Christian Leadership for Resistance

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

One of the questions I am exploring throughout this semester is whether a Christian community can be a site of resistance against systems of oppression and more specifically, can. We have been reading The Long Haul by Myles Horton as well as exploring the teachings of Bell Hooks and Paulo Freire. This week I looked at what forms of leadership nurture communities of resistance.

A key theme in nurturing communities of resistance is equipping others to lead. To equip others to lead, one has to be self-reflective and open to criticism about your own space in leadership. Horton outlines several characteristics of potential leaders. First the leader must be free to act, independent, as much as possible, of the systems of oppression the leader is trying to resist. Second, the leader needs to bring their own experience and relationships to analyze the systems of oppression. To do so effectively, the leader should not be constrained by institutional roles. Third, the leader must be able to consistently engage the people s/he is working with, without reverting to systems of hierarchy and oppression. Finally, Horton argues its helpful if potential leaders are just starting to see themselves as leaders (146).

Julie Todd reiterated Horton’s first requirement when she said one must work away from the center of institutional church to affect change/resistance.  Horton used the second requirement in pretty much every Hylander project, sometimes spending days or weeks getting to know people and hearing stories before guiding potential leaders toward action. Avoiding systems of hierarchy/oppression seems to the be trickiest. Horton experienced the dangerous allure of putting your own charisma and power over the goals of the people when he served as an organizer (120-126).  Horton criticized Martin Luther King, Jr. for allowing himself to be too powerful, encouraging him to “make room under the tree and develop other leaders” (Horton 127). Paolo Freire welcomed such criticism when Bell Hooks called him out on patriarchal elements of his pedagogy (Hooks 55).

As I continue to explore the possibility of doing resistance work in the church, I find hope that the ministry of Jesus reflects Horton’s leadership characteristics. Jesus was outside the temple institution as were his disciples. They used the stories of their lives and their families to re-frame Torah truths and highlight the oppression of empire. Jesus and his disciples were constantly eating, teaching, and living among the people dismissed by empire, better enabling them to engage the people they were working with. Unfortunately, within a few centuries, the church developed a hierarchy that separated the bishops from the people, a problem compounded when the Roman empire accepted and endorsed Christianity. Finally, Jesus chose disciples who likely did not see themselves as religious/spiritual leaders.

This really gets me thinking about who I could equip to lead resistance in the church. It probably isn’t going to be current leaders! For those of you who have worked in the church, I would love to hear stories about how you nurtured your own and other’s leadership to foster a community that resisted injustice.