Conviction or consensus?

Maggie Thatcher’s death has sparked numerous controversies and much reflection about politics, the role of women, war, success, legacy, history and – Conviction.

During a tribute to the late Lady Thatcher in the Lords and Commons on 10 April this year, Sir Malclom Rifkind with considerable wit, quoted her as saying: ‘yes I do believe in consensus, there should be a consensus behind my convictions’. He went onto say, he thought at the time she was displaying a little known sense of humour, but as the years went on, he realised she was being deadly serious. Now, whether this was a tongue-in-cheek remark or not, it is clear that she was, indeed, a conviction politician.

What should we, as Christians, however, make of the debate between consensus leadership versus conviction leadership? Which reflects better leadership as biblically understood?

Why is conviction such a difficult topic in today’s society? Once, conviction was at the core of people’s actions, their motivations, their outlook on life. Now, in social commentator Alan Kirby’s era of pseudo-modernism, conviction has become an outlandish, anti-social way of thinking. Once something to strive for and ready to defend, it is now seen as unacceptable.

The era of the internet, social media and mass-feeding of simple, down-sized and ‘instant’ bites of information, are not only dumbifying our society, but making them apathetic. Conviction unknown.

 

“A culture based on these things can have no memory – certainly not the burdensome sense of a preceding cultural inheritance which informed modernism and postmodernism. Non-reproducible and evanescent, pseudo-modernism is thus also amnesiac: these are cultural actions in the present moment with no sense of either past or future. A triteness, a shallowness dominates all. The pseudo-modern era, at least so far, is a cultural desert.

“Pseudo-modernism is …consumerist and conformist, a matter of moving around the world as it is given or sold,” says Kirby.(1)

On this premise, it is not surprising that Christians follow suit and that more and more churches have fallen prey to a wave of conformism, following society rather than leading society from the front.

Conviction church leaders are often confronted with congregational ideas born out of society rather than scripture. The current trend of ‘unity at all costs’ mirrors the consensus feeling of needing to belong to society rather than striving to bring the Gospel in all its clarity to society while praying for conviction ( yes, there it is again) of sin. The voices from the pews demanding ‘encouraging’ ( mollycoddling) type of sermons, rather than convicting ones are ever increasing. For example, things like horoscopes, and new age practices should not be seen as good things to be redeemed. The influence of current pick-and-mixing of ideas, which is syncretism clearly, from other religions such as the mounting influence of Yoga among Christians are clear indicators that somewhere on their Christian path, this generation of believers has not been led with clarity but rather with a type of ‘if it makes you feel good, I will not dare object’ type of cowardly leadersip.

In its extreme, politicians and church leaders have found it easier to become push-overs of societal consensus and have accepted ideas of homosexual reltionships, abortion, adultery, sexual relations before marriage, female headship and prosperity teaching and not only turned the proverbial blind-eye, but legalised some of them in a desire to be contemporary.

And while I accept that some Christian leaders, at this point in my argument, might very well propose they hold their views out of conviction, I would challenge them to make sure that is so. Make sure you have, like Margaret Thatcher, listened to the arguments, mulled over the evidence, dug deep into scripture and prayed for heart and mind change from God and be certain that your leadership and teaching comes from a humble heart, is underpinned with biblical truth, strengthened with Godly conviction and void of consensus.

Strong leaders, just like Maggie Thatcher, whether in business, politics or church are not always liked and sometimes misunderstood. And that is OK. Being liked must never be the leader’s goal. For Christian leaders it can mean, that they stand firm amidst mass pressure, and possibly, that they leave where they currently serve, but it can never mean that they go against their beliefs and give in to consensus opinion. We too easily bring democracy into the church, rather than seeing that it doesn’t matter whether I like something or not, what matters is what God says in His word about the matter.

I finish my thoughts with a quote from Albert Mohler’s timely online article, Leadersip as Stewardship, http://www.albertmohler.com/2013/04/12/leadership-as-stewardship-part-two/,:

“We are the stewards of truth and teaching. This is the essence of convictional leadership. Leaders are entrusted with truth, with deep beliefs and framing convictions. Those convictions must be taught and retaught, affirmed and reaffirmed, protected and cherished. Otherwise, everything we believe can be lost into confusion, corruption, and worse. As the stewards of truth and teaching, we hold a sacred accountability to perpetuate the very convictions that give life meaning, secure our hope, and summon us and those we lead to concerted action.”

(1) The Death of Postmodernism and Beyond is an essay by the British cultural critic Alan Kirby. It was first published in the British journal Philosophy Now, no. 58 in 2006 and has been widely reproduced since. It became the basis for his book Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure our Culture, published by Continuum in 2009. The essay argues that postmodernism as a cultural period is over, and has given way to a new paradigm based on digital technology which he calls “pseudomodernism” (changed to “digimodernism” in the book).