Mark Lawrence's Address –Charles Henry Brent: Excavating an Anglican Treasure (Part II)

The Power of Fellowship with the Divine: Vocation

Motive, will and moral character are of themselves insufficient for true leadership if they are not undergirded by an active correspondence or fellowship with God. This is true because man is quite simply a being possessed with a spiritual nature”” an appetite for fellowship with the Divine. Humanity has always listened for the voice of God even when it has rejected those who have spoken on behalf of God. Such fellowship was tantamount to vocation. “God becomes one with whom we correspond and who corresponds with us in our careers, asking for our cooperation and allotting to each a definite sphere of action.” (Leadership, p. 180-181) Such a vocation “”¦can be found only where there is a towering personality more determined to reach us than we it”¦a call superior to that of mere incidental conditions or abstract ideas, sounds in our ears.” This sense of vocation comes from and is sustained by an ongoing fellowship with God. One’s motive, will, and moral character (which in themselves are formed in correspondence with God) are not enough to do what needs to be done: to do what the leader is created and called to do.

Vocation is the power which changed Jacob into Israel, and transformed Moses from merely a passionate avenger of wrong into the Leader of God’s chosen people. God’s transcendent call led each of these patriarchs of Israel into vocation. This vocation, experienced and sustained through fellowship, leads each of them (and us) into petition and praise. This is so woven into the fabric of human nature and God’s response to such petition and worship””which is humankind’s responding love of God””that it only “comes to us in His gift of vocation. We are called by Him, and our consciousness becomes steeped in the power of His call. The sense of vocation is the deepest secret in the lives of the greatest leaders, early and late. The call of need and the call of the crowd are both inspiring, but it is not until there is added to them, and heard through them, the call of God that the Leader is fully equipped to achieve.” (Leadership, p. 189-190)
Mere duty or responsibility is a stinging whip that exhausts and hurts, but when wedded to a sense of vocation it is the food for the journey that has sustained such leaders within the Church as St. Paul, Augustine, Savonarola, Luther, Newman, Phillips Brooks, and such leaders of state as Washington and Lincoln. As supporting evidence for the latter””having referenced a lengthy and extraordinary letter of Phillips Brooks to an inquirer highlighting the increasing sense of vocation he experienced over the years in his priestly ministry””Brent then quotes words Lincoln spoke to the folk of Springfield as he left for the Presidency: “With a task before me greater that that which rested upon Washington, without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you and affectionate farewell.” (Leadership, p. 195) Each of these leaders knew that God was behind their lives, “”¦not from any theory learned by rote, but because He told them so individually. No amount of argument could have disturbed their belief”, it was the great fact of their lives. This sense of being moved by God’s will brings no passive surrender as if to some paralyzing fate, but a fuller entrance into one’s call and life with passion, commitment and will.
The sense of vocation conveys a confidence that God desires to share with us whatever work he has called us to do. Without releasing us from accountability, “He expects us to talk over with Him our problems and plans for His aid and counsel. When we are sure we are called by Him to a task and have His interest and supervision, our sole responsibility is to commit ourselves to the activities involved.” (Leadership, p. 198-199) This fellowship with God brings a consciousness of his presence which enables us to apprehend divine power on both a conscious and subconscious level. “It changes experiment into a factor of certainty and relieves the agent [the leader] of undue anxiety.” (Leadership, p.198) Vocation provides a leader with an inner trust that keeps him steady, even undaunted or undismayed, in the face of failure or defeat””ready to start again with new power and wisdom. Brent, however, here speaks a wise and necessary word of caution””particularly should this sense of vocation lead one to think his or hers is the only guiding star or constellation in the firmament. “He who thinks that he alone is called is a tyrant of a dangerous type”¦. The Leader’s first duty is to remember that vocation is a universal gift, and it is part of Leadership to help all who follow to discern and obey their call.” Let the prayer he prayed with pen in hand (as he often did) and recorded in his journal in 1907 serve as a fitting illustration of his commitment to this end, and as a concise summary of his lectures which I have attempted to outline in these pages:

“O Father, I have been called by Harvard University to speak to Thy sons of the things that belong to their peace. But except Thou too call me my words will be uttered in vain and be but empty sound. Let me hear Thy voice bidding me serve the youth of this great center of opportunity, and make me responsive to Thy counsels that I may set forth the truth with force and ardor. Help me to fit my life more closely into Thine eternal purpose without reserve or self-will. Endow me with singleness of motive, strength of will, blamelessness of life, and devotion to Thee, that I being a true leader may inspire my fellows to rise to the full height of their responsibilities as leaders of men; through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (No Other Wealth, p. 37)

These, then, are Brent’s qualifications for Christian leadership, whether exercised in Church or State, in assigned Office or through an inherent authority undesignated by position””as was the case for Jesus of Nazareth. Social motive, will, moral character, and vocation, these are the metaphysics of leadership that convey an authority that mere office or position can never establish in the minds and hearts of the people. Brent puts them before us with convincing logic, vibrant language, vivid images and profound clarity””gained from deep thinking, meditation, study and prayer. Here is a philosophy of leadership that proceeds not from mere expediency, single-minded efficiency or ideological relativism””but from an interaction with a thoroughly Christian worldview and an expansive, even international Anglicanism. When these four dimensions””inherent as they are to the task of leadership and universally acknowledged (if not always specifically identified)””are married with throne or office, position is converted to its proper role, and privilege finds its true opportunity in the service of others. But whether office holder, priest or layperson, the one with these characteristics “”¦will be an accepted Leader the moment he appears in society. The world is waiting for him [or her].” (Leadership, p. 218) Such a man was Jesus Christ and as such a leader he was and is the Leader of leaders followed to the end of time.

The Resources for Leadership

Having looked at these inherent qualities of leadership I now want to briefly identify five resources from the Charles Henry Brent’s life which I believe to be helpful for those engaged in Spiritual Leadership””the Inner Life, the Intellectual Life, the Role of Friendship, the Inspiration of Responsibility, and the Representative Life.

The Inner Life

Bishop Brent’s spiritual life provided him with an immensely formative power for leadership. Alexander Zabriskie in his biography, Bishop Brent, puts it bluntly: “The secret of Brent’s work and influence was his inner life.” Eleanor Slater, more floridly writes: “Leadership, when it came to him, came by painful and prayerful effort. It came of a fellowship with God so constant and steady that introspection became communion. He would have given God-consciousness as the atmosphere of his own development; he preached it to others as the atmosphere of all growth.” This life of prayer, intercession, meditation and mystical fellowship with Christ was not always easily won for him. “Pray with your intelligence,” he advised, “bring things to God that you have thought out and think them out again with Him. This is the secret of good judgment.” The more that I have studied his life and writings, the more convinced I have become that this prayerful judgment was the origin of his vision and authority as a leader. Simplicity and courage are two other virtues he considered indispensable for those who covet to live, serve and pray well. Especially must they be ready to embrace difficulty and court pain””and that through the long stretch of life. This is similar to what Eugene Peterson in our day has called a long obedience in the same direction.
He practiced many spiritual disciplines””daily meditation, Bible reading, especially as he grew older the Gospels, intercession, journaling and the composition of collects and prayers (many of which are widely anthologized and some included in the American 1979 Book of Common Prayer). About this discipline of writing prayers he notes, “Anyone of average intelligence, if he chooses to take the time and pains, has ample capacity for the purpose. Let him use his pen and write down his aspirations for himself and others as concisely as he can, and he will be surprised to find not only how much he has to say to God, but how easy it is to express what is in his heart.” (Adventure with God, p. 10)) This was a daily and constant enterprise for him. He experienced prayer as difficult and yet felt that here above all other duties one could expect God’s gracious assistance and compensation. “The best help is the hardest duty””the help that comes straight from God.”
Whenever possible he began his day with meditation from 6:00””7:00 a.m.; spent 7:00””7:30 a.m. in prayer; and from 7:30””8:30 a.m. in study. It is the inner life that the leader neglects at the very shipwreck of his power. While not insisted upon, nor imposed in all circumstances, this pattern marked the vast gravity of his inner life with his Lord and his diary or journal was kept even while on mountain trails, ocean liner, battlefronts or mission village.

The Intellectual Life

The Intellectual life of Bishop Brent was various and rich. He read books while around the campfire on missionary journeys in the Luzon Mountains of the Philippines, studied human nature aboard ocean liners crossing the Pacific, contemplated the recent publications in the sciences while in the throws of ecclesiastical gatherings, works of philosophy while sleeping in the huts of the Igorot natives, and complimented such study with the alert schooling that a life of travel in different cultures afforded him. He was rarely without a book close at hand. And this is all the more amazing given the constant activity of his life. He was a man of wide and wonderful curiosity””classically and broadly educated. “Best of all”, writes his finest biographer, “there was nothing terminal about that education. Bishop Brent retained the attitude of a humble learner all his days. [This made him] ”¦ the master of many arts and the doctor of a sane and broad philosophy.”
In his fascinatingly speculative book, The Sixth Sense, the bishop contrasts the narrowing intellectual life of Darwin with that of Lewis Carroll. Darwin in his Autobiography, mourns the loss of his aesthetic appreciation for poetry and music, which in his earlier years he felt such delight, seeing “the loss of these tastes as a loss of happiness.” Darwin then attributed this to an atrophying of inactive dimensions of the human brain. Brent postulated a different hypothesis, theorizing that “it would be more accurate, perhaps, to explain this loss”¦by too narrow specialization.” (Sixth Sense, p. 56-57) Carroll, in contrast, a professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, kept his vocational capacity in keen efficiency through the exercise of the quite different dimension of the brain in writing such immortal imaginative works as Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking Glass. So too he finds such breadth of interests in such scientists as Bacon, Pasteur, and Newton. He might well have included himself among a list of a man of universal interests of mind.
Neither a scholar nor a systematic theologian, he was nevertheless a keen contributor to the Christian thought of his day. He read a good deal of biography, history, science, philosophy, and poetry. Little seemed to be beyond the scope of his interests””from Plato to Bergson, William James to Baron von Hugel, Darwin to Eddington, Lincoln to Napoleon, Homer and Dante to Tennyson””all found a place on his desk or night stand. Life for him was one long continuous university. One finds arguments and quotations casually and yet effectively woven into the fabric of his writings and sermons. He was the author of eighteen volumes written in many diverse places””the rectory house in Boston, retreat houses in Europe, mission stations in Baguio, on transatlantic voyages, and even in the U. S. Embassy in England. They were the fruit of his thinking offered as gifts to the Church at large. May we today who aspire to leadership within the Church of Jesus Christ learn from him the enriching and diligent resource of a life in which education has no termination, nor sectarian focus.

The Role of Friendship

Along with such resources as prayer and study, Brent was also nurtured by many wonderful and abiding friendships. While none of his biographers fail to describe him as a man of profound loneliness, each is quick to note the legendary number of friends found in every walk of life. Those who considered him a formative influence on their lives who themselves who leaders of real significance in the world were men such as Governor Taft, (later President Taft), General Pershing (whom he prepared for confirmation while stationed in the Pacific and whom he made a point to visit in Paris shortly before his own death), Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ambassador and Mrs. Houghton. Then of course were those hundreds of unremembered folk from every walk of life whether the poor in the slums of South Boston, the mountains of Luzon, the Mora pirates of the Southern Philippines, or the communicants in the diocese of Western New York.
And then there were the numerous younger men and women who through friendship and mentoring care he help mold into the future leaders of church and society. The tribute of Bishop Malcolm Endicott Peabody is sufficiently illustrative: “During the two years that I spent in Baguio, the Bishop treated me as a son, let me make his house my headquarters in Manila, guided my faltering thoughts into intellectual and religious channels, and took me with him on a tour of the islands in the summer of 1912. As he was the friend and pastor of every missionary he encountered, I had the privilege of observing his sympathy for churchmen of every branch of the Church. They laid their problems before him and looked upon him in a very real sense as their father in God.” (No Other Wealth, p.18) The sway and influence he had among people of so diverse backgrounds and education are due in part to his loyalty and prayerfulness towards them. The words he wrote about St. Paul are an equally apt description of him: “Everyone who once found entrance into the interest of S. Paul remained there to dwell. Time and distance did not obliterate them. Even in his silences they could feel assured of his loyalty to them. They were as truly his companions of his inner life as though they were before him in the flesh. They were the joy, the anxiety and the crown of his existence.” (Adventure for God, p.84) As Eleanor Slater wrote of the bishop, “He carried his friendships with him, wherever he went”¦” sending cherished letters (one of his friends noted that “you could live on one of his letters for days.”), to those he knew in every part of the world. (Slater, p. 91)
Complimenting his friendships, and often coinciding with them as a renewing resource in his life, was the sports and games he enjoyed. Tennis, golf, polo, baseball, hockey matches aboard ship brought much needed reprieve to a life of heavy and often exacting duties. His longtime friend and associate, Remsen Ogilby, could often be relied upon, when he saw his bishop weary in his work to get on his schedule some recreation either of the outdoor or parlor variety. Indoor games he found delightful, such as bowling, chess, and cards. His favorite sport though was fly fishing. To a friend who asked for a suggestion for a possible gift for him, he wrote, “Send me books on fishing.”

The Inspiration of Responsibility

In 1899, while still a priest serving in the slums of South Boston Charles Henry Brent wrote and published his first book, With God in the World. The final chapter bore an interesting heading, “The Inspiration of Responsibility”. It would be the title of a book of essays he published some sixteen years later. Even more importantly it was to be one of the bedrock beliefs of his life and a theme he heralded again and again before audiences young and old, men and women, privileged and impoverished. The belief began to first take root with such words as these written in those early years of his priestly vocation: “The fault of most modern prophets is not that they present too high an ideal, but an ideal that is sketched with faltering hand; the appeal to self-sacrifice is too timid and imprecise, the challenge to courage is too low-voiced, with the result that the tide of inspiration ebbs low. The call to each soul to contribute its quota toward the realization of the most remote ideal so far from depressing is stimulating, and a necessary goad to the promotion of the individual as well as corporate development.” (WGW, p.127)
Not too long after penning such words the call came for him to take up a greater responsibility, to sacrifice his life in the service of a distant and, to him, unknown world. He was called by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church to become missionary bishop to the recently acquired territories of the Philippine Islands. His hand was called; here indeed was the inspiration of responsibility. Later his ability to express himself along these lines took on the bolder clarity and authority that comes from a more profound personal experience. Here is the voice of authenticity that intones a clear call: “Every self-respecting person craves an exacting task, a task that strains human nature. We need more than that degree of obligation which demands the exercise only of those gifts and powers that we know are ours. We must be under the domination of a responsibility which calls for the assertion of our latent and untried capacity, the power that declares itself only in the using”¦.The response of the will to the call of obligation becomes the opportunity of God to enlarge our capacity. He breathes into us fresh wisdom, new courage, added strength. His breath is life. And He can give us life only when we choose to live”¦.You should not be afraid to launch out into the deep of responsibility where, amid the billows and winds, alone is safety for the human soul.” (The Inspiration of Responsibility, pgs 1-10)
This call of God to embrace opportunity, to assume responsibility, awakens the imagination, which is the human capacity for the God-given vision. It is inspiring, transformative and akin to the bracing power of vocation. “Perhaps the earliest requisite of an effective life”, he writes, “is a vision”. The record of human experience compels the assertion. Often enough a richly endowed character will loaf halfway down life’s journey doing worse than nothing, or else will diligently use his gifts to other’s hurt. Suddenly an unseen hand touches his eyes and he awakes to responsibility. He has had a vision. Dreams give place to action, weeds to flowers.” (Adventure for God, p.2) In Brent’s taxonomy of leadership responsibility inspires the leader, and vision awakens, refreshes, sustains. These are integral resources for the leader’s life. Quite contrary to how unredeemed humanity usually thinks, it is as the leader runs from responsibility, opportunity and vision that he begins to die inwardly: his finest qualities decay: his capacity wanes. But when he or she turns to embrace a greater responsibility she receives from God a greater power; one commensurate with the challenge.

The Representative Life

What was undoubtedly the greatest resource of his life as a leader was the one he referred to as the Representative Leader. Certainly he found in the lives of men such as Lincoln, Darwin, and Phillips Brooks the characteristics which distinguish a leader, but it was in Jesus Christ that Bishop Brent discovered the pre-eminent and mastering Leader of leaders. It is Jesus Christ alone who so fully “”¦inherits only to share, and to make us as nearly like Himself as we will permit Him to do”¦. We can rise to no higher conception of Leadership than this, can we?””living the richest possible life and sharing it universally. That is what Jesus did and does, if we reduce His experience to its simplest terms. He is His work. He is all that He gives. He is his own best gift.” (Leadership, p.123-124)
It was this fiercely incarnational theology that daily supplied to Bishop Brent the needed inspiration, strength and vision which the demands of his leadership required. Yet it needs to be stressed that Jesus is not merely an ideal or example. He is a living force for the would be leader: “We have at our disposal His power of will which dared the impossible and always achieved, so that one who takes Jesus at His word can say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthenth me. His victory over temptation is also ours.” (Leadership, p. 221) This availability of Another’s fund of strength and victory is unique in all of human history. His life and holiness is for our use through a fellowship exceeding all other intimacies. Christ’s sole complaint writes Brent, “”¦is that when He offers Himself Men do not accept Him. Ye will not come to me that ye may have life.” This is what he offered to humankind when he walked this earth. What he offers to us now far exceeds even such a gracious gift. “The whole wealth of His completed experience is His present gift.” (Leadership, p. 220)
Jesus then is the Representative Leader. He serves as model and empowerer of all who seek to follow him. He inspires and enables the leader in any walk of life. His is not merely an ecclesiastical or titular authority–the titles he had were only an expression of his actual authority. “They gave him nothing. His office was not taken from man. It was what He was in Himself.” (Leadership, p. 228) The minister of the Gospel, whether lay person or priest, is not first and foremost an office-holder. His authority and power comes from the presence and, in the words of Phillips Brooks, “the pressure of Christ.” Anything then that obscures this should be torn aside as a veil that hides his form, “”¦so that the simplest can see Him and the weakest reach Him.” Those whose lives are patterned after His example and charged with his Spirit will do this work most ably and bravely. (Leadership, p.219)
While there are areas of his thought married perhaps too closely to the “myth of progress” that too pervasively characterized the Christianity of pre-World War I Europe and America and thus he sipped too sparingly of the Neo-orthodoxy of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, nevertheless, he was critical of a liberalism that expressed tolerance for tolerance sake. Better yet, there was little that was exclusively or merely Euro-centric in his worldview or thought. He once said that Christianity will not have run its full course until it has passed through the mind of the Orient. One cannot help but believe he would be one to celebrate the rise of the Global South as a vital force in world Christianity of our day, The Next Christendom, as Professor Philip Jenkins has dubbed it. Indeed, he was a World-Christian. In the Paddock lectures given to seminarians at The General Theological Seminary in 1904 he stated, “Say what you will about the Roman Catholic Church as stuck”¦, but when Rome thinks of its mission it thinks in terms of the world.” Anglicanism of today, particularly those in the West could use a good and lengthy exposure to such a leader. I have found over the years, with every fresh encounter I have had with Brent’s life and thought, that he has stretched my mind and worldview, deepened my spiritual life, and lifted my vision to think larger. Cannot all of us in the Church today afford to think at least one size larger than we presently do? As Bishop Brent came from his work in the Philippines, shaped by his experiences in the Orient into a World Christian, he brought a life touched by the Divine fire of God, and set forth a metaphysic, a philosophy of leadership, in the 1907 William Belden Noble lectures for the students of Harvard. The qualifications for leadership he argued were the Social Motive, the power of the Will, a Blameless or moral life that was ever seeking to grow in righteous, and a Fellowship with the Divine that leads inexorably to a sustaining sense of Vocation. He exemplified each of these in his own life. Elsewhere in his life and writings, for those who enjoy the work of excavation in relatively recent history (but a field of pastoralia too little explored by most of us Episcopalians), the resources for leadership, which were his lifeline and constant companions, can be discovered. Here is a true Anglican treasure accessible to most of us: wisdom free for the mining.

If you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures
then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God. (Proverbs 2:4-5)

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brent, C. H. Adventure for God. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912
Brent, C. H. The Commonwealth: Its Foundations and Pillars. New York: D. Appleton
and Company, 1930.
Brent, C. H. The Inspiration of Reponsiblity. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.,
1915
Brent, C. H. Leadership. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912.

Brent, C. H. The Mount of Vision. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1918.

Brent, C. H. Presence. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1914.

Brent, C. H. The Sixth Sense. New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1912.

Brent, C. H. With God in Prayer. Philadelphia, PA: George W. Jacobs & Company,
1907.
Brent, C. H. With God in the World. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1916.

Damrosch, L. Charles Henry Brent in the Philippines. New York: The National Council,
1956.
Kates, F. W. (Ed.). Things That Matter: The Best of the Writings of Bishop Brent.
New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1949.
Kates, F. W. (Ed.). No Other Wealth: The Prayers of a Modern Saint, Charles Henry
Brent. Nashville, TN: The Upper Room, 1965.
Slater, Eleanor. Charles Henry Brent: Everybody’s Bishop. Milwaukee, WI: Morehouse
Publishing Co., 1932.
Zabriskie, A. C. Bishop Brent: Crusader for Christian Unity. Philadelphia, PA: The
Westminster Press, 1938.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Bennis, W. An Invented Life: Reflections on Leadership and Change. Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1993.
Bennis, W. On Becoming a Leader. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.,
1989.
Bennis, W. Why Leaders Can’t Lead: The Unconscious Conspiracy Continues. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990.
Bennis, W. Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge. New York: Harper & Row,
Publishers, 1985.
Burns, J. M. Leadership. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1978.
Clinton, J. R. The Making of a Leader. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1988.
Greenleaf, R. K. Servant Leadership. Ramsey, NJ: Paulist Press, 1977.