Resources on Leadership
(Earlier in the year, I posted a book review of The Faithful Preacher by Thabiti M. Anyabwile. It has now been published in the September issue of Reformed Theological Seminary’s online journal, Reformed Faith & Practice.) __________ One of my goals at RTS Jackson is to introduce students to the “neglected voices” of the evangelical church. I am not the best qualified to remedy this neglect, but have made it my habit to assign readings that will help. One such book is Thabiti Anyabwile’s The Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors (Wheaton: Crossway, 2007). The book presents biographical sketches of Lemuel Haynes, Daniel Payne, and Francis Grimké, along with selected writings. First, Lemuel Haynes. Born in 1753, he…
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Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the commencement of the Allied invasion of continental Europe. Within a year, Hitler was dead and the Nazi reign of terror over. President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 speech at Normandy marked the 40th anniversary of the invasion. Reagan used the opportunity not only to honor the allied soldiers who fought their way ashore, but also to strengthen NATO’s resolve in the face of threatened Soviet nuclear missile deployments to Eastern Europe. I introduced my high school rhetoric and debate students to this speech as one of the great presidential addresses of the 20th century. I recommend listening to the entire 13-minute speech. My father, George Thomas Wingard, Jr., fought in Europe later in…
Read MoreIndomitable physical courage, moral strength, and Christian conviction marked the life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Yesterday Lynne and I visited her gravesite at Ruleville in the Mississippi Delta. Mrs. Hamer came to national prominence when she addressed the 1964 Democratic National Convention Credentials Committee. She described the imprisonment and brutal beating she endured during the 1963 summer voter registration drive. Watch a brief historical introduction and then listen to her eight minute speech. The youngest of twenty children, her family were sharecroppers. Her attempt to register to vote in 1962 led to the firing of her and her husband from the plantation where she had worked for eighteen years. Her gravesite is located in the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden. A few hundred yards to the west is the Fannie…
Read MoreCritical to leadership is knowing the difference between determination and obstinacy. Often no more than a razor’s edge separates the two. Richard Brookhiser explains: “A weakness is the absence of a good quality; a flaw is the presence of a bad one. Everyone has flaws, and no one is ever rid of them all. . . . “[T]here are projects, or strategies, that should not be carried through, because they are mistaken or hopeless. Obstinacy is persisting beyond all reason. . . . “Obstinacy is the brother of determination. There is no easy way to tell them apart; in the heat of the moment, they can look and feel the same. But when the moment lengthens and lengthens, it becomes time…
Read MoreJoshua Chamberlain is best remembered as the hero of the battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg. Today I want to remember him as the author of a remarkable letter. A Bowdoin College professor, Chamberlain possessed no formal military experience when he enlisted after the outbreak of the Civil War. However, he proved himself a quick study in the art of leadership, rapidly rising to the rank of colonel of the 20th Maine. The young leader established himself an able field commander. His clear thinking, personal courage, and command presence under fire were critical in repulsing the Alabama 15th’s attempt to take Little Round Top on July 2, 1863. Had the Confederates succeeded, leaving the Union left flank exposed, the withdrawal of the northern army from Gettysburg would have been…
Read MoreTomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill, arguably the greatest leader of the 20th century. This brief video contains footage of his state funeral. In yesterday’s National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson argues that “the United States has never owed more to a foreign citizen than to Winston Churchill, a monumental presence 50 years after his death.”
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