Pastor and church leader Andy Stanley teaches often on leadership. Recently he tackled the topic of political leadership. “What if our leaders made a fearless moral inventory and took appropriate action?” he asked. Congressmen resigning; politicians coming clean and being transparent.
What if also our church leaders? Business leaders? Us?
Stanley made two comments that have stuck with me. First, he asked the question, “Do you view religion through the filter of your politics; or do you view politics through the filter of your religion?” That’s really something to ponder. Which value system comes first?
His second point was that all the politicians we love to criticize have one thing in common–they were elected. By us.
In both cases, change starts within us. Regardless of conservative or liberal, if that person running for office is a moral scoundrel, should we vote for her or him? Think about it.
Once again, I think we need to look at the example of leadership modeled by Nehemiah. Talk about moral authority. When he confronted the local Jewish leaders upon his return to Jerusalem about how they were ripping off many of the people financially, he revealed that not only was he not taxing the people for his income (which was the expected and accepted practice) but he used his own wealth to help them pay back their high interest loans and his own wealth to run the governor’s office and staff.
This is moral authority. He didn’t take on political leadership to become rich. He took it on to serve God.
In all we do, why are we doing it? What do we expect of our leaders?
Faith Venture 
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