second, the reign of this dominant consciousness has been exacerbated by the fact that the discourse of leadership more widely is itself not neutral, carrying to some extent implicit managerial narratives. This second factor interacts with a third, the relative absence of theological counter-narratives. Were this third factor not in play, the second factor might have had little influence in that a theological counter-consciousness of ecclesial leadership could answer the narratives of managerialism with its own articulation of leadership’s telos and process of influence. With respect to that third factor, I must now trace what little has been said to reframe leadership for the ecclesial context. The pain of this nearsilence is not to be minimised. For it has contributed to reality as we now find it. In the ensuing discussion, my focal lens is ‘leadership’ specifically. This is because of my particular delimitation of interest; it also recognises that to critique cultural narratives of leadership effectively, theological literature must engage directly with leadership as a concept. I broaden the net in certain places, however, to categories of ‘ministry’ and ‘pastoring’. This broadening of categories is limited to works which either employ notable academic rigour or attract a notable popular following and is engaged in the hope of finding in this near-silence echoes, at the very least, by which some kind of theological narrative can be located. Nevertheless, this broad survey, encompassing a variety of categories of approach to the question of contemporary ecclesial leadership, will indicate a significant lack of sustained theological narrative, 2 a painful near-silence. In light of this, I will propose that the seeking of an alternative consciousness, then, demands more scholarly attention and I will identify a possible lens for fruitful work in the mode of prophetic imagination. 2 Seeking an alternative consciousness

34 Expressing the pain The pain of a near-silence The vastness of the leadership literature which drew Grint’s wry humour is mirrored in popular-level materials considering explicitly Christian leadership. Yet theological engagement has been minimal here: although Leadership Journal has published comprehensively about church leadership, historically fewer than 1 per cent of its articles referenced Scripture or contained ‘any serious theological component’. 3 Simultaneously, there are relatively few scholarly book-length works presenting normative proposals for contemporary ecclesial leadership. Indeed Arthur Boers, who holds a seminary chair in leadership, notes ‘long concern . . . that there is not enough quality theological reflection on leadership’. 4 Why this might be so is unclear. It may be that ecclesial leadership practitioners are rarely also academic theologians. 5 The empirical turn in practical theology, though of value, may also have drawn some academic practical theologians to focus primarily on congregational studies rather than what is explicitly ‘theological’ about practical theology: certainly some contend practical theology’s normative task has been marginalised. 6 The ensuing discussion of the existing theological narrative of ecclesial leadership thus includes semi-popular works, various of which are by seminary and university professors and therefore not lacking robust underpinning, together with short scholarly articles on the basis that these both reflect and influence prevailing practice. 7 Bernice Ledbetter, Robert Banks and David Greenhalgh offer a helpful way of mapping what follows in their loose division of the literature into biblical, historical and theological categories. 8 Some approaches start with characters in Scripture who demonstrate leadership. 9 Whilst not completely without value, such studies give insufficient weight to hermeneutical and contextual considerations, 10 not least whether such texts are intended as prescriptive or merely descriptive. Their theological method is often ill-defined, sometimes little more than proof-texting, 11 and there is also some danger of anachronistic reading of contemporary categories into the text. They should be handled ‘with deep suspicion’. 12 Others follow a similar course but take the OT typology of prophet, priest and king as their biblical ground for leadership. 13 This typology was adopted by Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll amongst others as a characterisation of leadership variety but met criticism as well as acceptance. 14 Such OT-based studies may be helpful to some extent, although where such studies are divorced from analysis of NT insights they may have little to say concerning specifically ecclesial leadership and, even in the case of leadership in a wider context, should be handled with care as constructed from less than Scripture’s full revelation. The main Scriptural source material engaged by proposals is, however, the NT and Jesus in particular. At one end of this spectrum is Laurie Beth Jones’ ‘motivational’ offering, Jesus CEO, which uses a highly selective group of biblical texts in a popular-level ‘practical, step-by-step guide . . . based on

Seeking an alternative consciousness 35 the self-mastery, action and relationship skills that Jesus used to train and motivate his team’. 15 Slightly more developed Jesus-influenced contributions reflect on Jesus as model leader 16 or consider his practice in the context of leadership in his wider socio-historical context alongside enthusiasm for his leadership as ‘a perennial source of inspiration’. 17 Yet the danger with even the more theologically nuanced of these is their failure to recognise that the gospels were not written as leadership handbooks nor even to present Jesus as leadership exemplar. Particularly significantly, Jesus was certainly not an ecclesial leader. Any attempt to read contemporary leadership models and principles back into the text is hermeneutically unsound and thus whilst we may learn from Jesus’ example we should be circumspect about building a leadership model on his interactions with his followers alone. Other NT readings take the theme of servanthood identifiable in the gospels and linked expressly by Paul to the ecclesial context. 18 These readings usually assume Jesus as the prime model for emulation and his ministry and identity as best characterised by servanthood, a theme which I will develop in chapter 3 . Beyond these strands, other materials engage the NT more broadly. Notable are works including Derek Tidball’s book-by-book review of pastoral leadership, 19 Andrew Clarke on Pauline ecclesial leadership, 20 Steve Walton on leadership in the Miletus speech and 1 Thessalonians, 21 Joseph Hellerman on leadership in light of the reversal of the cursus honorum which he identifies in Philippians 22 and Darin Land who traces leadership development in NT communities. 23 Valuable as they are, these mostly do not educe systematically implications for twenty-first century Western ecclesial leadership. Hellerman does, but the theological defensibility of the links between his biblical study, with its strong socio-historical background, and practical material is not especially well developed. Boers’ 2015 book, Servants and Fools, makes suggestions towards a contemporary theology of leadership, although his sections on OT and NT perspectives on leadership far outweigh these. A year earlier a publication appeared from an Adventist perspective, presenting a biblical theology of leadership and considering leadership in a range of biblical genres as well as focusing on specific biblical narratives. Generally, contributors do not clearly define leadership, seeking to allow Scripture to do so. Whilst this may be laudable, the danger is that it is unclear on what basis certain Scriptural principles and narratives have been identified as pertaining to leadership. Particularly, Bell’s concluding chapter claims that ‘leadership’, not ‘leading’ or ‘leaders’ or ‘positional authority’, was the book’s focus. 24 Yet this is not strictly followed by all contributors. It is thus less helpful than might be hoped. Finally amongst biblical studies, there is the strand employing the shepherding/pastoral metaphor for ecclesial leadership. The related literature is vast and can only be highlighted. Some of it expressly considers how ‘pastoral’ as a modifier influences the shape of ecclesial leadership. Other works use ‘pastoral’ unreflectively in modifying the noun ‘leadership’. The latter tend not to consider the semantic field of ‘pastor’, being shaped instead

36 Expressing the pain more by the leadership narratives already identified. For them, pastoral leadership is defined by the field of leadership more than shepherding concepts. So, for example, Peter Wagner erases shepherding imagery in favour of the pastoral leader as ‘rancher’. 25 The former, however, mine this metaphor deeply, as exemplified by John Frye’s Jesus the Pastor . 26 In fact, for such as Eugene Peterson, we might even say that ‘pastoral’ ceases to be the modifier and becomes the noun itself. 27 For these, shepherding is core: rejecting the rancher imagery utterly, they draw on the rich biblical tradition of leadership as shepherding. 28 Though I shall map an alternative to this imagery, I do not intend to undermine pastoral metaphors in ecclesial leadership. Indeed, the centrality of relationships of love within my own proposals has considerable resonance with Peterson’s own emphases on loving God’s people as the pastor’s central call. Yet shepherding language carries agrarian overtones largely lost on a twenty-first century Western audience. One way to engage this weakness is to translate the concept for today. Another is to articulate complementary alternatives, the task which I undertake in later chapters. Alongside texts taking a biblical perspective, others mine wisdom from the early church. Examples range from Christopher Beeley’s generalist approach to Won Sang Lee’s conversation between his own leadership and that of Chrysostom. 29 Later tradition has been engaged in shaping Christian leadership thought too, 30 the Benedictines especially. 31 There has also been some, albeit limited, consideration of how a more systematic perspective might illumine this area. Particularly, several have taken soundings from Trinitarian and incarnational doctrine. The doctrine of perichoresis has been employed to indicate participative models of leadership 32 whereby ‘our very identities are interwoven’. 33 Leadership involving interweaving of our identities is perilously close to presupposing correspondence of human relations to the perichoretic interiority of the divine persons. If, however, correspondence of the interiority of personal characteristics to the interiority of divine persons is all that is intended, this is of less concern in light of the Spirit indwelling believers who opens them to one another. 34 A different approach presents Father, Son and Spirit as modelling activities of planning, implementing and evaluating, 35 whilst another educes seven attributes of ecclesial leadership teams which flow from a perichoretic Trinitarian model. 36 Still more who discuss leadership from a Trinitarian perspective conclude that servant leadership is most appropriate. 37 Where writers justify theologically the relevance of Trinitarian doctrine to human activity, it is on the basis of characterising ecclesial leadership as a participation in Christ’s leadership of his church 38 or in reliance solely on the doctrine of humanity as the imago Dei . 39 Dwight Zscheile notes the somewhat obvious hindrance to the latter, namely the limits of any analogy between the triune God and human community. Nevertheless, his concern about these limits relates to the postFall context of humanity and the potential for sin and corruption of power together with human inability to imitate the Trinity 40 rather than expressly identifying the transcendent otherness of God. This otherness, however, is

Seeking an alternative consciousness 37 fundamental concerning appropriation of Trinitarian doctrine as a conceptual framework for ecclesial leadership. As Miroslav Volf comments, the analogy between Trinitarian concepts and ecclesiological proposals is necessarily limited unless theology is reduced to anthropology; furthermore, our Trinitarian models are just that, models ‘acquired from salvation history and formulated in analogy to our experience’ which seek to express in human language the mystery of the invisible God. 41 Personhood and relations cannot be assumed to be identical from Trinitarian doctrine to ecclesiology, for God is creator and humanity his creatures. Nevertheless, some social theorists may be going further, projecting, especially in talk about perichoresis, on God what is seen in human experience and then reflecting this back on to questions of ecclesiology and anthropology. 42 Also relevant to the limits of analogy is that, from its stance within history, the church is not yet at what Volf dubs the ‘eschatological maximum’ of its correspondence to the Trinity and therefore cannot claim to realise this without slipping into ideology. 43 Despite these warnings, Volf himself seeks to demonstrate correspondence between Trinity and church. My concern is not to critique this, 44 save to suggest that to begin with the incarnation of Christ through the Spirit may be better ground for work regarding ecclesial leadership. This was the foundation for the early church and it alone is the sure starting point of revelation of the invisible God. Christology, then, is of necessity the source not only of our Trinitarian doctrine but also ecclesiology and anthropology. Admittedly, Colin Gunton contends that Christology ‘does not take us far enough . . . [if] we are seeking an ontology of the Church’, arguing that such a goal demands ‘a move from the economic to the immanent Trinity’. 45 Yet, in counter-response, it is only through the economy of salvation as ultimately expressed in the incarnation, indeed in the God-man himself, that God is revealed to humanity as triune. That the church in its structure and relations images the inner life of the Trinity is not automatically implied by the creation of humanity in God’s image. Thus, though we might assume the correspondence between immanent and economic Trinity without which God’s being could not be known, to seek to discern this ‘inner life’ of the immanent Trinity and then model humanity thereon risks exceeding the warrant of Scripture. Christ alone is the ground of the church, 46 notwithstanding that such a statement immediately evokes his relations with both Father and Spirit as determinative of his being and thus renders unsustainable any proposal that a Christological foundation to ecclesiology necessarily excludes all talk of Trinitarian doctrine. Accordingly, better than Trinitarian theology is to employ the incarnation as lens for articulating a better construction of ecclesial leadership on the basis that the context of ecclesial leadership is a people constituted by their relationship to Christ. As we shall see, some thinkers have used this lens with reference to the event of incarnation, which might somehow be deemed comparable with themes such as kingdom or covenant. The incarnation is not only ‘theme’, however, but the shape of what it means to be human and the ground of the

38 Expressing the pain church’s existence and it is on this basis that I propose it as a helpful lens for the work of prophetic imagination concerning ecclesial leadership. A specific Christological focus, however, must not be understood as excluding a pneumatological element. Humanity is to relate to the Father in Christ by the Spirit and thus leadership amongst the people who are in Christ cannot be anything but Spirit-empowered. The marriage of Christological and pneumatological emphases will accordingly be fundamental in the ensuing work of deep remembering and of coding a discourse of leadership. There are three more immediate matters to be considered, however. First, there may be a prior question raised about language. Is leadership language hopelessly tainted, incapable of prophetic reimagining, or can it be reinterpreted in conversation with incarnational theology? If the former is true, then more talk about incarnation as lens is redundant. Questioning the language of leadership It must be said that some Christian writers have completely rejected leadership language. Leonard Sweet calls it a ‘false category’, arguing that whereas leadership concerns function, the better category is ‘followership’ which references identity. 47 He maintains that the category of leader nullifies any ‘fellow-follower dynamic’ and creates a false dichotomy within the church. 48 Power and authority, in his view, exist only in partnership between Jesus as ‘Leader and a follower and among fellow followers’. 49 More widely, however, Christian responses have tended towards leadership reframing rather than outright repudiation. In the context of his MacIntyre-inspired critique, David Fitch is evidently suspicious of leadership geared towards promoting efficiency. Yet he goes further: whilst not abolishing leadership terminology completely, he reveals a preference for ‘servant pastors’ and ‘servant pastorship’ as a redefinition thereof. 50 Others have concurred with this reframing tendency. Brian Dodd describes his early fascination with ‘the latest innovations in leadership’ from the secular context. 51 Yet beginning doctoral study on Paul’s leadership style changed his perception entirely concerning Christian leadership, leading to a recharacterisation but not rejection of leadership terminology. 52 Agreeing that followership is needed, Dodd comments that this precludes ministry based on ‘planning’ and management rather than following God’s leading, yet continues to use the language of leadership. 53 Whilst supportive of Sweet’s position concerning the dangers of leadership language, I do not feel constrained to reject it altogether. Indeed, to do so is to fail to speak to a subject which is, in some sense, current within the Western church. Notwithstanding, any further engagement on the subject of leadership must be with proper and theologically rich articulations if the church is to avoid confusion regarding the ultimate telos towards which leadership properly directs. Without this, there is real danger of becoming guided by underlying cultural narratives. By choosing to retain leadership language, I accept as fundamental the findings of chapter 1 that leadership

Seeking an alternative consciousness 39 as activity is a process of influencing other(s) towards a goal. This definition raises two questions which will properly shape rich theological enquiry: first, what is the end towards which ecclesial leadership is directed and, second, what is the process of influence towards that end? These two questions relating to leadership’s telos and process of influence are primary. As discussed, the literature justifies distinguishing leadership and management even if practice has sometimes shown them so intertwined that the narrative of managerialism causes its priorities to eclipse a properly defined leadership telos. It is not that management considerations are irrelevant: churches inevitably establish structural and process patterns in internal and external interactions. 54 Yet considerations such as how a church might structure its governance in terms of roles and authority (who has position and/or responsibility) and processes (determining and co-ordinating tasks) are secondary issues derivative upon answers to the primary questions, as chapter 1 established. In Pattison’s words, ‘[i]t is not that management . . . technologies might not be appropriate and helpful’ but, rather, that they are not neutral, being shaped by management’s ‘underlying religious and ideological nature’; adoption must therefore be critical ‘so that churches retain that which is good and desirable in their lives and practices’. 55 This need for criticality drives my interest in answering the primary questions. Only once we can conceptualise a theologically defined telos of ecclesial leadership and related process of influence are we then in a position to develop answers to the secondary questions concerning the kinds of governance and processes which both serve that telos and are consistent with the way in which influence is rightly exercised. Whispers of incarnation Having proposed incarnation as a suitable theological lens in defining ecclesial leadership’s telos and process of influence, the second matter for consideration is how this lens has already been used to discuss leadership. In the scholarly literature, however, ‘incarnational leadership’ is almost nonexistent. 56 This warrants looking more widely at works where incarnation has been used with reference to Christian practice more generally. Early development during the 1960s–1990s The earliest reference to incarnation in the context of Christian practice is from John Mackay in 1964, although the term ‘incarnational’ was found in use by the Oxford English Dictionary as early as 1912. 57 Referring to mission, Mackay described a so-called incarnational principle 58 by which it seems that he intended something like contextualisation, or personal identification with the target culture. 59 In immediately subsequent decades, there was little which developed the application of incarnation to leadership thinking and practice. Instead, appropriation of the motif continued

40 Expressing the pain in the arena of mission. The 1978 ‘Willowbank Report’, produced by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, used John 20:21 and Philippians 2:6–8 to encourage missionaries to imitate Christ, renouncing status, independence and immunity, and seeking cultural identification, albeit without loss of identity. 60 Orlando Costas’ work, Christ Outside the Gate , 61 followed in 1982. Having briefly mentioned mission’s incarnational character in previous work, 62 with this newer book Costas offered more detailed defence of the import of incarnation as God’s being ‘with’ humanity. 63 Four years later, Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers argued for the act of incarnation as an example for contemporary mission in that just as Jesus came as a vulnerable child and spent thirty years learning his people’s culture, so also a missionary must enter a culture like a child willing to learn. 64 In 1989, incarnation was also used regarding pastoring. Wesley Carr’s The Pastor as Theologian65 considers how each of incarnation, atonement and creation/resurrection might be reinterpreted in the light of a particular human dynamic, educing resulting implications for pastoral care. It contends, albeit without detailed biblical-theological analysis of the incarnation, that incarnational ministry by a pastor requires them to become ‘less aware of [themselves] as persons and more alert to [their] roles’ and that ‘[i]ncarnation is God’s statement of his willingness to be used in the confused human dynamics of transference’. 66 Although there was little to no consideration of the incarnation in relation specifically to leadership until the end of the 1980s, in the 1990s things began to change, albeit slowly. Leadership in the context of incarnational ministry was briefly considered in a 1990 Festschrift in honour of an American pastor-theologian called Ray Sherman Anderson. A professor of theology and ministry at Fuller Seminary, Anderson had become known for his thinking on incarnational ministry. 67 Essays in this Festschrift approached the concept broadly and, with one exception, 68 did not connect leadership and incarnation. In 1995, however, Peter Flamming made one of the first clear and unambiguous references to incarnational leadership, 69 contending that ecclesial leadership ‘often lacks the Jesus Factor’ and contrasting the ‘Moses Method’, the ‘Equipping Method’ and the ‘Solitaire Method’, before ultimately championing the ‘Jesus Method’, or incarnational leadership. 70 He deemed Philippians 2:6–7 to ‘embrace the spirit of an incarnational ministry’ and, on the basis thereof, urged Christian leaders to ‘empty’ themselves of cultural prejudice and preconceptions, ‘enter’ the lives of church members and ‘carry spiritual authority’ in their work so as not to be imprisoned by the culture they enter. 71 Incarnational leadership was, therefore, about imitating Jesus and living as a servant, 72 an assertion not further substantiated. Other than this, scholarly focus on appropriating the incarnation remained largely on mission, with an exchange of articles in the EMQ between Harriet Hill and Kenneth McElhanon debating the nature of incarnational models of mission and their workability. 73 These focused on missionary contextualisation. 74 By the end of the 1990s, Darrell Guder had also published on

Seeking an alternative consciousness 41 incarnation and mission, offering something of a clarification to the discussion. He suggested that the incarnational theological theme focuses attention on mission as salvation in dimensions both personal and corporate, explaining that ‘an incarnational . . . understanding of mission is precisely not a continuation of the once-and-for-all incarnation . . . but the continuation of the incarnate Lord’s mission as he shaped and formed it’. 75 Incarnation should be understood to comprise both the events of Jesus’ earthly life and his death and resurrection. To focus, as some had, on Jesus’ life as ethical model ‘often downplays . . . the event-historical character of the gospel. But . . . it is that event character, the historical “happenedness” of Jesus’ life, that both enables and defines Christian witness’. 76 For Guder, then, ‘incarnational mission’ is ‘a revelational consequence of the incarnation’ rather than an actual continuation or imitation of Jesus’ unique incarnation. 77 Continuing enthusiasm in the early twenty-first century The fascination in the 1990s with exploring the value of incarnation as a background for Christian practice did not wane with the dawning of the twenty-first century. Indeed, whilst there was no reduction in thinking and writing concerning incarnational mission – perhaps especially due to the rise of literature focused on the emerging-missional church 78 – there was also a small increase of interest in leadership from an incarnational perspective. The emerging-missional church literature, largely written at semi-popular level, focuses mainly on incarnational mission 79 albeit that such mission is treated not as the unique preserve of missionaries dedicating their lives to service in cultures foreign to their own but rather as the responsibility of every disciple. However, the tendency to describe such mission as incarnational is generally not worked out theologically in significant detail. For example, in Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch’s The Shaping of Things to Come, a whole chapter on the ‘incarnational approach’ to mission in the emergingmissional church explores the theological implications of the incarnation in a two-page discussion to the effect that incarnation means Jesus as the human image of God, the ‘Beyond-in-the-midst’, identifying with the human race in a specific locality. 80 Hirsch’s later book, The Forgotten Ways, suggests that four dimensions frame understanding of the incarnation: presence, proximity, powerlessness and proclamation. These four dimensions and their lifestyle implications are outlined in as few as four pages, albeit that incarnational terminology appears throughout the book, and are said to inform an incarnational lifestyle in the emerging-missional church. 81 Despite their missional focus, some emerging-missional church writings do also reference leadership as incarnational: The Missional Leader connects leadership and the incarnation, implying that the latter should inform leadership within the church context, though without clarifying how this might look. 82 This lack of theological detail also characterises some of the literature relating to youth work. Referencing the incarnation in one sentence, Richard Passmore

42 Expressing the pain explains: ‘He became like us in order for us to be like Him. For me, detached work is best practised this way, leading by example’. His later discussion of contextualisation does not reference the incarnation, which is not considered in any further depth. 83 More recent work by Steve Griffiths adds depth, considering youth ministry in the context not only of incarnation narrowly but also of crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and eschaton. 84 Despite some lack in youth work and emerging-missional church writings, the first decade of this century also saw more theologically sustained explorations of the significance of the incarnation for Christian leadership. In 2002, Robert Martin described ‘incarnationally oriented’, or iconic, leadership as a more prominent form of discipleship, arguing for the ecclesial leader as one in whom others encounter Christ and sense the meaning of the divine life in their own. 85 His subsequent article reiterated this definition, christening it ‘incarnational-sacramental-iconic leadership’ and describing it further as ‘bearing forth Christ as a sacramental event . . . an incarnational manifestation of Christ’s life and ministry’. 86 The task of such leadership is, for Martin, not only to interpret and reconstruct ecclesial praxis; more fundamentally it effects personal transformation in the leader through greater participation in the divine life so that others might come to know that life more fully. 87 Yet, despite these references to ecclesial leadership as incarnational, Martin offers no detailed consideration of incarnation either biblically or theologically. The next scholarly writing connecting incarnation with leadership was Jack Niewold’s unpublished 2006 doctoral dissertation from Regent University, 88 summarised in a subsequent article 89 and critically engaged by others from Regent. 90 However, in the interim an incarnational missiology was published. Ross Langmead’s The Word Made Flesh , 91 which also began life as doctoral work, is a significant full-length treatment of the incarnation as a model for Christian practice. Identifying a spectrum of Christological views, ranging from the Chalcedonian incarnational view through to a nonChalcedonian non-incarnational Christology, 92 Langmead contends that incarnational mission has three elements: following Jesus as the pattern for mission; participating in Christ’s risen presence as the power for mission; and joining God’s mission of enfleshment (God’s self-embodying dynamic evident throughout creation). 93 He traces these three dynamics within a critical survey of various traditions and writers, including Anabaptism, radical evangelicalism, liberation theology, Jürgen Moltmann, both Roman- and Anglo-Catholicism, the WCC and Eastern Orthodoxy. He further suggests that an incarnational approach promotes emphases such as self-emptying, integration of words and deeds in christopraxis, good news to the poor, a theology of the cross, the church as the body of Christ, the affirmation of creation and the importance of the gospel assuming different cultural expressions. 94 Whilst Langmead limits himself to delineating an incarnational missiology, Niewold’s originality is the appropriation of incarnation as a model for

Seeking an alternative consciousness 43 Christian leadership. 95 Averring an interest in leadership generally rather than ecclesial leadership, he surveys the doctrine of incarnation as it developed historically, identifying three polarities of approach: kenosis/plerosis; classical/ Latin views of the atonement; divinisation/humanisation. Thus Niewold has understood incarnation to encompass not only the event of God becoming flesh but also the life, death and resurrection of this God-man. 96 Particularly, he argues that the servant leadership model so widely adopted by Christians neglects the pleromatic conception of Christ’s person and the classical view of the atonement and is thus a distorted model. He suggests that the recovery of these missing elements in the context of a Christian anthropology emphasising both divinisation and humanisation would produce a stronger model of Christian leadership which encompasses and yet goes beyond servant leadership. 97 Niewold calls this martyria, a lifestyle of oral, public witness in the context of the contemporary battle with spiritual powers and worldviews. 98 Recent years have seen continued scholarly interest in the incarnation, although not again specifically in connection with Christian leadership. 99 Andrew Root’s published doctoral work, Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry , 100 considers youth ministry from a relational-incarnational perspective. He employs Bonhoeffer’s concept of Stellvertretung, rendered ‘place-sharing’, as a framework for suggesting that Jesus is made present in the relationship between young person and youth worker. 101 In a subsequent publication, The Relational Pastor, Root reworks much of this into a pastoral context, emphasising themes of union with Christ, personhood as relational with the space between persons as the ‘place’ of God’s presence and the incarnation as ‘the sharing of union in personhood’. 102 He presents the pastor as ‘the one who invites congregation members into relationships of place-sharing with those in and outside the church’, placing ‘empathy [as] . . . the catalyst with neurological foundations, for persons sharing in the life of persons’. 103 Prayer is central as a ‘sharing in the other’s person’, an encounter which ‘draws us by the . . . Spirit into the relationship that is God, into the life of the Father to the Son’. 104 Leadership is also mentioned briefly in one chapter as thus being more about sharing one’s personhood than tasks, 105 a proposal locating place-sharing as foundational. Incarnational ministry was also treated in 2011, this time with more of a focus on mission, at least implicitly. Todd Billings sought to present ‘a constructive critique of incarnational ministry’, arguing that treating the incarnation as a model for ministry is erroneous because it is unrepeatable. Rather, because believers participate in the Spirit’s ongoing work of bearing witness to Christ and creating a new humanity, it is more appropriate to speak of ministry as participation in Christ; ministry insights should be derived from the fact that Christians are united to Christ the servant and the act of becoming incarnate is not to be imitated. 106 This, Billings contends rightly, is better because it moves the focus typical of proponents of incarnational ministry from abstract patterns of cultural immersion to

44 Expressing the pain the believer’s union with the specific, concrete ministry and life of Christ, whom he describes as servant. 107 This point deserves development. Whereas the incarnation has typically been used to signify goals or methods relating to missionary contextualisation, with interest centred on the uncritical application to practice of incarnation as a concept, questions must be raised concerning such an approach. The act of incarnation cannot be imitated. Thus, the last of the three matters for consideration is whether there is any theological justification whatsoever for using this concept to construct an understanding of ecclesial leadership. Incarnation and practice The persisting assumption that I have identified – that the incarnation can and should be imitated by believers – has stunted the theological development of the incarnation as a lens for exploring Christian practice. Though that assumption may commonly have led to ‘a basic shift in orientation from the condescension of distance to an assistance of the needy by becoming one with them’, 108 it is of arguable theological merit. Fundamentally, the argument has been that Philippians 2:5–8 calls for the incarnation to be seen as a model for believers to imitate. Technically, such imitation requires believers to become other in being as God did in becoming man, an ontological impossibility. However, incarnation as a model for imitation is usually only assumed to require becoming other in culture or perhaps other-centred, a far lesser task and arguably inconsistent with ‘imitation’ of the incarnation. Against proposing the incarnation as model for imitation is Andreas Köstenberger. For him, the emphasis of Philippians 2:5–8 is on humility towards other believers, not imitation of the act of incarnation. 109 Eckhard Schnabel agrees: the incarnation is, he writes, ‘unique, unrepeatable and incomparable’ and 2:5–8 presents Jesus’ humility, rather than the act of incarnation, as the relevant example for imitation. 110 The key verse in the debate is Philippians 2:5, a text interpreted by scholarship in three main ways, representing two varying translations of the verse 111 and, third, an approach typified by James Dunn, which sees the passage as referencing Christ in his humanity as the second Adam and not incarnation at all. 112 Dunn argues that 2:5–8 alludes to creation accounts and specifically Adam’s disobedience, acting to contrast the self-sacrifice of Christ with Adam’s attempt to grasp divinity. Particularly, his reading claims that no pre-existence of Christ is in view. 113 If correct, 114 this interpretation clearly presents difficulties in using this verse as justification for the event of incarnation as a model to imitate. However, do the other two interpretations offer any possibility of shoring up popular approaches to this verse? One reading of the imperative in 2:5, the so-called kerygmatic interpretation, encourages the Philippians to ‘think this way among yourselves which also you think in Christ Jesus’; the second inserts the verb ‘was’, reading, ‘let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus’. 115 The emphasis of the former

Seeking an alternative consciousness 45 is on Christ as the motivation and empowerer for personal transformation in the context of our union with him, rather than on the event of incarnation as model for ministry. The latter reading of 2:5 is more clearly an ethical imperative towards the re-formation of believers’ attitudes by looking at Christ’s attitude. 116 Though some writers on incarnational mission and ministry might hope that the latter also permits interpreting the act of incarnation as part of a pattern for imitation, 117 if they even engage theologically to this level, in practice commentators do not treat this latter reading as a foundation for using the event of incarnation as a model for ministry, it being impossible for Christians to imitate an act of divinity. Indeed, ‘the parallel between missionary identification and Jesus’ becoming a man founders in so many ways that using the term incarnational borders on trivializing the incarnation’. 118 Kenosis of which the subject is the logos asarkos and which constitutes God-becoming-flesh is not capable of human imitation. 119 At most, by their union with him believers are conformed to the one who became incarnate, rather than imitating the act itself. For Billings, as we saw, such conformity is, by virtue of this union, to Christ’s cruciform life; believers’ humble service witnesses to Christ’s obedient servanthood. 120 He thus rejects ‘incarnational ministry’ models for missing the centrality of union with Christ. 121 However, as Paul Metzger claims, Billings has created a false dilemma: incarnational language is valid for ministry because it is union with Christ which properly grounds such language. 122 Imitation of the event of incarnation may be on shaky ground for founding ‘incarnational ministry’ but union with the incarnate God-man may take us further. To privilege participatio Christi over imitatio Christi, then, I follow Guder and Niewold in defining incarnation and its cognates as comprising for these purposes the becoming-flesh, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Godman. It is not that any one or more of these events are archetypal for present purposes but rather the person who became incarnate and believers’ participation in him which constitutes the paradigm. 123 Where the person rather than the event is determinative, texts like Philippians 2:5–8 can shape the thought of even those who accept Dunn’s claims that it describes an Adam Christology rather than the incarnation (provided, of course, that they accept that the one described there is the God-man). For even if this text does not reference the becoming-flesh of the pre-existent Son (kenosis of the logos asarkos), it still describes a kenotic dynamic in his life and death (kenosis of the logos ensarkos ), the same life in which believers participate. Understanding ministry as founded in believers’ participation in the Incarnate Christ depends on the dual elements of Christ’s vicarious priesthood: on one level, he assumed human nature through his incarnation, healing it from within and making it holy, whilst on the other level, he also presents reconciled humanity to God ‘in and through himself on our behalf’. 124 It recognises the impossibility for humanity of a sufficient response to God, save as made by Christ. 125 Because of this impossibility, any ministry

46 Expressing the pain outside of participation in Christ’s vicarious humanity becomes functionally defined, assuming ‘an anthropological starting point, where pain and need set the agenda’. 126 Such ministry misses the invitation to participate in what Christ continues to do on our behalf in ministering to the Father and to the world, 127 instead focusing on ministry tasks without witnessing to Christian ministry’s ‘essentially revelatory and Christological basis’. 128 Accordingly, an incarnational model for ministry and, more specifically, for ecclesial leadership constructed on anything other than Spirit-enabled participation in the continuing ministry of the Incarnate Christ disintegrates into no more than a Pelagian application of a set of moral principles derived from Jesus’ life 129 at best and mere professionalism at worst. Billings is not the first to have considered the shape of a ministry which finds its source in believers’ participation in Christ, as Andrew Purves catalogues. 130 Athanasius argued that Christ ‘was Very God in the flesh, and He was true flesh in the Word’, 131 mediating between God and humanity. 132 He gives ‘as God’s Word’ yet also as a man receives that Word. 133 Calvin, too, recognised that in Christ’s priesthood he not only reconciles humanity with the Father but also ‘receive[s] us as his companions in this great office . . . priests in him’, 134 because of the Spirit who is the bond of our union with Christ. 135 In the same school of thought stands Thomas Torrance: seeing Christ as the mediator of humanity’s response to God, 136 and recognising that it is in humanity’s union with him that ‘all that is his becomes ours’, 137 Torrance asserts that the church’s ground of being is Christ, united with him through the Spirit, and that accordingly there is but one ministry – ‘that of Christ in his Body’. 138 Thus, in Purves’ words, ‘[a]s the Son is sent from the Father, so the church, sent by the Son, shares in the mission of Jesus Christ’ such that ‘ministry is grounded upon a christological and missional pattern’, a pattern which Purves designates a sharing in Jesus’ existence as a servant. 139 It is to one of Torrance’s students, another in this line of thinkers, that the story now shifts. Ray S. Anderson’s theology of ministry has been dubbed ‘truly incarnational ’. 140 After beginning his working life as a farmer with a degree in Agricultural Science, 141 he went – in his own words – ‘in search of . . . a different kind of soil’. 142 Three years of seminary followed and then eleven years in full-time pastoral ministry before doctoral work under Torrance. 143 Having commenced pastoral ministry committed to exploring ‘the humanity of God’, Anderson had, in his final preaching series before leaving for Edinburgh, outlined an incarnational theology. 144 Yet in 1970, this self-styled maverick 145 theologian began to experience a shift under his supervisor’s teaching. He describes it as a discovery of ‘the soul of theology’: having ‘preached and taught an incarnational theology, now I was being introduced to a theology of the incarnation’. 146 So it was that Anderson’s interest in ministry as incarnational was born. Whereas his last preaching outlines had used incarnation as metaphorical, now Torrance was showing him incarnation as the means by which humanity is drawn into communion

Seeking an alternative consciousness 47 with God through Jesus’ vicarious humanity; and, with this, what ‘was first song now became substance’ for Anderson. 147 After his doctoral studies, Anderson continued to write whilst teaching at Westmont College and, later, Fuller Theological Seminary 148 alongside pastoring a small church. 149 For him, the task of theology was one of ‘expounding the ministry of God’ 150 because ‘ ministry is God’s way of . . . expounding the truth of who God is’. 151 That is, ‘ministry precedes and produces theology, not the reverse’ 152 and also ‘precedes and determines the church’. 153 His focus on a theology of ministry and a practical theology of the church thus continued, 154 founded on his characterisation of incarnation as the penetration ‘into the ontological structures of fallen humanity’ by the Son of God for humanity’s restoration, a ‘reconciling ministry . . . which continues as the ministry of the church’. 155 Anderson argued that because the Word creates ‘ ex nihilo’, and thus it alone makes possible ex nihilo a human response to that Word, 156 ministry cannot be the actualisation of a possibility revealed in the gospel. 157 It is rather a recognition that, through the incarnation of the divine Word, human response has already been actualised 158 and all ministry of the church thereafter is a possibility only because of this incarnation. 159 Accordingly, Christian ministry must be incarnational, being founded in human participation in the Incarnate Christ’s continuing vicarious humanity and ministry, 160 and is thus ‘determined and set forth’ by God’s ministry of revelation and reconciliation. 161 In treating revelation as the basis for reconciliation, attention is turned from methods for pragmatic ministry success, instead focusing on what is revealed of God in each act of ministry. 162 Ecclesial ministry, then, is given form and content by Christ’s ministry, a ministry expressed both as faithfulness to the Father in his extension of divine love to humanity and as acceptable service from humanity to God in the offering of worship which is loving obedience. It ‘becomes the dogma from which all insight into the nature and strategy of ministry issues and to which the Church must return in every generation to test its own concept of ministry’. 163 Both Anderson’s connection of a so-called incarnational dynamic with participation in Christ’s life and, most importantly, the depth of his engagement with incarnational theology and ecclesiology indicate that interaction with his work shows great promise for a prophetic reimagining of ecclesial leadership through an incarnational lens. Accordingly, the next chapter will develop and critique how Anderson gives form to the church’s ministry, called Christopraxis, in the context of ecclesial leadership. In doing so, I will begin the process which constitutes part II , a movement of the deep remembering which Brueggemann identifies as a pillar of prophetic imagination. This remembering, in conversation with Anderson, of the normative resources in Scripture and tradition by which an alternative consciousness can be retrieved will take us first in chapter 3 to memories of servanthood, a significant strand of biblical faith.

48 Expressing the pain Notes 1 Shakespeare further suggests decline in ecclesial participation and membership as a factor contributing to this reframing ( Body , 15). 2 Russell W. West with John Stoeckle, ‘Theorizing Religiously-Based Organization Leadership: Mapping the Intersections’, JRL 4 (2005), 149–187. 3 Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity , Grand Rapids: Hourglass, 1993, 51–52. 4 Arthur Boers, Servants and Fools: A Biblical Theology of Leadership, Nashville: Abingdon, 2015, 101. 5 Gerald Hiestand and Todd Wilson, The Pastor Theologian: Resurrecting an Ancient Vision, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015, ch.3. The Center for Pastor Theologians gathers those who are notable exceptions. 6 Miller-McLemore, ‘Misunderstandings’, 23–25; Pattison, Challenge, 245, 282– 287; Gordon S. Mikoski, ‘Mainline Protestantism’ (557–566) in Bonnie J. MillerMcLemore (ed.), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Practical Theology, Malden: Blackwell, 2012, 562; Andrew Root, Christopraxis: A Practical Theology of the Cross, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014, 11–13. 7 Cf. Rost, Leadership , 45. 8 Ledbetter, Banks and Greenhalgh, Leadership. 9 Walter C. Wright, Relational Leadership: A Biblical Model for Influence and Service, Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000; J. Robert Clinton, The Making of a Leader, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1988. Clinton also considers the ‘greats’ of Christian history (e.g., ch.3), in a move reminiscent of ‘great man’/trait theories (see above). 10 Dwight J. Zscheile, ‘Christian Biblical Understandings of Leadership’ (153–160) in Sharon Henderson Callahan (ed.), Religious Leadership: A Handbook, Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2013. 11 Frank, ‘Leadership’, 128. 12 Martyn Percy, Clergy: The Origin of Species , London: Continuum, 2006, 177. 13 John E. Johnson, ‘The Old Testament Offices as Paradigm for Pastoral Identity’, Bibliotheca Sacra 152 (1995), 182–200. Marty E. Stevens details these OT offices but without contemporary application ( Leadership Roles of the Old Testament , Eugene: Cascade, 2012). 14 Andrew Wilson, ‘Prophets, Priests, Kings, Frame, Keller and Driscoll’, thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/prophets-priests-kings-frame-keller-and-driscoll, accessed 13/09/17; Rick Phillips, ‘Tim Keller’s Review of Willow Creek: What about Gospel Clarity?’, www.reformation21.org/blog/2009/10/tim-kellers-reviewof-willow-c.php, accessed 13/09/17. 15 Laurie Beth Jones, Jesus CEO: Using Ancient Wisdom for Visionary Leadership , New York: Hyperion, 1995, xi. 16 Ford uses various biblical and extra-biblical images to do so ( Transforming ). Campbell McAlpine’s work is less structured ( Jesus the Perfect Leader: The Ultimate Model for Every Believer, Tonbridge: Sovereign World, n.d.). 17 John Adair, The Leadership of Jesus and Its Legacy Today, Norwich: Canterbury, 2001, 182. 18 Efrain Agosto, Servant Leadership: Jesus and Paul, St. Louis: Chalice, 2005; Stacy T. Rinehart, Upside Down: The Paradox of Servant Leadership, Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1998. Don N. Howell focuses on servanthood through the lens of biblical characters generally rather than focusing solely on Jesus or Paul’s use of this motif ( Servants of the Servant: A Biblical Theology of Leadership , Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2003). 19 Derek Tidball, Ministry by the Book: New Testament Patterns for Pastoral Leadership, Nottingham: Apollos, 2008. Though the subtitle references ‘leadership’,

Seeking an alternative consciousness 49 Tidball focuses on ‘ministry’ more generally, as do David L. Bartlett ( Ministry in the New Testament, Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) and James W. Thompson ( Pastoral Ministry According to Paul: A Biblical Vision, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006). 20 Andrew D. Clarke, Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth: A SocioHistorical and Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians 1–6, Leiden: Brill, 1993; Andrew D. Clarke, Serve the Community of the Church: Christians as Leaders, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000; Andrew D. Clarke, A Pauline Theology of Church Leadership, London: T&T Clark, 2008; Andrew D. Clarke, ‘Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth’, Tyndale Bulletin 43:2 (1992), 395–398; Andrew D. Clarke, ‘“Be Imitators of Me”: Paul’s Model of Leadership’, Tyndale Bulletin 49:2 (1998), 329–360. 21 Steve Walton, Leadership and Lifestyle: The Portrait of Paul in the Miletus Speech and 1 Thessalonians , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 22 Joseph H. Hellerman, Embracing Shared Ministry: Power and Status in the Early Church and Why It Matters Today , Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2013. 23 Darin Hawkins Land, The Diffusion of Ecclesiastical Authority: Sociological Dimensions of Leadership in the Book of Acts, Eugene: Pickwick, 2008; also Jack Barentsen, Emerging Leadership in the Pauline Mission: A Social Identity Perspective on Local Leadership Development in Corinth and Ephesus, Eugene: Pickwick, 2011. 24 Skip Bell (ed.), Servants and Friends: A Biblical Theology of Leadership, Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 2014, 378–379. 25 C. Peter Wagner, Leading Your Church to Growth, Bromley: MARC Europe, 1986, 58–59. 26 John W. Frye, Jesus the Pastor: Leading Others in the Character and Power of Christ, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. Cf. Jay E. Adams, Shepherding God’s Flock Vol. 3, s.l.: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1975; Tidball, Skilful. This tendency is notable, historically, in Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule, www. newadvent.org/fathers/3601.htm, accessed 13/09/17. 27 Eugene H. Peterson suggests that the question is less about how to promote effective change or growth in the organisation and rather how to be alongside believers ‘in such a way that they can become what God is making them’ ( The Contemplative Pastor: Returning to the Art of Spiritual Direction, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993, 4). Further by Peterson: Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992; Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity (2nd ed.), Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993; Under the Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in Vocational Holiness, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992; The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call (with Marva Dawn), Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000; The Pastor: A Memoir, New York: HarperOne, 2011. 28 E.g., E. Glenn Wagner, Escape from Church, Inc.: The Return of the PastorShepherd, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999, 33–54, 86, 91–154; Quentin P. Kinnison, Transforming Pastoral Leadership: Reimagining Congregational Relationships for Changing Contexts, Eugene: Pickwick, 2016; Benjamin L. Gladd and Matthew S. Harmon, Making All Things New: Inaugurated Eschatology for the Life of the Church, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2016, 59–114. For brief overview of shepherding imagery and its NT use alongside eldership: Chloe Lynch, ‘In 1 Peter 5:1–5, Who Are the πρϵσβύτϵροι and What Is Said about Their Role?’, ExpTim 123:11 (2012), 529–540. Generally on shepherding: Timothy S. Laniak, Shepherds after My Own Heart: Pastoral Traditions and Leadership in the Bible , Leicester: Apollos, 2006. 29 Christopher A. Beeley, Leading God’s People: Wisdom from the Early Church for Today, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012; Won Sang Lee, Pastoral Leadership: A Case Study, Including Reference to John Chrysostom, Eugene: Wipf & Stock,

50 Expressing the pain 2015. Similar but more specifically angled towards pastoral theology is Andrew Purves, Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition , Louisville: WJKP, 2001. 30 For a range of perspectives: Richard J. Mouw and Eric O. Jacobsen (eds.), Traditions in Leadership: How Faith Traditions Shape the Way We Lead, Pasadena: De Pree Leadership Center, 2006. 31 Paschal G. Cheline, ‘Christian Leadership: A Benedictine Perspective’, American Theological Library Association Summary of Proceedings 57 (2003), 107–113; Corné Bekker, ‘Leading with the Head Bowed Down: Lessons in Leadership Humility from the Rule of Saint Benedict of Nursia’, Inner Resources for Leaders 1:3, www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/innerresources/vol1iss3/bekker_ inspirational.pdf,accessed 13/09/17. Business leadership has appropriated the tradition too: Craig S. Galbraith and Oliver Galbraith, III, The Benedictine Rule of Leadership, Avon: Adams Media, 2005; Quentin R. Skrabec, St. Benedict’s Rule for Business Success, West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2003. 32 Jim Horsthuis, ‘Participants with God: A Perichoretic Theology of Leadership’, JRL 10:1 (2011), 81–107. 33 Dwight J. Zscheile, ‘The Trinity, Leadership and Power’, JRL 6:2 (2007), 43–63, 56–57; cf. Thomas F. Tumblin, ‘The Trinity Applied: Creating Space for Changed Lives’, JRL 6:2 (2007), 65–73 engaging Zscheile, ‘Trinity’. 34 See Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, 211–213; cf. Stanley J. Grenz’s ecclesial personhood – The Social God and the Relational Self: A Trinitarian Theology of the Imago Dei , Louisville: WJKP, 2001, 312–336. 35 Christian Schumacher, To Live and Work: A Theological Interpretation, Bromley: MARC, 1987, 75–82; God in Work: Discovering the Divine Pattern for Work in the New Millennium , Oxford: Lion, 1998, 71. 36 George Cladis, Leading the Team-Based Church: How Pastors and Church Staffs Can Grow Together into a Powerful Fellowship of Leaders, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999. 37 Benjamin D. Williams and Michael T. McKibben, Oriented Leadership: Why Every Christian Needs It, Wayne: Orthodox Christian Publications Center, 1994; Rinehart, Upside; William P. Atkinson, ‘The Trinity and Servant-Leadership’, ERT 38:2 (2014), 138–150. Also: R. Paul Stevens, The Other Six Days: Vocation, Work, and Ministry in Biblical Perspective, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000, ch.6. 38 Horsthuis, ‘Participants’, 95; cf. Michael L. Davis, ‘Spiritual Formation: Retrieving Perichoresis as a Model for Shared Leadership in the Marketplace’, JRL 14:1 (2015), 105–126. Atkinson roots his approach in John 17 which suggests availability of ‘a loving quality of . . . [human] relationships . . . that reflects the quality of divine love within the Trinity’ ‘in and through their relationship with God in Christ’ (‘Trinity’, 138–140). 39 Zscheile remarks that ‘[s]ince we are created in the image of God, we can expect significant correlations between the life and character of God and our life and character’ (‘Trinity’, 44). 40 Zscheile, ‘Trinity’, 51–52. 41 Volf, After , 198. 42 Karen Kilby, ‘Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity’, New Blackfriars 81 (2000), 432–445. 43 Volf, After , 199–200. 44 For critique: Kevin J. Bidwell, The Church as the Image of the Trinity: A Critical Evaluation of Miroslav Volf’s Ecclesial Model, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011, 192–212; Mark Husbands, ‘The Trinity Is Not Our Social Program: Volf, Gregory of Nyssa and Barth’ (120–141) in Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber (eds.), Trinitarian Theology for the Church: Scripture, Community, Worship, Nottingham: Apollos, 2009.

Seeking an alternative consciousness 51 45 Colin Gunton, ‘The Church on Earth: The Roots of Community’ (48–80) in Colin E. Gunton and Daniel W. Hardy (eds.), On Being the Church: Essays on the Christian Community , Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989, 65. 46 Christ is the only ground of analogy between God and humanity (Husbands, ‘Trinity’, 140, reflecting on Barth and Acts 17:28). By him, the church is instituted and by his Spirit it is constituted (Gunton, ‘Church’, 62). 47 Sweet, Follower , 34. 48 Sweet, Follower , 85, 177. 49 Sweet, Follower , 177. 50 Fitch carefully distinguishes his proposal from what I characterise in chapter 3 as Greenleafian servant-leadership ( Giveaway , 86–94). 51 Brian J. Dodd, Empowered Church Leadership: Ministry in the Spirit According to Paul , Downers Grove: IVP, 2003, 11. 52 Dodd, Empowered, 14–17. Ernest White also elects to retain leadership language, albeit with caveats (‘The Crisis in Christian Leadership’, Review and Expositor 83 (1986), 545–557). Willimon does similarly, appropriating Burns’ model of transformative leadership and Heifetz’s vision of leadership as adaptive work whilst warning of the need to be circumspect in using secular models ( Pastor , 276–281). 53 Dodd, Empowered , 33–34, 36. 54 Further on ecclesial management: Peter F. Rudge, Ministry and Management: The Study of Ecclesiastical Administration, London: Tavistock, 1968; John W. Wimberley, The Business of the Church: The Uncomfortable Truth That Faithful Ministry Requires Effective Management, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014; Joseph F. McCann, Church and Organization: A Sociological and Theological Enquiry, Cranbury: Associated University Presses, 1993; Clare Watkins, ‘Organizing the People of God: Social-Science Theories of Organization in Ecclesiology’, Theological Studies 52 (1991), 689–711. An interesting study on management in light of Luke’s gospel is Bruno Dyck’s Management and the Gospel: Luke’s Radical Message for the First and Twenty-First Centuries, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 55 Pattison, Challenge, 69, 87; cf. Inagrace T. Dietterich, ‘A Particular People: Toward a Faithful and Effective Ecclesiology’, Modern Theology 9:4 (1993), 349–367, 350; Clare Watkins, ‘The Church as a “Special” Case: Comments from Ecclesiology Concerning the Management of the Church’, Modern Theology 9:4 (1993), 369–384; Percy, Future, 38; M. Douglas Meeks, ‘Hope and the Ministry of Planning and Management’, Anglican Theological Review 64:2 (1982), 147–162, 152. 56 The following survey largely excludes popular-level writings. References proliferate particularly in blogs or other websites; I confine my limited comments on popular-level references mainly to those found in books since these tend to be underpinned by somewhat more rigorous thought. Use of ‘incarnational’ as adjective has mushroomed in popular writings over recent years, yet these offerings provide little or no attempt to substantiate theologically the models which they purport to develop. 57 Darrell L. Guder, ‘Incarnation and the Church’s Evangelistic Mission’, International Review of Mission 83:330 (1994), 417–428. 58 John A. Mackay, Ecumenics: The Science of the Church Universal, Eaglewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964, 173–178. 59 Guder, ‘Incarnation’, 421–422. 60 Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, The Willowbank Report: Consultation on Gospel and Culture (1978), Part 6B, www.lausanne.org/en/documents/ lops/73-lop-2.html, accessed 13/09/17. 61 Orlando E. Costas, Christ outside the Gate: Mission beyond Christendom, Maryknoll: Orbis, 1982.

52 Expressing the pain 62 Orlando E. Costas, The Church and Its Mission: A Shattering Critique from the Third World , Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1974, 10. 63 Costas, Christ, 13. J. Todd Billings critiqued this interpretation at length slightly more than twenty years later (‘Incarnational Ministry and Christology: A Reappropriation of the Way of Lowliness’, Missiology 32:2 (2004), 187–201). 64 Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers, Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1986, 25. 65 Wesley Carr, The Pastor as Theologian: The Integration of Pastoral Ministry, Theology and Discipleship, London: SPCK, 1989. Cf. Charles Gerkin, The Living Human Document: Re-Envisioning Pastoral Counseling in a Hermeneutical Mode , Nashville: Abingdon, 1984, 70–71. 66 Carr, Pastor , 58, 74. 67 One of his seminal contributions was a 1979 essay which, although not specifically referencing incarnational leadership, suggests that the church participates in Christ’s continuing ministry to the Father for the sake of the world (‘Theology’, 8). Later in the same volume, Anderson also states that the ministry of the church to the world must be incarnational, kerygmatic and diaconal ( Theological , 493). 68 Walter C. Wright, Jr., ‘The Ministry of Leadership: Empowering People’ (204–215) in Kettler and Speidell (eds.), Incarnational. 69 Peter J. Flamming, ‘Incarnational Leadership for Ministry’, The Theological Educator 52 (1995), 7–14. Alan E. Nelson also speaks of incarnational leadership a year later at popular level: however, his concept is no more defined than ‘leading out of who I am as a leader’ ( Leading Your Ministry, Nashville: Abingdon, 1996, 73). Also in the 1990s, Christopher Moody made brief reference to an ‘incarnational and sacramental’ model of leadership and pastoral ministry by which ministry requires identification with the hidden Christ by coming alongside others ( Eccentric Ministry: Pastoral Care and Leadership in the Parish , London: DLT, 1992, 7–9). 70 Flamming, ‘Incarnational’, 9. 71 Flamming, ‘Incarnational’, 10–14. Flamming assumes without discussion that ‘emptying’ is a human, as well as divine, capacity. 72 Flamming, ‘Incarnational’, 14. 73 Harriet Hill, ‘Incarnational Ministry: A Critical Examination’, EMQ 26 (1990), 196–201; Kenneth McElhanon, ‘Don’t Give Up on the Incarnational Model’, EMQ 27 (1991), 390–393; Harriet Hill, ‘Lifting the Fog on Incarnational Ministry’, EMQ 29 (1993), 262–269. 74 There were other similar articles in the 1990s: G.P. Mellick Belshaw argued for a focus on incarnation as the theological basis for ecclesial ministry amongst the poor (‘The Religion of the Incarnation’, Anglican Theological Review 76:4 (1994), 432–443); Wilbert R. Shenk also made reference to a model of mission based on the incarnation and involving full identification in the context of disclosing God’s love and will for humanity ( Write the Vision: The Church Renewed, Leominster: Gracewing, 1995, 47–48); David Bjork interpreted incarnational mission in terms of evangelising and discipling within the context of relationship without building churches alongside the state church, modelling the posture of servants who have set aside their own rights and privileges (‘A Model for Analysis of Incarnational Ministry in Post-Christendom Lands’, Missiology 25:3 (1997), 279–291). See also Paul G. Hiebert and Eloise Hiebert Meneses’ description of incarnational mission as contextualisation, albeit with no further detailed theological analysis concerning the incarnation’s meaning for mission and ministry ( Incarnational Ministry: Planting Churches in Band, Tribal, Peasant and Urban Societies , Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995).

Seeking an alternative consciousness 53 75 Darrell L. Guder, The Incarnation and the Church’s Witness, Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999, 17, 23; also Darrell L. Guder, Called to Witness: Doing Missional Theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015, 117–118. Andrew Hardy, Richard Whitehouse and Dan Yarnell comment that ‘Guder has been leading the charge on’ incarnational ministry ‘for several decades’ ( Power and the Powers: The Use and Abuse of Power in Its Missional Context, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2015, 162). 76 Guder, Church’s , xiii. 77 J. Todd Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church , Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011, 131. 78 Writing on incarnational mission in this period was not solely the domain of the emerging-missional church: see Ken Baker (with Jonathan Bonk’s integrated response), ‘The Incarnational Model: Perception of Deception?’, EMQ 38 (2002), 16–24; Darrell L. Whiteman, ‘Anthropology and Mission: The Incarnational Connection’, Missiology 31:4 (2003), 397–415. There was also writing on incarnational ministry: though Samuel Wells offers little development of the doctrine of incarnation at depth, he offers helpful breadth in terms of his eight-point elucidation of what incarnational ministry as ‘being with’ entails ( Incarnational Ministry: Being with the Church , Norwich: Canterbury, 2017). 79 See further (numbers designate page references to ‘incarnational’): John Burke, ‘The Emerging Church and Incarnational Theology’ (49–79) in Robert Webber (ed.), Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches: Five Perspectives, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2007; Michael Frost, Exiles: Living Missionally in a PostChristian Culture, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006, 54–56; Eddie Gibbs and Ryan K. Bolger, Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005, 75, 80; Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008; Alan and Debra Hirsch, Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010, 233–251; Will Mancini, Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture and Create Movement, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008, 34–35; Craig Van Gelder and Dwight J. Zscheile, The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011, 114–115. 80 Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, The Shaping of Things to Come: Innovation and Mission for the 21st Century Church, Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003, 36–37. 81 Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church, Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006, 131–134. 82 Alan J. Roxburgh and Fred Romanuk, The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006, 120–122. 83 Richard Passmore, Meet Them Where They’re at: Helping Churches Engage Young People through Detached Youth Work, Bletchley: Scripture Union, 2003, 12, 14–15. Other approaches pre-2000 were similar. Ward saw youth workers as ‘the means by which Jesus becomes incarnated amongst a group of young people’, claiming that to be ‘incarnational’ is ‘to live out a spirituality which is deeply rooted in the life of Christ . . . [as] imitators of Christ’. Significant supporting theological detail is lacking, although Ward appears to see incarnational youth work as parallel with missionary contextualisation (Pete Ward, Youthwork and the Mission of God: Framework for Relational Outreach, London: SPCK, 1997, 93–96). Kenda Creasy Dean and Ron Foster emphasised the Spirit’s place in incarnational youth ministry ( The Godbearing Life: The Art of Soul Tending for Youth Ministry, Nashville: Upper Room, 1998, 27–29). Incarnational language in American youth work appeared as early as

54 Expressing the pain the 1940s–1950s: Jim Rayburn of Young Life used it as ‘ministerial justification (rather than theological explication) of ministry’ (Andrew Root, Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry: From a Strategy of Influence to a Theology of Incarnation , Downers Grove: IVP, 2007, 53). 84 Steve Griffiths, Models for Youth Ministry: Learning from the Life of Christ, London: SPCK, 2013. 85 Robert K. Martin, ‘Encountering God in the Image of Christ: Iconic Leadership’, JRL 1:1 (2002), 83–100. Cf. his popular-level chapter: ‘Being in Youth Ministry: The Imperative of Incarnational Leadership’ (145–164) in Sondra Higgins Matthaei (ed.), Loving God, Loving Neighbor: Ministry with Searching Youth , s.l.: Xlibris, 2008. 86 Robert K. Martin, ‘Dwelling in the Divine Life: The Transformational Dimension of Leadership and Practical Theology’, JRL 3:1–2 (2004), 99–138, 125–126. 87 Martin, ‘Dwelling’, 126–127. 88 Jack W. Niewold, ‘Incarnational Leadership: Towards a Distinctly Christian Theory of Leadership’, Regent University: unpublished PhD dissertation, 2006. 89 Jack Niewold, ‘Beyond Servant Leadership’, JBPL 1:2 (2007), 118–134. 90 Catherine Self, ‘Incarnational Leadership as Reflected in St. Clare’s Third Letter to Agnes: A Sensory-Aesthetic Study’, Annual Roundtables of Contemporary Research and Practice (Regent University, May 2008), www.regent.edu/acad/ global/publications/bpc_proceedings/2008/selfIncarnationalleadership.pdf, accessed 13/09/17; Corné J. Bekker, ‘Towards a Theoretical Model of Christian Leadership’, JBPL 2:2 (2009), 142–152. Bekker had, in fact, previously considered leadership from a Christological perspective himself, arguing briefly for the existence of an ‘early mimetic Christological model’ in Philippi as ‘serviceoriented’ and informed by mutuality and humility (Corné J. Bekker, ‘Sharing the Incarnation: Towards a Model of Christological Leadership’, www.regent.edu/ acad/global/publications/bpc_proceedings/2007/Bekker.pdf,accessed 13/09/17). 91 Ross Langmead, The Word Made Flesh: Towards an Incarnational Missiology, Lanham: University Press of America, 2004. 92 Langmead, Word , 29–34. 93 Langmead, Word , 220–221. 94 Langmead, Word , 48–57. 95 Niewold, ‘Incarnational’, 301–302. There is, of course, a plethora of literature concerning incarnational leadership at the popular level, including the emerging-missional church works already surveyed. In fact, whilst a search of the World Catalogue in 2017 with the Boolean term ‘incarnational leadership’ identifies only five books on the subject, a wider internet search accesses about 1,630 results including blogs, popular-level articles and presentation notes (www.worldcat.org and www.google.co.uk, accessed 13/09/17). Niewold’s is the only full-length academic work. Whilst other dissertations touch on the subject, they do so largely in passing and, with one exception, as professional, rather than academic, doctorates: James Randall Wallace, ‘Leadership in At-Risk Communities: The Case of Myles Horton’, Regent University: unpublished PhD dissertation, 2007; John Charles Dendiu, Jr., ‘Incarnational Ministry: A Program for Spiritual Formation and Renewal’, Asbury Theological Seminary: unpublished DMin dissertation, 2005; David Alan Hoffman, ‘An Incarnational Model for Pastoral Leadership’, Fuller Theological Seminary: unpublished DMin dissertation, 1995; Timothy D. Ozment, ‘Relational and Incarnational Leadership: A Flattening of the Congregational Hierarchy and a Shared Journey of Faith’, George Fox University: unpublished DMin dissertation, 2007; John N. Vest, ‘Introducing the Concept of Incarnational Leadership to the Laity of a Local Church’, Boston University: unpublished DMin dissertation, 1994.

Seeking an alternative consciousness 55 96 This same broad sense of incarnation was adopted by Guder in 1999 (above), as well as by Chris Green who warns against ‘a truncated view of incarnation’ (‘The Incarnation and Mission’ (110–151) in David Peterson (ed.), The Word Became Flesh: Evangelicals and the Incarnation, Carlisle: Paternoster, 2003, 123). 97 Niewold, ‘Beyond’, 126. 98 Niewold, ‘Beyond’, 126–129. 99 There has been recent popular-level interest, however. Based loosely on reflections on John and the idea of following Christ’s example, Bill Robinson posits five elements of ‘incarnate leadership’: staying close to those being led; transparency; reflecting the mission rather than gathering glory; leading with grace and truth; sacrifice ( Incarnate Leadership: 5 Leadership Lessons from the Life of Jesus, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009, 18, 20). Neil Cole suggests that Christ’s Spirit ‘is incarnate . . . in leaders’, commenting that as Jesus led others in the path of servanthood so should ‘those who live with the Spirit of Jesus incarnate in their lives’ ( Organic Leadership: Leading Naturally Right Where You Are, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009, 199, 204). Other examples of popular appropriation of the term are: David L. McKenna, Christ-Centered Leadership: The Incarnational Difference, Eugene: Cascade, 2013 (emulating five attitudes of Christ from Philippians 2 leading to sacrifice as a step beyond servanthood); Ralph E. Enlow, Jr., The Leader’s Palette: Seven Primary Colors, Bloomington: Westbow, 2013, 13–28, 5 (leadership which is ‘much more about being than doing’); Hyatt’s definition – michaelhyatt.com/the-incarnational-principle-ofleadership.html, accessed 13/09/17 (‘entering into someone else’s world’); Into Thy Word Ministries – www.intothyword.org/apps/articles/?articleid=32726& columnid=3881a,accessed 30/04/16 (broadly, servanthood); Dave Fleming, Leadership Wisdom from Unlikely Voices, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004, 124 (‘bringing . . . the unseen into time/space’, whatever this means!). 100 See n.83. 101 Root, Revisiting , ch.6. 102 Andrew Root, The Relational Pastor: Sharing in Christ by Sharing Ourselves, Downers Grove: IVP, 2013, 135. Selected publications retreading/critiquing similar ground include: Andrew Root, ‘The Incarnation, Place-Sharing and Youth Ministry: Experiencing the Transcendence of God’, JYM 12:1 (2013), 21–36; Mark Dodrill, ‘A Call for More Critical Thinking Reguarding [sic] the Theological Turn in Youth Ministry’, JYM 12:1 (2013), 7–20; Russell Haitch, ‘Response to “Incarnation and Place-Sharing”’, JYM 12:1 (2013), 37–43; Blair D. Bertrand and Christine Lang Hearlson, ‘Relationships, Personalism, and Andrew Root’, JYM 12:1 (2013), 45–55. 103 Root, Relational , 44, 108. 104 Root, Relational , 174, 176. 105 Root, Relational , 208–210. 106 Billings, Union, 124. David J. Garrard earlier affirmed similar concerns: ‘Questionable Assumptions in the Theory and Practice of Mission’, JEPTA 26:2 (2006), 102–112. 107 Billings, Union, 145. Essentially, Christians are called to witness to Christ in a way consistent with ‘his life of obedient servanthood’ (152). 108 Billings, ‘Incarnational’, 187–188. 109 Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Missions of Jesus and the Disciples According to the Fourth Gospel with Implications for the Fourth Gospel’s Purpose and the Mission of the Contemporary Church , Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998, 215. 110 Schnabel writes similarly concerning John 1:14a, noting that what is to be treated as a model for believers is not the act of incarnation but ‘the nature of Jesus’ relationship to the Father who sent him into the world’ (Eckhard J.

56 Expressing the pain Schnabel, Early Christian Mission Vol. 2: Paul and the Early Church, Downers Grove: IVP, 2004, 1575). 111 This variance results from the absence of a verb in the second half of 2:5 – ho kai en Christō Iēsou. 112 James D.G. Dunn’s argument was first articulated in Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (2nd ed.), London: SCM, 1989, 114–121. It was further clarified in The Theology of Paul the Apostle , Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006, 281–288. 113 He does also note that finding pre-existence is independent of finding Adam Christology in the text – Dunn, Christology, 119; cf. Dunn, Paul, 286–287. Tom Wright has argued for the presence of Adam-language in Philippians 2:5–11 and that such language does not militate against pre-existence but perhaps even requires it (N.T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991, 58–59, 90–92; cf. Morna D. Hooker, ‘Adam Redivivus: Philippians 2 Once More’ (220–234) in Steve Moyise (ed.), The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of J.L. North, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000, 230–231). Richard Bauckham, however, denies altogether an Adamic interpretation, claiming the force of Philippians 2 is to present Christ as pre-existent, even accusing Wright of ‘trying to have his cake and eat it’ ( Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Essays on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity, Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2008, 40, 41 n.61). 114 Dunn may be partially right: the context may be one of relational fidelity whereby Christ as Last Adam reverses the actions of First Adam, a fulfilment of human covenant obligations. Yet there is nevertheless inferential identification of Christ with YHWH in the parallel between Philippians 2:10–11 and Isaiah 45:23. 115 G. Walter Hansen, The Letter to the Philippians, Cambridge: Apollos, 2009, 119–121. He prefers the kerygmatic reading (although arguing that the dichotomy is false), contrary to Ben Witherington III who favours the ethical reading ( Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011, 138), as does Fowl ( Philippians , 90). 116 Peter T. O’Brien supports the ethical view in a detailed passage ( The Epistle to the Philippians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991, 203–205, 253–262). For problems with the ethical view, see Ralph P. Martin, Carmen Christi: Philippians 2:5–11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship (rev. ed.), Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983, 68–74, 84–88. 117 It is still theologically awkward, however, to argue that only 2:5–8 is to be imitated, with 2:9–11 (Christ’s exaltation) to be set aside! 118 Craig Ott and Stephen J. Strauss with Timothy C. Tennent, Encountering Theology of Mission: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, and Contemporary Issues , Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010, 101. 119 It might be argued that though kenosis here applies strictly to the inimitable act of God-becoming-flesh the humbling of 2:8 describes a dynamic in Christ’s life which can be imitated. Alternatively, where the subject of the kenosis in 2:7 is understood as the logos ensarkos there may be thought to be an emptying which (on the ethical interpretation of 2:5) can and should be imitated by believers. The event of becoming flesh/incarnation, however, cannot be imitated. 120 Billings, Union, 143–152; cf. Morna D. Hooker, From Adam to Christ: Essays on Paul, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 90–93. Berdine Van Den Toren-Lekkerkerker and Benno Van Den Toren also emphasise the idea of living consistently with Christ’s life. Critiquing the incarnational-mission-as-contextualisation model on practical grounds as well as theological, they argue for

Seeking an alternative consciousness 57 incarnation as metaphorical for mission, rejecting ‘missionar[ies] . . . incarnate’ and describing missionaries who ‘seek . . . to shape [their] . . . life by the values of the incarnation . . . motivated by the reality and example of Christ incarnate’, who come as guests in the host culture (‘From Missionary Incarnate to Incarnational Guest: A Critical Reflection on Incarnation as a Model for Missionary Presence’, Transformation 32:2 (2015), 81–96, 88). Stanley E. Patterson also mentions servanthood in the context of incarnational leadership but in only one page and without the theological nuancing of Billings (‘A Reflection on Leadership Principles in the New Testament’ (357–375) in Bell (ed.), Servants). 121 J. Todd Billings, ‘The Problem with “Incarnational Ministry”’, Christianity Today (July/August 2012), 59–63, 60. 122 Paul Louis Metzger, ‘Fleshed Out: The False Dilemma of Union with Christ versus Incarnational Ministry’, http://blogs.christianpost.com/uncommon-Godcommon-good/fleshed-out-the-false-dilemma-of-union-with-christ-versusincarnational-ministry-11583/, accessed 13/09/17. 123 Graham Buxton remarks that systematicians tend to characterise ‘the elements of God’s action in Christ in history as distinct, even separate events’ though it is ‘more appropriate to view the various dimensions of the Christological event as the interconnected aspects of one multi-faceted jewel’ ( The Trinity, Creation and Pastoral Ministry: Imaging the Perichoretic God, Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2005, 55–56). He also focuses on the person over events: ‘our ministry . . . is predicated on the ministry of the incarnate Christ under the power of the . . . Spirit’ such that ‘our understanding of incarnation leads . . . to . . . ministry which focuses on the church as a servant people’ (Graham Buxton, Dancing in the Dark: The Privilege of Participating in the Ministry of Christ, Carlisle: Paternoster, 2001, 18, 23). 124 Andrew Purves, ‘The Ministry of the Priesthood of Jesus Christ: A Reformed View of the Atonement of Christ’, Theology Matters 3:4 (1997), 1–5, 1. 125 Purves, ‘Ministry’, 3. 126 Andrew Purves, ‘I, Yet Not I But Christ: Galatians 2:20 and the Christian Life in the Theology of T. F. Torrance’, paper delivered to the Annual Meeting of the T. F. Torrance Theological Fellowship (Philadelphia, 17/11/2005), 13, www. tftorrance.org/meetings/purveslecture11-05.pdf, accessed 13/09/17. 127 James B. Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace, Carlisle: Paternoster, 1996, 8; Torrance, Theology , 205. 128 Buxton, Dancing , 17. 129 Purves, ‘Ministry’, 3. 130 The following paragraph depends largely on Andrew Purves, Reconstructing Pastoral Theology: A Christological Foundation, Louisville: WJKP, 2004, 53–77. 131 Athanasius, ‘Four Discourses Against Arius’ (303–447) in Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds.), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Ser. II Vol. 4, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d., §3.41. 132 Purves, Reconstructing , 56. 133 Athanasius, ‘Four’, §1.48. 134 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion I (ed. John T. McNeill, tr Ford Lewis Battles), Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960, §2.15.6. Michael Jinkins identifies these two complementary elements in Calvin’s thinking, remarking on them as the foundation for the ‘restful, trustful quality’ of Calvin’s writings on ministry ( Transformational Ministry: Church Leadership and the Way of the Cross , Edinburgh: Saint Andrew, 2002, 3, 6–7). 135 Calvin, Institutes , §3.1.1. 136 T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (rev. ed.), Colorado Springs: Helmers & Howard, 1992, 73–98.

58 Expressing the pain 137 Torrance, Theology , 151. 138 Torrance, Theology , 208. 139 Purves, Reconstructing, 77; Purves, ‘I’, 12. Reading Athanasius to say that ministry must now be interpreted ‘from a new vantage point’, as founded in the relationship of humanity with the triune God, Buxton concludes that this theology of incarnation leads to a characterisation of the church’s ministry as ‘originating in the heart of God’ and concurs that it is servant-shaped ( Trinity, 82). 140 Christian D. Kettler, Reading Ray S. Anderson: Theology as Ministry, Ministry as Theology, Eugene: Pickwick, 2010, x. Also: Daniel J. Price, ‘Community in the Life and Theology of Ray Anderson’ (15–33) in Todd H. Speidell (ed.), On Being Christian . . . and Human: Essays in Celebration of Ray S. Anderson, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2002, 18–20; Todd H. Speidell, ‘Introduction to the Ray S. Anderson Collection’ in SoG. 141 SoG , 15. 142 SoG , 18. 143 SoG, 8. It was because of Torrance’s emphasis on Christ’s vicarious humanity that Anderson chose to study under him (‘Torrance’, 65). Anderson’s thesis was later published as HTRG. 144 SoG , 24. 145 Soulprints , 157. 146 SoG , 70. 147 SoG , 70. 148 Kettler, Reading, xiv. 149 Kettler, Reading , 95–96. 150 SoM , 6. 151 SoM, 7. In adopting such an approach, Anderson places himself in explicit opposition to Cartesian views of revelation as later developed by Kant. The Cartesian approach objectified God as something experienced by the human subject; Kant claimed as unverifiable that which was outside of the noumenal realm. Instead, Anderson contends that revelation is true and can be experienced objectively by virtue of the fact of God’s self-revelation by which God establishes the ‘knowing relation’ with humanity from both sides in the Word; that is, ‘the Word is saving in its revelatory nature’ because the ministry of reconciliation is part of God’s word of revelation (‘Theology’, 9–12). 152 ‘Theology’, 7. 153 ‘Theology’, 8. 154 For a full annotated bibliography: Kettler, Reading , xx–xxii. 155 ‘Torrance’, 72. 156 ‘Theology’, 12–13. 157 Indeed, such a ministry would ‘inevitably flounder in the shallow waters of . . . impotence’ (‘Theology’, 17). 158 ‘Theology’, 17–19. 159 ‘Theology’, 20. 160 What is central is not incarnation as archetypal event but as the becoming-flesh, life, death and resurrection of the God-man and humanity’s participation in him ( HTRG , 146). 161 ‘Theology’, 7–8. 162 ‘Torrance’, 73; ‘Theology’, 10. 163 ‘Theology’, 8.

Part II A deep remembering

3 Memories of servanthood ‘Hope’, writes Brueggemann, ‘is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion’. 1 Yet the work of prophetic imagination is not limited to an exposure of the dominant consciousness as flawed. 2 Instead, it reaches also to bring form to this hope. The form of prophetic imagination is ‘funded by remembered imagination’ in its dual work of criticising what has been and energising new vision. 3 In the context of Brueggemann’s examination of the prophets of Israel, the memories which fund prophetic imagination are Torah. In this broader ecclesiological work, however, I will draw on the memories of Scripture and Christian tradition more widely. Having already identified Ray Anderson as a fruitful dialogue partner for further conceptual work in incarnational ecclesial leadership, I will begin in this chapter by interacting with the memories upon which he draws in his work on ecclesial leadership. It will become clear that these memories are not sufficiently deeply rooted in Scripture and tradition to fund prophetic imagination, leading me in subsequent chapters to dig more deeply into Anderson’s memories of different and perhaps more fundamental aspects of the tradition in order to give flight to prophetic imagination. Yet, first, I must ask what proposals Anderson makes in regard to the specific question of ecclesial leadership. To this let us now turn. Servant-leadership Although hints of Anderson’s thinking on leadership can be seen in several of his volumes and articles, his clearest statement regarding ecclesial leadership appears in The Soul of Ministry: Forming Leaders for God’s People, a distillation of his thoughts on the nature of ministry as refined by a lifetime of ministry and teaching. 4 Anderson sets the theological scene in the book’s earlier sections, reflecting on ministry as theological task, God’s ministry in covenant and creation, the Son’s ministry to the Father on behalf of the world and the Spirit’s ministry through Jesus for the church’s sake. Later sections consider the ministry of the church and the task of leading the church in that ministry and it is here that Anderson’s position on ecclesial leadership is most clearly expressed. The material on ecclesial leadership opens with a story of

62 A deep remembering pastoral abuse, recounting the impact of a leader who uses his authority to control those whom he leads, victimising and manipulating them. The risk of spiritual abuse concerns Anderson greatly: he utterly rejects coercive leadership as the assumption by a leader of a role which conceals their human weakness and obscures from their view the human worth of their followers. 5 Yet Anderson believes it possible to develop a model of ecclesial leadership that avoids this risk of subversion: ‘the ministry of servant leadership’. 6 Appropriating Greenleaf’s servant-leadership model? Albeit clear in his intent to ‘create a biblical model of servant leadership’, 7 Anderson establishes his paradigm soundly upon the work of Robert Greenleaf, writer of the seminal work on servant-leadership, 8 referencing it as early as the second page of the relevant chapter of The Soul of Ministry . 9 Servant-leadership, presented by Greenleaf in his foundational essay ‘The Servant as Leader’ 10 and developed in subsequent publications, 11 became a concept firmly established in coming decades of leadership studies. Greenleaf’s original essay suggests that the source for the idea of servant as leader was Hesse’s The Journey to the East . 12 Hesse’s parable depicts a band of brothers on a mythical journey, accompanied by a humble servant, Leo, who assists them with practicalities as well as encouraging them onwards. One day, Leo disappears and soon afterwards the group loses its focus and disbands, vaguely conscious that without Leo nothing was any longer quite the same. Many years later, however, the narrator discovers that Leo was in fact the leader of the order to which the pilgrims had pledged their allegiance. For Greenleaf, this twist in the tale was its real moral, namely that ‘the great leader is seen as servant first’. 13 He wrote at length about this concept, always emphasising that the servant-leader who is servant first is radically other than one who is leader first 14 and suggesting that the best test of servant-leadership was: do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society; will they benefit, or, at least, not be further deprived? 15 As for tracing parallels between Anderson’s and Greenleaf’s proposals, it suffices to note Edward Zaragoza’s comments on what he calls Greenleaf’s ‘general framework’, which he correctly establishes as comprising three elements: leading through vision; harnessing the power of creative insight to formulate a plan; and the fulfilment of the plan to make the vision reality. 16 As noted, Anderson references Greenleaf’s model early in his writing on ecclesial leadership. Yet Zaragoza’s identification of Greenleaf’s ‘general framework’ emphasises the parallels, underlining how the first premise of Anderson’s model 17 mirrors closely Greenleaf’s first element, the significance of

Memories of servanthood 63 the servant-leader’s vision. Next in Anderson’s model comes the development of a ‘creative strategy of leadership’ 18 uniting ‘the wisdom of God with the work of God’ 19 in order to implement the mission or vision. This essentially describes the formulation of an action plan and resonates also with Greenleaf’s concern with creativity: his servant-leader, too, ‘opens his awareness to creative insight’ 20 to establish a course of action towards the envisioned goal. Finally, both models highlight completion of the leadership goal. 21 As Zaragoza comments, 22 both Anderson and Greenleaf reference the leader as being best able to ‘see . . . it as it is’ 23 or ‘to articulate more clearly than anyone else the vision . . . [being] more closely aligned with the promise that leads to the will of God than anyone else’. 24 Thus, both in terms of leadership activity and the leader’s identity, there are significant parallels between Anderson’s model of ecclesial leadership and Greenleaf’s servant-leadership. 25 Anderson does extend his proposal in The Soul of Ministry beyond Greenleafian philosophy in order to render it more overtly consistent with Christian theology, noting the significance of gifts of the Spirit in the empowerment of leaders, 26 a trajectory of thought not shared by Greenleaf. He also does better than Greenleaf in associating this model of servant-leadership with a portrait of Jesus as servant-leader, 27 albeit perhaps not considerably so. In fact, Moses as servant-leader is the biblical example most utilised by Anderson, 28 with Jesus characterised as ‘an effective servant-leader’ 29 somewhat as an afterthought. This is surely a grave error, especially for a theologian who so confidently identifies Christ’s ministry to the Father on behalf of the world as the source and definition of the church’s ministry. Indeed, one might expect a more reflective assessment of Jesus as servant before attempting to sustain servant language – whether Greenleafian or a more biblical conception – as the appropriate conceptualisation of ecclesial leadership, rather than working in reverse as Anderson apparently has. Yet he is not alone in conflating biblical servanthood and Greenleafian servant-leadership. Various Christian writers and organisations quote Greenleaf affirmatively. 30 Consequently, engagement with Greenleaf’s proposals is important. Doubtless, practical theology rightly engages interdisciplinarily, and Greenleafian principles might have some contribution to make in thinking about ecclesial leadership. Yet I urge caution. Whilst biblically shaped servanthood ideals may be an appropriate conception of incarnational ecclesial leadership, it cannot safely be assumed that Greenleaf’s model is coterminous with these. 31 Questions, both biblical-theological and pragmatic, are raised concerning the content of the Greenleafian paradigm and its viability for characterising ecclesial leadership. Assessing Greenleaf’s servant-leadership Despite the suggestion inherent in the design of a ‘test’ for servant-leadership that this leadership concept is definable, measurable even, Greenleaf’s writing does not present a coherent model. Much of his published work comprises

64 A deep remembering short essays and even includes posthumous publication of writings stamped ‘do not publish’. 32 Thus, his thinking on servant-leadership is not systematic. Furthermore, his discursive style tends towards imprecision regarding how leadership integrates with servanthood. He admits that he depends not on existing theories or rigorous research but on decades of experience consulting in practitioner contexts as diverse as businesses, professional societies, churches and universities. 33 Pragmatically speaking, beyond an initial sketch of the elements of vision, strategic planning for action and goal fulfilment, it is difficult to extract a precise set of criteria for servant-leadership from Greenleaf’s work. His original essay refers to attributes including: listening skills; gifts of language and imagination; the ability to withdraw for reorientation of self; acceptance and empathy towards followers; ‘a sense for the unknowable’ and ability ‘to foresee the unforeseeable’; gifts of persuasion; an ability to conceptualise; and a commitment to self-development. 34 Yet, consistent with servant-leadership’s ill-defined nature, a slightly different and more concise list of qualities is offered by Larry Spears, 35 who assumed the role of championing much of Greenleaf’s philosophy. Still others, including countless doctoral researchers alongside leadership writers such as Peter Block, Margaret Wheatley, Ken Blanchard and other contributors to a 1998 volume, 36 have sought to explore servant-leadership. However, rather than honing the model, these writings have further diversified servant-leadership beyond what was already a woolly, subjective concept in Greenleaf’s hands. 37 It is therefore with some reservations regarding the ill-defined and subjective nature of Greenleaf’s leadership philosophy, together with its lack of rigorous research foundation, that I consider Anderson’s desire to appropriate it for ecclesial leadership. Yet these are not my only qualms. Prior to such appropriation, it is advisable to explore the concept’s theological coherence. Admittedly, doubts concerning servant-leadership’s theological credentials might be surprising: the juxtaposition of servant and leader certainly appears biblical and much has been made of Greenleaf’s Quaker framework and early Methodist experiences, as well as occasional references to Jesus. Yet, despite arguing the point that ‘the idea of “servant” is deep in our Judeo-Christian heritage’, 38 Greenleaf did not describe himself as a ‘pious Christian’ 39 and was, in fact, interested in traditions as diverse as Unitarianism, 40 transcendental meditation 41 and the humanistic psychology of Carl Jung. 42 Although Elias Hicks is not mentioned, Greenleaf makes much of the ‘inner spirit’ as authoritative for discernment, portraying servantleadership as beginning ‘with the self, with inner lights that illumine outer outcomes’. 43 This may be a reference to a concept from Hicksite Quakerism. Originally the doctrine of the inner light derived from George Fox and was, for him, associated with Christ and the Spirit, foundational to the knowledge of salvation and a source of revelation. 44 The inspiration of this inner light was always subject to the authority of Scripture until the turn of the nineteenth century when Hicks began promoting the authority of the inner light as ultimate authority and ‘the only reality’. 45 At this point, it tended

Memories of servanthood 65 to be construed along the lines of ‘pure individualism’, 46 which is what is echoed in Greenleaf. Greenleaf’s presentation of Christ as example only, rather than as also working salvation, coheres further with Hicksite Quakerism. 47 He was not, then, operating from an exclusively Christian paradigm. Nor should his work be read as such: Corné Bekker identifies shades of theosophy, together with 1960s ‘hippie’ values, in Greenleaf’s use of Hesse’s parable 48 and Mark Wells’ analysis identifies yet further contributing influences upon the work as a whole. 49 Indeed Greenleaf himself notes a variety of sources as shaping his thought, including Machiavelli, 50 Camus, Thomas Jefferson, Grundtvig and Eastern mysticism generally. 51 Though correct to note the lack of ‘solid research’ grounding widespread appropriation of Greenleaf’s work, Sen Sendjaya and James Sarros are, then, wrong to position biblical teaching regarding Jesus as potentially foundational to Greenleaf’s servant-leadership concept. 52 Greenleaf does not claim this nor can it be substantiated. It is naïve, in light of its sources, to proceed with the assumption that the theological credentials of servantleadership are all that they are supposed. Indeed, despite multiple references to Scripture, little of Greenleaf’s work appears to be founded on a clear understanding of Scripture as a source. 53 Of particular interest are his understanding of revelation and his perception of Jesus. Greenleaf states unequivocally that he does not agree with those who suggest that one prophet or another may have given a word of eternal effect and of higher authority in the contemporary situation than more recent voices; rather, there are those ‘of a stature equal to the greatest of the past . . . with us now addressing the problems of the day’. 54 This assertion suggests that Greenleaf neither submits his work to Scripture as ultimate revelation nor understands servant-leadership as wholly contingent upon the biblical understanding of Christ as servant. Greenleaf is, however, willing to proof-text from Scripture at need. One particularly enlightening example is his attempt to garner support for his paradigm from the account of Jesus and the adulterous woman. This story, he claims, shows the key elements of creative awareness and the servantleader operating with a goal, together with the servant-leadership practice of withdrawal to find ‘one’s optimum’. 55 Whether the story depicts Jesus as the Greenleafian servant-leader which Greenleaf alleges is questionable. Yet from this text, he presents Jesus the servant-leader as a confident individual with ‘faith in the validity of [his] own inward experience’ 56 and highly developed self-awareness, a confidence in self, not God, which reveals itself as a dogged, unswerving commitment to achieving the goal, even in the face of opposition. 57 On Greenleaf’s reading, then, the woman appears to be only ‘the occasion for the challenge’: 58 her personhood is superfluous because servant-leadership is, despite earlier protestations in the form of Greenleaf’s servant-leadership ‘test’ and its specific concern for the growth of persons, apparently more about the vision and successful implementation of the plan to achieve the goal.

66 A deep remembering To track in this way one example of Greenleaf’s use of Scripture is informative, demonstrating his subordination of the text to his agenda. 59 It also sheds light on his perception of Christ, itself demarcating a clear separation between servant-leadership and a more biblical approach: Greenleaf presents a Jesus emptied entirely of divinity, a concern prophesied by Niebuhr in 1951. 60 Yet it is not only the eclecticism apparent in servant-leadership’s foundational sources, Greenleaf’s approach to Scripture as revelation or his low view of the person of Christ which are fatally injurious to the claim that Greenleafian servant-leadership is Christian in any sense. Also of concern is Greenleaf’s anthropology, which Wells categorises as existential in approach. Leadership from within such a paradigm treats transformation as ‘a self-determined, self-guided, self-driven enterprise’. 61 I identify two examples of this faulty anthropology in servant-leadership. First, there is an underpinning belief that humanity can fulfil the needs of every person and that, given the right tools, can create a sinless society ‘with creative work on the structural flaws in our society’, bridging ‘the separation between persons and the cosmos . . . the widespread alienation’. 62 The second is Greenleaf’s focal concern with the inner person of the leader. 63 Concerning the former, Scripture’s witness casts doubt on such a belief, designating it overly optimistic in light of human fallenness and the need for a Saviour but, again, the Greenleafian model gives no credence to the significance of the biblical narrative for leadership, affording no consideration to the place of the cross and need for redemption. 64 Regarding the latter, a focus on self may be problematic where it misses Scripture’s emphases on putting God before self and loving others as persons rather than perceiving them as objects potentially incidental to one’s inner world. For Greenleaf, all problems in the world are to be viewed by the servant-leader as located in their inner world, ‘not out there’, with remedies depending upon a ‘process of change start[ing] . . . in here, in the servant, not out there ’. 65 Whilst there might be much to applaud in terms of encouraging responsibility-taking by leaders, the silence concerning the Spirit’s role in empowering the leader to be transformed, and to transform, is telling. Greenleaf does refer to a form of spirit-indwelling or, more specifically, ‘possession’ – entheos – although this is not developed in line with a Christian understanding of indwelling of believers by the Spirit of Christ but, rather, linked with self as the ‘sustaining force that holds one together under stress’ and ‘nurtures a powerful concept of self’. 66 Though he certainly had some sense of the need for transcendence, knowing that ‘nothing short of a “peak” experience’ could convert one into a servant-leader, 67 Greenleaf does not make the connection to the Spirit’s role in human transformation indicated by a Scripturally informed worldview. In light of the foregoing, a worldview such as Greenleaf’s is largely inconsistent with a Scripturally informed worldview 68 and Anderson was unwise to suggest uncritical adoption of this philosophy as consistent with a biblical model. 69 In particular, Anderson’s rigorous commitment to a theological anthropology in place of a more phenomenological approach 70 makes this

Memories of servanthood 67 a surprising choice. It is not only the distorted Christology and rejection of Scripture as divine and final revelation which render Greenleafian leadership problematic. It is also ill-defined and lacking in academic rigour. To appropriate it as Christian may result from a failure to differentiate between it and a more biblical conception of servanthood but is, notwithstanding, ill-advised. Nevertheless, though appropriation of Greenleaf is unwise, perhaps there is value in associating ecclesial leadership with servanthood. Is servanthood, albeit a more robustly biblical conception than Greenleaf’s servant-leadership, helpful towards conceptualising incarnational ecclesial leadership? Or must we look further afield? Servanthood and ecclesial leadership Scripture uses servanthood language widely, from the description of many OT leaders as God’s servant/slave 71 and the Isaianic presentation of the Messiah/leader as servant (Isaiah 42:1–4; 53:1–12 etc.) 72 to the NT presentation of Jesus as servant/slave (Mark 10:45 73 and Philippians 2:5–11). Jesus casts rulership as service, notably in Mark 10:35–45, 74 contrasting it with Gentile leadership of the day. Mark 10:44 appears to stretch the model even further, to one of slavery. These two word groups – diakoneō and douleuō – appear with their cognates throughout the NT. 75 Traditionally, diakonia has been held to refer to lowly service. 76 However, this was challenged by John Collins on the basis of linguistic work on its usage in Hellenistic literature, suggesting that the primary meaning relates to the performance of a task as agent of a superior, something which may or may not involve servility. 77 Whilst Paula Gooder’s analysis of Collins’ work finds no substantial concerns with this interpretation of diakonia and cognates, 78 Andrew Clarke emphasises concern that diakonia should not be understood never to have a sense of lowly servility in NT contexts and, claiming that not all Collins’ analysis of Synoptic texts is valid, argues for the idea of service as ‘an integral element of the dominical message’. 79 It is not clear that Collins intended to suggest that diakonia never incorporated a sense of humble servility and therefore it seems reasonable to read the ‘leadership as servanthood’ metaphor described by Christian writers as including shades of both humility and the authority derived from the agent’s principal. These word groups are appropriated by Paul, who employs ‘slave of Christ’ as a title for leaders 80 and implies wider horizontal implications of slavery to God in that each believer is to offer a slave’s service to another. 81 The metaphor was adopted by the early church: Paul self-identifies in various ways but ‘most persistently’ as a servant/slave/household steward, describing co-workers as servants, whilst James also uses this designation for himself and Peter teaches that leaders are not to ‘lord it over’ others in language clearly reminiscent of Mark 10:42–45. 82 It is thus unsurprising that servanthood language has been adopted by many contemporary writers as paradigmatic of Christian leadership, although interesting that

68 A deep remembering slavery receives less emphasis, 83 and perhaps unremarkable that there is little engagement with the scholarly debate concerning the exact nature of NT diakonia. For some, servanthood is ‘the only true and valid model of Christian leadership’. 84 This is a strong statement. Models, as complex metaphors, 85 do not in a critical realist perspective 86 stand as definition but as a ‘likely account’ of truth. 87 Accordingly, no model gives a precise account, though some may be more accurate than others in describing reality’s objective form. 88 Thus metaphors, and the models surrounding them, cannot be deemed the only valid word on a subject. Other contemporary writers, however, take a more nuanced line concerning servanthood. Willimon describes it as a ‘critical’ concept. 89 Whether Walter Wright considers it the only model is less clear because, although his work appears to suggest this, the subtitle of his Relational Leadership claims only to delineate ‘ a biblical model for influence’. Leighton Ford treats it as one amongst several metaphors for leadership, 90 whilst, for Efrain Agosto, Jesus’ and Paul’s leadership, characterised by service, offer ‘important lessons’ for today. 91 Taking a somewhat different angle, Siang-Yan Tan prefers to describe servanthood as ‘foremost a way of life’ rather than of leadership. He argues generally against leadership as a concept, preferring to replace it with servanthood, but does nevertheless admit the existence of Christian leadership and demands that it ‘be fully grounded in discipleship that is . . . servanthood-shaped’. 92 Lance Ford makes similar arguments for servanthood over servant leadership . 93 Given Scriptural references presenting Jesus as servant in the context of a breadth of material throughout Scripture on servanthood, one might assume that, whatever else it is, incarnational ecclesial leadership is servant-shaped. If the Incarnate One was himself supremely servant, then those who presume to lead in the church must also do so as servants, whether this is characterised as ‘servant leadership’ or purely as ‘servanthood’. 94 Yet the servanthood leadership model, even one biblically conceived rather than Greenleafian in its origins, is not without its detractors. For example, although broadly accepting servanthood as a viable metaphor for leadership, Donald Messer nevertheless expresses concerns, identifying four dangers associated with being a servant leader: (i) the risk of emphasising servanthood over leadership or vice versa; (ii) the temptation to settle for too little power; (iii) the ‘crossfire of mixed signals’ as to the church’s preferred type of leader and leadership styles; (iv) the risk of a ‘chameleon ministry’ which identifies with contemporary causes. 95 Bradley outlined similar concerns a decade later, fearing that ‘undue emphasis on the servant aspect of leadership . . . runs the risk of blinding . . . [leaders] to the many responsibilities and predicaments of . . . leadership’ which can require boldness, risk-taking and the willingness to ignore others’ opinions, realities the understanding of which is not enhanced by a leader-as-servant concept. 96 Given suggestions that servanthood could be perceived as overly idealistic for leadership contexts, 97 are the two simply incompatible? Diogenes Allen explores servanthood and positional authority in the case of Jesus; Derek

Memories of servanthood 69 Tidball does likewise regarding ecclesial leadership. Allen suggests that, in contrast to the Hegelian analysis of the master-slave relationship where the master depends on the slave’s existence (in a way destructive of the slave’s personhood) for his status as master and therefore cannot afford to serve the slave, Jesus can be both servant and Lord by virtue of his being. His status does not depend on his followers but is inherent in his identity as Son of God and thus he can serve them. 98 Tidball does not extend Allen’s reasoning concerning Jesus to ecclesial leaders. This is perhaps because, despite being aware of believers’ new identity as God’s children – constituting status not dependent on the service or adulation of others – he knows that in practice ‘a degree of authority or power . . . is nearly always inherent in leadership and power is insidiously corrupting . . . likely . . . to colour even the most innocent act of service’. 99 So how does Tidball resolve this tension between servanthood and leadership? He rejects the idea of redefining terms so as to achieve rapprochement of the two concepts. 100 Another idea he rejects is that leadership is redeemed in Christ and, insofar as such redemption is complete, the result for ecclesial leadership is that in Christ the power associated with it need not corrupt. 101 A third solution may be to construct an understanding of servanthood relating more to the manner of undertaking a task than the nature of the task itself. Tidball generally affirms this but suggests that as Greenleafian philosophy has prevailed, the concept of servanthood has become largely divorced from Scripture and notably less cruciform. 102 This leads to a fourth possible resolution of the tension, namely redrawing service as a form of manipulative control in the genre of the Yes, Minister television series. 103 In rejecting this possibility too, Tidball proffers an alternative, pointing to the paterfamilias of the NT world in whom, he asserts, leadership and servanthood meet. 104 This is an interesting and creative solution, although it likely falls foul of the next category of critiques of servanthood. The foregoing discussion demonstrates that servanthood remains problematic, at least on some levels. However, in seeking to express one thing in terms of another, it must not be forgotten that it is the nature of metaphor to ‘uncover . . . conflicting elements in reality’, to ‘hold . . . them together in a tentative resolution’. 105 It is also in the process of such wrestling with how to articulate reality that one’s context is formed: metaphorical language functions to transform and reorientate life. 106 Thus any language used to conceptualise leadership praxis, no matter how coherent and systematic the articulation to which it aspires, will ultimately grapple with this experience of reality as dialectical. Even if this tensive dynamic of servanthood and leadership is not necessarily problematic, however, there are still further critiques of servanthood flowing from a different perspective. Letty Russell deems the concept unhelpful for women who have sometimes been oppressed by men within a servanthood rubric, arguing that before women can ‘reclaim the true meaning of service’, there may be ‘a process of coming to sisterhood on the way to servanthood ’. 107 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza concurs: ‘those singled out and socialized into subservience and a life of servanthood are

70 A deep remembering not able to “choose servanthood freely”’ and so be ‘liberated into servanthood’. 108 Womanist theologian, Jacquelyn Grant, outlines similar concerns, commenting that despite the claim of ‘the hierarchy of the church . . . to be servants of God and the people, yet they are . . . most often of the dominant culture – white and/or male’. 109 Instead, ‘the real servants [are] overwhelmingly poor, Black and Third World’, with servant language having underpinned many of the social constructs causing oppression to so many. 110 Thus, Grant asserts that servanthood as a metaphor for Christian life is not useful to those who have been oppressed ‘by the most exploitative forms of service’, 111 especially the black experience of slavery and, later, domestic service, 112 preferring discipleship language for the life of a believer. 113 Some years earlier, Susan Nelson Dunfee had contended that whilst theologically ‘service and altruism assume and even affirm the self’, in the lived experience of women they tend towards ‘negation of self’. For whilst service and altruism suggest selfhood’s importance and the idea that such selfhood is conveyed ‘in a life of vulnerability lived in concern for others as well as the self’, women’s experience suggests that a woman’s self must be called into being. This cannot be effected by service and altruism 114 because these, Dunfee claims, represent service for others whereas the relationship which calls selfhood into being is ‘a being with others’, friendship. 115 Zaragoza considers such perspectives sufficient justification for eschewing servanthood metaphors altogether. 116 I would not go this far: as Willimon asserts, Jesus often took words open to many interpretations and repackaged them with new meaning. 117 Nevertheless, valid concerns are raised regarding how contemporary understandings of servanthood may result in a twisting of the metaphor, investing it with meaning other than Jesus intended. We should not be deaf to such concerns given the importance for metaphor of how one of its concepts may be received by contemporary hearers. Because a community’s historical and cultural traditions influence which images are accessible for ecclesiological contemplation, assessment of these matrices of its origin and use, together with consideration of contemporary shades of meaning, 118 is necessary before a concept’s contemporary value can be appraised. Where a metaphor is found in Scripture, then, use of it must cohere with the biblical text and theological traditions of the church, yet also translate the text and tradition in a way which can be heard by those inhabiting today’s context. In addition to the tensions between servanthood and leadership alongside strong challenges from feminist and womanist perspectives, there are further concerns expressed by John McKnight. He first restates the point made by Grant and others, albeit on a broader canvas, commenting that Crusaders, conquistadors and missionaries to Africa and Asia all self-identified as Christ’s servants despite their provenance as oppressors rather than the oppressed. 119 Then, after this strong statement, he proceeds to consider another very contemporary problem with servanthood: its association with professionalisation. He remarks that today’s ‘good servants . . . help, care,

Memories of servanthood 71 and cure’, having been made the foundation of national economies. Society celebrates ‘professional servanthood’, which has become lucrative to the extent that, McKnight contends, ‘our servanthood [has] . . . become lordship’ with servants ‘involved in commercialized, immobilizing systems of control’. 120 Perhaps he is right in his assessment that humanity will always default to a redefinition of servanthood as lordship; 121 in any event, this emphasises that consideration must be given to contemporary perceptions of the servanthood rubric before asserting its ongoing centrality. The shades of meaning now attributable to servanthood pose a problem. Not only has servanthood language become sufficiently widespread in contemporary Christian leadership writings as to risk losing its semantic ‘shock’ value. 122 It has also become burdened by its association with oppression and professionalisation, perhaps even to the point of near-bankruptcy, 123 being far removed from the sense it carried in the context of the NT characterisation of Christ as servant. These semantic changes invoke a field of meaning and set of assumptions which characterise ecclesial leadership as essentially professionalised service and thereby task-focused. Service exclusively focused on task risks, if it does not make reference to the personhood of either the one exercising leadership or those being served, perhaps implicitly effacing the identity of one or both. To be a professional is to be an expert and, implicitly, makes the client a non-expert who has no capacity (or power) to discern the quality of the service provided. 124 The risk of such a dynamic is of professionals availing themselves of the power inherent in their position for the purpose of domination, albeit perhaps domination cloaked in benevolence, or being unable to perceive themselves as holding any power at all. Thus, servanthood language might be perceived unnecessarily to structure human relationships in terms of power polarisations. This risk is always present where power differentials exist – everywhere, of course – but a model that risks the effacing of personhood by task is more vulnerable to such polarisations of power-exercise. For either the servant/ professional may then treat the client as means to an end or they may see themselves as no more than means to the client’s end. In the ecclesial context, accordingly, one exercising leadership as servant might become one who is powerless, a slave to all and therefore unable to establish the boundaries of their personhood in the context of interactions with church members. Conversely, there is also a sense in which one exercising leadership might be deemed to hold significant power. By appearing as the ‘servant of all’, there may be an implicit attribution of ‘godliness’ or of the expert power associated with the ‘professional’ aspect of servanthood, each of which may involve a surrender of power by others to that one exercising leadership even to the extent that they become means to that leader’s end. 125 This potential for imbalance – and even oppression – in power dynamics, coupled with professionalism’s focus on task over personhood, may lead to the use of the servanthood metaphor, even unconsciously, as a tool for either denying one’s power or seeking to accumulate more over others. 126

72 A deep remembering The association of Greenleafian philosophy with Christian characterisations of leadership as service can only exacerbate this confusion, adding still further to the layers of meaning surrounding this concept. Servanthood language is thus far from ideal. It may be possible to depose the Greenleafian hegemony in favour of a more biblical conception; there is also certainly biblical foundation for servanthood as language for leadership. Yet there are still concerns regarding how such language is heard today. Given these concerns, it is appropriate to explore alternative language for speaking of the activity of ecclesial leadership in a way culturally accessible to the Western ecclesial context. 127 Although memories of servanthood have not been deemed capable of funding the prophetic imagination of incarnational ecclesial leadership, Anderson’s reading of other memories may bear more fruit. Chapters 4 and 5will engage that reading of ‘deeply rooted memories’ of incarnation and ecclesiology, in the expectation that ‘these memories [can] continue to inform and shape and compel even now’ 128 the construction of a new leadership discourse. Notes 1 Brueggemann, Prophetic , 65. 2 Walter Brueggemann, The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipating Word , Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012, 29. 3 Brueggemann, Practice , 36. 4 SoM , viii. 5 SoM , 193. 6 SoM , 197–204. 7 SoM , 197. 8 The Greenleafian model is hereafter referenced by hyphenated terms such as ‘servant-leadership’ and ‘servant-leader’, in accordance with convention, to distinguish it from other more biblical juxtapositions of leadership and servanthood (which are not hyphenated here). 9 SoM , 198; ‘Empowering’. 10 An essay written in 1970 and revised in 1973, I reference the version contained in Robert K. Greenleaf, Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness , Mahwah: Paulist, 1977. 11 A list is available from The Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership: www. greenleaf.org/products-page/,accessed 13/09/17. The Center has published further in this area. 12 Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East , London: Peter Owen, 1956. 13 Greenleaf, Servant , 7. 14 Greenleaf, Servant , 13. 15 Greenleaf, Servant , 13–14. 16 Edward C. Zaragoza, No Longer Servants But Friends: A Theology of Ordained Ministry, Nashville: Abingdon, 1999, 52–53; cf. Greenleaf, Servant, 14–16, 28–29, 30–32 etc. 17 Namely that ‘the leader is the servant of the mission of the people of God’. Anderson continues even more explicitly: the ‘mission must be perceived as the “vision” that informs the goals and strategy of the people’ ( SoM, 198; cf. ‘Making’, 37–38). 18 SoM , 201. 19 SoM , 200. 20 Greenleaf, Servant , 28.

Memories of servanthood 73 21 Anderson calls it ‘the consummation of leadership’ ( SoM, 201); Greenleaf calls it the ‘goal’ ( Servant , 28). 22 Zaragoza, Servants , 54; he draws parallels similar to those enumerated above. 23 Greenleaf, Servant , 27. 24 SoM, 202. In both cases the leader holds the benefit of a power differential, in this case flowing from the possession of exclusive information. 25 Included in Anderson’s list of servant leaders’ qualities is a reference to ‘an advocate for those who stumble . . . or who are wounded by others’ ( SoM, 202), not in Greenleaf’s paradigm. Notwithstanding, Greenleaf’s model dominates Anderson’s approach. Whilst my focus is ecclesial leadership, Anderson writes also concerning leadership in what he designates ‘paraparochial’ forms of the church. By this, he means Christian organisations the remit of which centres ‘on specific mission activity in the world, rather than upon the function of building community’ ( MGB, 21). Without analysing the relationship between so-called parochial and paraparochial ecclesial forms, or indeed how leadership in each might differ, I note that Anderson’s description of leadership in Christian organisations echoes Greenleaf once more, referencing key elements of vision, strategy and action planning, and implementation ( MGB, ch.5). Again, Anderson uses the term ‘servant’ to describe the form of leadership and employs Greenleaf’s work to give content to this form ( MGB, 78), alongside passing references to Jesus ( MGB, 64–65). 26 SoM , 202–204. 27 SoM , 203–204. 28 SoM , 200. 29 SoM, 204. This characterisation is unfortunately made in light of the Greenleafian definition of servant-leader rather than because Scripture presents Jesus as a leader who serves. 30 These include: Bennett J. Sims, Servanthood: Leadership for the Third Millennium, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2005, xi, 8–9; Servant Shepherd Ministries which historically included Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership in its ‘Bibliography on Biblical Leadership’, www.servantshepherd.com/Resources.htm,accessed 04/12/12; Dan R. Ebener, Servant Leadership Models for Your Parish, Mahwah: Paulist, 2010, e.g., ch.1, 37ff. Donald E. Messer quotes Greenleaf without critique, albeit not relying solely on the Greenleafian paradigm for his servant leadership proposals ( Contemporary Images of Christian Ministry, Nashville: Abingdon, 1989, 98). R. Scott Rodin also quotes Greenleaf with minimal critique ( The Steward Leader: Transforming People, Organizations, and Communities, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2010, 81–82). Others reference Greenleaf’s philosophy and/or promote his books for further reading on servant-leadership, including: Blanchard, Hybels and Hodges, Leadership, xi, 200–207; David S. Young, Servant Leadership for Church Renewal, Scottdale: Herald, 1999, 171–172. 31 Since it is the memories of Scripture and Christian tradition upon which prophetic imagination draws primarily, it is appropriate that my methodological commitment prioritises Scripture over other sources of justification. Other potential sources, whether reflection (informed by reason and experience) on Christian tradition or traditions of knowledge in other fields, may inform how Scripture is interpreted and which questions are asked of it. Yet they do not depose its priority. Further, see Appendix. 32 Mark A. Wells, ‘Servant Leadership: A Theological Analysis of Robert K. Greenleaf’s Concept of Human Transformation’, Baylor University: unpublished PhD dissertation, 2004, 3 n.6. 33 Greenleaf, Servant , 3. 34 Greenleaf, Servant , 17–44.

74 A deep remembering 35 He freely admits that his list of ten characteristics is ‘by no means exhaustive’ (Larry C. Spears, ‘Introduction: Servant-Leadership and the Greenleaf Legacy’ (1–16) in Larry C. Spears (ed.), Reflections on Leadership: How Robert K. Greenleaf’s Theory of Servant-Leadership Influenced Today’s Top Management Speakers , New York: Wiley & Sons, 1995, 4–7). 36 Larry C. Spears (ed.), Insights on Leadership: Service, Stewardship, Spirit, and Servant-Leadership , New York: Wiley & Sons, 1998. 37 This allegedly proves simply that ‘servant-leadership is not a destination: it is a path’ (Don M. Frick and Larry C. Spears, ‘Introduction’ (1–5) in Don M. Frick and Larry C. Spears (eds.), Robert K. Greenleaf: On Becoming a ServantLeader , San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996, 4). 38 Larry C. Spears (ed.), Robert K. Greenleaf: The Power of Servant Leadership, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1998, 22. 39 Greenleaf, Servant , 275. 40 Wells, ‘Servant’, 61. 41 Spears (ed.), Power , 267. 42 Consider the examination of ‘servant-leadership as a previously unidentified Jungian archetype’ (Spears (ed.), Power , 12–13). 43 Frick and Spears, ‘Introduction’, 2. 44 Rufus Jones (ed.), The Journal of George Fox, Richmond: Friends United, 1976, e.g., 20–21. 45 John Punshon, A Portrait in Grey: A Short History of the Quakers, London: Quaker Home Service, 1984, 172–173. 46 Elbert Russell, The History of Quakerism , New York: Macmillan, 1942, 325. 47 Wells, ‘Servant’, 87. 48 Corné J. Bekker, ‘Prophet and Servant: Locating Robert K. Greenleaf’s CounterSpirituality of Servant Leadership’, Journal of Virtues and Leadership 1:1 (2010), 3–14, 8. 49 Wells, ‘Servant’, chs.2–3, especially ch.2 n.1. 50 Robert K. Greenleaf, ‘The Ethic of Strength: Manuscript for a Book’ (11–105) in Frick and Spears (eds.), Becoming , 73. 51 Greenleaf, Servant , 7, 11, 29–34. 52 Sen Sendjaya and James C. Sarros, ‘Servant Leadership: Its Origin, Development, and Application in Organizations’, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 9:2 (2002), 57–65; cf. Shirley Roels, Moving beyond Servant Leadership , s.l.: De Pree Leadership Center, 1998, 3–4. 53 Joe Anderson, ‘The Writings of Robert K. Greenleaf: An Interpretive Analysis and the Future of Servant Leadership’, Servant Leadership Research Roundtable (Regent University, May 2008), 7, www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/ sl_proceedings/2008/anderson.pdf, accessed 13/09/17). 54 Greenleaf, Servant , 9. 55 Greenleaf, Servant , 28–29, 19. 56 Greenleaf, Servant , 327. 57 Greenleaf, Servant , 28–29. 58 Zaragoza, Servants , 49. 59 Another example is Greenleaf’s assertion that, in clearing the temple, Christ provided ‘theological justification for coercion’ and might have been better to persuade the money changers ‘to bring their practices within the embrace of the sacred’ instead of wrongly stigmatising money as profane, thus intimating that Christ’s way for his followers was inferior to Greenleaf’s own way (Anne T. Fraker and Larry C. Spears (eds.), Robert K. Greenleaf: Seeker and Servant: Reflections on Religious Leadership, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996, 59). 60 H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture, New York: Harper, 1951, 26 (referenced by Niewold, ‘Beyond’, 119).

Memories of servanthood 75 61 Wells, ‘Servant’, 186. 62 Fraker (ed.), Seeker , 300. 63 Niewold, ‘Incarnational’, 106, 291. 64 Joseph Maclariello, ‘Lessons in Leadership and Management from Nehemiah’, Theology Today 60 (2003), 397–407. 65 Greenleaf, Servant , 44. 66 Greenleaf, ‘Ethic’, 81–82. 67 Spears (ed.), Power , 23. 68 Criticisms other than incompatibility with biblical Christianity have been levelled against his leadership model. These include suggestions that the model creates weak, ineffective leaders as well as being overly idealistic (Kaetkaew Punnachet, ‘Catholic Servant Leadership in Sisters of Saint Paul of Chartres Schools in Thailand’, Institute of Education: unpublished PhD dissertation, 2006), criticisms also often applied to more biblically informed servanthood models. 69 SoM , 197. 70 OBH , 8–19. 71 E.g., Numbers 12:7; 14:24; Joshua 24:29; 2 Samuel 3:18. Further: Howell, Servants , 6–10; Maclariello, ‘Lessons’ presents Nehemiah as servant leader . 72 Servanthood in the Isaianic Servant Songs is examined and allowed to critique servant leadership theory in Robert R. Moore, ‘Toward a Biblical Understanding of Servant Leadership: An Examination of Biblical Concepts of Servanthood in Isaiah’s Servant Songs’, Dallas Baptist University: unpublished PhD dissertation, 2012. 73 The servant concept of Isaiah 53 may underpin gospel references to Jesus as servant/slave, although this is debated, most fully in Morna D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant , London: SPCK, 1959. 74 Cf. Matthew 18:4; 20:20–28; 23:8–12; Mark 9:33–37; Luke 9:46–48; 22:24– 27; John 13:1–20; 1 Peter 5:2–3. 75 Further: in Colin Brown (ed.), NIDNTT Vol. 3, Exeter: Paternoster, 1978, see K. Hess, ‘Serve, Deacon, Worship’ (544–553) and R. Tuente, ‘Slave, Servant, Captive, Prisoner’ (589–598); in Gerhard Kittel (ed.), TDNT Vol. 2 (tr. Geoffrey W. Bromiley), Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964, see Beyer, ‘διακονέω . . .’ (81–93) and Rengstorf, ‘δοῦλος . . .’ (261–279). 76 This consensus coalesced around the work of Barth, Schweizer and Käsemann (John N. Collins, ‘Theology of Ministry in the Twentieth Century: Ongoing Problems or New Orientations?’, Ecclesiology 8 (2012), 11–32, 11). 77 John N. Collins, ‘Ordained and Other Ministries: Making a Difference’, Ecclesiology 3:1 (2006), 11–32, 23; John N. Collins, Diakonia: Re-Interpreting the Ancient Sources, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Note further recent material drawing attention to independent German scholarship with similar conclusions (by Anni Hentschel) in John N. Collins, Diakonia Studies: Critical Issues in Ministry , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 78 Paula Gooder, ‘ Diakonia in the New Testament: A Dialogue with John N. Collins’, Ecclesiology 3:1 (2006), 33–56, 55. 79 Clarke, Pauline , 66–67; Clarke, Serve , 233–247. 80 Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity , Newhaven: Yale University Press, 1990, 51. 81 Murray J. Harris, Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ , Leicester: Apollos, 1999, 100–105. 82 Derek Tidball, ‘Leaders as Servants: A Resolution of the Tension’, ERT 36:1 (2012), 31–47, 36. 83 Timothy Robert Cochrell, ‘Foundations for a Biblical Model of Servant Leadership in the Slave Imagery of Luke-Acts’, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary:

76 A deep remembering unpublished PhD dissertation, 2015. Starting points for developing slavery imagery further in contemporary contexts could include: Cochrell, ‘Foundations’; I.A.H. Combes’ lengthy consideration of douleuō in The Metaphor of Slavery in the Writings of the Early Church: From the New Testament to the Beginning of the Fifth Century, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998; also helpful is Harris, Slave. A consideration of how the two concepts (slavery and servanthood) co-exist with authority is offered in a Markan study: Narry F. Santos, Slave of All: The Paradox of Authority and Servanthood in the Gospel of Mark, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003. Further: Hess, ‘Serve’; Tuente, ‘Slave’. 84 Williams and McKibben, Oriented , 183. 85 Ian G. Barbour considers models to be ‘systematically developed metaphors’ ( Myths, Models and Paradigms: The Nature of Scientific and Religious Language, London: SCM, 1974, 43). Sallie McFague comments that models fuse the ‘characteristics of metaphor . . . [with] qualities of conceptual thought’ and are thus valuable for giving language and a framework for speaking about what is otherwise beyond expression ( Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982, 23–24). Rather than simply speaking of ‘one thing or state of affairs in language suggestive of another’, a metaphor which has become a model allows us to ‘regard one thing or state of affairs in terms of another’, such that the model forms part of the ‘associative network’ of the terms of the metaphor (Janet Martin Soskice, Metaphors and Religious Language , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, 50–51). 86 Critical realism supposes that language can describe reality objectively (‘realism’) alongside the recognition of human subjectivity in the ‘spiralling path’ of articulating theories to account for this reality (‘critical’) (N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God , London: SPCK, 1997, 35). 87 Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological Nuclear Age, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987, 33. 88 Barbour, Myths, 37–38; also 172–173. Since human language can never ‘speak adequately about the Divine’ (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet: Critical Issues in Feminist Christology, New York: Continuum, 1994, 179), how much harder to speak about leadership in the church, a context both ‘transcendent reality and human specificity’ (Sharon H. Ringe, Wisdom’s Friends: Community and Christology in the Fourth Gospel, Louisville: WJKP, 1999, 6). 89 Willimon, Pastor, 69. Skip Bell calls it ‘paradigmatic’ (‘A Biblical Theology of Leadership for the Church’ (377–393) in Bell (ed.), Servants , 391). 90 Ford, Transforming. Cf. John H. Perry who describes leadership as being about serving and shepherding ( Christian Leadership, Sevenoaks: Hodder & Stoughton, 1983, 22). 91 Agosto, Servant, 199, 202, 209. For other presentations of servanthood in the context of leadership beyond those referenced in chapter 2: Paul BeasleyMurray, Dynamic Leadership: Rising above the Chaos of the One-Man Band, Eastbourne: MARC, 1990, 29–30; John F. Carter, ‘Power and Authority in Pentecostal Leadership’, Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies 12:2 (2009), 185–207, especially 193; Fitch, Giveaway, 86–89; Art Gish, Living in Christian Community: A Personal Manifesto, Tring: Lion, 1979, 210–211; J. David Lundy, Servant Leadership for Slow Learners, Carlisle: Authentic Lifestyle, 2002, viii; Maclariello, ‘Lessons’, 397; Aubrey Malphurs, Planting Growing Churches for the 21st Century: A Comprehensive Guide for New Churches and Those Desiring Renewal (3rd ed.), Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004, 111–114 (Malphurs focuses strongly on servant leadership , though admits in Leaders (33) that it is not the only biblical model); Tom Marshall, Understanding Leadership: Fresh

Memories of servanthood 77 Perspectives on the Essentials of New Testament Leadership, Chichester: Sovereign World, 1991, 68; McAlpine, Jesus, 26; Alan G. Padgett, As Christ Submits to the Church: A Biblical Understanding of Leadership and Mutual Submission, Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011, 51–55; Lawrence O. Richards and Clyde Hoeldtke, A Theology of Church Leadership, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980, 102–112; Rinehart, Upside; Robert E. Webber, The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002, 151; Young, Leadership, 29; Max De Pree, Leading without Power: Finding Hope in Serving Community, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003; James C. Hunter’s parable presenting service as the true essence of all leadership ( The Servant: A Simple Story about the True Essence of Leadership , Roseville: Prima, 1998). 92 Siang-Yan Tan, ‘The Primacy of Servanthood’ (77–90) in Eric O. Jacobsen (ed.), The Three Tasks of Leadership: Worldly Wisdom for Pastoral Leaders, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009, 78, 89. Dave Workman also focuses on servanthood as a way of life rather than explicitly of leadership ( The Outward-Focused Life: Becoming a Servant in a Serve-Me World , Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008). 93 Lance Ford, Unleader: Reimagining Leadership – And Why We Must, Kansas City: Beacon Hill, 2012. 94 In this respect, it is worth noting that John Drane argues that whilst much of the contemporary material presenting servant leadership evidences some NT insights, significant portions of it derive largely from wrong constructs ‘artificially created out of faulty exegesis’ ( After McDonaldization: Mission, Ministry and Christian Discipleship in an Age of Uncertainty, London: DLT, 2008, 105). 95 Donald E. Messer, Contemporary Images of Christian Ministry, Nashville: Abingdon, 1989, 103–106. 96 Yvonne Bradley, ‘Servant Leadership: A Critique of Robert Greenleaf’s Concept of Leadership’, Journal of Christian Education 42:2 (1999), 43–54, 52. 97 Ledbetter, Banks and Greenhalgh, Leadership , 110. 98 Diogenes Allen, ‘Jesus as Lord, Jesus as Servant’, Christian Century (18/03/98), 295–300. 99 Tidball, ‘Leaders’, 38. 100 Noting that some recast servanthood as carrying agency-authority derived from a principal (see Collins, Diakonia) and leadership as more about influence than the imposition of power, Tidball rejects these redefinitions as insufficient (‘Leaders’, 38). I discuss power in leadership further in chapter 9. 101 Tidball quotes Marshall ( Understanding, 58–65) as exemplary thereof, appreciating the solution’s theological grounding but ultimately rejecting it as insufficient to describe leadership realities (‘Leaders’, 39). 102 Tidball, ‘Leaders’, 41. 103 Tidball, ‘Leaders’, 41–42. 104 Tidball, ‘Leaders’, 42–46. 105 F.W. Dillistone, Christianity and Symbolism , London: SCM, 1985, 160–161. 106 Ringe, Wisdom’s , 6. 107 Letty M. Russell, Human Liberation in a Feminist Perspective – A Theology, Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977, 140, 143. 108 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation , Boston: Beacon, 1992, 71. 109 Jacquelyn Grant, ‘The Sin of Servanthood and the Deliverance of Discipleship’ (199–218) in Emilie M. Townes (ed.), A Trembling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering , Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993, 200. 110 Grant, ‘Sin’, 201. 111 Grant, ‘Sin’, 209. 112 Jacquelyn Grant, ‘Servanthood Revisited: Womanist Explorations of Servanthood Theology’ (126–137) in Dwight N. Hopkins (ed.), Black Faith and Public

78 A deep remembering Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone’s Black Theology and Power, Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007. 113 Grant, ‘Sin’, 216. Grant notes Dunfee’s reference – described below – to friendship as a replacement for servanthood (albeit not in the specific context of leadership) but favours discipleship without further justifying this rejection of friendship language (‘Sin’, 214). 114 Susan Nelson Dunfee, Beyond Servanthood: Christianity and the Liberation of Women , Lanham: University Press of America, 1989, 137. 115 Dunfee, Beyond , 138, 150. 116 Zaragoza, Servants , 37; cf. Roels, Moving , 4–5. 117 Willimon, Pastor , 69. 118 Ringe, Wisdom’s, 6–8. Purves does, however, note that metaphors can survive due to their historical significance despite having lost touch with praxis, citing the shepherding metaphor for pastoral work ( Reconstructing , xxviii). 119 John McKnight, The Careless Society: Community and Its Counterfeits, New York: Basic, 1995, 176. 120 McKnight, Careless , 177. 121 McKnight, Careless , 178. 122 McFague, Models, 35. Metaphor invites us in ‘the use of bizarre predicates . . . [creating] a shock between semantic fields’ to discover a ‘new predicative pertinence that is the metaphor’ (Paul Ricoeur, From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics II , London: Athlone, 1991, 172). 123 Bankrupt or ‘dead’ metaphors have seen their metaphorical sense subsumed into the word’s normal lexical sense; Peter W. Macky prefers to designate them ‘retired’, recognising that they could return to use ( The Centrality of Metaphors to Biblical Thought: A Method for Interpreting the Bible, Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1990, 116). 124 Donald B. Kraybill, ‘Manufacturing Need and Mystery’ (107–113) in Donald B. Kraybill and Phyllis Pellman Good (eds.), Perils of Professionalism: Essays on Christian Faith and Professionalism , Scottdale: Herald, 1982. 125 Dunfee describes servanthood as disempowering those being served, by creating a need in them to be served ( Beyond , 128). 126 James Newton Poling fears servanthood may ‘become a spiritualized concept that . . . [ignores] discrimination based on gender, race, class, and culture’, even ‘hiding .  .  . real power inequities’ in ecclesial contexts ( Rethinking Faith: A Constructive Practical Theology , Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011, 114). 127 The beauty of metaphor is the space for a plurality of images. McFague insists that such plurality is essential because all metaphors are ‘inappropriate, partial and inadequate’ ( Models, 39). As Volf remarks, a ‘plurality of models [is] . . . not only legitimate, but indeed desirable’ ( After , 21). 128 Brueggemann, Practice , 40.

4 Memories of incarnation In his remembering of the incarnation of the God-man, Anderson refers to its ‘inner logic’ and presents it as an act of divine self-revelation by which humanity is invited to apprehend the reality of God. His proposal is most clearly developed in Historical Transcendence and the Reality of God, the ‘informative and creative’ 1 dive into incarnational theology’s depths which was his doctoral work. Accordingly, this chapter attends primarily to the argument of HTRG, one which Rowan Williams calls ‘unusual, original and important’, 2 and is punctuated by references to other of Anderson’s writings. Anderson’s work as a whole is underpinned by conversation with a range of sources including Karl Barth, whose thought is significant in Anderson’s construction of a theological anthropology, a significance nascent in HTRG but fully developed some years later in On Being Human . 3 Other discernible influences include Thomas Torrance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John Macmurray. Whilst I shall highlight these where appropriate in this chapter and the next, by way of contextualising these memories of incarnation and ecclesiology, my focus is not on tracing a genealogy of influence but rather on establishing a foundation upon which to build the creative work of imagining incarnational ecclesial leadership. Accordingly, primary emphasis is on the theological constructs which Anderson develops, with discussion of his dependence on, and interaction with, the frameworks of his theological predecessors being limited to such as illuminates those constructs. The specific primary work is to trace Anderson’s presentation of the inner logic of the incarnation and to explore how he extends this into a discussion regarding how the reality of God may be apprehended there. Tracing the inner logic of the incarnation HTRG was developed in the context of a study of transcendence. In considering the problematic of how a fallen world can know a God who is transcendently other and holy, Anderson concludes that human knowledge depends on the ‘non-Cartesian “realism” that posits participation in reality as the source and norm of all knowledge’, such that thinking is preceded and enabled by encounter with the object of knowledge. 4 This is consistent

80 A deep remembering with his doctoral supervisor: Thomas Torrance had previously argued that ‘we let our knowledge of things and events . . . be illuminated by the intelligible relations directly forced on our recognition by the things and events themselves’. 5 Thus, rather than us grasping truth, organising it as a whole, ‘we are grasped in our whole person by the inescapable reality of truth as it confronts us’. 6 The intrinsic meaning that confronts us is what is meant by the ‘inner logic’ of something. Anderson contends that though the transcendence of God is an intrinsic reality wholly other than humanity, the incarnation, as God’s personal act of self-transcendence, enables personal encounter with humanity. For it bypasses the problematic of the reality of God from the perspective of human knowledge, being ‘the reality of God impos[ing] . . . upon us its own intrinsic historicality’. 7 Beginning by tracing God’s act in Israel as a kind of pre-history of the incarnation, 8 Anderson posits an organic connection between the incarnation’s inner logic and YHWH’s covenant relationship with Israel. 9 This inner logic, hinted at by God’s pre-history with Israel and completed in the incarnation, is one of a God whose hiddenness represents ‘the condescension of covenant love which takes on flesh in order to reconcile flesh to Spirit’. 10 Real divine-human relation is made possible without collapsing the otherness of God and creation. 11 In support of this organic connection between incarnation and God’s act in Israel, Anderson identifies three strands to that earlier act: God’s humanity in his self-communication to Israel; 12 the temporality of God implicit upon his humanity, Word and history interacting in one reality; 13 and God’s self-condescension, considered in terms of the hiddenness of God. 14 This hiddenness, however, is ‘a withdrawal into flesh, not away from it’, a progressive enfleshment of Spirit as God’s earthly home becomes increasingly identified with Israel rather than holy places such as Shechem, Bethel and others, a growing union with Israel’s sufferings and destiny. 15 This withdrawal into flesh becomes even more particularised as it develops, educing as the focus of God’s activity the concept of the Suffering Servant and the one Israelite, the Messiah ‘pursuing man into reconciliation’. 16 Here, in the one Israelite, the organic connection between incarnation and its pre-history in Israel is apparent: the incarnation is culmination of that pattern of hiddenness which is covenant love condescending to take on flesh so as to reconcile flesh and Spirit. In Israel, God’s hiddenness is his enfleshment through the Spirit’s act in the alienated flesh of Israel, an act of divine transcendence in which he freely moves beyond himself to enter into Israel’s life, electing her to himself. 17 In the incarnation, God’s hiddenness is the Logos enfleshed as the one Israelite, the withdrawal into flesh particularised with the result that the benefit of the covenant is generalised to all humanity as God freely moves beyond himself to enter into humanity’s life. 18 There is a further perspective on this inner logic which may be offered by exploring Israel’s covenant relationship with God. Having considered only God’s side thus far, the human aspect – the covenant response – remains to

Memories of incarnation 81 be seen. Did God enter in some way into that covenant response? Before attempting an answer, it is helpful to clarify Anderson’s understanding of covenant and the human response. He posits that the covenant in question ‘is the basic and original relation between God and man’ founded in creation which, though expressed in several subsequent covenants, ultimately lies outside of them. 19 There God speaks to humanity in the context of creation, a creative Word which determines humanity as covenant-partner, such that the imago Dei consists in awareness of God’s approach and of the self as existing only in relation thereto. 20 This Word implies an answering, albeit not one which can issue from a stance of autonomy, 21 a free response which is not only awareness but the enacting of that awareness out of one’s own self, a kind of ‘“becoming” through self-enactment’ in relation to God. 22 This self-enactment is a subjective act which discriminates ‘which possibility is “mine” and which is not’, such that one possibility is actualised as personal existence. 23 It is the addressing Word which determines all that is appropriate by way of human response; thus, the Word determines a limit to human response, albeit that specific actions are not prescribed. 24 Yet this limit does not preclude human freedom but enables it, giving humanity something to which we can respond, a command to which (and an Other 25 to whom) we can say the Yes which itself is freedom. For freedom means freedom to respond to the Word which determines the imago, not freedom from that which is determinative of human being, 26 and such freedom of response depends upon acknowledging God as both transcending limit and centre. As centre, God is the one to whom covenant response is directed; as limit, he makes response possible, giving humanity ‘the boundless freedom of being an “other” to God’, the limit whom humans cannot possess or direct. 27 Yet, of course, in the Garden of Eden humanity sought to possess that limit, each attempting to replace it with themselves as their own limit, thereby rendering impossible any covenant response. 28 In seeking to become their own limit, humanity attempted to replace the divine Word with self-acquired knowledge of good and evil. This negation of the ontological foundation of the imago resulted in self-asindividual rather than self-in-relationship becoming primary to humanity’s awareness. Nevertheless, though covenant response was now impossibility, God began providing new limits, in the shape of altar as limiting place and Torah as limiting commandment, thus enabling a new covenant response. The sacrifice which is that new covenant response was divinely provided (Genesis 3:21; 15:12, 17; Leviticus 17:11): 29 God did, in fact, enter into the human aspect of God’s covenant relationship with humanity. This divinely provided response, established in the cultus, was progressively presented as needing to be internalised, an incremental enfleshment: the prophets emphasised the need for it to be worked into Israel’s life through obedience and characterised the cultus as foreshadowing the actualisation of the covenant response in the Servant of the Lord. 30 Yet even this move from external cultic obedience towards a new covenant response focused on