Abstract
Robert
Greenleaf wrote in his essay “The servant as leader,” that a leader who seeks
to serve people places that desire as his or her top priority. The desire to
only lead, according to Greenleaf (1977), can be derived from feelings of power
and a drive to acquire material possessions (Greenleaf, 1977). According to Greenleaf
(1977), the two differ in the sense that the servant leader is motivated by
ensuring human beings most basic needs are met, that they are essentially being
guided towards their best interests. Greenleaf asks if the people being served
are becoming healthier, wiser, wealthier and freer. History is replete with
examples of leaders who, at their peaks of power, believed that what they were
doing was in the best interest of their people. Communists for example, believe
that the people should put all their faith in a state that is there to look out
for them because the state represented the highest level of authority. They
believed their values were representative of truth; therefore, failure to
adhere to those standards meant there was something defective about you.
National Socialist Adolf Hitler’s highest value rested in the creation of super
state at the head of a world socialist government, run by a master race no less.
He was a very charismatic leader that had the ability to get people to follow
him. He believed, in the beginning, that he was serving his people’s best
interest. Communism and Nazism (national socialism) both represent situations
where charismatic leaders motivated by the belief they were meant to serve
ended in disaster because they placed their values and beliefs above the
reality of an ultimate truth. That ultimate truth being the existence of God.
On understanding morality
There
is something off in the world today. Society seems to be drifting further and
further away from any semblance of truth and into chaos. America is thought to
have been founded on the ideals of Christianity, and it was believed that men
could be free because our belief in this truth kept us grounded in a “universal
morality” that taught the virtues of personal responsibility and mutual respect
for our fellow man. As John Adams said, “our constitution was made for a
religious people and is inadequate for any other.” According to the John Adams
center, Adams believed that morality cannot exist without religion. Religion,
Adams reasoned, was a source of instruction on morality for men and morality as
a philosophy, started from the given understanding that the world was created
by God. (John Adams Center). The idea of a universal morality which unite men
in a common understanding is only possible when the belief in such a concept is
commonly shared (Luz, 2003).
The
question of morality is currently debated from the perspective of either the
religious, or post-modernist viewpoints (Luz, 2003). The differences lie in the
past-present context, or relative way the word is applied. For example, the
religious perspective is that morality represents the way people conduct
themselves day to day in accordance with an understanding of a pre-existing
moral standard (Luz, 2003). In comparison, post-modernists tend to view
morality as a fluid, ever changing concept which can be molded to fit changing
circumstances (Luz, 2003).
By
contrast, post-moderns often analyze morality by deconstructing action,
intention, and consequence, all in the context of specific real-life
situations, including all the participants and their histories. Where the
former would argue that any claim to universal morality precedes the narrative
context of the actors, the latter would argue that the only viable universalism
that can be applied to morality is that it always derives from the situation
itself (Luz, 2003).
Understanding
morality on a situational basis is something that is also referred to as moral
relativism. The world is full of many religions, cultures and moral beliefs.
Moral relativism posits the idea that they are all equal without one being superior
to the other (Cook, 1996). The moral relativist believes there is no universal
truth that guides human morality and the concept of right and wrong, good and
evil can all be defined by where you happen to be at the time, the generation
you live or the situation you find yourself in (Cook, 1996). Moral relativism
itself is an example of western values ̶ in a way ̶ because it sprang from our
societies desire to be tolerant and understanding of different cultures and
beliefs (Cook, 1996). This is a value that unfortunately, is not shared by many
of the cultures we seek to understand. Greenfield (1977) said that a defining
characteristic of a values based, or servant approach of leadership is the fact
that Christians should not identify potential enemies and blame them for
society’s ills. In fact, he attributes many of the problems of today’s world to
the idea that many people are not exercising their abilities to be servant
leaders in accordance with God’s desires (Greenleaf, 1997).
Another
cause of moral relativism, according to Cook (1996) is our societies declining
religious beliefs. In 1962, the United States Supreme Court struck a blow to
religious freedom in the public-school system. In the case, Engle v Vitale, the
court ruled that the schools are barred from imposing Christian prayer because
it violates the constitution’s separation between church and state principle
(Melouka, 2018). This of course, is a false argument. It is based on a
re-interpretation of Thomas Jefferson’s letter to a religious minority, the
Danbury Baptists, stating that they need not fear the government imposing a
“national religion,” that there was a “wall of separation” between church and
state (Melouka, 2018). Jefferson meant of course, that the government had no
right interfering in the religious beliefs of American’s at all. Freedom of
religion and not establishing a national religion does not mean it is the
government’s job to protect you from religion. Melouka (2018) describes this
action as being a deliberate attack by atheists and other secular forces
against the decent moral character of the nation. This is not hard to imagine
as decades later we see more and more young people turning away from religious
beliefs (Pew Research Center) and pornography, homosexuality, violence and a
desire for socialism is taking it’s place.
Saul
Alinsky, community organizer and mentor to Hillary Clinton wrote in his book
“Rules for Radicals” that using the enemy’s rules against him was the most
effective weapon to use in the pursuit of social change. In fact, he said that
the Christian Church is unable to live up to their own rules, making this
tactic especially effective.
Make
the enemy live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for
they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to
Christianity (Alinsky, 1971).
What
are the rules Alinsky is referring to? Tolerance and understanding. As
mentioned earlier, moral relativism derives from our desires to be tolerant and
inclusive of other cultures, beliefs and religions even though they do not
share such desires. As Greenleaf (1977) stated, Christians do not identify an
enemy and exclude them in pursuit of a better world. In fact, he believes doing
so only guarantees that they will return. This is the biggest difference
between Christians and those that despise Christianity. To them, we are an
enemy and they have demonstrated throughout history a relentless desire, driven
by pure hatred it seems, to eliminate believers in what they believe is a
pursuit of a perfect, Utopian world.
It
is not in the nature of things that a society can be cleaned up once and for
all according to an ideal plan. And even if it were possible, who would want to
live in an aseptic world? Evil, stupidity, apathy, the “system” are not the
enemy even though society building forces will be contending with them all the
time. The healthy society, like the healthy body, is not the one that has taken
the most medicine. It is the one in which the internal health building forces
are in the best shape (Greenleaf, 1977).
In
the movie “Lord of the Rings-The Two Towers,” Theodan, king of Rohan, asks how
men are supposed to survive such reckless hate as his castle is stormed by
marauding Orcs whose one purpose is to destroy the world of man. The king
understood the Orcs were his enemy and what their purpose was, and yet he was
powerless to stop them because their power had grown too strong in the absence
of any opposition. Today’s Christians, attempting to be compassionate, fail to
understand the differences in moral beliefs and attitudes between those that
follow Christ and those who do not. The hard-political left, driven by the
motivation for societal transformation is willing to do anything in its
pursuit. They are guided by a moral belief which suggests that corrupting
themselves for what they believe is the greater morality and is the true path
to salvation. Alinsky refers to this as means and ends morality.
In
action one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent
both with one’s individual conscience and the good of mankind. The choice must
always be for the latter. Action is for mass salvation and not for the
individual’s personal salvation. He who sacrifices the mass good for his
personal conscience has a peculiar conception of personal salvation; he doesn’t
care enough for people to be corrupted for them (Alinsky, 1971).
This
may be true on some levels; however, without real leadership and a willingness
to stand for values that may seem unpopular or politically incorrect, we will
end up with someone else deciding which values are in mankind’s best interests.
Right now, it isn’t Christians leading the way. It seems not identifying an
ideology that contrasts traditional Christian values only enables them to keep
taking advantage of our tolerance and compassion. We have reached a point in
American society where transgenderism, as one example, has pushed its way into
the mainstream and boys, who are now able to identify as female, are using girl’s
locker rooms, restrooms and competing in girls’ sports. This could be
attributed to Greenleaf’s belief that not enough people are living up to their
calling to be servant leaders (Greenleaf, 1977).
One
place in American society that is in desperate need of spiritual, value-based
leadership is the public-school system. America’s public schools are a place
where a lack of leadership has resulted in a value system antithetical to
Christianity taking hold. Many people argue that schools should focus
exclusively on academic subjects such as math, reading and writing (Lindevaldsen, 2011). They fail to
realize however, that is virtually impossible to not infuse a system of morals
into the curriculum (Lindevaldsen, 2011). The morals represent the beliefs and
values of those who are developing and enforcing the curriculum (Lindevaldsen,
2011). Unfortunately, the lack of principled value-based leadership has
resulted in a public-school system where godless radicals are intent on pushing
the issues of homosexuality and transgenderism onto our children (Lindevaldsen,
2011).
One of the arguments made in pushing
this kind of education revolves around the issue of bullying and alleged
suicides committed by school aged kids. This is an example of the Alinsky rule
where the Christian value of compassion is twisted and turned against us. The
argument is homosexuality and transgenderism must be addressed at these early
ages to stop bullying and prevent suicide. Homosexual and transgender teens,
the school-system argues, are being targeted and harassed because of their
sexual orientation or gender identity. There is other research that suggests
the exact opposite. According to the Family Research Council, a faith-based
organization focusing on strengthening families, students identifying as
different genders or homosexual commit suicides at higher rates because of the early
exposure and the belief they are born that way (Sheldon, 2001). Ignoring this
research while continually pushing the politically correct agenda is putting
children’s lives at risk. If it is true that homosexual teens are targeted
simply for their sexual orientation, why would the school system insist on
pushing the issue? Elementary aged school children should not be exposed to any
sexual education let alone taught that homosexuality is natural and healthy
behavior. Perhaps the reason people face this kind of scrutiny is because the
act itself is unnatural-
"If a man also lie with mankind, as he
lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall
surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." Leviticus 20:13:
1
Thessalonians 5:22 tells us that we are to reject all forms of evil. This is
occurring in our public schools because we have failed to stand and insist upon
the implementation of Biblical values.
Values-based
leadership, if implemented correctly is the opposite of the Alinsky approach to
change. Alinsky, who dedicated his book to Lucifer, argued that the ends
justify the means in the pursuit of societal transformation. The left has a
vision where their moral standard represents the way society should be and
because they believe it is morally superior, whatever they must do to achieve
it is fair. Alinsky argued that corrupted means would not corrupt the ends.
Believing so he argued, means one believes in the “immaculate conception of ends
and principles” (Alinsky, 1971). How could corrupted means not corrupt the
ends? The left believed that introducing homosexual education to elementary
school children would eliminate harassment and suicide. Yet, decades later the
issue still exists. Whether kids are being bullied and committing suicide
because they are gay, or being introduced to homosexuality too early is
irrelevant in the sense that it is the lack of a value based education system,
based on morally sound principles that is leading to the situation in the first
place. Teaching elementary school children about homosexuality as a means is
corrupt. The results are getting worse; therefore, corrupted means do corrupt
the ends. Only the godless could think otherwise.
Values-based
leadership suggests that leaders should indeed focus on the means of attaining
their goals opposed to simply the ends (Rao, 2017). The ends do not always
justify the means. Rao, (2017) says that creating a better future for mankind
depends on our ability to live out our values and apply our principles. Failure
to do so can lead to disaster in any society.
People
flout norms and rules and deviate from basic ethics and morals because of various reasons such as to
ensure their survival--a desire to excel at any cost. It is a complicated
situation for many leaders who occupy higher positions. Empathizing with their
situation would be tantamount to justifying their deviation from basic values.
However, wrong is always wrong (Rao, 2017).
We see this concept playing out as a matter of
truth in the public schools. For whatever reason, principled leaders have
failed to take a hard stand against the introduction of an education curriculum
which corrupts the minds of our young children. Whether they did it to ensure
the survival of their own careers or because they were afraid of being
portrayed as uncompassionate and intolerant, their inability to say no is
reaping it’s consequences. We have progressed from a seemingly innocent
suggestion that kids should be taught about homosexuality to prevent bullying,
to the idea that men can identify as women and violate the privacy of young
girls, and you’re a bigoted intolerant person for suggesting otherwise.
Real values cannot exist without truth. In our
world of moral relativist philosophy where truth exists merely as a social
construct values can be diluted and can slip away without any real, moral
anchors holding them in place (Hester, 2010).
Truth, as mentioned by Luz (2003), can only have any real meaning if it
is a universally accepted belief. Over the past two hundred years, since the
era known as the “age of enlightenment” mankind has taken a drastic turn away
from what was once the defining standard of morality, a belief in God (Ahmad,
2003). Man has placed his own ideas of morality and right and wrong over God
(Ahmad, 2003) and the results have been devastating.
Hester (2019), also suggests that value-based
leadership is largely dependent upon the term “value-based.” People have
different values which they all prescribe to their morality (Hester, 2019).
Hester (2019) for example, describes the feminist movement along with the
so-called #me too movement as movements which allegedly push the nation in a
more moral direction. Others would argue that feminism has destroyed the
American family and the #me too movement as being responsible for destroying
the America principle of jurisprudence or, being innocent until proven guilty.
Piper (2013), suggests that the passing of Obamacare was a moral and ethical
thing to do even though it’s initial designer, Johnathon Gruber, later admitted
on television that they depended on the stupidity of the American voter and a
lack of transparency to pass it into law (Viebeck, 2014, November 10).
Joseph Stalin, Pol-Pot, Adolf Hitler, Vladimir
Lenin and many others placed their values in an atheistic system of governance.
They are examples of leaders who placed their moral principles and philosophies
higher than God’s to get the people to follow their dictates. Communism became
viewed as a morally superior system that preached total equality. All men were
to be the same, none being better or worse than another. Failure to conform to
such ideas or believing that some men were more capable than others came to be
viewed as intolerance and standing in the way of a perfect society. Communism
is now known to be a crime against humanity and a system of total tyranny
(Courtois, Werth, Panne, Paczowski, Bartosek & Margolin, 1999) where over
one hundred million people were murdered by their own governments. It is a
prime example of how corrupted methods will indeed corrupt the ends, despite
what Alinsky teaches in Rules for Radicals. The issue of homosexuality being
taught in the public schools is another example of the term “values-based,”
describing the morality of those employing the term. Public schools have been
absent a Christian based morality since Christianity has been barred by the
Supreme Court. Even if this was a deliberate attack against the nations moral
character, as Melouka (2018), suggests, there are those that
genuinely believe they are working to prevent the harassment of young children
who identify as homosexual or transgender. Their values may be misplaced
however, it can be argued that they are employing a values-based leadership.
The
only way to set society on the correct path, and to correct the problems we
face is to return to a Biblically based morality. Greenleaf (1977), argued that
Christians should not identify opposing ideologies as enemies and blame them
for society’s ills. This is true in many ways. Calling a schoolteacher who is
empathizing with the troubles of a homosexual youth, for example, an enemy,
will not solve anything. Neither will ignoring the problem or adding to the existing
curriculum that introduces the topic of homosexuality to school children. The
truth will speak for itself and a correlation must be drawn by principled
“faith based” leaders between Biblical truths and the problems associated with
homosexuality, and other problems we face today. Ignoring the problem or not
speaking up is the real cause, as Greenleaf (1977) suggests. Hester (2010), said
that real values cannot exist with a moral anchor that supports them. There is
no moral anchor supporting the teaching of homosexuality to young children.
This is especially true when you consider the fact that problems associated
with homosexual youth are many and still growing. If homosexual or transgender
teens are committing suicide, why introduce them to the concept at all?
Christians must reject the idea that their insistence of Biblical based
morality is intolerant and uncompassionate. The exact opposite is the truth,
failure to defend Biblical morality is what is causing societies downfall.
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