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Power and Leadership for the Church - Interview With Mark Meynell || SLP474 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and thank you for downloading this episode of the Speak Life Podcast, episode 474.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Today on the podcast, Glenn is speaking to Mark Menel about his new book, which he has co-edited with Mark Sterling, and it's called Power and Leadership for the Church.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll get straight into this conversation, and I will catch you at the end.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, I'm Glenn from Speak Life.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: Today I am joined by Mark Menel.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, Mark.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Hey Glenn, nice to see you.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, really nice to be with you.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we've uh spoken uh a couple of times, I think, on on the channel, and uh one of the things we uh constantly are talking about, not only with you, but with uh many people on the channel, is uh church, church leadership, uh power, authority, and its use in the church and its misuse in the church.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: And uh you've just uh together with Mark Sterling, you've edited uh a new book called Not So With You, uh Power and Leadership for the Church.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I wanted to commend you on your use of prepositions.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think in that subtitle, Power and Leadership for the Church.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: That's a really interesting uh use of a preposition.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me why you think power and leadership is for the church.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm glad you picked up that uh point because um we talked quite a bit about how to phrase it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a there's a trend and uh a nervousness about power and authority generally in the culture and in the church, and that is legitimate in many ways.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um but both Mark and I were convinced that this is something that God gives to his church for the flourishing of the church.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, uh an illustration I've uh come back to I read a while back is imagine if there was an orchestra in the Garden of Eden, so before the fall, and there's a full symphony orchestra, that orchestra would still need a conductor, even in the paradise of the garden.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, let's imagine they're playing a sort of Marler symphony, which you just cannot do without somebody with a bat on.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a sense in which um every member of the orchestra is is playing to the best of their ability and flourishing within the bigger whole under the leadership of a conductor who is serving them through their leadership, and that is a gift.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and so our hope uh and certainly our conviction from the scriptures is that that authority, that power is a neutral thing that can be used for good and ill, and the issue is not to just avoid it, but to use it well.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and Jesus I think gets right to that point, um, which is where the phrase not so with you comes from.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's from Matthew 10, and Jesus is talking about the contrast between Gentile leaders and not so with you.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_03: You're to be like a servant leader, and therefore it's power and leadership for the church.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's a good thing that the conductor is there for the sake of the orchestra.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Take us through um the different ways that that can go wrong.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: So you could have an orchestra that does not have a conductor, or you could have a harsh authoritarian conductor who does not get the best out of his or her musicians.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_03: So tell tell me about those those two dangers.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, yes, I suppose you could say there's there's the one who um abdicates from uh authority and and there is chaos and there is uh there's factions, there are tensions, and sometimes you need somebody um to to sort of separate out some of those things and get to the heart of things to be a sort of third party um when there are tensions or whatever going on within the body, but then there's the authoritarian that runs everything through fear, and of course there have been conductors like that, um and um and there's certainly been church leaders like that.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that maybe people are they are serving well and they're they're really giving all they've got, and maybe the you know what the the the end result on the surface looks amazing, so you can you can go to these places where there is a very authoritarian leader and you sit there on a Sunday and it's an incredibly slick, impressive, um dynamic environment, and you think, wow, there's a lot going on here, this is a happening place.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what you don't see under the surface is that people are cowering in fear and they're driven by all kinds of anxieties and and um threats.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that that is profoundly unchristian.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um perfect love drives out fear, but you don't see that in some of these authoritarian contexts.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um perfect fear has driven out love almost.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_03: Gosh, okay.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: So tell me about that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me you've you've written a book about power and leadership.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_03: There are other books about power and leadership in the church um the that that are out there.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um why this book and why now?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: So Mark and I um have known each other for a few years, not that long, but um we've done the odd thing together, and I was up staying with him in Scotland um I guess well, it was before COVID, um, and um we were just sort of musing one evening and just chatting about the situations um in Scotland and England in terms of churches we were aware of, and we were very conscious of some of these scandals that were beginning to emerge.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but both of us were were aware of one or two situations that long predated the publicity of those scandals.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was also around that time and since a number of books have come out, mainly from the states and mainly from people who are um psychologists with a theological bent, as it were, um people who are bringing their psychology, their psychiatry to serve the church, and they've been amazing.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: So there are there are a few names, um, you know, Chuck de Grote, Diane Langberg, uh and and um Kurt Thompson and one or two others, and both of us would say that they have been remarkably influential in shaping how we think about this because we hadn't really had to do much uh go in much depth before.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we were conscious that um because they were not theologians in the strict sense, um they certainly are in the the real sense because they're believers who engage with scripture and apply that to their professional um fields, but um because there are sceptics around in some of our churches who who dismiss this kind of talk as just uh is just a bandwagon, it's just a worldly agenda being imposed on the church or or whatever it is, they will just assume that because these guys are at their starting point is their psychiatry or their psychology, that therefore we don't really need to engage or listen to them, then um we have a problem because actually what they are tapping into is stuff that the Bible's been talking about for centuries.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to make sure that not that we're jumping on a bandwagon, but that we're saying there is profound theological, biblical, historical um precedent, um at foundations, if you like, for engaging with this stuff.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to get a whole range of other voices to talking about it.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: Give us a taste of um some of the theology that you're applying to this situation uh of power and leadership in the church, and give us a flavour for um some of the voices that are speaking into this in the book.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: So we we deliberately sought out um some biblical theologians, New Testament, Old Testament, uh one or two historians, uh one or two systematicians, uh people in ministry, people um in leadership with their own personal experiences, sometimes obviously a combination.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: We wanted it to be quite international, um, and we wanted it to be a genuine mix of of men and women.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um with all these things, you have your aspirations at the beginning, and um not everything comes together.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes editing a book and getting people in is a bit like herding cats.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um we're very glad with the people we got.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: There were a few others that maybe we we might sort of in time do a backup website with some of the others that didn't come through.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we were trying to say, hey, look, this isn't a problem specific to a particular theological position.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a problem to a particular social class or context.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, some of the scandals in this country, in England, in contrast say to Scotland, have been revolved around sort of upper middle class white Brits who went to private school.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but we've we've certainly tried to show that is not exclusive to that group.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I came across some of this stuff as a as a teacher in a seminary in Uganda um over 20 years ago.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I was noticing that some of these trends then.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so that was immediately obvious, you know, they were this is not a white upper middle class thing, it's a human thing.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um we've got one or two testimonies of people who have suffered because of this.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was important to get their voices in.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it as as much as we could, it it's a range, but there's always room for more in the future, perhaps.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I I I think that there is something to be said for a diverse range of especially in in terms of men and women speaking into this situation.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: I I do remember we had uh Philippa Wilson who's been uh on this channel as well, and uh she reflected to me that while she was a an undergraduate, um one of um the more notorious uh of the UK church pastors who have fallen from grace uh in in the last decade um happened to come and give us uh a talk at her Christian Union, and she was tasked with taking him out to Peter Express uh beforehand, and she just said, within 30 seconds I knew he was a misogynist.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: Within 30 seconds I just I knew it, I saw it, and I I just think our sisters in Christ have such a spidey sense for for these things that that can just pass blokes by totally, absolutely agree with that.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, and and so yeah, getting getting that range of voices, and that that's definitely something um you've sought to do uh with this book.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me about some of the the doctrines, because you know you've got biblical theologians and you you've got people like Christopher Wright talking about Old Testament um and talking about Ezekiel and shepherds and and that sort of thing, but but you've also got systematic theologians talking about Trinity and union with Christ and things like that.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like, like what is what what does the doctrine of the Trinity have to do with power and leadership for the church?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: The the premise to begin with was that um all truth is integrated, and um so if it doesn't matter whether you're coming to it from a uh biblical theologian point of view or a systematics or a historical or whatever, um everything is integrated and everything has its outworking, and so um a Trinitarian understanding, and I'm very conscious that I'm out of my depth here, I'm by no means a systematician, um, which is why I didn't um go near some of those um issues in terms of um the nitty-gritty, but um there's there's clear resonance in terms of how the Godhead relates each person uh to the others, and while there are definitely controversies about how one can apply those, um there's no question that the quality of relationships that you see um within the Godhead um must have their impact on um you know a God-fearing, godly uh way of going about life.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh the particular chapter you're thinking of for that is by Jared Mickelson, who's a pastor up in St.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Andrews, he did his PhD in St Andrews.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think it's fascinating because what he does, the title is Confessions of a Potential Authoritarianism, Knowing the Trinity is antidote to partial authoritarianism.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's a beautiful um combination there of very honest reflection and a deep dive into you know heavy theological waters.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um he does a beautiful job there, I think.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah, and and you know he navigates the the the the waters of the the the Twitter debates of of 2017 brilliantly and and comes out comes out on qu so if if people are worried that oh my goodness, he's just he's just talking about eternal functional subordination to the sun and author, he's not at all.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: He's not at all.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: He's he's um talking about the inimitable triune God uh in all sorts of ways and imitating God as creatures, and uh as a very careful theologian, he nevertheless um draws out uh the the the inter-trinitarian life in in a really refreshing way and and lands it with um some Hannah Arendt uh as well, which is which is glorious.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um we'll get to your chapter in a second, Mark, because I think the Amago Day stuff um is is right at the heart of both why we need to talk about power and why it's difficult to talk about power in this cultural moment.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I think that's that's really important.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: But I think Grant Grant McCaskill's uh chapter on symbolic capital and the dynamics of leadership um really resonated with me, and he's basically going to the Apostle Paul, uh, where in Philippians 3 he says, I consider all my former life as a Pharisee as dung or however you want to you know translate that, uh worthless compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: And he sort of brings that sort of biblical theological category into conversation with this idea of symbolic capital.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_03: Can you explain what symbolic capital is and why it's important to know about it?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the Philippians background is really crucial, Philippians 3.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think that is an absolutely fascinating chapter, and it's it's in a I suppose uh a simplistic shorthand is that it's all the kind of stuff we rely on for our sense of identity, position in uh uh uh a group or a a subculture, all the things that give us credibility.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So he talks about um uh his own updating of Philippians 3 on page 94.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh you know, in a particular Scottish context, he says I was idolatrous in the worst of ways, because I thought I was being faithful in between my moments of undeniable sin.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was an evangelical of evangelicals in the tribe of Knox, as to zeal, a defender of all the evangelical truth claims, and a tender of all services as to doctrine, faultless in my own mind at least, yet over time I've come to see that the most basic problem I had was the way I thought about myself.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'd not really come to terms with the implications of the gospel for who I identified myself to be, although this was a big part of my reformed theological heritage.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: This affected all of my piety, all of my relationships, and all of my service.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's an incredible paragraph.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't have a go at translating scuba on though, did he?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: But you could you could translate that into any setting.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, I'm an Anglican of Anglicans, or I I was confirmed by Bishop Bell, or what whatever it is.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly right.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's all the kind of stuff in our sort of mental furniture we lean back on, even if nobody else is aware of it.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and and it's the kind of thing, I guess you could say, it's the kind of thing in the back of your mind, even if you never utter these words, it's the kind of thing where you're thinking, don't you know who I am?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um I I remember reading somewhere, someone said, you know, how'd you ask the question, how do you know if you're a servant leader?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know it when how you behave when you're treated like one.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_03: Go on, say that again, say that again.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I I would know that I'm a servant leader.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when I serve others, or what what's the but yes, but but when you're treated like a servant, a slave, and how you respond to that.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, exactly.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Which is agony.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want to say, Don't you know who I am?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: But then of all the people who must have thought that in his mind was Jesus.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: The whole of his ministry, you know, I guess in the back of his mind, he resisted the temptation to think this because he was holy.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: But all the time he could have been saying, Don't you know who I am?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because the whole point is, who are you?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: And and so I I remember, you know, Richard Bughes at uh at all souls, so he was he was he was not rector when you were there, was he?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, he um just after I um I started just after he left.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: You started just after but but yeah, he he always said that you know ministry is is probably 80% putting away the chairs.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's basically what it is.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: And and kind of so much of pastoral ministry is is just that yeah, that yeah, being treated like a servant and yeah, and and what a glory that that is.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: And getting on with it.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, and yeah, and treat it as the glory that it is in in Mark chapter ten terms, where where the not so with you comes from, because you know it's the rulers of the Gentiles that lord it over others.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um So t take us then to uh the image of God.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: This is something you've done quite a lot of uh work on, Mark.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: F first of all, tell tell us um where your journey began with really pressing into I'm gonna use a fancy Latin phrase, the emago day, and what what set you on that that trajectory, and then we'll think about how it applies to this situation.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um that was the result of an invitation.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I there was Oak Hill College runs an annual School of Theology Day, um, and they were doing a day about Emargo Day, about the being made in the image of God, and they asked me to do it on power.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: So um actually that was the prompt, really.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't one that I suddenly thought, oh yeah, that's that's where that's going.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I'd been engaging with some of this stuff for ages.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um so my book, Wilderness of Mirrors, that came out in 2015, um which which took me five years, um, there's far too much in it, and and um I think I would do it very differently if I was doing it now.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: But in the end, where that was going was saying that the people people today are suspicious as a culture um for a whole host of different reasons, but at the the heart of it is because they've had their fingers burnt, they've experienced the abuse of power at all kinds of levels, the sort of geopolitical right down to the personal and pastoral.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so no wonder you're suspicious.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: That would be a legitimate, that's a natural response.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I guess I've been looking at issues of power and and uh victims of power abuse.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it was the prompt to to look at it in uh for for Oak Hill, but once I was set down that train, um it was very natural.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um one of the key things that really helped me was C.S.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis's brilliant sermon, The Weight of Glory, um, where he talks about um what a difference it makes if we recognize that every person around us um is a potential angel um and um you know sees them through God's eyes, and you know the temptation would be to worship them, not abuse or ignore them.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's the sort of redemption end of um the line, but the the other end of the line is our createdness.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and something that as evangelicals we're really bad at is really d sort of going into a deep dive on being created.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we all we tend to start with original sin, but original sin makes no sense if there's not original goodness and original createdness, and the createdness is never removed.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um the goodness is never obliterated, it's distorted and damaged.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, we we are not the devils of hell.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: We are made in the image of God and we don't lose that.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is ruined and um disfigured.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: But once we get that, then suddenly you cannot look at a single other human being without recognising the profound things you have in common.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that that affects all ethics.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: It affects every aspect of human interaction, both personal, corporate, global, you name it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that is the central premise.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that and so one of the things I look at is the abolitionists.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's fascinating.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Once I started um doing just basic Google searches on abolitionist speeches and stuff, the emargo day comes up all the time, because of course it does.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: And actually the pro-slavers were were wanting to deny that.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: They say no, they are not, they are just beasts.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um which is an appalling way.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing is, in the twentieth century, that is an all-too familiar line.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: The people you despise or want to get rid of, you dehumanize.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: But that's what power abuse does.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: So it it has been a a a precious doctrine all throughout the last thousands of years, as we've meditated on Genesis 1 and the Imago Dei.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um you also really helpfully in in this chapter talk about five impediments or why many evangelicals just don't want to get it, don't want to go there.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um why is the the language around power and and actually um honouring and valuing the other?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um why is that a difficult conversation to have in our cultural moment?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there are a range of reasons.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think one is around the world, particularly in the West, people are shouting through megaphones from the streets about this kind of stuff.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: And the church is naturally and rightly nervous about just picking up on uh a trend or even a thrust that's coming from the world and telling us stuff.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because we assume we're the ones to tell the world how they should live.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're very reluctant to let the ch the world tell the church how to live, and there are good reasons for that.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes we have to acknowledge that actually we are behind, and some people are tapping into things that actually, in a prophetic way, are God sent, and maybe God is using outsiders to really give the church a shake and say, hang on, you're not looking at this.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there are all kinds of alarm bells and danger signals with that, um, just as if just as some of the things being shouted through megaphones are not the kinds of things that we're very comfortable with or want to to just fully endorse.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um but if there are things that are being shouted out from outside that you find were already there in scripture, you've got to say, oh, hang on a minute.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: We've lost something here.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, a little pet theory I have is that since the Enlightenment we spent uh as a church playing catch-up with all the assaults on truth, and and and that's necessary, you know.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: How can you believe this stuff?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so we're you know, we're we're fighting back philosophically, um, you know, with evidence, history, blah blah blah.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, we don't stop doing that.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: That the the the truth questions haven't disappeared, but I think we've we've kind of overlooked the related question of power.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Who has power, who decides what you believe?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not simply the assent to what something is true, because actually um sometimes you've got to ask the question well, what power does the person asserting this truth have over you?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what the postmodernists have been really pushing back for the last hundred years, well, since in each and more.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you talked about that in in the air that we breathe, and and um, you know, this this kind of stuff is just in the ether.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um but actually, I suppose in a crude way, you could sum it up saying, Well, 50 years ago, if somebody walks into a church, they're asking, How can I believe this is true?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Today they're walking into a church and say, How do I know I'm safe?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it comes down to a power issue.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:12
  unknown: Yeah.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because are they gonna abuse my children?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Are they gonna take my identity?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna give all my money away?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Am I gonna have to, you know, all this sort of stuff?
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you hear horror stories of churches and cults and all that stuff.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: So people's questions are legitimate, but they are they're power questions, sociological questions perhaps, rather than philosophical.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and and so we are not as well equipped to engage with that.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think we've got a good heritage for dealing with truth, we've not really dealt with power.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, one thing that strikes me it might be a bit of a tangent, is that I think a lot of people worry whether they're safe anywhere.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um and and yes, I think I agree.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: They have very good reason to ask that question about church and and and historic abuse cases, and and there are very good reasons why they might ask that question of church, but I I think there is, yeah, a a desire for everyone um to be safe and a lack of trust in any institution whatsoever, um, and and handing over control to to any institution, which which I guess all of us have to deal with.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um but you you mentioned about postmodernism, because I I I guess that's that is a really big reason why it's difficult to have this conversation about power theologically, um, because it's a culture war battle.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, we know what people say in the culture wars, and you know, one side if if one side even says, Can we take care of the little guy just for once, the other side say, Oh, you're all into power dynamics, it's all just postmodernism, and there's a there's a sort of an an anti-woke kind of club that is used to beat anything, and even if you bring scriptures, and even if you're talking to a Christian, um there's a kind of an uh there's been an a woke versus anti-woke kind of culture war.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_03: How on earth do we navigate that and actually bring the scriptures to bear um into into that kind of maelstrom?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, uh that's such a tricky one.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um one needs I mean this is a sort of you know, innocent as doves situation.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um we need to be canny um and and a bit stealthy, not sort of manipulative or dishonest, obviously, because that just falls into the precise trap.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: But but I think this is actually where um a faithful expository approach I think is really crucial because what you're trying to do is, let's say you're preaching on the early chapters of 1 Corinthians, I think they are really important for this whole issue.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I the two Corinthian letters I keep coming back to.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've ever since my curacy, you know, 25 years ago I was ordained, and I've come back to it and keep on thinking, actually, those first four chapters of 1 Corinthians, indeed the whole letter, but those first four particularly, it's not that they were irrelevant before, but it it really feels like this is their time because there are so many things there that you don't have to work hard at all to see where what they're speaking into.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the whole um obsession with the superficial and the appearance of things rather than the reality, power and you know, influence, being wise, all this sort of stuff, and that the cross subverts it all, and that you know we speak foolishness and weakness, all this sort of stuff, it's there.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in a sense, my job as the preacher is to get out of the way, not to sort of press political buttons or uh, you know, blow whip their dog whistles, but just to let what those passages are saying come out so that people come away thinking not, oh well Mark is just on a on a on a soapbox.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_01: But isn't it amazing that how Paul got there first?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Or Philippians 2.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that Philippians 2 is a key chapter for the whole of this book, it comes back in a number of the essays.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your mind should not be you know verging on or remotely resembling or whatever, it should be the same as Christ, who did not use the authority, the status, the power of eternity in heaven to be exploited.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: But he became nothing, a servant, dead.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can't get much clearer than that.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: If that's not work, then I don't know what is in a way.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's about saying you love people to the death, yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, including those that are unlovely and unlovable.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: The weakest.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: And and there are all sorts of things that I think we can say that are just thoroughly biblical, but that might trigger either the woke or the anti-woke.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: And we've just we've just got to be more robustly biblical about it and just say, well, it but it it might sound woke, it might sound anti-woke.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's because that culture war is the these are peoples divorced and detached from the Christian story that are hurling Bible verses at each other, right?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_03: And and so no wonder what I say at some times will sound like them and at other times it'll sound like the other.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: I I was in in a heated discussion last night about Old Testament law and sabbaticals, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, and I was just, you know, they they didn't glean all the way to the edge of their fields, and they well, they didn't um harvest all the way to the edge of their fields so that they could allow space for gleaning.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: And they would tell newly married, you know, husbands, you don't have to fight this year, and they would take one day off a week, and they would take one year off in seven, oh my goodness, and they just weren't about maximizing.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_03: And it was a profoundly equalizing thing, I said, because it wasn't just the clergy, it wasn't just the Levites that get this, it's like everybody got this.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: And my friend was just like, that sounds like communism.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_03: It was just like and he was sort of he was just triggered by that reminds me of uh, you know, a much more modern kind of political statement.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: And and like in the discussion, I was like, I don't know, maybe it does.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: But I'm not really trying to be more.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's right, and you talk to some of them and you think, no, no, no, it doesn't.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I think one per person who's helpful for this discussion is is I think you've had him is Chris Watkin in his book Biblical Critical Theory.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because his idea, I think he pushes it sort of slightly too far, maybe because he does it everywhere, but the whole diagonalization idea that that you know you're neither one thing nor the other if you're biblical.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um you you you find a path through by seeing what actually relates to scriptures.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're starting with the scriptures, not with the political agenda.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: And to to bring this right right back to kind of the concerns of this book, um to care for victims and to be extremely sensitive to victims is not to buy into the sociological phenomenon of competitive victimhood.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um necessarily.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think you can both affirm it might there is such a thing as competitive victimhood.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: But if you're being scriptural, it's not that.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um but there can be a good and proper attention and sensitivity to to victims.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: So the abuse of something, a principle, is not an excuse to avoid the use of it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Which is a key basic principle dating back centuries.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: So just because something gets ruined by how people use it, doesn't mean to say you avoid it altogether.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: The the book sort of begins um theologically and very richly and profoundly theologically, um, but then there there is this this lovely kind of interlude um where from Mark Sterling he uh kind of does the anti-beatitudes, which I thought were just just lovely.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_03: I think I think um everybody should should read these.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Those who are full of themselves miserable are those who are full of themselves because they're disqualified from the kingdom of heaven.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_03: Miserable are those who are complacent and at ease with things as they are because they forfeit true comfort.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: Miserable are those who are self-assertive, self-confident, and demand and get their rights, because that's all they'll get, and they'll lose everything that really matters.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: Miserable are those who are content with conforming to behavioral standards that confer social status because they will be empty inside.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: Miserable are those who demand justice of others and are highly critical of them, because they will find that others treat them the same way.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: Miserable are those whose hearts are full of selfish and self-centered desires for pleasure and gain, because the true God is ever hidden from them.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: Miserable are those who create division and dissension and are proud of their tribal belonging because there is no place for them in the kingdom of heaven.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: Miserable are those who get celebrated, praised, and famous because that's all they'll get.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um that that packs a page, doesn't it?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: It does indeed.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, uh a very uh sobering kind of interlude.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_03: And then in the second half of the book, you you talk about the experiences of people.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: Why is it important uh to talk at that more practical level?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: The first half sounds more theoretical, but it isn't.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's is deeply embedded in reality and experience.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I think um we need to hear from people who can then say, well, this is how it affected me, or this is how I engaged um with it.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so it literally is the second half of the book.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it is almost exactly 50%.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's it's a combination of um people who um have ex suffered.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think Blythe Sizemore's uh chapter um of um called the the the cost of brokenness is heartbreaking, as is um Sushila Ailawadi, she's um from India talking about um uh the abuse of women by men, particularly in an Indian context, but it you know it it it transfers, um, is is really really significant and important.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: But then it's it's also well here are some people who get the issue, but then are thinking, okay, well, look, I do have this responsibility, I do have this role to be a mentor.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: So Marcus Hannesett speaks about mentoring, he's doing this full-time now with his living leadership sort of team.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so he's he's really thought deep about this, and of course he's got a book about um powerful leaders too.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um so there's a range of people who say, okay, so but this is what it needs to look like.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and this is how we um it's not definitive and it's it's by no means a straitjacket, but it's saying, as I think about the people I relate to and lead and mentor and serve, these are some of the things I'm gonna have to do, or this is got something I've really got to avoid.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think that's really helpful.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: It you know, having these different voices will put things across our bowels that you think, oh, I I'd never thought of that before.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um so um uh Tasha Chapman, who's a professor in in the States, she talks about um a whole perspective of being a woman on boards and um committees and things, and it comes from her particular um denominational uh context, which might be different from others, but she's at least saying, Well, well, this is how you need to be thinking.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean that you do the same stuff in practice, but it just raises the question.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: So there's the I think it's more of the second half is a sort of provocation, probably.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: These are things of ways to consider, um, and it probably needs a whole other book for ways in which this is provoked.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_03: Tell me about a few different readers who are reading this book.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_03: Who who do you hope gets it into their hands and and what what do you hope they they get from the book?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think inevitably an anthology of essays um by all kinds of different people, so we got people from the UK, US, from India, um are going to relate to different things.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: And there are one or two essays that are definitely more academic um and and sort of in-depth with footnotes and everything else, and then there are others that are more um testimony, personal.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um there's a whole range.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think in principle, I would love it if those who are sceptical about this whole area of discussion and very fearful for where it leads, and um you know, maybe the kinds of questions that people are asking in churches and their leaders.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, leaders are definitely um in the firing line for all kinds of reasons, so there's an understandable nervousness.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um I would hope that this would be a useful way of navigating that and saying, okay, look, there are some things we really must take seriously, um, and then there are other things where we can say, no, well, that that that isn't an agenda of the church, that isn't something that is fair or legitimate.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so hopefully this can be a map for navigating between those things.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think anybody um, and and that that could be for anybody who has concerns, whether as someone who has suffered or perhaps perceives it going on in their church.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I would hope that people in leadership, um, whether elders or you know, uh church wardens in an angling setting or whatever, um, would definitely spend some time looking at this and then following up threads because there's a lot of ways in which this could lead to other study.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I think it's about being responsible in um in our roles.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Ignorance is not an excuse anymore because there's so many things going wrong, and it's not just about avoiding scandal, it's not just about you know making sure your your name or your church doesn't end up in the papers.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's actually saying, okay, well, we've all got things to learn here.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my um track record is by no means perfect.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: I've made a lot of mistakes, um, and I've apologized to people, I'm sure there are other people I need to apologize to.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know we're not talking about perfection here, but it's saying if I take my role seriously and I seek to be godly and Christ-like in it, then I need to face up to uncomfortable things.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: I need to see what my own shadow sides are, where my own particular temptations and pitfalls lie, and then do something about this.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: And this again may be a way of identifying.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you might be reading something you think, oh, okay.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, maybe I did do that.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's you know, completely unwitting, perhaps.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: You you don't even realize it.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why we need other voices, because we we're blind to things.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's I I would say it's it's anybody who wants to take Christian leadership responsibly that this is for.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_01: How can people get hold of this book and how can people get hold of of you?
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so um it's on Amazon, but it's um a crazy price on Amazon.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm selling them uh on my own little bookshop for half the price.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's called inklingsbooks.co.uk.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh I've got a few copies there.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh you can find me on my blog.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not very frequent these days because I'm doing too many things, I'm sort of juggling too many balls, but markmenel.net.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: Fantastic.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, socket socket to the big guy, Amazon.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_03: Do you want to go and yeah, go and buy the book from from English?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: Let's undercut Amazon so that I can build my own rockets.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um brilliant, Mark Menel.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: Absolute pleasure.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there we go.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: For more on this subject in the back catalogue, I can highly recommend the episode that Glenn recorded with Dr.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Diane Langberg, and that's also about power and f with a particular focus on when power can go wrong in the church and church abuse.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that was episode 353 of the Speak Life podcast.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have a bit of listener correspondence in response to the previous episode, which was with Andrew Satch talking about his book, Are You 100% sure you want to be an agnostic?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: De Veg says, Andrew is in the top five nicest people I've ever met, and with his brain, I'm so glad he's written this book.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really easy read that makes a lot of good points.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for that comment, DeVeg.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was great to have Andrew and his insights on the Speak Life channel.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there we go.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions or comments about this episode or any previous episode of the Speak Life Podcast, you can contact the show by emailing info at speaklife.org.uk and we will read some of your comments out on the Speak Life Podcast.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks so much for listening.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's all from today.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: We will be back soon.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: God bless.