It’s common these days in church circles for people to suggest that we need to see ourselves represented in order to fully participate in something. On the face of it, there’s something very true there. However, I think it’s often confused.
What’s true
Those who lead us do represent us; this is a key Biblical truth. We see in Paul’s discussion in Romans 5 that we are either represented by Adam or by Jesus, belonging to one or the other humanity. We see a similar argument in 1 Corinthians 15. The one who represents us really matters: the head of the body changes the nature of the whole body.
We instinctively know this is true in a more limited way in everyday life. The leadership of a company or organisation changes the nature of that organisation. A new CEO in a major company does shift things, sometimes significantly. Culture can be difficult to change, and sometimes institutions seem intractable, but we’ve all seen it happen. A new manager changes a football club not just by their decisions about tactics and team composition, but also by their presence. A new CEO might make surprisingly few decisions, but the culture shifts around their presence. A pastor was telling me recently about when they joined a new church and deliberately didn’t make many changes, resolving to ‘preach the Bible and love the people,’ he commented that many of the things he might have liked to change did change anyway without him saying anything. Presence is powerful.
While I’ve used different words, we’re talking about the same thing as representation. The leaders of the institution you’re a part of, whether or giant multi-national corporation or a household, affect the tone and tenor of it. We change because of them. We are represented by them.
Except, that probably wasn’t what people meant by represented. They probably didn’t mean that those at the head of the institutions they belong to have profound effects on them personally, and they probably didn’t mean that those heads represent them to the outside world. Instead, people probably meant that they want to see ‘people like them’ in these ‘head’ positions, maybe even that they need to see people like them there in order to participate in the institution in question.
What I’m saying is this: it works the other way around. You will see people like you in the head positions because institutions are moulds and you will be moulded towards those whose shape they take. You’ll change to be like them, and you will then be ‘people like them.’
What’s false
That sounds anathema to a contemporary audience. We don’t like it however true it is. Sometimes the moulding activity doesn’t come from the top but from a significant constituency in the ‘middle’ on the institution. This tends to be a feature in institutions that are very resistant to change, whether churches or households or the civil service. We think we need to be represented by someone like us right now, and often by someone who shares a number of immutable characteristics that are ‘accidents’ (in the Aristotelean sense) of birth.
We need to return to the gospel example I started with. You are represented to the Father by Jesus. That’s what it means to be in Christ. If you’re female you are just as represented to the Father by Jesus as I am as a man. You do not need a female Christ. If you do not share Jesus’ ethnicity—and most of us don’t, as most Christians are Gentiles, whatever the colour of your skin—you are just as represented by Jesus as a Jewish Christian is. If you do not share Jesus’ socio-economic status, family background, or education—and let’s be honest you don’t—you are just as represented by Jesus as a Christian who did share those things would be. He has chosen to make himself associated with you, entered into our world of dust, in order to lift you into the heavens.
If it were otherwise we would be stuck. We shouldn’t then accept the argument that, for example, complementarian eldership teams cannot represent the women in their congregations. Of course they can. It is true that they will need to think about how their decisions affect women, that it might be wise to talk to some women before making certain decisions, and weigh all of that in the round. That doesn’t mean they can’t represent you if you aren’t in the room. All representation requires that someone who isn’t perfectly like us stands in our place. All governance requires the same.
In a similar way it is a good thing to visually represent that we are ‘one new man in Christ’ in the leadership of a church. This might mean that if your church is racially diverse, you work over time to ensure that your leadership is also diverse in similar ways. However, you don’t do it because you think people ‘need to be represented,’ and you don’t do it because you think there’s a quota. Instead, you do it because you believe you’re one new man in Christ and you seize the opportunity to express this. ‘Diversity’ is not the good we’re aiming for, in and of itself. It’s likely that we find it easier to see gifting and character in those like us, so deliberately working to find and develop it in others is wise; that isn’t the same thing as insisting something like ‘the next elder in the church must be black.’
If Jesus can represent us, then we should pick the right people to appoint as our ‘heads’ and leaders. They will, to some degree, mould us in their image, for good and for ill. In our churches we trust that Jesus is truly the chief shepherd and he will mould us in his image, but the effect exists with under-shepherds too. That should chasten those who lead us, but encourage the rest of us as we are moulded into the images of those that the church has appointed for their character. In fact, I think that’s one of the reasons that the focus in the New Testament isn’t particularly on gifting but instead is on character. That’s the mould we’ll be cast in. It should be as Jesus-shaped as possible. Nothing else is anywhere near as important.
Photo by Wonderlane on Unsplash
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