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Mhm. Few voices in the last several years have been more influential in higher education and in the church than that of our curry lecture. Dr robert in franklin. A native of Chicago, Dr franklin grew

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up on the south side of that city as part of a large and loving family. As a high school student, he witnessed the turmoil, anger and despair that followed the assassination of dr martin Luther King

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Jr But he witnessed also the televised funeral that followed , including scenes from the campus of Morehouse College in Atlanta where Dr King had studied and who's President. Dr Benjamin Mays had given Dr King's eulogy as our

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speaker wrote later, watching faculty and other dignitaries march in procession across the campus. I felt deeply drawn to it. It seemed to symbolize the excellence, dignity and nobility that king had come to represent.

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Just so did dr franklin later matriculated Morehouse College, graduating phi beta kappa in 1975 with a degree conferred upon him by Dr Mayes. From there he went on to study first at Harvard Divinity School, receiving

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his M. DeV and then on to the University of Chicago Divinity School Where he received his PhD in 1985 in Ethics and Society. To rehearse Dr franklin's career following his graduation is to try something, something

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of his deepening influence on theological education in this country and particularly his passion for the witness of the African american church and its capacity for leadership, healing and hope. Dr franklin has taught at the University of

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Chicago Divinity School, Harvard Divinity School, Colgate Rochester divinity school and for several years at the candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. In 1997 he became the president of Interdenominational Theological Center I.

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T. C. In Atlanta and served there while also serving as the program officer for the Ford Foundation dealing with Human rights and Social justice. In 2007 he became president of his alma mater, Morehouse College

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, during which time he raised over$68 million dollars for the college And increased alumni giving from 17% to all to almost 40%. As impressive as those numbers are at least of those who have ever tried to

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raise money for educational purposes, theological or otherwise. Even more impressive, at least to me, is his commitment to the liberal arts as a soil in which human life flourishes. As the alumnus of the

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year for the University of Chicago Divinity school, he delivered a lecture on Morehouse maze and King entitled nurturing citizens through liberal arts education, reflections on the unpublished papers of martin Luther King Jr giving voice to the

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possibility of human flourishing through the life of the mind and the claims of the faith has been a constant theme in Dr franklin's work. Currently, Dr franklin serves as a James, T and Berta are Laney

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Professor and moral leadership at Candler School of Theology at Emory. And in his spare time he has served as senior adviser to the president of Emory and director of the religion department of the chautauqua institution. Dr

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franklin is the author of five books, including, most recently moral leadership, identity, agency and Impact from one of his earlier books entitled Another Day's Journey . I would like to quote a brief passage that

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bears on his lifelong ministry. He writes of the exemplary courage of his grandmother, who one day on the south side of Chicago walked into the middle of two street gangs that were about to come to blows

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. He writes, she spoke to them about the love of God and how they should not throw their lives away in violence and how each boy would break the heart of his mother if he were to be

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fatally wounded. Amazingly, the young brother smiled at her and walked away, certain to fight another day . But through her stunning and risky street intervention and learned something important about conflict resolution. By placing 1's

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life on the line. one claims the posture of moral authority to speak the truth to all kinds of power. Sometimes those words can redirect, hate. Those words can become power. Please help me welcome

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this educator, ordained minister and visionary of the beloved community dr robert. M franklin. Mhm. Yeah . Mhm. Yeah. Good morning, and thank you a great deal. I thank President Ted Wardlaw

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for this opportunity was a delight to welcome him to the chautauqua institution a couple of years ago when we first spoke of this opportunity. And ted, I do thank you. Thank you thomas curry the third

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for that generous, generous introduction. We have old connections, although we are new acquaintances tom attended Haverford College and I attended Morehouse and we've been on each other's campus at various times. I also acknowledge my

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fellow speakers and preachers this week. Indeed, these colleagues are thought leaders and spiritual guides who I have admired and learn from at a great distance in the past and now finally we share this special time here

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at Austin. I also greet those friends who are gathered in the overflow room, blessings on you. I note that the city of Austin has been a has a long history of gathering thought leaders who share

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important ideas. I was intrigued to learn that in April of 1948, theologian Howard thurman delivered a series of lectures in this city at Samuel Houston College. Those lectures became his book, jesus and the Disinherited

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, in which he interpreted the teachings of jesus through the experience of the oppressed, and he discussed nonviolent responses to oppression. two years ago, while attending the 100th anniversary of Emory University School of Law,

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my wife and I stood in a crowded gymnasium at a reception awaiting the moment when the doors would be open to enter the banquet hall while standing there nursing a glass of club soda and lime. A law

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professor greeted me. We chatted and I learned about his academic interests. Then he asked what I do . I noted that I'm a professor in ethics and moral leadership and his first reaction was amusing, moral

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leadership. Is that a thing? Uh huh. A cheap shot joke about lawyers flashed through my mind among lawyers. Perhaps not so much, but I refrained. The habit of telling off color lawyer jokes

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is beneath me. Most days after all, my daughter, my mother in law and my sister in law are lawyers and that's a lot of firepower at the thanksgiving table. But he listened intently as I

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explained that this topic or area of study is concerned with the intersection between leadership studies and ethics. That is where longstanding theoretical and practical questions about effective leadership encounter the theory and practice of the good life and

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the just society. He was intrigued and suddenly blurted , well, that should be taught immediately on Capitol Hill. Later, I reflected that this colleague had quickly surmised and not only was moral leadership a thing

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, but that it might actually be a welcome response to an urgent public and private need. The fact that he referenced our current political morass as an urgent and promising context for moral leadership discourse I think is

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telling, we'll come back to that later. That brings me to the focus of these curry lectures. I maintain that throughout history, when human communities have faced seemingly insurmountable challenges, we have seen examples of

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women and men with integrity, courage, and imagination who have emerged to help lead us forward. I've chosen to divide this interest into three distinct but interrelated questions 1st. Who are these moral leaders and how

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do they come to be such 2nd? What and how do they think and act when they are ticking ? What are they taking about and why? And third, what precise impacts do moral leaders have make

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or enable leaders are supposed to have a positive, significant impact? Is that their track record or not ? So moral leaders exist, But so what in an effort to make this concrete, I'd like to

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begin with an image that imprinted me so deeply, obviously, as you will hear, at an early age that now decades later, I am talking about moral leadership at Austin Seminary. I came of age

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on the south side of Chicago during the 1960s. It was an exhilarating, volatile period. You've all heard stories about the great migration of rural southern african americans in a two stage shift from the rural south

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to the urban south and from urban south to urban north. My family was part of what has been described as the largest migration in such a short concentration of years in american history. They migrated from Mississippi

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to west Memphis Arkansas, then north to Chicago, to escape the domestic terrorism of lynching and to pursue greater economic and personal development opportunities. But there was a shadowy side to our life in that city.

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The street gangs of Chicago were already world famous. One day two groups of young men gathered on the street directly in front of my grandmother's house. We live with my grandmother for many years until my parents

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could save a down payment to purchase a larger home where then she moved in with us. The boys were arguing about something and preparing to fight and all of a sudden out of nowhere my grandmother ran from

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her kitchen, through the house onto the front porch , down the stairs with aprons flying in the wind and right into the street to place her body between these muscle bound young men. I was eight or

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nine years old and horrified that she was putting my reputation on the line this way. But I listened , She spoke to both groups of boys and said , No one here is fighting today. I know

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what it's like for a mother to get a phone call that her son has been shot. My son was shot in europe in World War Two, serving in the army. I have fed many of your

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mothers and families from that little garden next door to this house. I know your families, your mothers do not want to get that phone call. It was an incredible scene. I watched these young tough

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homies, look at her, look at each other , look at her, look at their friends and begin to back away. No words spoken. She had parted a potential red sea, disrupting the usual

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street warfare. They all disbanded certain to fight another day. But because of this one woman and her moral courage and imagination, no other mothers or fathers intervene like that. Although a few watched timidly from

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their porches, there would be no fight that day in that place. And so I dedicate this lecture to my mother, grandmother ma Martha McCann from battle Mississippi in one of the nation's leading theological graduate theological

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seminaries. It might seem odd to speak of moral leadership rather than authentic christian leadership, discipleship, spiritual pastoral formation or even public theology. I should begin with. A caveat meant to justify this somewhat unusual

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focus on leadership. The modifier, authentic christian is intended to distinguish those who earnestly seek to emulate the values, priorities, practices and spirit of jesus of Nazareth as opposed to those who find it a convenient

00:15:01.030 - 00:15:18.920

label for their own commercial brands and gospels of health , wealth and success. Augustine, a quietness, Luther, William, Wilberforce, richard, allen, Harriet tubman martin, Luther, king, Jr and

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Dorothy Day all demonstrate that distinctively christian public moral leadership can be a history changing vocation and one to which more christian pastors and theologians should aspire as. G . K. Chesterton wrote, the christian faith hasn't

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been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and lefton tribe when we will certainly allude to an intersect with those vocations and identities in the pastoral sector. But my focus is somewhat broader for two

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reasons I am a christian leader and I believe in the authenticity and power of public christian witness. Nevertheless , in our radically diverse society, we need ways to communicate with fellow citizens who do not share our

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theological convictions. I choose to speak of moral leadership as a more inclusive and generic enterprise in an effort to open the conversation to those of other faith traditions , those with no particular or formal religious identity and

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those who wish to speak of morality without God. Now that's not my cup of cappuccino, but I respect the tradition of philosophical, secular, rational discourse about truth, goodness, beauty, and justice.

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And there is an empirical dimension to this diversity. The 2018 Pew polling shows that most Americans, now believe, quote, you can have good moral values without believing in God. End, quote. In

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the end, I will critique this tradition and method but will not dismiss it or disrespected. It is good, but I will ask, can it be better? Mhm. Lecture topics, identity, agency

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and impact. This first lectures titled moral agency and moral leadership. Identity. Here we will consider the identity formation of moral leaders. I'll set forth a definition of moral leadership that is inclusive of, but

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not distinctive from moral agency. Moral agents are people who act in accord with their most deeply held moral principles and values about what is right true good, beautiful moral agency is a foundation for moral leadership.

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But I define moral leaders as people who live and lead with integrity, courage, and imagination as they serve the common good while inviting people to join them . They are moral agents who respond to the vocation

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of leadership that increases righteousness, truth, goodness and beauty. That vocation aims to increase our later argue , unleash what they construe to be the common good and they seek to expand this project or movement by

00:18:48.210 - 00:19:06.280

enlisting others. Many factors and experiences go into their development and making it is interesting to think about how and why they become moral leaders and it is interesting even important to understand what they actually think and do

00:19:06.280 - 00:19:22.780

in the world. How did my grandmother become that person? We know what she did, what she could do. But what did she think about from what she said that day and from what I observed

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over the course of our lives together, I know that she had a keen sense of the way God wanted the world, a strong doctrine of God's sovereignty and grace. She know she, in her mind

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, she knew what God wanted and she went into the streets to help make it happen. I believe that she hoped that her action would inspire and invite the neighbors who kept their distance for obvious reasons.

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Her action was not rooted in personal happiness or rational self interest, but rather empathy for the pain of others. The potential pain of those mothers and in the grace of God, of which she felt certain

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the matter of what moral leaders think and do will serve as the focus of our second lecture this afternoon moral leadership and invitation to adventure. Our focus will be agency and the invitation to become an agent who

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may have or create opportunities to lead. Not all moral agents are leaders, but all moral leaders are first moral agents. Finally, the definition ultimately hinges on the judgment of others. It involves the retrospective

00:20:49.160 - 00:21:08.920

assessment of words spoken lives, lived deeds done. The larger community of human observers makes the judgment about whether another person was or is a moral leader. That seems correct as leadership is a social act and

00:21:08.920 - 00:21:30.730

a social contract between people. However, we should remember that the judgment of the crowd can be fickle at times. Sometimes good and courageous people are Miss red and feared. Socrates was poisoned, Jesus was

00:21:30.730 - 00:21:45.160

crucified, martin. King was murdered. That will be the focus of our third lecture tomorrow. Moral leadership and the common good. There We will discuss the impact that moral leaders have and the difference they

00:21:45.160 - 00:22:04.260

make. Leaders and followers make a certain promises to each other, but the promises are usually temporary and must be continually updated and revalidated in order to sustain trust and connection if people live better lives because they

00:22:04.260 - 00:22:21.040

have been impacted by moral leaders. That is a deep act of trust of faith, hope of love . In a free society, no one no entity courses us to aspire to become better people. No

00:22:21.040 - 00:22:37.170

one follows us around after a lecture or sermon or speech to monitor whether or not we have to to paraphrase Chesterton, found the moral life difficult and left on tried. That is why the notion of invitation

00:22:37.840 - 00:22:55.350

and voluntary assent are so important to understand and appreciate and perhaps to cultivate in a more refined and intentional way as an essential practice of leadership, the art of invitation, after all, how does one appeal

00:22:55.350 - 00:23:11.520

to the public with about a common good unless one communicates effectively? This is a central question of the field of discourse ethics and that may have implications for what moral leaders think and do and how we might

00:23:11.530 - 00:23:29.960

improve their craft. For instance, I will argue that among other things, moral leaders frame issues as moral issues in ways that invite participation. This practice involves the art of persuasion and public rhetoric, something

00:23:29.960 - 00:23:42.690

that the enterprise of Hamill ethics and preaching have refined and could teach more broadly. You have as a president, one of the masters of this art. Okay. Our purpose and aim. My hope is

00:23:42.690 - 00:24:00.850

to urge institutions of learning and socialization, especially schools . University leaders and faculties, including in the natural sciences, Social sciences, humanities, philosophy, theology and various professions to consider devoting more attention to the

00:24:00.850 - 00:24:22.470

subtopic of moral leadership within their respective disciplines. What do engineers, biologists or neuroscientists, accountants, artists or lawyers have to do with moral leadership? Why would a section on moral leadership ever appear in a

00:24:22.480 - 00:24:40.640

chapter or a syllabus for that guild? The topic of moral leadership? Maybe audacious, presumptuous and risky , certainly controversial. But if it pertains to the betterment of human community and the responsible execution of a

00:24:40.650 - 00:25:00.780

disciplines mission, it is appropriate fair for the academy . Indeed, disciplines should recognize that there is a moral dimension to every social institution, as there are deep moral assumptions, contracts and trusts that are inherent

00:25:00.780 - 00:25:18.380

in virtually every social practice. So this is an invitation for institutions to now take a step beyond the emphasis that emerged after the scandals and crises that driven by the White House, dishonesty and Watergate corporate malfeasance

00:25:18.380 - 00:25:34.760

at Enron, the personal tragedies and sexual assaults that unfolded at Penn State University, together with other scandals in the ranks of catholic clergy, the Atlanta public school cheating debacle and cover ups and police departments that

00:25:34.760 - 00:25:56.260

allowed extrajudicial murders of young black men. The ethics conversation ramped up after those tragedies. New regulations monitoring penalties, regulations emerged and institutional leaders began to set a new and morally circumspect tone at the top.

00:25:56.270 - 00:26:21.050

As the leadership literature refers to it. Much of the focus was on compliance training monitoring, but few organizations invited and inspired employees, Community members, parishioners to aspire higher to active moral agency and moral leadership

00:26:21.940 - 00:26:40.740

. I believe we are in a new era where moral leadership is needed to repair broken trust and frayed relationships. The work of restoration will require a new ethos, new tones at the top and new training

00:26:40.740 - 00:26:59.640

for leaders who can do this work. We noticed when there is a paucity of moral leadership in an organization. In the larger human community, villages have elders and those elders should leave, but it is

00:26:59.650 - 00:27:18.990

exciting to observe younger people new to the burdens of sustaining fragile social life aspired to contribute and add value to the best of their villages. Dr robert cole said of his teacher, Harvard, psychoanalyst Erik H

00:27:18.000 - 00:27:37.520

. Erickson that Erickson often spoke of the leadership that young people can provide to their elders, their parents and teachers, as he put it. Courage is leadership affirmed. Now the presence of older moral leaders

00:27:37.520 - 00:27:52.520

who were inviting and mentoring, dialoguing with the next generation of moral agents and leaders is a sign of a healthy village, a sign that someone is thinking about and holding firm to the organization's multi generational mission

00:27:52.530 - 00:28:11.540

and values in the academy and in most organizations we teach and promote strategic leadership, especially the business and military leaders. We teach servant leadership, particularly to non profit and faith leaders. Why should we not

00:28:11.540 - 00:28:33.750

attempt to better understand, explain and promote moral leadership Apart from the University Seminary school, This topic also has important implications for families. Our primary socializing institutions , parenting is a form of moral leadership. The

00:28:33.750 - 00:28:53.420

ancient Greeks understood that the household was the first seminar room, the first classroom on virtue, parents were expected to model, teach and encourage the development of virtue. But couples, husbands, wives, partners

00:28:53.430 - 00:29:10.250

without Children who seek to be better friends in continental relationship are also encouraged, are engaged in a moral enterprise. It is in this zone. Many traditions would prefer to speak of it as a sacrament that

00:29:10.250 - 00:29:26.750

human beings have become better people. This is a time when we all need to think about solutions to threats to our republic. Americans are um, it's too complicated time in this nation's history, Time marked

00:29:26.760 - 00:29:42.020

by intellectual and moral chaos. During such times, we need to have conversations about how we will go forward together, guided by a reliable moral compass in the past. People like Abraham, Lincoln Frederick,

00:29:42.020 - 00:30:00.940

douglass, Eleanor, Roosevelt and rosa parks help to invite us invite us to choose a better path forward . Those people are around today. They don't even realize it, but the constellation of circumstances, visions

00:30:00.940 - 00:30:19.310

and impulses to lead can emerge unexpectedly and produce unpredictable results. I hope that listeners will examine the social and moral crises that face us right now. The partisan divide, the racial gender class tensions, the

00:30:19.310 - 00:30:33.100

future of guns, immigration policy, well being of our Children and youth, the state of public health , our cultural wars over the future of families and so on. Think about what might be the most

00:30:33.100 - 00:30:52.470

courageous and impactful course of action that your or their ethical and religious values can underwrite. This highlights an ultimate, the ultimate adventure that you confront every moral agent every day, what are moral leaders called to

00:30:52.470 - 00:31:11.370

be and to do. Now In this immediate context , our definition. I've introduced a working definition of moral leadership and it has three elements. People with integrity, courage and imagination who serve the common good

00:31:11.380 - 00:31:36.270

while inviting others to join. I'm privileging three virtues , integrity, courage and imagination. Why these three ? I maintain that integrity is the quality of wholeness and the seamless integration of values, intentions and behavior

00:31:36.840 - 00:31:52.630

. Integrity is the starting point of all moral existence . I think of courage as the fearless activation of one's deepest convictions. As C. S. Lewis put it. Courage is not simply one of the

00:31:52.630 - 00:32:15.410

virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chased or honest or merciful only on conditions. In quote, my favorite representation of

00:32:15.410 - 00:32:34.770

courage is embedded in the lore about a native american leader who was among the possibilities to be etched into Mount Rushmore. Crazy horse writer john Taliaferro suggests, we have few heroes like crazy horse in american history

00:32:35.140 - 00:32:51.890

. Unlike chief joseph, crazy horse never surrendered. Unlike Geronimo, he was never imprisoned. Unlike Red cloud, he never signed a treaty. Unlike sitting bull, he never allowed his shadow to be captured

00:32:51.900 - 00:33:07.480

on camera. He never even slept in a white man's bed. And because his grave is a mystery for thousands of indians, he is still very much at large. He still lives today. Numerous places

00:33:07.480 - 00:33:20.810

in the Black Hills are named for Custer, a town, a county, a mountain, a state park, but the spirit of crazy horse is everywhere and those who sense his presence also nurture. The

00:33:20.810 - 00:33:40.200

belief that the black hills, Like the promised land May one day belong to the Lakota again, end quote, courage and imagination, imagination. The ability to face the quotidian challenges of everyday life. With

00:33:40.200 - 00:34:01.280

an innovative, transcendent aesthetic outlook, imagination disrupts the familiar and predictable demands attention. It is as tuskegee Institute founder, Booker T Washington said, doing common things in an uncommon manner, or, as Einstein

00:34:01.280 - 00:34:16.560

said, logic will take you from A to B imagination will take you anywhere. Several favorite examples of moral imagination. Come to mind. Gandhi took the western list of the seven deadliest sins generated by the

00:34:16.560 - 00:34:29.790

monk john Cassian in the fifth century, which were individualized and as long as, you know, private transgressions, wrath, envy, greed, gluttony lust into. He took those and he transformed them into

00:34:29.790 - 00:34:52.720

social sins, imagination that threaten all of us. Gandhi wrote of politics without principle, wealth without work , commerce without morality, science without humanity, education without character, pleasure without conscience and worship without sacrifice

00:34:53.040 - 00:35:09.060

. When Martin Luther King was arrested in Birmingham in 1963, a group of local religious leaders drafted a letter chiding him for coming to their city to evoke embarrassing angry reactions from police and white citizens councils.

00:35:09.640 - 00:35:21.910

King sat in jail and tend to reply to the pastors. He called it letter from Birmingham jail. If you've not read it, please place it on your reading list. It is now a classic of

00:35:21.920 - 00:35:38.760

moral argument and suasion, but it was a brilliant display of moral imagination to seize the moment to frame a response that was more than a response imagination was present when the churches of New Orleans gathered for worship

00:35:38.770 - 00:35:54.090

after Hurricane Katrina as devastations. A united methodist bishop took a branch from a tree that had fallen against and damaged the church, dip the tree in the containers of rain and floodwater and flung drop it or

00:35:54.090 - 00:36:12.990

droplets into the air and the gathered survivors who huddled together at the altar. It was the church's way of declaring what was meant to destroy us, is now making us stronger and freer and why sir moral

00:36:12.990 - 00:36:28.460

leaders serve the common good. This is a broad and generous phrase to be sure. It points to the things we all need and desire to have a chance for fulfilling life. The founders of the American

00:36:28.470 - 00:36:45.340

Republic were wise in crafting a shorthand way to suggest this. The preamble of the Constitution reads, we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, established justice, ensure

00:36:45.340 - 00:37:07.670

domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity Do Ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America 1787. It's

00:37:07.670 - 00:37:24.040

hardly necessary to emphasize the obvious discrepancy between this noble rhetoric of inclusion. We the people and America's realities of exclusions. Subsequently, an exclusion that was some time almost surgical in nature. Think of laws that

00:37:24.040 - 00:37:43.420

were written and some of our state constitutions, one drop of negro blood makes a person black. Nevertheless , the aspirational horizon of forming a more perfect union continues to inspire many. Even skeptics could be moved

00:37:43.420 - 00:38:01.610

. Hearing dr King utter those words after his experience of being arrested, stabbed, spat upon and hounded by the FBI. The moral leader doesn't simply increase the common good she or he enacts and enables what

00:38:01.610 - 00:38:22.230

is already there, lurking beneath the surface, often disguised or distorted by the logic of market capitalism that attach is monetary value and hierarchies to human existence and relationships. The goods in the common good may need

00:38:22.230 - 00:38:43.030

to be liberated by people of courage, integrity, and imagination who lead by example, the moral leader exhibits integrity, courage and imagination as she or he serves and unleashes the common good the good of all

00:38:43.030 - 00:39:00.080

the people, while also inviting others to join the movement. The historical process of change. The invitation is an act of humility. No leader can accomplish great purposes alone. It it acknowledges that others are

00:39:00.080 - 00:39:20.790

important and can add value. Invitations can be extended face to face, mediated through various forms of communication and through social media that provide opportunities to respond immediately and directly to the appeal. Well, with this

00:39:20.790 - 00:39:38.900

working definition in place, let's move to consider how moral leaders are identified, how they come to be . Consider this hypothetical. The idea for a moral mount Rushmore of leaders is gaining momentum in the nation

00:39:40.020 - 00:39:57.740

. You have been invited to serve as an advisor to the concept, whom would you nominate to be sculpted into the granite any four leaders? The floor is open, identify them and justify your choices.

00:39:58.420 - 00:40:07.580

If this was a seminar, we'd be doing that right now but we won't. Now. I hope that during our Q. And A sessions I'd like to hear from you and our friends in the overflow

00:40:07.580 - 00:40:25.740

room. Now I teach a class on the principles and practices of moral leadership and that's how I begin the course with that thought exercise Mount Rushmore consultant, which for whom years ago however I started the class

00:40:25.740 - 00:40:44.390

differently. I used to begin by asking students to define moral leadership by calling out the first words that came to mind here. Hearing upon hearing the phrase they generated a list of virtues and characteristic behaviors expected

00:40:44.400 - 00:41:04.410

in moral leaders. Then one day I stumbled across an article on Mount Rushmore. As you see from this list, respectability, accountability, trustworthy authenticity, focus, vision, humility. Sorry, that's small

00:41:04.410 - 00:41:17.290

for those of you in the rear. But I came across an article on Mount Rushmore and it taught me a couple of things I didn't know before I learned in elementary school about the great mountain and this

00:41:17.290 - 00:41:34.110

massive outdoor tribute to four U. S. Presidents and its purpose. It was built to lure tourists now increasingly more mobile early in the 20th century with the proliferation of automobiles thanks to Henry ford and merging

00:41:34.110 - 00:41:50.580

roads, people wanted to drive, see America and Mount Rushmore was aimed to get people beyond Chicago and the Mississippi River, brilliant idea what I didn't know where to interesting things. First the architect who undertook

00:41:50.580 - 00:42:07.360

and supervise the carving at Mount Rushmore was the same artist who began but did not complete carving the colossal images on stone mountain in Georgia. Gutzon Borglum was a brilliant and daring sculptor and unfortunately he was also

00:42:07.360 - 00:42:24.720

a committed white supremacist. He won wide acclaim for his plan and the technologies he invented to carve and sculpt the leaders of the confederacy, lee Davis and Jackson into the granite mountain outside Atlanta. And because

00:42:24.720 - 00:42:45.250

of that job and his genius, he was chosen for Mount Rushmore. Now the four men on the mountain, the top photo, we're not the original cast as many of you know this story and in

00:42:45.250 - 00:43:00.930

fact the selecting selection of the actual number and identity of the figures was quite fluid. Particularly intriguing was the idea that among the preferred or suggested images. Initially, the Secretary Commissioner of history of South Dakota

00:43:00.940 - 00:43:22.010

, his vision was this bottom set of figures Lewis and Clark chief, Red Cloud and Buffalo Bill. Later, serious proposals also included Sacha Julia, the lemme, shoshone indian explorer who helped Lewis and Clark

00:43:22.700 - 00:43:40.050

and the suffragist Susan b Anthony. It's fascinating and exciting to consider. The nation could have had women and people of color alongside those courageous white male explorers as emblems of american identity. And so then I

00:43:40.050 - 00:44:01.720

showed the students these images that you've just looked at and when students examine this extensive portfolio of possibilities, something happened in there, right brains, they between quite animated in class discussing the qualities that should qualify

00:44:01.720 - 00:44:20.220

or disqualify nominees. As we debated, we found it useful to distinguish between people who had engaged in some noteworthy, memorable moral action that express deeply held ethical values and those who seem to possess a vocation

00:44:20.890 - 00:44:39.610

are calling to live their lives in ways that made them identify as identifiable as moral leaders. Interestingly, notions of consistency, persistence, self conscious awareness and self criticism became more evident and prominent in their definitions

00:44:40.890 - 00:44:55.360

. As our discussions proceeded. We also acknowledge that we were discussing exceedingly fallible and flawed human beings like the President's. You see on the top road, we were not in search of saints but of common

00:44:55.360 - 00:45:14.380

people. People felt called to do uncommon things and worked heroically to overcome their own shortcomings. We then drew a distinction between people who might be considered moral leaders and those who have exhibited some exquisite discreet act

00:45:14.380 - 00:45:31.310

or episode of moral agency. They did the right things for the right reasons, but moral agents, some of them quickly returned, perhaps retreated from the expectation of continuing to do so. We can still

00:45:31.310 - 00:45:46.780

admire people of this kind who possess what the wonderful author. I I'll press calls beautiful Souls in a little book by that same title. Yeah, he says they do not aspire to the invitation and inspiration

00:45:46.790 - 00:46:04.240

phases of ongoing moral leadership. Press writes about six ordinary people across different historical times who stepped up in times of moral crisis to do extraordinary things. And his book opens with the wonderful words of Susan song

00:46:04.240 - 00:46:21.750

tag quote at the center of our moral life and our moral imagination are the great models of resistance. The great stories of those who have said, no end quote. This proved to be an unexpected pedagogical

00:46:21.750 - 00:46:40.880

discovery. Beginning a conversation about moral leadership by asking about disembodied, abstract virtues, traits and personal character attributes proved to be somewhat sterile and distant. But when talking about specific people embodied virtue, suddenly we

00:46:40.880 - 00:46:58.330

all became more animated. The conversation came alive. New york times journalists and pundits, David brooks makes the point in his wonderful book, The Road to character we explains his method. I will describe.

00:46:58.330 - 00:47:15.660

He writes what this character building method looks like in real life. I'm going to do this through biographical essays which are also moral essays. Since Plutarch moralists have tried to communicate certain standards by holding up exemplars

00:47:15.670 - 00:47:32.420

. You can't build rich lives simply by reading sermons or following abstract rules. Example is the best teacher . Moral improvement occurs most reliably when the heart is warmed. When we come into contact with people we

00:47:32.420 - 00:47:58.010

admire and love my grandmother and we consciously and unconsciously bend our lives to mimic. There's interestingly when my class focused mhm on contemporary moral leaders, this was a group, There were many, many others,

00:47:58.010 - 00:48:13.300

but as as it were in the online world, the ones who received the most hits, who came up repeatedly semester after semester were Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani , girl shot in the head for promoting girls education

00:48:13.550 - 00:48:30.780

in Pakistan Howard Schultz of Starbucks founders grew up in the housing projects of Brooklyn benefits he extends Starbucks workers starting a race conversation didn't go well, but the vision, the courage to step out on to do

00:48:30.780 - 00:48:43.000

something on nation, Marian wright. Edelman was wonderful to hear our preacher last night, Sarah johnson speak of Marian wright. Edelman has been in a role model for me, has the spirit of my grandmother

00:48:43.470 - 00:48:59.320

and of course, our beloved Pope Francis, let's say a word about the literature on leaders, moral and otherwise in ancient societies. There was greater curiosity about leadership that was moral, an emphasis that waned

00:48:59.320 - 00:49:14.670

as time passed and literally elites seem to retreat in the self absorption rather than public service. I reflect on Pluto rocks, wonderful book and I have students read elements of that the parallel lives our lives of

00:49:14.670 - 00:49:31.080

noble Grecians and romans. I won't explore that now , but I do in my in the writing on his observation about these parallel virtues in roman and greek leaders across centuries separated. And then I note that

00:49:31.080 - 00:49:46.530

there is a significant new greening of the literature, literature on moral leadership after a period in which there seem to be almost no interest until the Watergate and the other scandals that I mentioned. And so I

00:49:46.530 - 00:50:08.170

note a number of terrific books James MacGregor Burns being the early uh and in some ways unlikely a Catalyst for this wonderful genre. In his 1978 book leadership , he distinguishes between transactional leaders and transformational leaders.

00:50:08.170 - 00:50:24.960

And transactional leaders exchange services and goods for for some exchange, you know, services for votes and so on. By contrast, the transformational leader becomes involved in the lives of the people and in the course

00:50:24.960 - 00:50:49.340

of building that relationship and walking together, they they elevate one another's motivations and morality in the course of that relationship. At the beginning of his book, Jesus and the Disinherited Disinherited, delivered as lectures here

00:50:49.340 - 00:51:06.110

in Austin, a book that dr King carried in his briefcase for inspiration and wisdom, the great theologian and university boston, university chaplain Howard thurman wrote, quote, many and varied are the interpretations dealing with

00:51:06.110 - 00:51:17.530

the teachings and life of jesus of Nazareth, but few of these are interpretations that deal with the teaching in life of jesus and what he has to say to say to those who stand at a moment in

00:51:17.540 - 00:51:34.340

history with their backs against the wall. And many argue that it was thurman in the late 1940s who kind of gives a launch to the sort of liberation theology outlook. What does it mean to talk about

00:51:34.340 - 00:51:54.100

, Jesus and the parables from the perspective of those with their backs against the wall? Let me move ahead to this final section in this part of the lecture because I'd argue that no thinker has had a

00:51:54.100 - 00:52:15.170

greater impact in elaborating the formation of moral leaders than Harvard's now deceased. Erick Erickson many of you know , his work, his student robert, coles physicians , psychiatrists said that he worked with Ericsson at Harvard

00:52:15.180 - 00:52:30.190

and he was struck how, and I quote, Erickson's attempts to understand the nature of moral leaders as evident in his studies of Luther and Gandhi, a book on each of them and Erickson's own moral leadership

00:52:30.200 - 00:52:42.960

. For many of us, trained in psychoanalytic psychiatry was decisive. End, quote, I will say for myself, when I first discovered and encountered dr Erickson at Harvard, I was at the divinity School

00:52:42.960 - 00:53:00.680

in the seventies. I was a student of William Rogers and James Fowler, Visiting Professor Henry now and I found Erickson's work to be helpful and rich with cultural insight and I admired the diagnostic sophistication. At

00:53:00.680 - 00:53:13.540

the same time, Erickson had his blind spots and things about which he would have learned and grown particularly about gender and race if he had lived longer. But more intriguing for me as a young man who

00:53:13.540 - 00:53:27.570

had grown up during the turbulent 60's and more compelling than his books on Luther and Gandhi were his seminars and dialogues with Huey P Newton, founder of the Black Panther Party, captured in a little book that

00:53:27.580 - 00:53:38.730

almost no one has knows about, or a scene titled In Search of Common ground, In search of common ground, is the leader of the Black Panther party. Ericson brought Newton into the academy in a

00:53:38.730 - 00:53:53.760

new way for me. I have not seen any of his Harvard peers make that move. Eriksson took risks to better understand the lives of unfamiliar moral agents and leaders who are seeking to serve the common good

00:53:53.760 - 00:54:10.780

as they construed it, and inviting the world to join them Now, until his death in 1990. for Erikssen's books provided powerful tools for understanding the upheavals and revolutions that info unfolded in America during the 1960s

00:54:10.780 - 00:54:24.830

and 70s. They include, of course, the classic childhood and society that I recommend. If you haven't looked at An older book now 1950, but he had subsequent texts that continued this basic analysis.

00:54:25.740 - 00:54:46.380

He suggested that as the individual grows through the human life cycle, engage, they engage in an ongoing process of negotiating biological and sociocultural forces at each new threshold or stage of development, From empathy through childhood

00:54:46.390 - 00:55:05.080

to adolescence, young adulthood, mature adulthood and the elder years. Humans must successfully reconcile these conflicting forces . Biology, sociocultural forces and achieve the trait or a virtue at each day that each, what he

00:55:05.080 - 00:55:24.010

calls nuclear crisis. If successful, one enters a new stage with certain assets and if not successfully managed , one may proceed. one may grow older while still working through the challenges of an earlier developmental crisis

00:55:24.010 - 00:55:39.170

. Everybody here knows of a friend who's far beyond their adolescent years but still struggling to clarify their identity . Working on issues that could have been a result might have been resolved in an earlier time. Our

00:55:39.170 - 00:55:57.960

purpose is not in bringing in developmental psychology as a tool as a dialogue partner with moral leadership literature, not to suggest that understanding moral leadership requires us to psychoanalyze them or ourselves. Rather, ericsson is suggesting

00:55:57.960 - 00:56:15.050

that there are important questions and categories here to which we should be attentive the eight stages I won't go through. I may rehearse these at a subsequent lecture , but beginning with trust versus mistrust. And the

00:56:15.050 - 00:56:30.300

more important notion here is actually in this other slide which is too small even for me to read from here. But in the center line and that's when you see this in printed form. I hope you

00:56:30.300 - 00:56:45.660

will attend to our set of virtues like hope will purpose, uh competence and care that emerge at each stage of human development. We can come back to this when we have time, as I said in

00:56:45.660 - 00:57:01.770

a subsequent talk and we can linger on these charts or perhaps we could even have these copied and disseminated . We can talk about that. Finally, uh the virtues that Erickson suggests result from our healthy stage

00:57:01.770 - 00:57:19.490

specific conflict resolution, virtues like care, hope, purpose and love if we allow them some currency are I think essential for healthy personhood and for moral agency and leadership, moral agency and leadership. Often begin

00:57:19.490 - 00:57:34.270

with the desire stirred by curiosity and observation. It is a form of love that draws that brooks notion of bending your life to mimic that pastor, that grandfather or mother, that person who in fact you

00:57:34.280 - 00:57:52.750

deeply, it's not love at first sight, but rather love through repeated site through study integrity, courage and imagination developed through knowledge, desire, practice habits form and the wet cement of characters poured into that

00:57:52.750 - 00:58:08.880

mold. That form. Soon character develops and hardens . Helen Vendler said that it's a privilege for and a responsibility for teachers, pastors to teach our students . I love her phrase to love what we have

00:58:08.880 - 00:58:24.730

loved. If you can manage that you fulfilled your call as a teacher, teach your students to love what you have love. I saw this happen up close and personal in two places that I'll write about

00:58:24.730 - 00:58:39.620

and talk about in our third lecture, Morehouse College and the chautauqua institution. In the final lecture, I'll have more to say about both of those and about how moral leaders may be products of enduring institutions

00:58:39.630 - 00:58:44.630

with strong cultures like Austin Seminary. Thank you for