Leadership
Items on leadership and its personal and public implications
Obama’s ‘Bitter’ Comments
Sun 27 Apr 2008 • Responses: 3 • by David Aikman
The rigors of the campaign lead to what may be a landmark moment.
Every presidential campaign cycle has its landmark moments. Television viewers watching the debate in 1960 between Richard Nixon and John Kennedy were shocked by how unattractive Nixon’s five-o’clock shadow appeared. He lost the debate on television, even though those who heard the debate on the radio thought Nixon had scored more points. Then there was the moment when Ronald Reagan seized the microphone during a 1980 Republican primary debate in New Hampshire and announced that he had “paid” for the microphone and was going to hold onto it. And who can forget Michael Dukakis, George Bush’s opponent in the 1988 election, trying, by driving a tank on camera, to look manly and in-charge and to demonstrate he was commander-in-chief material? Unfortunately, he simply looked absurd.
Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright
Tue 01 Apr 2008 • Responses: 0 • by David Aikman
By many observers’ reckoning, Senator Barack Obama’s major speech on race in the U.S. at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center March 18 was one of the rhetorical highlights of the 2008 presidential election season. Obama’s 5,000-word address was skillfully crafted, eloquent, and a powerful attempt to bring balance—and the views of both blacks and whites—into discussion of “America’s original sin” of racial injustice over the centuries. As the son of a white woman from Kansas and a black man from Kenya (which raises the question why people of mixed race with one black parent and one white parent are almost always deemed to be black and not white), Obama is certainly in a good position to shed light on this often poorly illustrated topic.
The Bigger Picture
Mon 31 Mar 2008 • Responses: 1 • by Gary Moore
In the current financial climate, perspective is a critical attribute of leadership.
During the early nineties, the media, both secular and religious, convinced a large percentage of Americans that our $5 trillion federal debt was of earth-shaking proportions. (They did much the same in the late nineties during Y2K.) As Americans were living on about $25,000 on average in 1990, it is easy to see how that $5 trillion number could look like a giant in the promised land. And most people were quite surprised when I told them the White House had actually estimated that America’s net worth, after subtracting all debts owed to foreigners, was $66.4 trillion in 1990.
A Life Worth Emulating
Fri 07 Mar 2008 by Luder G. Whitlock, Jr.
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Aitken (Crossway, 2007), 400pp., $22.
Jonathan Aitken, a skilled biographer and author of the award-winning Nixon: A Life and, more recently, Charles W. Colson: A Life Redeemed, has produced a valuable biography of John Newton illumined by important, unpublished letters and diary entries. He embellishes a compelling narrative by inserting thoughtful assessments of Newton’s life and ministry at appropriate points.
A flurry of books, articles, and films about William Wilberforce have been published recently in celebration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Appropriately so, for in addition to his pivotal role in Parliament leading to decisive action against the slave trade, Wilberforce was an extraordinary figure of great influence in England.
Bush in Africa: Unexpected Encomiums
Mon 25 Feb 2008 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
President Bush has not exactly been above the fold of the front pages of most American newspapers these days, let alone on prime-time TV news. Understandably, with one of the most interesting presidential election cycles in decades well under way, attention has been focused on whoever is considered most likely to be Bush’s successor as the tenant of Washington’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in just eleven months. Many people—especially Democrats, who smell blood and victory in November 2008—wish that the President would just go away. His popularity is quite low, with poll numbers regularly in the 30s. Past months have even had him rated in California within two points of President Richard Nixon after Watergate, and Reuters last October pegged him at 24 percent. (At the same time, however, Gallup had him in the 30s).
But the President doesn’t have to go away until noon on January 20, 2009, and as President Nixon once famously remarked, even three weeks is a long, long time in American politics. Every president holds onto the possibility of a turnaround in popularity. In fact, the President for the past week has been in one continent of the world where he is decidedly popular: Africa. During a five-day tour of five countries—Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia—Bush was welcomed by ecstatic crowds and told by one African leader, “You have been a good friend of our country, and of Africa.”
Perhaps, a Flicker of Light
Wed 13 Feb 2008 • Responses: 2 • by Al Sikes
Reflections on the 2008 U.S. Primaries
Al Sikes, chairman of The Trinity Forum, reflects on the light glimmering through the elections fog.
What Do Evangelicals Do with Power?
Fri 01 Feb 2008 • Responses: 3 • by David W. Miller
Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, by D. Michael Lindsay, Oxford University Press (2007).
Some books have the good fortune of being well timed and well written. Faith in the Halls of Power is one of those books. For those familiar with or maybe even a part of the American evangelical world, little in this book will surprise you, though its depth and breadth will impress you. For those who are not familiar with or a part of the American evangelical world, you might find the contents both jarring and comforting.
It is jarring, because Lindsay documents well the deep and successful engagement by evangelicals in the elite leadership ranks of virtually all strategically important spheres of modern society, including politics, the academy, the corporate world, and the arts. It is comforting, because most of the evangelicals Lindsay describes belie the negative stereotypical image of evangelicals held by many progressives, liberals, mainliners, and secularists. Lindsay’s evangelicals are not the narrow-minded, judgmental, backward, bellicose voices sometimes caricatured by today’s cultural elites. Rather, they are smart, savvy, and worldly, participating in and quietly trying to change the system from within, not withdrawing from the world or merely casting stones from the sidelines.
Making a Difference
Fri 21 Dec 2007 • Responses: 6 • by Donald M. Bishop
‘Young Altruists’ Need a Broader View of Doing Good
Donald Bishop, a senior U.S. Foreign Service officer, looks at the difficulties faced by some young adults who want to use their careers to make the world a better place. He argues that they leave unexplored real possibilities to do good. It’s time to question the conventional wisdom and consider the possibilities of business, the military, and long-term overseas service as means to help the poor and suffering.
Judgment
Thu 15 Nov 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Al Sikes
By many of today’s single-issue, polemic political tests, some of the most revered figures in biblical—and even American—history would be summarily rejected.
In the summer of 1989 I was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to be Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Several weeks later, as I was making the rounds of U.S. Senators on the Commerce Committee, I learned that my confirmation would be opposed by the Rev. Don Wildmon, of the American Family Association. His testimony was sponsored by then–Senator Al Gore, who was a senior Democrat on the Committee.
The Challenge of Cultural Influence
Thu 15 Nov 2007 • Responses: 5 • by John Seel
Coercion is just as harmful—and ineffective—in culture as in politics
John Seel notes a new humility among evangelical Christians who recognize the need for cultural renewal and the shortcomings of previous politics-heavy strategies. He offers some reflections that followers of Christ should keep in mind as they engage the culture, for doing the wrong thing may be worse than doing nothing.
