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Keisha E. McKenzie | communication | systems | social good

self-doubt

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Doubt as corrosive

Evangelical author Lisa Sharon Harper spoke at The Justice Conference in Chicago last month, shortly before the release of her book, The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right. Since the launch, she’s been hosting short live video broadcasts where she comments on each book chapter and highlights the key issues it raises.

I listened to one tonight (via Facebook Live; not captioned).

In this video, Harper acknowledges the impact of gender injustice and patriarchy on women who lead. She argues that the ideal of shalom (a) decouples gender from leadership “calls” and “capabilities,” and (b) further refuses to make gender an excuse to dominate any category of human.1

It breaks relationship when there is the impetus to dominate one over the other… We were created to partner in our dominion with no distinction in the way that partnership looks in Genesis 1 or Genesis 2. The way that [domination] plays out is consequential. It has the potential to squash people’s calling, to squash their spirit.” —Lisa Sharon Harper

I resonated with Harper’s observations on the women of Nuns on the Bus, aninitiative of NETWORK that I’ve tracked since hearing NETWORK’s executive director Sr. Simone Campbell and her peers live at Georgetown a few years ago. As Harper says in the video, these women are people who have “found their voices” despite the cultural tale that older people should consider winding down and stepping back, and despite ecclesiastical discomfort with vocal, public, and moral female leadership. These women are using their voice nationwide to challenge federal budget priorities, advocate for fair and equitable access to housing and healthcare, and promote consciousness about issues from immigration to voting rights.

Harper also shares some of her personal experience with being demoted from worship teams and prayer groups when men began to debate whether women who were doing ministry could do ministry. she reflects on how that controversy about her and other women’s capacity to exercise dominion, to steward, and to serve yielded in her a deeply corrosive doubt about the value of her skills, the quality of her ideas, and the merit of her voice.

Years later, I was on-staff with another Christian ministry that actually really valued women’s leadership. And I began to see the difference between [me] and the women who came up through that ministry. Those women assumed leadership. Those women actually—they had great ideas, and they would just run with them… and they would just get stuff together and they would do it and it would be brilliant and amazing! And people would be served, and stuff would flourish.

But with me, having had that [domination] background, I realized I…had to step back and wait to be asked to lead, and then when somebody asked me, I was like ‘No, that’s not me; I can’t do that,’ or my ideas would never get put forward because I didn’t think that they were valuable enough.” —Lisa Sharon Harper

Systemic social oppression damages its targets. It also damages those who wield it. But it especially damages its targets in minority stress and internalized devaluation as well as in overt violence and discrimination. It corrodes both social interactions and the health of our cells.

So we can ask, as Harper does, “Where have we believed the lie that we are not fully made in the image of God?”

And then we must go further to ask, “How can we transform the social structures and institutions and laws and environments that teach and reinforce that lie, so that we can all instead live the truth?”

It’s not enough for a few fortunate individuals to declare the truth in our private universes: truths that the external world never validates can easily be reframed as delusion. I’m more interested in a world where we don’t have to scratch up remedial self-concepts against an oppressive social current, and where individuals can be whole because we all are.

  1. Throughout the video, and the book chapter it’s based on, Harper refers to “both” genders—just two. That model leaves quite a few people out from the ancient world of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, let alone variously gendered people in contemporary society. I suspect that this focus is about the kinds of evangelicals she is writing to. [Back to text: ◄]

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Leadership means accepting authority

Look at the relationship between the English words authority and author. It’s almost as if this language conspired to remind us that authority is about intrinsic power to write one’s way into new realities, interpretations, and ways of being.

Authority: Origin (Latin) auctor - originator, promoter > (Latin) auctoritas > (Old French) autorite [and] (English) author > (Middle English) authority
Etymology chart via Google and Douglas Harper.
What I didn’t know until recently is that there’s also an etymological relationship between author and authentic. To be authentic means to be real and genuine; authentic also implies the first instance, source, or origin of a thing. No imitation. No down-the-assembly-line model. The authentic instance is the original.

Leaders don’t necessarily invent: we don’t all need to become an Edison or a Walker. As leaders, we do get to cultivate the prime instance of an approach or experience. Whether we create something entirely new or redevelop something old in unique ways, the one thing we’re sure to have authority over is ourselves.

Who teaches the acorn that it’s allowed to grow into an oak tree? Who approves the transition of the panther cub into an adult big cat? Who gives you permission to write, or design, or make music, or launch a business? While there’s bureaucracy in registering companies or publishing books and music, there’s no bureaucracy involved in you accepting yourself and whatever it is that you uniquely bring into the world.

There’s no need for you to seek permission or approval for whatever you are or will become. It’s not a matter of consensus.

How you work with others given who you are is a matter of consensus and respectful negotiation. But who you are is not.

Sometimes we ask for peer permission to do things we know we’re called to do. It seems humble and deferential but it’s more often a way to delay and deny our own truth. It’s a stalling tactic, and it’s also extremely effective!

Should others encourage us despite our own resistance, we can play coy and dismiss them. If others mirror our resistance and discourage us, we can treat their doubt as fact.  Either way we get to dissociate from what we know and we externalize the authority we already have to make it real.

This can go on for our whole lives if we want it to: we have the authority to do that. The good news is that we also have the authority to give up the game whenever we’re ready.

Nothing’s as unnerving as a forerunner who isn’t sure they wish to race, and nothing more compelling than a leader who has committed to becoming themselves and therefore can support you in your own personal and professional unfolding.