The pastor I am talking about is not an arrogant man. He is actually quite humble, all things considered. But what he is not, is confident. He only looks confident. A person who cannot admit their faults is afraid, is insecure, and leads from the belief that if they make a mistake, nobody will follow them. A confident person would admit mistakes freely, because they really don’t need you or I to approve, they would get that from Jesus, and they’d teach us to get it from Jesus too. Instead, they teach us that they do not make mistakes, and so they are selfish.
Nobody in scripture is perfect, save Christ. And God has no trouble airing the dirty laundry of his followers. Peter denies Christ, but God leaves the incident in the text, Moses is a murderer, but God leaves the story in the text, David cheats on his wife, Lot offers his daughters, Thomas won’t believe his friends who saw Christ alive, and so on and so on. There are few good marriages in the Bible, and fewer good fathers. Throughout the ages, Christians have been more than comfortable admitting their humanity, almost as a reference to God’s goodness. Until, that is, western civilization and, perhaps, the commercialization of our culture. Now Jesus is a product, and we sell him, and if we are selling a product, the product better work, so we just make things up about how great we are.
A pastor friend and I were having lunch recently and he asked for advice about writing a book. He is a terrific guy and had terrific stories. But I told him many of the Christian authros I read make the same mistake the secular authors do, though to a greater degree, and that is the writer gets in the way of the truth. The truth is in there, but so is the writer. The writer wants you to know about his message, but also that he or she is smart. The writer wants you to know about their message, but also that he is tough and you better not mess with him, and that you area coward in comparison. The writer wants you to know about his message, but also wants you to know he is a good writer! The trick is, even if you are talking about yourself, to get out of the way. Tell the truth. Of course, because we are fallen, we aren’t going to nail this, but we have to try.
I heard an interview a long time ago with the folk singer David Wilcox, in which Wilcox was asked how he managed to be so vulnerable and open in his songwriting. Wilcox answered that, when he sits down to write a song, he tries to share something he is afraid to share, something that, to him, might be embarrassing. He does this, he said, because in giving the audience something they can use against him, they create a trusting relationship. It’s as though he is taking his pistol out and handing it to the person across the table.
I’ve applied this technique to my writing, and it is scary stuff, but it’s true, it does create a trusting relationship with your audience. 1 out of 100 people use it against you, and it does in fact hurt, but it’s worth the other 99 relationships that are authentic from the beginning.
As Christian leaders, we will be tempted to surround ourselves with yes men, and we will be tempted to get rid of anybody who doesn’t agree with us. We will cloak this under “God’s will” or “we weren’t on the same page” but this can only go so far. If you keep it up, you’ll find yourself alone. I’ve made this mistake many times, and had to learn the hard way. At The Mentoring Project, I now have to submit to my board, and to our Executive Director. I frequently get vetoed, and it’s clear I am not top man on the totem pole. In fact, I am simply seen as an advisor. Oh, the days when I once had power! (and more than a little dysfunction)
I’ve noticed healthy children often have parents who sit down with them and explain their short-comings. A parents admission that they weren’t perfect frees the child to learn from their parents mistakes rather than cover up or react to family issues. But parents who, in neediness and selfishness, will not admit fault, in an effort to control their children, often have children who feel they cannot be safe with their parents, and sometimes react. Authenticity works in all forms of leadership, I think.
Yesterday, Robert S. McNamara passed away. MacNamara was President of Ford Motor Company before going to work at the Department of Defense. He was instrumental in the bombing of Japan in World War II, and is often called the architect of the war in Vietnam. But toward the end of his life, MacNamara began to reconsider his actions. He even wrote a book confessing what he felt were his wrongs. He left the Johnson administration and ran the World Bank, some believe, to make up for the many lives lost under his command.
I don’t have a strong opinion about the war in Vietnam. War is messy, and I tend to believe we had good reason to be there, though it certainly didn’t turn out the way we would have hoped. But hindsight is twenty-twenty. I am more interested in MacNamara, though. I am more interested in a man with a distinguished career suddenly coming out and admitting he was wrong. It is so rarely seen by a government leader.
Perhaps it was the haunting memory of the soldiers who passed, or the protestors, one of whom, a married Quaker, burned himself alive outside McNamara’s window. The mans wife would later write McNamara, after he admitted his mistakes, and forgave him. In an interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, McNamara broke down crying as he read her words.
McNamara’s tearful confessions can be seen in the Academy Award Winning documentary The Fog of War. It is a gripping film, revealing the confusion any leader faces during war. But what is more fascinating is that the film captures a man who decides his reputation is not more important than the truth, and the clearing of his conscious.
And did it cost McNamara? It didn’t. Those who support the war, still support McNamara, and those who protested it, see him as another kind of hero, a man who laid down his ego so history could learn from what he felt were mistakes. He was an arrogant man, and he was more consumed by his ego than troubled by the war he ran in which hundreds of thousands were killed. But in the end, perhaps, he did a thing that was noble. I don’t know why else he would apologize, or admit fault.
In my opinion, the most important thing a leader can do is admit his mistakes. He or she should be competent, and should have integrity, and some mistakes really do disqualify you from leadership, but so should deceit, even if its self deceit.
Rest in peace, Robert McNamara.
Donald Miller’s new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years releases this fall. You can pre-order it here.
(You can tweet this entry or place it on your facebook page using the buttons below and to the right)
Don:
I have the utmost respect for you in all sorts of ways, as a writer, as a man, as someone who is trying to make an impact for Christ.
That said, I am the daughtger of a soldier killed in action. My father died in the war that Bob McNamara helped orchestrate.
I believe in redemption. I do. I believe that a man or woman can know the Grace of God, no matter what. I don’t know if McNamara ever sought that kind of grace. Here’s what my friend Joe Galloway had to say about McNamara’s apology this week:
“Back in 1990 I had a series of strange phone conversations with McMamara while doing research for my book We Were Soldiers Once And Young. McNamara prefaced every conversation with this: “I do not want to comment on the record for fear that I might distort history in the process.” Then he would proceed to talk for an hour, doing precisely that with answers that were disingenuous in the extreme — when they were not bald-faced lies.
Upon hanging up I would call Neil Sheehan and David Halberstam and run McNamara’s comments past them for deconstruction and the addition of the truth.
The only disagreement i ever had with Dave Halberstam was over the question of which of us hated him the most. In retrospect, it was Halberstam.
When McNamara published his first book — filled with those distortions of history — Halberstam, at his own expense, set out on a journey following McNamara on his book tour around America as a one-man truth squad.
McNamara abandoned the tour.”
Granted, there is no love lost between McNamara and Galloway.
Even though I was a journalist, I never did go see McNamara’s movie. I couldn’t do it. I will never see it. It hurts way too much.
It was Joe who told me about a little known fact. During the buildup to the Tet Offensive, Johnson needed more warm bodies. More cannon fodder. McNamara went to him and urged him to grant “exceptions” to the Army’s standards. He sold it to Johnson under the notion that it would allow rural Southern boys and urban blacks opportunities.
Over 365,000 men were brought into the Army under McNamara’s plan. They were issued special numbers so that their Sgts. would know that these boys weren’t quite up to snuff. Some only had IQs of 75. In other words, they were mentally handicapped. They died at a ratio of 4 to 1 over the regulars.
There may be lessons to learn from McNamara but the lesson of forgiveness isn’t one I’m willing to afford him at this point.
I don’t buy his tearful confession. At all.
Bob McNamara is no leader. Not in my book and I don’t believe in God’s book he is either.
“The least of these…”
Karen Spears Zacharias
Daughter of Stf. Sgt. David P. Spears, KIA, July, 1966.
Karen,
What a remarkable response. Thank you so much. He is even more confusing now than before.
That said, I am not sure if McNamara got honest before or after 1990, but the book and film are more recent, and in the film, he is blatantly honest and introspective, almost exorcising demons. While it would be extremely painful to watch, it might help in the forgiveness process, should you desire it.
What a wonderful legacy your father left you, and a thoughtful person he brought into the world.
Conflicted. I think that’s the word that best describes McNamara. I believe he wanted forgiveness. And I hope he had as difficult time sleeping at night as my buddy Joe has had. Joe wasn’t even a soldier. He was a reporter. But if you knew the stories of those veterans that I love so much, you would never have written this post. Never. The only people who believed in McNamara’s apology were the ones who didn’t know the truth of that war and the pain that it continues to cause, long after the bombing has stopped.
And, yes, thank you. My father left a wonderful legacy but the point is that he didn’t want to leave. He wanted to stay around and be the daddy that the three of us loved. He wanted to raise his kids up. But because of the lie that Vietnam was, he never got that chance. Bob McNamara did.
If you want to read more on what it measn to grow up fatherless as a result of war, check out AFTER THE FLAG HAS BEEN FOLDED, Wm. Morrow,
This has been an interesting read this afternoon. I didn’t know very much about Robert McNamara (still don’t know much about him) but I do feel that politicians have an enormous capacity to be dishonest and disingenuous and rather shamelessly so. And even admitting mistakes has become somewhat of a Catch-22. Sometimes it serves a dual purpose to be so outre and controversial.
I think that people in the public eye tend to be rather more broad than any of us can paint. We only see what has been orchestrated for us to see. It seems that in this public social landscape, everything is planned and primed and deliberate.
That said, I think in our own private relationships we can see behind the curtain that others construct a little bit more clearly. And true honesty (like that of David Wilcox who is just so wonderfully open) is not appreciated.
I wish we knew the whole story of every hard issue that comes across our desks, and I wish that we could have more discernment. I do know that forgiveness comes with the wonderful gift of freedom. And 99% of what other people put onto us is about them and not about us. Sometimes owning that truth makes it easier to forgive and move forward.
Hi Don
Just wanted to send through to you a blog I have started that you may/may not be interested in – I’m not sure, but I hope you’ll take a look:
http://alcoholicspartner.blogspot.com/
Don,
Thank you for this post. I’m not going to get into the conversation of war, it’s something that is messy and I don’t feel I have the position to speak on. That being said, I think topics covered in this post would be valid even without the mention of Robert McNamara. Honesty and transparency are huge, especially among Christian leaders. Actually, that’s what draws me to your work. Many times you write from personal experience, exposing the things some writers would rather bury. You don’t claim to be perfect, which makes you more relatable. I enjoy your writing and hope to get a hold of any future works. Thanks again!
I think McNamara was caught in between a rock and a hard place. Early after the war, he felt like no matter what he said it was going to be distorted in some form.
I think he said in some form that he’s damned if he says something and damned if he avoids it; and that he’d rather be the latter.
Can’t blame him really. When he is conflicted in a manner where he may feel he stole the lives of young men; what can he really say to make it better? I opine that he can’t say a thing and not be criticized.
It’s a tough spot. I say he should be forgiven at least for admitting that he felt he was wrong. With that type of power, it would be easy to be pompous about any situation. He didn’t act that way and made what amends he felt were necessary.
I love what’s written here about telling the truth honestly. And it may turn out that I’m a fool for believing McNamara, but The Fog of War moved me to tears. There are few things I want more than to find that kind of radical honesty in myself and the church.
Only God can know this man’s heart, but from all appearances, what he did looks a lot more like biblical repentance than 99% of leaders who orchestrated that war, as well as other unjust wars. Give him kudos for saying what he said. He clearly knew he screwed up lives of soldiers and their families, and lives of civilians and their families.
Karen, he’s dead now, so it won’t matter to him if you forgive him. It might just matter to you, though.
Don,
As a person who habitually sticks her foot in her mouth, there are a lot of mistakes I have owned up to. It’s a painful process whether the mistakes effect millions or effect just you. I read Karen’s comments, and my heart is heavy because I can’t imagine the pain in her life because of this man’s mistakes. However, I pray her heart would be open to forgiveness.
I’ve never watched Fog of War, though I’ve been tempted to a few times. I never really understood what it was about, nor did I know anyone who had seen it.
Anytime our egos step aside and allow our hearts to grieve over our prideful actions, we are allowed to grow. Growth is painful, but my life would be empty if I never stopped to survey the damage I’ve caused.
Your blog has stirred a thought process which will require a bit of a moral inventory. It’s good to clean out the closet every know and then.
[...] I was surprised by a recent post on Donald Miller’s blog in which he refers to Robert McNamara as noble. That is just not a word that I would ever apply to McNamara. I said as much in the [...]
So how can we effectly strip away all of those awful things that get in the way of our writing and the truth?
I suppose it takes honesty, reflection, and a pretty darn good mirror, but this is certainly a point to ponder for a while.
This is a very interesting post, Don. It reminded me of a comment I once heard Howard Stern make. He basically said that if a Christian pastor ever came to him and was honest about the mistakes he made in his life, before AND after his conversion, Howard would take an honest look at the faith.
I know many pastors who would do just that, and I don’t think Howard was actually seeking, but I think his statement speaks for many people who have had experiences with the church and it’s leadership.
Don,
I want to preface my thoughts here, as Karen did, ans say that I love your books, thoughts, & your desire to join God’s work in advancing His Kingdom. Thanks for your work, it’s revealed many things & helped challenge me when I needed it most.
I don’t disagree with this as a “leadership” post, which was your obvious intent. We would all be doing ourselves a disservice by not applying these thoughts to our various leadership roles.
My aim is not to steer toward politics, but to point out that you may have written a great “leadership” post that has a political “fog of war” blurring what clearly are great thoughts on leadership. As inadvertent as this may have been, it’s difficult to use a figure like McNamera as an example for anything but politics & war. Plus, politicians have different thoughts on what makes a good leader. For instance, “classified” info. in the name of “national security”. I would agree with an honest use of classified material, I just don’t believe the enormity of such a contradiction as “honest politics” exists in the kingdoms of this world.
I watched “Fog of War”, & commend McNamara for what he was able to realize & admit the what he did wrong & share that struggle with us.
For me, it boils down to this; It’s what McNamara didn’t address that I look at. Political deals for money, political standing, payments owed. Most people who opposed the war would tell you that McNamara leveraged the Vietnam war for global positioning and power using the lives of our men, the men of our allies, & the Vietnamese, to do so. Not to mention, using the situation & the control over global stability that it gave him to manipulate the nations within the UN as well. These accusations were never addressed by him, so that is the “fog” he carries with him into everything that invokes his name.
It sounds like I just bashed the guy, I too believe in redemption & pray that came for him whether he spilled all the beans or not. I too, am hopeful that Robert McNamara “Rests In the Peace” of the Glory our God.
I’m 62, a Cold War veteran and the father of a rape survivor. I doubt that I’d be able to sit through a documentary interview with my child’s _____. I don’t know what to call him. I “forgive” him by doing my damnedest to live as a husband/father in a way that says he didn’t win.
The Vietnam War runs like a highway median through my life. I first heard the name Viet Nam in seventh grade as our advisors were just going in. The war continued through grade school, 4 years of high school, 4 years of college, 4 years of military service–and for another two years after that. I lost a cousin and a K-12 classmate friend there. My brother-in-law served there and won’t talk about it. My best friend who died this year came home with all kinds of blood on his hands and struggled with morality all his remaining days. Three times as many Vietnam vets as died in the war later took their own lives. Divorce rates topped 90%. Etc.
I saw The Fog of War. I cried through much of it, not for Mr. McNamara because he had a choice. I cried for an entire generation and their families who had no choice and for the countless Asians whose faces only God knows because we will never see them.
My guts have been churning ever since the news broke yesterday.
I am grateful that my friend Karen had the courage to write what she has. And I am grateful that a number of people with no recollection or experience of the Vietnam War have taken notice. I urge you to continue. As I student I asked questions and got no answer, while in the USAF I went to Washington, DC to breathe tear gas after the shootings at Kent State U. While stationed overseas I wrote letters to President Nixon, senators, congressman. I prayed. And my church? Completely speechless, tongue-tied, of no help to me whatsoever. The war machine finally choked on its own blood after 16 yrs.
The Fog of War brought uncontrollable tears because it confirmed for me that I wasn’t totally insane. What had smelled rotten really was. The questions I had asked of my govenrment and leaders had been anything but disloyal. They were my sworn duty as a bound citizen of this land. And I consider it still my duty today to honor, recognize, write and speak for military veterans whose pain & conflicted experience so much of the country did not and still does not want to know.
Today, 99% or our population has no direct involvement with two overseas wars of choice sold under false premises and veils of secrecy. The current generation of war architects are writing their own spin books. Look deeply. Question faithfully. War is being done in your name and on your children’s piggy banks. War is always sold as the work of God.
But when it’s a war of choice, an elective war, how much of it can ever be reconciled as following the way of Christ? Whether Robert McNamara truly “repented” and had a change of heart we can never know because we can never fully know him or what he knew. But we can ask ourselves where we are on war being waged in our name. “It doesn’t affect me” is not a position. And either the God we know in Christ is God enough for everything or not God enough for anything.
I find this post and the response from Karen fascinating and can’t help but think of all the children who have lost their fathers and mothers in the Iraq war orchestrated by Bush-Cheney.
These types of discussions are important to understanding, hopefully healing and ultimately choosing leaders and holding them accountable so they don’t lead us down this path again.
I appreciate your posting this entry. I remember in high school having some very difficult discussions in our church group about love and truth. We talked about how being committed to those things will sometimes bring pain especially as we direct them to other people. It’s like how God loves us though – his commitment to truth and love sometimes means rejection from people who don’t love him and separation from people who aren’t committed to truth.
It’s only sort of related to what you’re saying about leadership, I suppose. But it’s nice to be reminded of these things. Being honest about mistakes isn’t a complication-free way of living, to be sure. Thanks again for your post.
Let’s not miss the point of the post. Who/what McNamara was or was not may not be construed in a short blog post… So whether the illustration was misplaced or misguided is beside the point.
I’m a Christian. I have failed miserably at times. I don’t blame Jesus, or my circumstances, or the people around me. Sin is a reality in every person’s life.
I find the third paragraph to be the most important of the blog. “Now Jesus is a product, and we sell him, and if we are selling a product, the product better work, so we just make things up about how great we are.”
I’m amazed at the anger non-believers hurl at the Church when talking about the failures of believers… but almost only when believers don’t take responsibility, confess, seek forgiveness and restore broken relationships when they can.
Somehow, especially in North America (I’ve lived in three countries now…), everyone expects Christians to be sinless – especially our leaders. But the “product” of Jesus is a lie… the relationship isn’t.
When two friends walking together take separate paths at a fork in the road, why should we expect one of the friends to behave and act like the other is still beside him?
I can honestly say… that’s been my path more times than I’d like to admit. Do I wish I was perfect – like Jesus? Sure. The carnage of sin can be messier than war (and yes – war is a product of sin and the sin nature).
“Authenticity works in all forms of leadership, I think.”
I heard a speaker at DCLA 2000 say this: “Never trust a leader without a limp.” It has stuck with me. Humility in admitting mistakes and sin struggles are traits I look for in someone I am prepared to follow. It is also something I try to be transparent about in leadership roles. We aren’t perfect, why pretend to be?
Enjoyed the blog. Keep it up.
We had a church leader once say to us, “When I stop repenting, then you should stop following me.” Shortly after, he refused to admit fault in several relational situations, some of them personally related to us. We were reminded of his own statement and felt complete release from his authority.
Don,
I am sure you are no stranger of others praising you for your writings but your works have truly been life-changing for me. I read Blue Like Jazz the summer between my Junior and Senior year in high school and felt that it offered a different glimpse into Christianity. Growing up in a Christian home, being at church whenever the doors were open, and attending a Christian School from pre-school to graduation; well, you could say I was a little bit more than sheltered and over-protected.
This post needs to be publicized and broadcast to every church possible (perhaps more importantly, to those who do not yet know Christ but are turned off when Christians are not willing to admit their mistakes). I have served under both kinds of leaders: those willing to admit their mistakes and those that will do anything to keep their mistakes secret even if it means leaving a wake of “dead bodies” (disgruntled employees and angry volunteer) in their wake.
I think I most appreciate this post because I was a former leader/volunteer of a youth group that made multiple mistakes, and for some time the mistakes remained hidden. However small these mistakes were, including bashing the leadership behind their back, not approving with the direction of their vision, not being their like I should have for certain students and then the mistake that cost it all: getting to close to a student…I am sure it will be years before I can publicly admit this mistake but just so no one gets the wrong idea nothing physical happened, there was no need of legal action.
I think it is most important when leaders recognize their own mistakes and are willing to admit them, no matter what the consequence. I think in our conscience we all have this voice that reminds us that if we commit certain actions it would cost us everything but for whatever reason we go ahead anyways.
Donald you ended your post with this statement: “In my opinion, the most important thing a leader can do is admit his mistakes. He or she should be competent, and should have integrity, and some mistakes really do disqualify you from leadership, but so should deceit, even if its self deceit.”
You hit the nail on the head, some mistakes really do disqualify us from leadership, sometimes the leaders are gracious enough to allow us back onto leadership or sometimes for certain reasons there must be complete severance. I guess my major question is: Do these major mistakes that disqualify us, disqualify us for good? Is their hope that in another setting, another context that we will be able to lead? My question is not rhetorical, I would love to hear your feed back. I have my own answer for it but I would love to hear your answers and others.
Donald thank you so much for being a blessing to thousands or even millions.
Continue to be the change.
Bryce
Don,
I thoroughly enjoyed this post. This is a message that needs to be heard by the leaders out there, be it Christian or not.
I find myself drawn to books written in an honest manner – with the writer being transparent.
As a writer myself I find it very difficult to be transparent. Thankfully, I’m learning and growing all the time and my critique group has helped me become more open and honest about how these issues affect me personally.
Glad I stopped by,
Sonya Lee
Oh how this applies to church life in such a huge way. I couldn’t agree with your conclusions more. Thanks Don.
Don,
That was a great piece you wrote on leadership, and I believe it is right. A lot of the comments have already said what I was thinking, so I just have two reading recommendations–one is an article and one is a book.
This is an article in the Boston globe on temptation (July 5, 2009), and how people who seem or claim to be perfect are just better at rationalizing imperfections. I thought it was interesting because it specifically talks about and gives examples of church leaders.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/07/05/the_nature_of_temptation/
The second is a book called “No Enemy to Conquer: Forgiveness in an Unforgiving World” by Michael Henderson. This book is a great compilation of stories of forgiveness often where a mistake is finally admitted and reconciliation sought after. There are some amazing references in there.
Peace to you,
Paige
Oh, and from my own family I have seen the whole perfect church leader/person/family be revealed with HUGE problems that are rationalized or ignored or denied–who then isolate themselves from the accepting loving community.
And I have also seen the abuser come to admit their mistake, and be embraced by the community, healed, and changed.
The above were two uncle of mine: one the cool preacher with the cool family, the other was the logger with the broken family–they completely switched roles, and the difference was admitting mistakes and coming to grips with shame. I wrote a research paper with my story strung throughout about the processes of shame and forgiveness, and the potential for healing. I’ll send you a copy if you care, my prof seemed to like it.
Peace again,
Paige
Don,
I think you make a good point about leadership with a faulty illustration.
McNamara is a much more ambivalent figure. Yes, he acknowledges that he, & those he served, often made mistakes. No Dick Cheney denial-and-spin here.
In “The Fog of War,” he’s an old man with nothing left to prove, and is startlingly honest. He basically says, You do what you have to do. Of course I made mistakes. It’s impossible not too, and kind of shrugs his shoulders. He acknowledges the hundreds of thousands of people who died on his watch. He demonstrates the heaviness of carrying all those souls around with him. It’s hard not to see his tenure with the World Bank as some sort of penance for his “war crimes,” (his words).
And yet he stubbornly refuses to be pigeonholed as a “bad guy.” He won’t have anything to do with the reductionistic white hat/black hat binary of the anti-war movement. With the perspective that perhaps only old age can give, he wants his critics to ask what they would have done. He successfully helped to avert all-out nuclear war. He felt bound to serve his presidents. You repeatedly get the sense that he felt trapped by circumstances and history, that he was perplexed by questions that his vaunted systems analysis and number-crunching couldn’t answer for him.
He quotes T.S. Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploring
And at the end of our exploration
We will return to where we started
And know the place for the first time –T.S. Eliot
McNamara fought wars and worked for peace. He worked for the rich elite and for the forgotten poor. And at the end of his life, he essentially throws up his hands: Did we learn anything? Did we get anywhere? At the end of all this seeking, all this questioning, all this “trying on” of different personas, what did we gain? For all of our efforts, all of our striving, are we all just ground down by the inevitable cycle of life and death?
Like the author of Ecclesiastes, McNamara had it all: the smarts, the money, the power, and time to fulfill every desire. But even he could not escape hevel. There was still meaninglessness; the shortness/brevity of life; the injustice.
We can learn from the life of McNamara, but I don’t think it’s as a leader. Rather, his life vividly illustrates Ecclesiastes, to stop chasing after the wind, to remember that despite all the advantages the world has to offer, everything is meaningless “under the sun.” I don’t know what McNamara’s personal faith was, but I hope that he found comfort in the fear of the Lord.
[...] That’s how I’ve been feeling about some of the remarks that have been made in response to a blog post by author Donald Miller . [...]
Don:
I think you hit on something very important in this last entry….something that resonated with me a great deal.
You may not encounter the kind of leadership style of not admitting mistakes a lot in the Northwest, but where I live in the South, it is rampant. In fact, I grew up in a church where my grandfather (who was the pastor) did not admit any mistake because he never “made” a mistake. In his book, if you did all of the right things, good things happened, and, well, if something bad happened to you, then you were obviously out of the will of God.
In fact, this idea of him not making mistakes and even people not being allowed to make mistakes permeated pentecostal theology for a really long time.
As a child, I thought if I made a mistake (read sinned), I was in danger of missing the rapture. I cant tell you how many times in my childhood I would come home, not find my mother there (she was next door at my grandparents house) and begin frantically calling everyone I knew to make sure the rapture had not taken place. I also had dreams of being sent to hell or missing the rapture because God saw something in me that I did not even know I was doing wrong. (I can laugh at this now, by the way)
This might sound odd (it even sounds odd to me) but let me assure you, it was a reality in which many people I knew grew up in. It became a fear based, works dogma of: do good= God loves you. do bad= God hates you. So, there became this pressure to NOT admit wrongdoings or mistakes…not just with my grandfather but in the entire congregation.
Long story short, it created an atmosphere where people could not be who they really were (struggles and all), so a culture of secrecy (being one thing on the outside and having another life away from church) was the norm.
As an adult now, with a child of my own, I know this is so detrimental- to live void of grace and confidence in the Lord. This kind of grace and confidence enables us to (like you said) admit our mistakes, imperfections, and inadequacies to others AND ourselves. Sometimes I wonder which is more difficult.
My heart is saddened now for my grandparents and many in their generation who still believe that they must have it all together and do not have the grace for people who do not.
I pray that sort of leadership style will be completely weeded out of the body of Christ. It is essential to not live like that if we are to be who Christ has called us to be.
Anyway, just a (long) thought. Thanks for that post.
What an intense conversation that your piece brought about here my friend. I definitely agree with your belief of leaders who admit their faults being the best leaders. I would not be able to follow a leader that didn’t admit their mistakes, or a leader that sent me to do something that he or she hadn’t done before themselves. Great post…
I have no idea who this Robert McNamara character is. I had no idea that his involvement in the Vietnam War was so sinister. And I have a feeling that I will never now how much harm his actions brought to those that suffered through the Vietnam era.
I can see that this piece provoked a lot of feelings from those harmed by McNamara’s actions. I don’t judge any of your feelings as evil or unforgiving but I simply see them as human. It’s difficult and almost impossible to forgive somebody that has wronged you in a huge way. I struggle a lot with hating/not hating those that have harmed me in my life and I’m sure their actions weren’t even in the same vicinity as those done by McNamara. But I do understand how a piece like this can be so controversial, a person who wasn’t necessarily affected by certain actions championing the acts of a person that caused irrevocable damage in your life.
I don’t know Donald but judging only from what I know about him based upon his books I’m going to say that offending you all was not his intention. Furthermore I will say that he may have chosen the wrong person to base his article upon but that the main point to the entry was a great one.
-J.
Don
You have been taken in by McNamara. As one who was of age during the Vietnam years, I was initially fascinated by him. As the war continued and his lies continued, I found both he and LBJ to be evil. In his book he never really apologizes to anyone, beyond saying “mistakes were made,” as though he was just a soldier doing his duty. Above all he is a con man.
[...] “Christian leaders who can’t admit their mistakes place a wall between their congregation and God, rather than a window. They paint an image of Christ on themselves, as they feel this is their job. People like the painting of Jesus they see on the wall, but in the end, the painting isn’t the real thing, and so Jesus just gets distorted.” Don Miller Blog – Lessons in Leadership, Robert McNamara teaches the most important lesson [...]
Don
You have been taken in by McNamara. As one who was of age during the Vietnam years, I was initially fascinated by him. As the war continued and his lies continued, I found both he and LBJ to be evil. In his book he never really apologizes to anyone, beyond saying “mistakes were made,” as though he was just a soldier doing his duty. Above all he is a con man.
[...] Lessons in Leadership, Robert McNamara teaches the most important lesson [...]
Thank you, Robert.
[...] Speaking of perspective, I enjoyed Donald Miller’s post on leaders needing to be able to admit when they’re wrong. His blog post came in light of Robert McNamara’s death. I didn’t know much about the [...]
[...] a previous post I wrote an open letter to leaders who I can’t bring myself to trust. A recent blog from Don Miller further explores similar themes and offers a helpful [...]
Hi Don,
Thank you so much for the post, and the discussion it has stirred up. You comments on leadership are great, and thank you for your comments on writing. Reading the NY Times earlier this week, there was this article about McNamara which I found facinating: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?pagewanted=1&hpw
I don’t know much about the man, beyond what I’ve read (i.e. the above article), but perhaps through these discussions, peace will be able to come over those who have struggled with the consequences of McNamara’s (and the other orchestrators of the Vietnam war) actions. The article really left me with the sense that he was a troubled, confused man over his actions.
Working for a company that profits off of war, I can sympathize-you don’t like your actions, but know the consequences could be worse if you didn’t do them. Perhaps this is where God’s grace has the greatest opportunity to shine.
Shalom
[...] Lessons in leadership from Don Miller based on Robert McNamara. My favorite post of the week. [...]
RSM rightly admitted his infallibility and maybe even his need for mercy; you rightly commended him for such an admission and rightly encouraged others (especially those who will think, “At least I’m not as bad as McNamara.”) to do the same.
[...] http://donmilleris.com/2009/07/07/lessons-in-leadership-robert-mcnamara-teaches-the-most-important-l... [...]
[...] Lessons in leadership. I particularly liked the reference to writing songs about something you are scared to admit. [...]
[...] out there for anyone to find – it isn’t because he is some genius. Miller writes in his blog: …many of the Christian authors I read make the same mistake the secular authors do, though to a [...]