Issues challenging Pentecostalism in the 21 st Century

Leadership

Mathew Clark D Th

Auckland Park Theological Seminary

Johannesburg, South Africa

[This paper is offered as a thought-provoker and not as a research paper. I am currently in the throes of relocating from South Africa to the UK, and sadly do not have time to prepare a thorough paper. However, since the conference aims to look at issues that confront and challenge Pentecostalism and Pentecostal theology as we enter the new century, I believe that the issue of leadership is one that needs careful consideration. For that reason I would like this to serve as a discussion document at PWC 2007.]

1. Introduction

Most Pentecostal scholars have probably found themselves in a similar situation to mine a few years ago. As a lecturer at a Seminary I was not pastoring a local church but worshipping and ministering in a congregation led by a Pentecostal colleague who was a close friend. After 14 years we reluctantly moved on, saddened because we had close ties and good relationships with everyone in the church except the local pastor himself. My wife and I and our son and daughter had ministered at most levels in the church, and I was a popular speaker there. However, the last seven years were a gradual relegation to mere pew-sitting for all of us – indeed, sometimes vindictive action was launched against my children because of their relationship to me. And the cause of our “downfall”? When a feud arose between the pastor and a close colleague (who was also a close friend of mine) I refused to take sides and pledge unswerving loyalty to the pastor. As with so many Pentecostal leaders this man found himself unable to co-operate with or even accept anyone who did not reveal absolute loyalty to his person and status.

Such tales and experiences are legion in the Pentecostal movement. And as the issue of leadership becomes a central area of concern and concentration in the movement, the early years of this century are perhaps an apposite occasion for us to deliberate on leadership as both threat and promise in this part of the Christian church.

One does not have to look far for examples of great leadership as well as dismal leadership in Pentecostalism. Figures such as Donald Gee and David Du Plessis are examples of the latter, whereas others such Jim Jones and Jimmy Swaggart show a darker side to the matter. In South Africa I attended a church court session as assessor, where a local leader found guilty of sodomy by a previous church court was appealing the verdict. Held at a local church, the local pastor insisted that every person entering the building be searched for weapons, because of the intimidatory actions of the leader’s supporters who turned up at such occasions by the busload. The pastor genuinely feared for the well being of his members and staff as well as for the safety of his facilities, to the extent that he was trembling uncontrollably. Another example of poor leadership linked to a typical charismatic guru-cult is a well-known local Faith teacher whose wife divorced him, and who launched a campaign of vilification against her, co-opting their own adult son to publicly denounce her while upholding his father as a pillar of persecuted virtue. The leader’s subsequent marriage to a much younger model (literally!) simply added to public disgust concerning the whole affair. Other examples of abusive leadership, self-enrichment by exploitative church leaders, and advancement of heretical views purely for the sake of self-advancement, abound in South Africa and probably around the world.

Never has good, solid, Biblical leadership been required as in today’s rapidly growing Pentecostal-charismatic movement, and never has it been so hard to find.

2. The need for leaders and leadership in the Pentecostal movement

On a purely quantitative level, the Pentecostal movement requires a massive production of leaders. Where local revivals in Africa, Asia and Latin America often lead to tens of thousands being added to the church monthly, the need for pastors, teachers, trainers, organisers, youth and children’s ministers, and many other branches of leadership and ministry, is overwhelming. Certainly current seminaries cannot cope, and at best can hope to equip and train teachers of teachers and pastors of pastors.

If the traditional tasks of the church are considered – evangelism, catechism and pastoral care – then on that basis alone the Pentecostal church is impoverished in most contexts outside of large urban churches. The teaching requirements of a “spirit” movement that needs to be continually reminded to remain within the parameters of the text of Scripture are monumental. Since sound teachers are often as despised and neglected in the church as they are in the world, this is an area in which the backlog is increasing all the time.

Every local congregation of Pentecostal people needs capable leaders to facilitate the growth of every member into the fullness of the stature of Christ as well as into the fullness of the working and power of the Holy Spirit. In socially and economically disadvantaged communities, which are a context in which Pentecostalism has great appeal, leaders are required who are able to facilitate the modernisation of their people. This needs to be done not only in terms of “renewal of their minds” from their previous superstitions, but also in terms of helping them engage in the processes of dealing with modernised nation states to their own advantage. In e g South Africa this would involve helping members deal with state bureaucracy regarding obtaining health care and pensions, entrance into educational institutions, and all the other masses of red tape associated with every aspect of life in a modernising environment. Here the Pentecostal leader truly fulfils the function of a “father” to his or her people. Sadly, many who leave seminaries equipped with the degrees that could earn them the respect of local officials and make their paternal work easier are often enticed into business and commerce as token “local members” of multinational or large national operations.

Not only are numbers of leaders required – quality of leadership also needs to be enhanced. Admittedly the spectacular failure of religious leadership is more likely to receive public attention than the quiet success of the tens of thousands who simply get on with the leadership task entrusted to them by God. However, recent trends in leadership “production” in many parts of the Pentecostal movement are disturbing: many aim simply at cloning the local “successful” leader, or at simply imparting basic ministry “skills” with no contextualising theory (such as history, hermeneutical insights, counselling theories, doctrinal orientation, etc) to accompany and undergird it. Since the production of a completed and rounded leader by a seminary remains an expensive task, denominations are continually investigating other options, while seminaries are often forced to diversify their training into so many skills levels that their major task of excellence in theological training sometimes becomes lost in the blur. The simple solution of denominations sponsoring the training of ministers by means of bursaries offered to trainees seems to occur to far too few – although even if it did, allocating budget to training that is not closely overseen by the more assertive and suspicious leadership of a denomination is simply not attractive in many groups.

3. Models of leadership in the Pentecostal movement

Replying to my question as to the form of church government in his denomination, a friend from the USA replied: we are a theocracy and our leader’s name is Theo! Certainly the movement has revealed probably every type and model of leadership imaginable in its first 100 years. Many of the larger groups influenced by the Free Church ethos of American and European converts accepted a simple congregational or Presbyterian system of church government in which a “priesthood of believers” sentiment ruled. In the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa everyone who led anything was simply “brother” – whether he pastored, counselled, evangelised or taught. The notion of a clergyman, a pastor, was considered an abomination or an unwanted inheritance from a dead “historical church” past. However, for many others the notion of either the professional (trained) leader or the highly charismatic (inspired) leader came to predominate, and the earlier egalitarianism was soon replaced by the parallel growth of these two sentiments. A Pentecostal leader was eventually required to be either a trained professional or an inspired “great Man of God”. The former group usually attached the title pastor or reverend (or local equivalent) to the local leader, while the latter were more inclined to use the terms Apostle or Prophet – sometimes Evangelist. The use of the title Bishop does not fit readily into either category, perhaps it arose in an environment which wished to assert the plausibility of the former as well as the authority of the latter?

In recent years the “rediscovery” of the so-called “five-fold ministry” of Ephesians 4 has led to a renewed interest within many previously sceptical groups in the role and (especially) the titles Prophet and Apostle. Despite warnings that Pentecostal groups had often in earlier decades suffered great loss at the hands of individuals (and their sycophantic followers) who claimed such ministry and titles, there has been a rush to rediscover and appropriate such ministry and titles for oneself. Sadly once again one can detect similar trends to the earlier ones, where all too often Prophets come perilously close to claiming infallibility for their utterances and Apostles demand recognition of their authority and unquestioning loyalty to their person. And both are seen to massively enrich themselves. Surprisingly it is the unbeliever who is more aware of and cynical of this trend than is the average Pentecostal churchgoer.

In this new ambience of “anointed authority” one need not look far to encounter typical “painting oneself into a corner” scenarios. How does a leader who claims divine inspiration for his/her utterances, or abnormal sensitivity to “what the Holy Spirit is doing” ever admit that they were perhaps wrong? Or less than wise? Or plain and simply uncertain? The demand for “perfection” in such leaders creates all sorts of reality-denying pressures, as in the case of the divorced Faith leader mentioned above. This is a far cry from the notion of the “broken leader” which even the cynical sinner finds more plausible and appealing.

4. Syncretism and leadership

A growing tendency during the last two decades has been to seek leadership models and values from sources other than the Biblical, theological or ecclesiological. Perhaps the best and most pervasive examples of such are incorporated in the teachings of John Maxwell. There seems to have been a large-scale acceptance that what works in developing thriving businesses, sports teams or political parties will also be effective in developing thriving churches. Few scholars are unaware that such equations between secular leadership and Christian leadership face too many Biblical and theological hurdles to ever be plausible or appropriate. However, they are effective enough for many of the more pragmatic or entrepreneurial Pentecostal leaders to buy into them enthusiastically.

However, although probably the best known and most debated of leadership paradigms in the church, it is not the only syncretism in this area. Another is the acceptance by many church leaders that the dominant paradigms of consumerism and of media and celebrity culture can simply be adopted (some even term it “sanctified”) by the church in its operations and liturgies. What begins as an exercise in contextualisation (making the gospel relevant to our age) often deteriorates into an exercise in syncretism, where the values of our age so colour the gospel that is loses its confrontational and prophetic radical difference and its call to “otherness.” It is perhaps this contextualisation/syncretism area that deserves most of our attention in the first decades of the new century, and serious and significant guidelines need to be offered by theologians and ethicists within the movement. However, if this offer is not seen to be sympathetic to the very real desire of church leaders to speak contextually within our popular culture, it is certain that the advice of thinkers will be ignored in favour of the counsel of pragmatism.

Another widespread syncretism, and one often not understood by Christians from a North Atlantic background, is the cultural requirement that leaders “look after their own.” Extremely prevalent in Africa and Asia, this cultural imperative in politics involves a sort of social contract between leader and led which is radically different from the egalitarian democratic models of the West. In this contract the leader is granted public status, prerogatives and privileges in exchange for which he (rarely she) extends protection and opportunity to those under his “covering.” Those “covered” might be family, clan or tribe, or ideological associates, or entrepreneurial partners, or one of many other possible connections. The vulnerability and failure of many Asian banks in the late 1990’s was caused directly by this contract: You are one of us, you have influence in the Bank, therefore you extend the Bank’s credit to us regardless of the value or lack thereof of the security we offer your loans. Much of the dynamics of African politics, dynamics that puzzle and perplex Western observers, are based on this contract. An extreme example is the social and economic implosion of Zimbabwe - the leader (Mugabe) and those he covers are entitled to destroy a nation to maintain their own dominance, as long as those he covers continue to benefit. Such dynamics normally operate in this sort of national context until total ruin occurs.