POWERFUL LEADERS:
When Church Leadership Goes Wrong And
How To Prevent It
By Marcus Honeysett
IVP. 176 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 789 743 227
‘Are we the baddies?’ has become perhaps the most pertinent and incisive meme on the internet.
Originating as a 2006 comedy sketch, David Mitchell and Robert Webb play SS Officers who come to the slow realisation that they might not be the champions of life and liberty they had imagined. As they contemplate their skull insignias, it dawns on them that they have taken the side of death. Not a good look.
Ever since, the Mitchell and Webb sketch ‘Are we the baddies?’ has passed into nearly-common parlance as shorthand for the realisation that we might be on the wrong side of an argument/movement/culture war. The comedy works because of the shock factor: in real life, no-one does what these Nazis do. No one considers that they might be wrong. We all fight the good fight, don’t we? It’s laughably rare for anyone to consider that, choice by reasonable choice, they have found themselves on the dark side. But that’s the realisation Marcus Honeysett invites us to make. Or, at least, he urges us to consider that, in the realm of Christian leadership as elsewhere, the journey to the dark side is ever-present and ever-beckoning.
Powerful Leaders? When Christian Leadership Goes Wrong is the fifth book by Marcus Honeysett and it brings together his burden to foster healthy Christian leadership with the present crisis in evangelicalism. As devastating abuses have been revealed on either side of the Atlantic, Honeysett speaks with an awareness of the magnitude of the subject, but also with a burden to share his experience and perspective. This book is a hugely insightful contribution to these conversations and doubly so if we understand what the book is and isn’t. It is an exploration of how leadership can turn toxic at the individual, team and cultural level. It is not a comprehensive guide to abuse in the context of the church – it does not attempt to be. Powerful Where Leaders excels is in charting the ‘slippery slope’ from the exercise of transparent, legitimate authority to non-transparent, illegitimate power. These five chapters at the heart of the book take the reader from the most healthy leadership, (which he outlines in the Introduction), to ‘the most serious abuses of power and position’. In the final section, Honeysett asks: What next for victims and survivors; for whistle-blowers; for leaders; for churches; and for cultures and tribes?
Systems and dynamics are laid out with a deep understanding of UK evangelical cultures (mainly of the FIEC, but also the conservative Anglican kind). And the real value comes in charting ‘the path that runs from good intentions, via lack of accountability and transparency, down into manipulation and self-serving, all the way to the most serious abuses.’ How can those who consider themselves ‘on the side of the angels’ end up ‘becoming the baddies’? It’s actually a well-worn path and one made all the more likely when its travellers remain blind to the dynamics involved.
Honeysett unveils the steps we may (unwittingly) take: From Formal To Informal Power (Chapter 4); From Legitimate To Illegitimate Power (Chapter 5); From Serving Others To Serving Self (Chapter 6); and then The Most Serious Abuses Of Power And Position (Chapter 7).
He also examines the way a broader culture develops and arms itself against all critique:
1. A cause is identified.
2. A network develops.
3. The narrative becomes the most influential thing.
4. A vital part of the narrative is that the culture is us.
5. The narrative creates an in-group and an out-group.
6. The price of critiquing the culture grows.
7. Dependency on the culture creates wilful blindness.
8. Wilful blindness becomes genuine blindness.
Avalanches are formed of countless snowflakes. None of the snowflakes consider their weight. Perhaps they see themselves as glistening, white and completely powerless in themselves. But the innocent are buried beneath them nevertheless. Honeysett demands that we look to the bigger picture and to our place in the whole.
Though a short book, it should not be read quickly. Honeysett asks hundreds of searching questions in these 159 pages, many of which can only be answered properly after much soul-searching. I would recommend any church or ministry leadership team to read this book, but to do so together, prayerfully and honestly. Much is at stake.
