{"id":3165,"date":"2016-11-23T18:24:37","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T18:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/?p=3165"},"modified":"2016-11-23T19:51:34","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T19:51:34","slug":"three-qualities-political-leadership-acting-performing-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2016\/11\/23\/three-qualities-political-leadership-acting-performing-speaking\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Qualities Political Leadership: Acting, Performing, Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"djt_headshot_v2_400x400\"Like many others, I’ve been reflecting on the theological and pastoral significance of Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency. \u00a0And, like many others, I’ve been troubled by the support Trump garnered from some evangelicals. \u00a0As a law professor and theological ethics professor, I feel I need to risk a few public thoughts about political leadership, so here they are:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Character Matters<\/strong><\/em>. \u00a0Character matters because a leader’s character will inform his or her substantive policy decisions, particularly on hard, contested, urgent issues. \u00a0Character also matters because a leader in high office serves a symbolic role that sets a baseline for conduct in every sphere of the commonwealth. \u00a0A person invested with the authority of political office bears a heave responsibility to act<\/em> wisely, with gravity and restraint.<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  2. Symbols Matter. \u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Human beings are a symbolic species. \u00a0It is part of our created nature to respond to symbols that identify authority and power. \u00a0This is no less the case for an elected President than it is for a hereditary King. \u00a0A person entrusted with stewardship of powerful symbols — whether they are clerical vestments, a royal scepter, judicial robes, or the Oval Office — bears a heavy responsibility to\u00a0perform<\/em> wisely, with gravity and restraint.<\/li>\n

    <\/p>\n

  3. \u00a0Words Matter<\/strong><\/em>. \u00a0Words are among the most powerful human symbols. \u00a0Language signifies both specific concepts and broader attitudes, and invokes transcendent realities of thought and truth. \u00a0Through his or her words, a political leader represents these transcendent realities to the commonwealth and in a mystical but real sense represents the commonwealth before these transcendent realities. \u00a0A person entrusted with the responsibility to speak to and for the commonwealth bears a heavy responsibility to speak<\/em> wisely, with gravity and restraint.<\/li>\n

    \n<\/ol>\n

    There is nothing novel about these convictions. \u00a0They are present, I think, in the great tradition of political theology running through the Torah, the Old Testament histories and prophets, the New Testament’s reworking of the Hebrew scriptures, and in great Christian thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas. \u00a0Until recently, I think they were widely acknowledged by most serious Christians on the right, left, and in between.<\/p>\n

    In recent American history, when Bill Clinton defiled the Oval Office by exploiting a female intern, even engaging in illicit sexual conduct literally at the President’s desk, most Christians agreed that it\u00a0mattered. \u00a0When he lied to the public about the affair, it mattered. \u00a0When his defenders dismissed this conduct as a meaningless “sex lie,” it mattered. \u00a0Many of us, myself included, were outraged by this dishonest, facile defense. \u00a0I thought Bill Clinton was generally a good President on policy questions, particularly on economic issues, but such conduct cannot pass unchecked. \u00a0Whether or not this conduct merited impeachment and removal from office, it rightly provoked grave concern and approbation.<\/p>\n

    Many conservative Christians have now abandoned proper concerns about character, symbols and words because they think Trump is “pro life” and “small government,” in contrast to the deficiencies, real and perceived, of President Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton. \u00a0There are many reasons to doubt Trump’s commitments to these policy positions, and many reasons to question the strange brew of restorationism and libertarianism that characterizes much of the religious right. \u00a0Even granting those concerns, however, it is wrong, unprincipled, and dangerous to surrender the historic Christian conviction that earthly\u00a0political leaders play a central role in\u00a0mediating<\/em> truth to and for the commonwealth through actions, performance and speech. \u00a0We must now hold President Elect Trump to account in this role.<\/p>\n

    (Image Source = @realDonaldTrump Twitter profile).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Like many others, I’ve been reflecting on the theological and pastoral significance of Donald Trump’s election to the Presidency. \u00a0And, like many others, I’ve been troubled by the support Trump garnered from some evangelicals. \u00a0As a law professor and theological ethics professor, I feel I need to risk a few public thoughts about political leadership, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[75,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-theology","category-public-theology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-P3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3165"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3176,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3165\/revisions\/3176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}