Rabbi Elan Babchuck, who is presenting at Neighborhood Economics on his research into what’s working and what’s not in the faith-based accelerators from across the country, has written a book about a new kind of leadership.
Writing with the Rev. Kathleen McShane, Director of Learning and Innovation for Texas Methodist Foundation and Wesleyan Impact Partners, the authors say that their book, Picking up the Pieces, Leadership after Empire, is about unlearning the lessons of leadership obsessed with control and certitude.
The traditional form of leadership was born in the pyramids of the Egyptian empire, and it suppresses the spirits of its leaders and the people who follow them.
Babchuck and McShane’s model is based on Moses, who had to unlearn the empire’s model before leading his people to freedom.
While the exodus dates back thousands of years, religious organizations continue to operate in the shadows of the pyramids–the symbol of empire–that the Israelites once toiled to build. The reason is understandable, given that pyramids are remarkably stable structures. Pyramids lend an orderliness to organizational relationships in our churches and synagogues.
However, McShane and Babchuck argue that such leadership models reflect cultural traditions more than theological convictions. These patterns elevate the structure of the pyramid above the people. They reward the consolidation of power at the top, at the expense of the freedom of those below. They constrain creativity and elevate efficiency at the cost of human dignity
In Picking Up the Pieces, McShane and Babchuck argue that these leadership models are not the way of the Gospel. Therefore, today’s religious leaders need a more generous model. They need a leadership model in which power is shared rather than hoarded and in which every person can stretch toward the fullness of their God-given gifts, regardless of where they land on an organizational chart.
Through an innovative exploration of Moses’s biblical narrative, the authors suggest that Moses’s leadership failures were because he, too, was shaped by empire. The authors notice Moses’s stumbles and corrections and the ways he picks up the pieces of broken leadership templates to guide his people toward their liberation. Picking Up the Pieces also offers stories of contemporary innovators and boundary-stretchers who grapple with failed experiments of religious leadership.
The book is for those leaders who are ready to change.
Dr. Walter Brueggeman, noted Old Testament scholar, had this to say about the book “As ancient Israel tells it, Pharaoh, with his absolutism, certitude, speed, and control, is over and done with. Except that, as these wise authors know, Pharaoh continues to reappear in new forms. These alert and discerning authors–one a Christian and one a Jew–see that Pharaoh’s mode or leadership has too long dominated both church and synagogue with the practice of top-down, all-knowing, all-controlling leadership. By teasing out the biblical text and citing compelling contemporary embodiments, these authors advocate and celebrate an alternative form of leadership in religious communities that is marked by openness, collegiality, and forward-anticipating restlessness. This is practical theology at its best. The book is a primer for how to bring our leadership practices into sync with our core tale of emancipation. The model of Moses both permits and requires our departure from Pharaoh and his leadership. These authors know how and where to look for such a generative alternative.”