Henri Nouwen is a internationally well-known author and a priest. He had written more than 40 books regarding Christian spirituality in reflection of this personal spiritual journey. He was born in Nijkerk, Holland, on January 24, 1932, and he was called to be a priest in his early age. He moved to America in 1964, and he taught at the University of Notre Dame, and the Divinity Schools of Yale and Harvard.
In 1986, he joined L’Arche Daybreak near Toronto, Canada, which was founded by Jean Vanier for the people with developmental disabilities. Even after his death in 1996, his legacy has been still affecting millions of Christians and seekers through his books that are sold more than 2 million copies in over 22 languages.
As the title implies, <In the name of Jesus: reflections on Christian leadership> was written for Christian leaders, and more specifically, it is targeted to his fellow priests and ministers. Originally, this book is from his speech about Christian leadership in the twenty-first century in response to the calling of Vincent Dwyer, the founder of the Center for Human Development in Washington D.C.
Nouwen confesses his anxiety by the request to reflect on Christian leadership. He contemplated how to begin this task and decided to write down his innermost personal and present life at Daybreak. In this book, his reflection is beautifully unfolded in correspondence to two stories from the Gospels: Jesus’ temptation in Matthew 4:1-11 and Peter’s call to be a shepherd in John 21:15-19. In each chapter, he parallels each point from each story and integrates them to explore and support his topic.
He begins his reflection from the subject of identity in his first chapter. The first topic is “The Temptation: To Be Relevant”. He shares his first experience as joining the community and living with mentally disadvantaged people. To this new group of people, none of his books, academic achievements, or his reputation meant anything. He explains that this facing his naked self was the most important experience of his new life to discover his true identity. He argues that the future Christian leader are “called to be completely irrelevant” so that they can enter a deep solidarity to meet the light of Jesus.
After this, the question of Jesus follows; “Do you love me?” He distinguishes the first love, the love of God and the second love, the rest of love. He believes to know the heart of Jesus is the same with loving him. This is continued to the discipline of contemplative prayer. The Christian leader must have the ability to dwell in the presence of God so that they can keep the intimacy with God in the midst of the world where to be relevant is the theme.
His second temptation is to be spectacular. The hidden desire under this temptation is to be an individual hero. Nouwen points out the problem of individualism that becomes dominant in this century and brings the readers to the light of communal and mutual life and ministry. He breaks the fantasy of being super-individual to where this competitive world drives people. He confesses how his life was all about being alone to become capable in everything and shares the communal experience with the broken and wounded people in the community.
Jesus offers the new task after checking the heart of Peter: “Feed my sheep”. Still, he argues that our individual mindset automatically compels us to interpret this as his individual task. He shows how Jesus always sent his disciples as a group for a communal ministry. For this new task, he believes that the discipline of confession and forgiveness is necessary to overcome the temptation of individual heroism. He says that priests and ministers are the ones who are lonely and need help. He recommends them to have a safe place where they can share their struggles with people who do not need them.
In his last chapter, Nouwen invites the readers to a radical paradigm shift that Jesus spoke to Peter: from leading to being led. The last temptation is to be powerful. He confesses and admits that this temptation has been the most difficult challenge in Christianity history, which resulted in crusades, inquisitions, etc. He questions why this temptation is seemingly irresistible, and he answers that it might be because “power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love”.
This radical paradigm shift of leadership is contrary to the worldly belief that the leader must be a strong leading force. Henri argues that the servant leadership that Jesus exemplified is that “the servant leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places.” Although it sounds pessimistic and masochistic, he says this downward-moving way is the way of joy and the peace of God. For being able to follow this calling, he challenges the future Christian leaders for theological reflection discipline. This is not a call to be an intellectual and academic theologian, but to think, speak, and act in the name of Jesus.
<In the name of Jesus: reflections on Christian leadership> is different from many other leadership books as it deals with the essence and the foundation of Christian leadership. It does not provide a manual with numbered practical advices. Rather, it invites the readers back to the core of the leadership, the heart of Jesus. At the same time, this may be a weakness because its approach does not touch the practical realm of leadership. Most of all, many of his arguments came from and based on his experiences in a unique setting, a community for mentally challenged people.
Nevertheless, I am convinced this book accomplishes its purpose to address the essence of Christian leadership for the future Christian leaders. As he admitted, this book does not deal with new concepts; rather it goes back to the oldest and most traditional vision of Christian leadership. However, this vision is the heart of the servant leadership, to where our ultimate model and the lord Jesus called us. Nouwen’s purpose to bring the Christian leaders back to this vision is well accomplished in a beautiful and contemplative, yet the most powerful way.
