The number of global Christian leaders, who recently have had to confess and repent of moral failure or step aside from leadership duties due to some moral indiscretion, is staggering. At the heart of the problem is the leaders’ inability to exercise moral integrity as a critical lifestyle in Christian living.
Leadership of any sort can be a challenging endeavor and Christian leadership sets some of the highest standards of morality for those in positions of power and influence. Some of the Christian leaders found culpable of moral failings have been bold enough to publicly own up to them. Others have even written about their experiences as a challenge to others who may be struggling with persistent sins of the flesh.
In my opinion, leadership refers to being in a position of influence. Those who bear the name of Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord are leaders called to bear the marks of Christ-like integrity and to exercise it in both the private and public spheres of life and service.
Integrity such as the Bible requires is always a critical ingredient for journeying in leadership and ministry. All around us we see that the values of our wider societies are distorted due to a lack of understanding the biblical standards of integrity. In all spheres of life, people have become more concerned about success, money, power, fame, and winning at whatever cost, at the expense of a higher standard of moral integrity.
Past examples of leadership failure
In the mid 1990s, Pastor Jim Bakker wrote "I Was Wrong: The Untold Story of the Shocking Journey from PTL Power to Prison and Beyond". In the 1980s, Jim Bakker and his then wife, Tammy Faye, led one of the largest televangelism ministries in the world. In 1989, he was incarcerated for fraudulently misapplying donations from ministry partners in one of the most high-profile cases of that nature in the twentieth century. The details of the story, for our purposes, are not as important as the reason Jim Bakker himself gives for writing the book:
"For most of my life I believed that my understanding of God and how He wants us to live was not only correct but worth exporting to the world. One reason I have risked putting my heart into print is to tell you that my previous philosophy of life, out of which my attitudes and actions flowed, was fundamentally flawed."
At the heart of this confession is a Christian leader’s inability to uphold the integrity of the Bible as regards wealth and prosperity. Sadly, the wrongful interpretation of scripture to support lifestyles of greed, covetousness, flamboyance, and materialism is what was exported to other parts of the world, facilitated by modern media technology. In writing the book, Bakker draws attention to the importance of integrity in biblical hermeneutics:
"When I really studied the Bible while in prison, it became clear to me that not one man or woman... led a life without pain. God does promise that He will never leave us nor forsake us, no matter what trial or pain we must go through... whether it be loss of reputation, loss of position or power, financial calamity, addiction, separation, divorce, or imprisonment."
Subsequently, Jim Bakker followed up his words with another book, Prosperity and the Coming Apocalypse in which he corrects some of his flawed ideas on prosperity as a Christian lifestyle. As the Jim Bakker story was unfolding, one Christian leader who publicly criticized and chastised him severely and mercilessly, was his prosperity-preaching compatriot, Jimmy Swaggart. But it was not long after Bakker’s experience, that Swaggart himself appeared on television in tears, having been caught purchasing the services of prostitutes rather than, as a Christian leader would be expected to do, sharing with them the God's word.
At the heart of these stories and many others that have unfolded through the years, even still today, is the word integrity. Moral integrity according to God's standards is clear in the Old Testament (for example, in Ezekiel 34), Jesus teaches it in the Sermon on the Mount, and Paul admonishes the Philippian Christians regarding it when he wrote to them:
"Finally beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things" (Philippians 4:8).
Paul adds in verse 9, "Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me," meaning, his life and ministry display the marks and standards of integrity and so do not just listen to what he preaches but imitate his whole lifestyle. Elsewhere, Paul makes it clear that the ultimate standard of integrity is not Paul himself but rather Jesus, for he writes in 1 Corinthians 11:1, "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ."
Integrity is when our private thoughts, decisions, actions, and claims, not only reflect our outward talk and behavior, but also bring about the public good.
Defining integrity
In the Christian life, integrity always manifests as loyalty to Jesus Christ. The gospel, as the word became flesh, carries within it its own integrity, and Christian ministers and disciples are called to embody and defend that integrity. A simple definition of integrity is when our private thoughts, decisions, actions, and claims, not only reflect our outward talk and behavior, but also bring about the public good. For more reading on this subject, refer to Henry Cloud's "Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality" as well as "Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership" by Gary L. McIntosh and Samuel D. Rima.
The Latin origin of the word "integrity" relates to something that is "intact" or "integrated"—something that is "whole", from which we get the word, "holistic". The concept of integrity can be applied to many things, from building structures that have been formed well to human behavior that is not corrupted. If, for example, we take the issue of doctrinal integrity, the historic creeds of the global Church are crafted to ensure that heretical teaching does not hold sway in the church.
Integrity is a form of moral capital that one builds up over years of work and when people know they can trust your word, you will go very far. There are specific areas in the life and ministry of Christian leaders where integrity is especially crucial. They include personal/moral integrity, pastoral/relational integrity, and theological/doctrinal integrity. A biblical passage that summarizes these three forms of integrity is when Paul tells Timothy,
"Pay close attention to yourself [personal integrity] and to your teaching [doctrinal integrity]; continue in these things [pastoral/leadership integrity, 4:6-10], for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:16).
In the world of construction, when buildings collapse, causing human fatalities at times, such buildings are said to lack "structural integrity". When physical structures lack structural integrity, they lack internal strength and cannot stand the test of time.
Good integrity exists when the whole structure is working as it should, undivided, integrated, well supported, and intact. In the same way, an organization with "institutional integrity" has all its various arms, departments, and ministries interconnected and working well. For Christian organizations, integrity includes observing the basic demands of scripture and doctrinal fidelity.
People respect you for who you are before they can respect you for what you do. This is especially true for leaders. Integrity, or the lack of it, defines our character. Jesus says in Matthew 15:11, "It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles." What comes out of the mouth depends on what we feed on. In effect, Jesus is saying that what you say or do will ultimately reveal who you are and who you become is affected by what you internalize.
Integrity is important to develop accountability and trust, especially where it involves our relationships with other people. Moral integrity's closest associated characteristics include honesty, truthfulness, candor, and transparency. Candor, for example, it refers to the state of or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression; and, for Christians, we must remember to "speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ" (Ephesians 4:25).
Christian integrity as redemptive
For followers of Jesus, integrity flows out of our character and is revealed in our commitment to the purposes of God. The ultimate example of altruistic integrity is Jesus himself, who although God, "did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself" (Philippians 2:6-7) in the cause of human redemption.
The integrity of Jesus Christ is affirmed by the Nicene Creed, when it refers to him as,
"...the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father. Through him all things were made..."
In the example of Jesus, we find that Christian integrity is redemptive in its purposes. In exercising integrity, we embody the words of Jesus when he says, "you will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). The lack of integrity creates a dysfunctional persona and guilty conscience in which words and actions do not cohere and so we become conflicted.
When we act with biblical integrity, the world may hate us, even persecute us, but we live with the peace of the Lord in our hearts and lives; and, in the end, we honor the name of the Lord in our lives. In contrast, the shepherds of Israel were castigated by God for lacking pastoral integrity because they exploited the sheep for their selfish ends:
"You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them" (Ezekiel 34:3-4).
If people are without integrity, they lack the courage for the pursuit of truth. They are pretenders who are loyal to destructive causes, depravity, and falsehood. But we are to see and imitate Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith, who ‘for the sake of the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, disregarding the shame’ (Hebrews 12:2).
Conclusion
Leaders, act with integrity. Act with honesty and transparency, and in an altruistic spirit, serving the interests of the greater good as revealed by God in the scriptures. Consider the exhortation of Paul when he said, "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, regard others as better than yourselves" (Philippians 2:3). His exemplar modelling this standard is none other than Jesus, who emptied himself of all but love, becoming a servant human being, and dying on the cross for human redemption that we might live to the praise of God’s glory. Let all Christian leaders also follow in his footsteps in every church, ministry, and workplace.
J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu is the Baeta-Grau Professor of Contemporary African Christianity and Pentecostal/Charismatic Theology at the Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon, Ghana. He is the immediate past president of the seminary and a fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also serves as a member of the Lausanne Theology Working Group.
This article originally appeared in the September 2024 issue of the Lausanne Global Analysis and is published here with permission.
Lausanne Global Analysis seeks to deliver strategic and credible information and insight from an international network of evangelical analysts to equip influencers of global mission. To receive this free bimonthly publication from the Lausanne Movement, subscribe online at https://lausanne.org/global-analysis.
