Peter Adam
As we look through this list, note that these causes may shape leaders who bully, and may also be reflected in the people who submit to a leader who is a bully.
- An unconverted natural sinful tendency to be proud, to dominate or control or be successful,
- The idea that this is such an important job that the end justifies any means to achieve it.
- Leaders who think that they are above the basic Christian disciplines of love, service, humility, respect for others, self-discipline, self-restraint, and a willingness to be corrected by others.
- Extreme self-centredness and self-focus.
- A desperate need for approval and applause from others.
- Forgetting that the NT pays much attention to the moral character of those who do gospel ministry, and to the motivation and style of that ministry. [See Titus 1 for moral character, and 1 Corinthians 13 for motivation and style which must be love].
- A tendency to blame others when things go wrong, and to neglect to reflect on your own contribution to this state of affairs, leads to bullying.
- A desperation about the failure of the church and gospel ministry which leads to the view that ‘anything that succeeds must be of God’.
- A worship of present and obvious success.
- An activism which leaves no room for reflection or critique.
- A refusal to be challenged, corrected, or rebuked.
- A tendency to focus on the Bible verses which describe what other people should do [e. g. ‘obey your leaders and submit to them’ Hebrews 13:17, and neglect the Bible verses which describe what leaders should do: ‘not domineering over those in your charge’ 1 Peter 5:3].
- A belief that people doing gospel ministry are a race apart, and cannot by questioned or disobeyed.
- The relentless tendency of people in ministry to compare themselves with other ministers, with the resulting envy, despair, or competition, superiority, and pride.
- The deliberate fostering of ‘celebrity’ and ‘image’ in contemporary Christianity.
- A long-term link between the entrepreneurial spirit and Christianity within evangelicalism.
- A foolish trust in gifts which obscures questions of character.
- An inadequate theology of church members, their insights, gifts, and responsibilities under God.
- A leader who has promised such wonderful success, and begins to bully people in order to achieve it.
- A confusion between ‘my kingdom’, or ‘our kingdom’, and God’s kingdom. [What matters is the growth of ‘my kingdom’, or ‘our kingdom’.
- Sadly, those who have been bullied can tend to bully others.