Transition, change and power

I turned out to vote yesterday, for a new Police and Crime Commissioner. There were only two candidates to choose from because only two had bothered to leaflet our house and I don't like voting for people I have never heard of, so these two got my vote, in descending order of preference.

The last couple of weeks have been a time of transition and change. The politics of Church and State are at a crossroads.  In political contexts of varying degrees of significance, from the President of what is still considered to be the most powerful and prosperous nation on earth, to the transition of power in China, to the announcement of a new leader for the Anglican Communion, this is a time of radical change. Choices will need to be made between life and death, choices which will affect us all. The different power contexts of faith and state will overlap significantly in the lives of Christians who live in countries where there is political unrest.  I am not singling out Christians as the only people of faith to be affected by the politics of power. I only mention them because they represent, and try to be faithful to, a particular kind of leadership, a leadership which forgoes the kind of power which keeps politicians in business. Christ chose not to exercise control over individuals or to make his political mark on the history of a particular nation. The irony is that in relinquishing power he had enormous power, and this frightened certain people and ultimately got him killed. His was the power of God's all consuming love for humanity made visible and real in a hospitable form of leadership which was neither dictatorial nor consensual.

In the world, and in every context where power is at issue, people's lives are affected for better or for worse by the way their leaders handle power, especially when power is allowed to get a stranglehold on the individual exercising it, rendering him or her powerless because of the fear which drives them. Syria is a case in point here. Those who are really powerful are also those who do not allow themselves to be driven by fear. They are not owned by the money, institutions or interest groups which keep them in power. They are people who dare to live with integrity, so they are liberators who inspire hope.

In the Anglican Communion we have seen this kind of leadership in Rowan Williams whose wisdom and goodness has been the 'judgment', in a theological sense, the moment of truth, for the Church to which he has given himself over the past decade. The way in which he has refused to play power politics has disturbed many of his critics. They do not know what to make of this wise and sacrificial model of leadership, so they revile it. Archbishop Rowan Williams has patterned his leadership on the model bequeathed to him by Jesus Christ. At the heart of it lies God's purpose for the freeing of his people. The Church, and the world, is being challenged to use power to liberate and enliven, or to suppress and dehumanise. This is also the 'judgment' on our politicians, on bank and industry bosses, on the police and on highly placed individuals in positions of trust relating to security and the machinations of conflict.

The Christian model of leadership draws on ideas of service and priesthood. The one who would be first must be the servant of all. The leader must be the servant of freedom. Freedom entails taking responsibility for others, (a priestly responsibility) because if leaders do not have the wellbeing of those they are there to serve as their primary concern, everyone will be consumed by the deadening effect of concentrated power. When I voted yesterday, I did so for two reasons. First, because my parents fought a war which, for all its horrors, made it possible for me to do so and second, which follows from the first, because our government, and its police, are still accountable to us. This is not so for much of the world today.