If you live in the United States it is hard to avoid the vitriolic moral wars that characterize this year’s U.S. Presidential race. The police shootings of black men and the shooting of police has fueled an added moral fear…
Category: Leadership
Issues relating to leadership.
Authority in Ethics 4: Satan’s Power, Jesus’ Incarnation
We are in the middle of a 7 part series on power and authority in Christian Adventist Ethics. I first introduced power as the ability to influence and move people or things and authority as legitimate power. I argued authority…
Education and Redemption are One
Jesus and I are in the same line of work: redemption. At least that is the implication of Ellen White: “Education and redemption are one” (Education, 1903, p. 30). There are several ways people interpret that “oneness.” SAME: Jesus was…
Authority & Ethics 3: Jesus’ Baptism
This 7 part series is looking at authority in Christian ethics. My first post reviewed power, authority, and the disdain for both and the how ethics needs authority to makes its claims. Second, I used select passages in Matthew to…
Judgment: Event, Experience & Person
Our pastor, Dwight Nelson, gave a wonderful sermon yesterday, January 30, 2016. It was on the Judge of the Judgment. For those who have heard him before, it should be no surprise that it was uplifting, biblical and well-delivered. All…
Jeremiah 4: Grace in Judgment
My first three posts on Jeremiah’s “Adventist” ethic reviewed the role of prophets as moral irritations (post 1) against the status quo. Prophets are holy and morally sober in the presence of widespread moral confusion and intoxication. Such a stand…
Jeremiah Ethics 3: Can Adventists Run with Horses?
I run 5k races and once I ran a 10k with my daughters (only because there was no 5k event). I don’t run long races. I can’t handle it. As such, God’s question to Jeremiah hits a sensitive spot: “So,…
Jeremiah Ethics 2: No More Ethical Cowards
There is a big difference between wise caution and cowardice. One will help you make better decisions. The other will thwart great innovations. One will lead you to heaven. The other will take you straight to hell. “But the cowardly,…
Jeremiah Ethics 1: Moral Irritation
Living moral truth often means going against the status quo. It means “standing up for the right though the heavens fall” (White, 1903, Education, p. 57). It is evident when a person seeks sexual purity or promotes heterosexual marriage when…
More Moral Leadership in Our World
Most of us need more exercise. Most of us want more money. We all could use a little more love. But the greatest need and want is for moral leadership. I have been on a twenty year journey of using…
Angry Leaders
As we noted in the last several blogs, anger can be good as it initiates reaction to injustice’s two forms: apathy and abuse. Anger can rally our emotions and juice up our soul to make us aware that something is…
Anger, Protests, and Riots
It is November 25, 2014 (I updated this November 26, 2014. Updates in parentheses) In the middle of a three part series on anger, it seems appropriate to take a moment to discuss the recent demonstrations and riots in Ferguson,…
Authority and Power: Exercised and Ascribed
It was a key theme throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry, especially in the final weeks leading up to His crucifixion and death. It has been a key theme in Jesus’ heavenly ministry, as High Priest, especially in the closing work of…
The Trinity, The University and Christian Professors
I teach at a faith-based university, Andrews University. We get persecuted in the blogs from left and right, from outside and inside our church. Most of the animosity gets directed at our Seminary. There is something about religious and theological…
Labor Day and an Adventist Work Ethic
In the US, we celebrate work by taking a day off. (Except of course if you work the holiday shift like my wife does). We call it Labor Day. It is the first Monday of September but stretches out the…
They Follow Me
One of the great temptations in life is to think you are the ultimate leader, you are in control of the ultimate outcomes, and to forget there is a God, and you are not Him. The other great temptation is…
Lead Change and Judge Rightly
One of my favorite teaching and learning sites is at Iowa State University. The site explains Bloom’s revised learning taxonomy which provides rich advice to both students and teachers on how to improve learning.The site provides several examples of learning experiences.Some experiences…
Ethical Leadership: What is it? How to develop it?
I teach LEAD645 – Ethical Leadership at Andrews University. In LEAD 645, we explore what ethics is and what leadership is and how both-concepts can be developed together.There is a dual relationship to the concept. First, I see the call…
Is God Morally Engaged?
Some people think about being moral. Some people hope to be more moral. Some people plan to be engaged. Some actually are morally engaged and committed.What does it mean to be morally engaged, involved, and committed? Is God morally engaged…
Power, Authority, Morality
The power play unfolded as most do. The clerk questioned the leader’s ethic in using company resources for personal use. The leader, ruffled by the challenge, appealed to her superior position over the clerk and spoke of her sacrificial work…
Following, Leading, and Managing: Roles of Administration
The chair of my department and soon to be Dean of our School of Education, Robson Marinho, reminded me that American higher education has more faculty governance than higher education in most other countries. As an international expert on higher…
Ambition—Recipe For Moral Leadership or Failure
I have been confused for most of my life about what to do with my ambition—the dreams to do great things and accomplish amazing feats. Was that drive from God or Satan? Was it promoting the spirit of Christ or…
Ben Carson, The Health of Nations
This original Post in November 2013 is getting updated for 2016
Drunk Leaders, Sober Advice and God’s Judgment
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford admitted to smoking crack recently and new videos of his rants show he struggles to remain a sober leader. Many feel he needs to resign or find a way to control his erratic behavior and stop…
Discovering the Extraordinary in the Ordinary, part 2
In Discovering the Extraordinary in the Ordinary, part 1, we examined the importance of the ordinary, mundane experiences that shape the life of the leader as found in Reggie McNeal’s, A Work of Heart: Understanding how God shapes spiritual leaders. Continuing in chapter…
Discovering the Extraordinary in the Ordinary, part 1
I have been reading Reggie McNeal’s A Work of Heart: Understanding how God shapes spiritual leaders recently. One particular chapter that has challenged my everyday thinking is Chapter 10- “Commonplace: Discovering that the ordinary is extraordinary.” McNeal’s main point is this–the spiritual…