The Futility of Pessimism

And leadership with hope

When I think of effective leadership, traits such as integrity, courage, humility, and honesty come to mind. According to Gallup, however, for a majority of people, hope is the most desirable characteristic among leaders.

Across 52 countries and territories -- accounting for 76% of the world’s adult population and 86% of global gross domestic product -- Gallup asked two questions:

1. What leader has the most positive influence on your daily life?

2. Now, please list three words that best describe what this person contributes to your life.

The three words that people use to describe the most positive leaders in their lives fall into four themes. Hope stands out as the dominant need, accounting for 56% of all attributes tied to positive leaders, far outnumbering mentions of the next key need, trust (33%). Compassion (7%) and stability (4%) combined account for about one in nine positive leadership traits mentioned.

Why would this be? This is not just in one country. It’s across many. Perhaps the answer is as simple as this: life is difficult. In wealthier nations we are able to mask some of its unpleasantness, but we struggle nevertheless. I didn’t realize the extent of this until I served on a church staff. Each week we would go through the list people in need of pastoral care. Often I would think, “Wow… I had no idea,” or, “From the outside, they look like they have it all together.” Guess what? They didn’t have it all together. No one does. Relationships sour. What once seemed a secure job can become uncertain overnight. Loved ones pass from this life. Illness strikes and we face our own mortality. We watch friends or families make bad decisions. Life is difficult. It is more difficult for some people than others, but it is difficult for everyone nonetheless.

Good leaders can point to the potential for good amid our struggles. Not only that, they help to chart a course toward the good, helping others to see how to get there along the way. They can instill hope and thus promote the flourishing of their communities. To know what flourishing involves, moreover, they have to know and understand what their communities value. So good leaders—those who can inspire hope—will first be good listeners.

One would think the church would be full of hope-filled leaders, optimistic and confident. After all, we believe God loves us, which means he wills our good. We believe in a God who acts in history, who even became one of us in Jesus Christ. He broke the power of sin and death on the cross and after three days rose bodily from the grave. These truths alone should generate intense hope in every orthodox Christian. And good Christian leaders will be those whose starting points are these central truths of our faith.

And yet so many conversations among church leaders are deeply pessimistic. Sometimes it seems we are resigned to the decline of the Western church, as if this were something utterly outside of our control and all we can do is watch. In other words, our theological convictions and our expectations are misaligned. We proclaim the God of Scripture who is intimately involved in human life. Yet we expect the God of Deism, who sets the universe in motion only to sit back and watch it spin.

Michael Astrapas and EutychiosTzim78, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I wonder about the extent to which predictions of church decline become self-fulfilling prophecies. It is one thing to take stock of the current trajectories. We must, as Jim Collins says, “confront the brutal facts.” It is another to resign oneself to decline. Perhaps there are theological reasons for the decline of Christianity in the West. Perhaps, for example, God is pruning the church. If so, it is only for a time. God wishes all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 2:4). While pruning is painful, it is also purposeful. Its purpose is that we would bear more fruit.

On the other hand, perhaps the decline of the church is largely the fault of its leadership and members. Perhaps we need to look at the ways in which we have gone about our business as the church and change course—or, in the language of the church, repent. It would be helpful to look at the practices and beliefs associated with those branches of the faith that have seen the most decline. Likewise we would benefit by looking at branches of Christianity experiencing growth, revival, and renewal, and learn from them. This is not simply an observation of numbers, but of fruitfulness. Where is the church changing lives? Where is she making the most impact beyond her own walls?

The truth is likely a combination of these two factors: God is pruning the church, at least in part because we have entertained beliefs and engaged in practices that are inconsistent with his will. And yet “the Lord disciplines those whom he loves” (12:6). God is not abandoning us, but chastening us to guide us in faithfulness.

Now back to leadership. The best Christian leaders in this time will be people of vision who can see the way beyond the present difficulties into a future of faithfulness to God’s will and fruitfulness in mission. They will communicate hope to those they lead. They will understand both God’s correction and God’s will for the church to thrive. They will lead with the purpose and power of the living God.

I’m not talking about “happy talk”—pleasant and vacuous rhetoric that ignores the gravity of the moment. Happy talk is the opposite of hope because it isn’t grounded in truth. It proclaims, “Peace, peace!” where there is no peace. It is the discourse of court prophets. It is a kind of avoidance behavior that is both naïve and poisonous. It masks indecision. Happy talk is an opiate.

Real hope is rooted in truth. As Christians, we know that truth became a person in Jesus Christ.

Do not succumb to the narrative of inexorable decline. It is a lie. God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. He can do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine (Eph 2:20). The God of the Bible is the God of today, and the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us (Rom 8:11). He is not the God of the dead but the living (Matt 22:32). We can live with hope because of the nature of the God we serve. To do otherwise is to give up on the gospel.