Issue 10 Preaching through AdversityBlog | Soul care for leaders: truth telling in an age of mistrust
Soul care for leaders: truth telling in an age of mistrust
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 18.03.17
uring the United States Presidential race, establishment figure Hillary Clinton was pitched against the self-proclaimed outsider Donald Trump. Neither were hugely trusted by the public, but Trump's popular support was against all the odds largely because he was 'not one of them', the hated political elite. Similarly in the Brexit referendum, mainstream economists looked intently into the camera and swore blind that the UK risked Armageddon if it left the European Union. ‘Nonsense,’ was the outraged response, ‘you are just scaremongering to frighten us into voting to remain.’
Commenting on the US election, the documentary film maker Michael Moore claimed that a lot of the people who supported Trump did so because they wanted to lob a Molotov Cocktail into the heart of the government machine.
After the EU referendum, many who opted to leave admitted that they didn't actually expect to win; they just wanted to send a message to Westminster. To borrow a line from Romeo and Juliet, ‘a plague on both your houses.’ Shakespeare might as well have been talking about the Commons and the Lords, or the Senate and the House of Representatives. According to popular view, professionals in general and political in particular cannot be trusted. Preaching in an age of cynicism is no easy matter. Yet while the establishment class often appears bemused by the hostility towards it from
