The following article is contributed by the Forum for Caribbean Theological Discussion an ecumenical grouping of Jamaican ministers from the Anglican, Baptist, Missionary Church, Methodist, United Church of Jamaica and Cayman Islands denominations.
THE PEOPLE'S National Party (PNP) is in the midst of a process to select a leader. Such a leader when selected will immediately be elevated to the office of Prime Minister of Jamaica.
It is expected that general elections will follow the leadership selection within another 18 months and the country will be called upon to choose between leaders of the two political parties a Prime Minister to govern Jamaica for the next five-year period.
Should specifically Biblical or theological criteria for leadership play any role in the selection of a leader for a political party?
Is there a basis for an abiding faith in the viability of the notions of leadership that are found in the Bible?
For example, the idea of political messiahship is a badly discounted idea, perhaps because different peoples in their own histories have been made to swallow the bitter pill of political messianism.
Does this also mean that the biblical paradigm of servant leadership is also discredited?
This article aims to reflect upon the race for the selection of the leadership for the PNP and a future Prime Minister of Jamaica in the light of biblical notions of leadership.
LIMITATIONS
Any discussion of this nature is fraught with difficulties that limit its possibility for long-term usefulness.
In the first place, the discussion is weakened by its proximity to the events themselves. It is difficult both to offer the overall perspective of a distant observer and the perspicuity of an outsider who is unconnected to what is going on. What is even more problematic is that the events are unfolding before our very eyes.
Secondly, in the particular case, one could argue that the candidates come from the same family, have been a part of the same political administration, indeed the same Cabinet, for a protracted period of time.
Differences among them have, therefore, to be regarded as more nuanced rather than sharp or extreme.
It is difficult to generate the kind of interest that is there when there is a presumed risk that interests of whatever sort are threatened should the results go in a particular direction.
Thirdly, without any acknowledged entrenched secularism, it is remarkable that no comment at all has been warranted or made by any section of the church. It is almost as if the church has conceded that this is not its fight.
Is there any role for the church? Do we believe that the values of leadership found in the Bible can play a role in ranking the characteristics of those on offer to determine their relative suitability?
CHURCH'S ROLE
There are roles that may be played by the Christian community. There is a role in raising the discussion about leadership itself and the standards observed by the process of selecting a new leader.
Without seeking to impose specifically religious categories on this political process, there are some minimum requirements that must be borne in mind and should guide the selection process.
In the first instance, leadership is a sacred trust exercised on behalf of those it seeks to lead. It, therefore, needs to be given within the framework of offering public service.
Leadership should not be approached from the perspective of a divine entitlement of any one. It is as servants of the people that leadership is to be offered.
As such, the leader must be characterised by a spirit of humility. This humility is not a matter of temperament but of approach.
Humility calls for the willingness to work with others and to engage team-building approaches.
It readily recognises that it does not have all the gifts, but offers its strength and its weakness with a spirit of openness.
The idea of a celebrity or superhero leader who possesses all the gifts and can carry the nation without the help of anyone else serves no useful purpose in the Jamaican setting.
SPIRIT OF HUMILITY
Leadership must be given with the spirit of unity and humility. The leader must seek to build a team.
Humility approaches the opportunity to offer leadership by putting its record of service, its personal integrity and its articulated vision for the society on the line and invites the people to a thorough assessment as the soundest basis for their choice of a leader.
The leader who is seeking to offer public service and is therefore, characterised by humility, comes to the opportunity with an eagerness to do more for the people than what may be on offer for the leader. It is about service rather than status.
Secondly, leadership is a stewardship for which the leader must be held accountable. A leader is accountable to God, to history and to the people.
This sense of trust and stewardship must guide the actions and decisions of the leader.
In the complex world of modern democracies, decision making often requires the trading off of complex and competing interests.
It is important that leadership does not allow itself to be captured and, therefore, to be beholden to any single interest that may compromise its obligation to the whole.
Leadership cannot be smug. It must avail itself of the best advice and make use of the available expertise.
However, those in leadership must be prepared to take responsibility and must lead. It must be prepared to take the tough decisions, must show courage of conviction and must seek to account to the people he or she leads.
A sense of accountability cannot be learned on the job. It is something that must be brought to the qualifying bar.
Candidates should offer for examination their record of service as political representatives, including the progress of their constituencies, their stewardship as members of the executive, and the nature of their political campaign.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY PEOPLE
Candidates should also prepare themselves and willingly subject themselves to the most rigorous cross-examination by the people to which they are seeking to offer themselves to serve.
Thirdly, leadership is called upon to be compassionate. The leader must share the struggles of the people being led. Leadership has a requirement of solidarity with the people. The leader must not remove or insulate leadership from the vagaries of the circumstances of the people.
The leader must neither exploit nor patronise the people. Leadership must identify with and seek to transform the struggles of the people. The progress of political mission is to be validated by its contribution to the advance of social justice. It is the palpable improvement in the lot of the ordinary people of the land that is the acid test of political leadership.
It is important that the poor and disfranchised are not doubly exploited by repeating pious platitudes about love for the poor without an adequate and sustainable policy frame to substantially change their lot.
MUST SHOW CARING
Those who seek to serve as our leaders must show their care for ordinary people. They must be called upon to articulate an approach to governance and development that comes to terms with the situation affecting both the rural and urban poor.
They must also articulate a framework in which the rights of citizens will be safeguarded and our democracy deepened.
Jamaica has been buffeted in recent days both by natural disasters and by international trade policy regime changes, all of which have had an adverse effect on especially the poor and vulnerable.
Leadership must show a capacity to anticipate and respond to the environment, hemispheric and global challenges that threaten emerging small economies like our own.
The bold new world in which Jamaica faces leadership change is more complex, more unhelpful to the vulnerable, more divided, more hostile, and more at the mercy of dominant and hegemonic interests.
Leadership is, therefore, called upon to do far more to anticipate challenges and prepare the people to respond to them.
Leadership must position itself with the regional, hemispheric and international relationship that can strengthen the nation to respond to such challenges.
More than anything else, the leader is called upon to embody the values that are required by the vision for the transformation of the society that the leader espouses.
The leader is to give example and concreteness to the highest ideals of this society.
In a sentence, the leader must be someone that Jamaica's children can proudly emulate.
