The Word of the Cross: Mission, Power, and the Theology of Leadership.

The 2003 report by the Episcopal Church Foundation, The Search for Coherence, concludes that the Episcopal Church lacks a theology of leadership. This statement is true, however, only to the extent that The Episcopal Church ha~ forgotten the theology of leadership that Scripture and its tradition contain. This paper focuses on two representative writings to seek out the basis for a theology of leadership: the Pauline corpus and the medieval ecclesiastical texts of Gregory the Great. Furthermore, based upon the writings of these two leaders, this paper proposes that a theology of leadership must have as its foundation a theological understanding of mission and of power The challenge to the Episcopal Church is not to discover a coherent theology of leadership, but to reclaim and proclaim the leadership that already exists in its midst. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]