Nouwen’s observation emanates from the growing sense of irrelevance that Christian leaders can have in a society that expects leaders to demonstrate a competence that leads to a control of circumstances.
This demand that leaders provide certainty and security sees Christian leaders transform their roles in ways that provide certainty and security, or leave their pastoral roles and find other roles in society that provide certainty and security in other spheres.
The growth in desire for certainty and security has seen a growth of those who feel neither in their lives, a growth in those who feel irrelevant and insecure.
And here the Christian can meet them, claiming our own irrelevance and inability to create certainty and security for ourselves. We can meet them with all we have: the light of Jesus.
The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there.
Henri J. M. Nouwen, In The Name Of Jesus – Reflections On Christian Leadership, The Crossroad Publishing Company NY, 1989, pg 35.
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