As I mentioned in my first blog, The Ethics of Beauty is a multidisciplinary work that includes commentary based on the work of Christopher Alexander, an architectural theorist. [1] Alexander’s books outline his theory of patterns present in architecture and art that the human eye finds pleasing and the human soul finds nourishing. Alexander believed there is fundamentally one timeless way of building, as old as the world itself. It involves creating villages, homes, and public buildings where human beings can feel a sense of belonging and find meaning.

For example, Alexander noticed that certain medieval towns and villages contained features that people found pleasing and that they experienced a pleasant living environment. This leads to the opinion that we can discover certain patterns in these examples, which, when assembled appropriately, create a beautiful landscape. These patterns are not static but dynamic and emerging, which humans can use when creating living spaces. A practicing Roman Catholic, Alexander recognized the religious implications of his work. He believed there was a connection between the order of nature, traditional practices, the beliefs of various cultures, and recent scientific advancements.

The Order of Nature

There exists in nature what is sometimes called “The Golden Ratio.” The Golden Ratio, also known as the Golden Number, Golden Proportion, or the “Divine Proportion,” is a ratio between two numbers that equals approximately 1.618. Usually written as the Greek letter phi, it is strongly associated with the Fibonacci sequence, a series of numbers wherein each number is added to the last. The Fibonacci numbers are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, and so on, with the ratio of each number and the previous number gradually approaching 1.618, or phi. [2]

Euclid’s Elements mentions the Golden Ratio from around 300 BCE. Euclid and other early mathematicians like Pythagoras recognized the proportion but didn’t call it the Golden Ratio. It wasn’t until later in human history that the proportion took on its current mystique. In 1509, Italian mathematician Luca Pacioli published the book De Divina Proportione, which, alongside illustrations by Leonardo da Vinci, praised the ratio as representing divinely inspired simplicity and orderliness.

The Golden Ratio is commonly found in the natural world and is regarded as pleasing by human beings. It appears in various aspects of nature, from the structure of seashells to that of certain flowers and other areas. Artists and others have discovered that the golden ratio is significant because humans find it aesthetically pleasing. Artists, architects, and designers have extensively used the golden ratio in creating visually appealing works of art.

Studies have shown that the golden ratio also impacts what features humans find beautiful. Certain ratios between aspects of the human face contribute to the sense of beauty, and people find certain ratios between the hands, arms, and other parts of the human body beautiful. The Golden ratio would seem to be an example of a feature of nature that contributes to the human experience of beauty and forms of foundation for aspects of the science of aesthetics.

The Roman Architect, Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, who wrote De Architectura (c. 25 B.C.), remarked on a similarity between the human body and a perfect building: “Nature has designed the human body so that its members are duly proportioned to the frame as a whole.” He inscribed the human body into a circle and a square, the two figures considered images of perfection. In recent times, mathematical analysis of physical features humans find beautiful has disclosed the importance of symmetry to the experience of beauty.

Leonardo da Vinci utilized the Golden Ratio in his artistic works. Most famously, the Mona Lisa (1503) was created using what is known as the Golden Section, which is applied in modern design systems. This technique produces organic and natural-looking compositions that are pleasing to the human eye. In other words, not only does the perfect ratio influence our perceptions of human beauty, but people also recognize beauty by incorporating that ratio into their own creative works, both artistic and architectural.

Patterns in Architecture and Life

In his book, The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander outlines simple patterns that humans use to create physical spaces and enjoy them as we inhabit them. Some of these patterns include limitations on four-story buildings, sacred sites, access to water, promenades, shopping streets, the presence of educational institutions, marketplaces, the inclusion of all ages—such as old people and children—small public squares, holy sites, ample parking, and parallel roads. Regarding human homes, Alexander mentions common areas at the heart of the house, flow-through rooms, tapestries of light and dark, a couple’s private realm, the children’s private spaces, farmhouse-style kitchens, private terraces, adequate light, beds in alcoves, windows overlooking outdoor life, child caves, secret places, and outdoor gardens.

The point is not the specific applicability of each of these patterns to every city or home but the fact that they are suitable for human beings, who require a certain kind of space to thrive. Both publicly and privately, we need buildings scaled for humans, sacred places, a connection with nature, and a diverse community. These human needs create patterns that architects and artists can use to foster human flourishing. Conversely, there are particular patterns, exemplified by the Stalinist architecture of Soviet Russia, that people find stifling.

The Quality without a Name

For Alexander and the author of The Ethics of Beauty, patterns mediate what is called the Quality Without a Name into our lives. The Quality Without a Name is that feeling of wholeness that emerges when we ihhabit physically, mentally and emotionally good life patterns. This idea that certain patterns promote human flourishing goes beyond art and architecture. Pattisis writes:

The quality without a name that arises in good patterns and good ritual is a gift of the twofold anointing of the Holy Spirit; that is why it can have a “bittersweet” quality, why the experience of it can make us sad. The quality without a name is God’s uncreated glory fed to us through the created world when we respond to that world liturgically.[3]

For Pattisis, humans can experience living through the power of the Holy Spirit. God has revealed Himself through the word in nature. For Pattisis and Orthodoxy generally, that quality we find so hard to name is our participation in something divine. For Christians, this means participating in the life of Christ, whose life provides the ultimate pattern for human flourishing. In the end, the Quality Without a Name is that which we experience when we encounter the Transcendent God.

In the letters of John, the author describes God as Light and Love (1 John 1:5; 4:8), as the perfection of both order and relationship. This perfection of order, or symmetry, and relational unity, found perfectly in God, is mediated through the word of God into human existence and impacts human life and human flourishing. While Christians may have a unique experience of this perfection of being in relationship, all of creation and all of humanity participate in this creative grace of God and can experience the benefits or detriments of following or not following, of appreciating or not appreciating, and of submitting to or not submitting to the ultimate patterns of creation.

This is a particularly important insight: Whenever any human engages with the Beautiful, the Good, and the True, they are participating in the life of God. Therefore, Christians can make common cause with all those who seek the Good, True, and Beautiful in whatever way they do so. (We don’t necessarily agree with their motivations but admire and support their quest.)

Beauty is and is Not a Matter of Choice

The thoughts of Alexander and Pattisis imply that beauty is not something irrational or sub-rational. It isn’t merely an opinion or a prejudice. The recognition of beauty is ingrained in the created order and within human beings as part of that order. However, it must be appreciated by the whole person—mind, body, and soul. It encompasses a rationality that is deeper than other forms of rationality, including the recognition of Truth and Goodness within it. Once again, for Christians, this beauty, this Quality Without a Name, involves sensing the Uncreated Light of God and the Love of God made manifest in the Word by the power of the Holy Spirit.[4]

Patterns and Plato

For Patisis, the Patterns represent a modern interpretation of the Platonic Forms. For Plato, the Forms existed outside of nature and were not necessarily incorporated within it. For Pattisis, these forms signify the potential for recognizing beauty, which must be integrated into a specific work of art, home, or building to be acknowledged as part of Beauty. Rather than static ideals, the patterns are dynamic and are actively incorporated into works of Beauty.

If an artist simply repeats a pattern or slavishly incorporates patterns as a kind of preexisting blueprint into a design, the result is deadening repetition, not beauty. Imitation is not a form of beauty. It is creation by incorporation that creates a work of art. The archetype does not dominate the creative work; it is incorporated within it. Thus, every act of creation is a marriage of the universal and the particular.[5]

Uniqueness and Pattern

As an Orthodox thinker, Pattisis believes that each human being achieves perfection by seeking to incorporate Christ, the ultimate model for human existence, into their individual lives. When a person falls in love with God in Christ, they begin a process of divinization, incorporating that aspect of God they can, given their human imperfections and limitations.

In fact, Pattisis goes beyond a merely human incorporation by implying that all of creation finds its “telos,” its proper end, as it incorporates the “pattern” of Christ into their limited level of existence:

All of creation does this, and this is the mystery of creation, its hidden side. Every existing thing is following this cruciform pattern, this path of loving God and loving neighbor, which is why when we sin against God or others, it is so painful to us. Because on the level of our existence as souls and bodies, as humans, part of us is still loving Christ (eros) in the logos of himself which he gives uniquely to us, and part of us is still choosing to die with him (agape) for the life of the world. [6]

In its unique way, all of creation—every created being, including humans—fulfills the twofold movement of God’s erotic love and self-sacrificial giving. It is part of God’s world and is in a relationship with God. I cannot help but see this as an application of a process-oriented way of viewing the world. According to process philosophy, reality has both a mental and physical pole. All of reality contains at least the potential for feeling and consciousness. This potential for consciousness means that the mental aspect of reality reaches all the way to its foundation.

One possible implication of this is that all of reality expresses, within its created limits, the love of God and the rationality of God through every act of its creation, maintenance, and ultimate passing away. Where conscious choices are made, as in the case of human beings, we either positively or negatively bring levels of love into our lives or the reverse. In either case, we are either bringing ourselves closer to the logos of God or further away. In either case, it increases the world’s loveliness or the reverse.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Pattisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020).

[2] Adobe, “An Introduction to the Golden Ration” https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/design/discover/golden-ratio.html (Downloaded May 26, 2025

[3] Ethics of Beauty, at 427.

[4] This is what I have called the “Deep Light” and “Deep Love” of the triune God. See, G. Christopher Scruggs, Centered Living/Centered Leading: The Way of Light and Love Rev. Ed. (Booksurge, 2016).

[5] Ethics of Beauty, at 436.

[6] Id, at 442.

The Ethics of Beauty challenges common Western ideas about the relationship between beauty, goodness, and truth. [1]From the perspective of Eastern Orthodoxy, the division of the church around the year 1000 A.D. over the unauthorized actions of the Roman Pope in adding what is called the “filioque” to the Nicene Creed without an ecumenical council initiated a process of division that ultimately led to the Reformation and the numerous Christian denominations we see today. [2] From a philosophical perspective, influenced by Augustine and later Thomas Aquinas, Western philosophy and theology subsequently developed what might be considered a “truth-first” approach to knowledge, including knowledge of the Good and the Beautiful. In the eyes of the Orthodox, this aspect of Western culture has resulted in the West’s intellectual, moral, and artistic decadence.

As a Presbyterian pastor and, therefore, student of Calvin and the Reformed tradition, I often noticed that our disputes focus not so much on liturgy but on fine distinctions of theology. This tendency has spread to the massive differences among Protestant groups on moral matters, most notably abortion, which the church has always condemned. These endless disputes may be connected to a misguided  “ Truth-First” approach to spiritual matters.

In the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, the church somehow takes precedence over any particular theological system, several of which can exist simultaneously within the greater church. In Protestantism, the tendency is to split over these kinds of disputes. But its very nature embodies a truth-first approach to faith.

Beauty First Worship

Perhaps even more importantly, the lack of a common liturgy creates significant theological and cultural vulnerability in many Protestant churches. One aspect I find restful about attending liturgical churches is that wherever I am on any given Sunday morning—whether the church is Anglican, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or a variant—I hear almost the same liturgy and, generally speaking, sermons on the same texts. With three readings, regardless of the quality of the sermon, I’ve heard an Old Testament text, a Psalm, a Gospel text, and usually a text from one of Paul’s letters. Finally, there’s also a communion service with a liturgy tied to the ancient liturgies of the church.

As a young pastor, I spent much time designing church worship services. As a former lawyer, I want things to be “logical.” I spent a great deal of time being sure that the worship service flowed logically. Then, when we began to develop what we call “contemporary worship,” There was a need to redesign worship services again, with the need for a “time of worship” near the beginning. [3]

When I first began attending an Eastern Orthodox service, I noticed some differences that I initially found disconcerting. For one thing, the service had a large amount of repetition. Things were said over and over again. It was a long time before I realized that this repetition was gradually drawing the congregation into an experience of the living God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Then there was the incense, the icons, genuflections, and crossings. For a good Protestant, this can be a bit disconcerting. It was for me. Then I realized that Orthodox services deliberately draw the congregation into a physical experience of God. We smell the incense, visualize the icons, and cross ourselves; in other words, the Orthodox service does not merely appeal to the head but also to the body and emotions, what the ancients would’ve called “the heart.”

As a Protestant, I am accustomed to sermons being the center of the entire worship service. Pastors spend a lot of time preparing sermons, which can be between 30 and 40 minutes long. In liturgical churches, it’s rare to have a sermon longer than about 15 minutes. The center of the worship service is not a pastor, preaching a sermon, but the entire liturgy itself, especially the Lord’s Supper. The sermon is only a portion of the whole, not necessarily the service’s most important feature. Remarkably, I remember more of these 15-minute sermons than most of the 40-minute sermons I hear. I think holding yourself to fifteen minutes helps pastors and priests be succinct and focused in what they say.

Beauty-First Worship Space

For most of my professional career, under the influence of the “Megachurch Movement,” especially the views of Willow Creek, pastors with whom I’ve been familiar and churches I’ve known have been very reluctant to create traditional worship spaces. In evangelical churches today, it is common to have screens, a stage, a Praise Band, and other features in worship areas. The worship area resembles a setting for a rock concert. The reason is both cultural (“people feel more comfortable”) and practical (the setting is appropriate for the way the worship is designed).

In Orthodox churches, the entire church is opulently decorated with icons. An altar is behind a screen, where the priest conducts many worship service activities. Typically, Eastern Orthodox churches have a very traditional Orthodox architecture. When you’re in an Orthodox church, you don’t wonder for one moment whether you’ve drifted into a rock concert or you’re in a church. You’re definitely in a church.

I’ve had the opportunity to visit an Orthodox congregation in Austin, Texas, one of the most secular cities in America. It is filled with young people, all worshiping in a facility I was warned never to create. I’m not sure my earlier views were correct. Perhaps more importantly, the absence of beauty in many Protestant churches exemplifies a truth-first approach to religion. A service surrounded by art, highly crafted handiwork, and lovely vestments is a beauty-first worship service.

Truth in a Beauty-First Church

Lest you think that somehow, these beauty-first worship services lack intellectual content, each of the churches I visited has had bookstores filled with theological books that one does not usually see even in evangelical churches with bookstores. It is customary to find copies of Athanasius’ On the Incarnation in an Orthodox bookstore. Thus far, I haven’t seen any copies of the Left Behind Series or other mass-market Protestant literature. Perhaps more to the point, it’s unusual for the sermon not to include some theological discussion of the passage as it relates to Nicene faith. In addition, vast amounts of the liturgy are taken from the Bible.

Even the process of becoming a member is saturated with the Bible, the Orthodox tradition, Orthodox theology, and Orthodox worship. One member of an Orthodox church that I have come to be friendly with has a five-volume set of the history, tradition, theology, and worship of the Orthodox Church. It’s well over 2000 pages long. He read it as he became a member of the church. He’s the very same person who loaned me a copy of The Ethics of Beauty, upon which these blogs are based. Before becoming Orthodox, this person and his wife had been active members of more than one Reformed congregation. Both of them are highly educated, and they did not find the Orthodox beauty-first approach lacking concern for either truth or goodness.

Social Implications

In closing this week’s blog, I want to highlight the connection between a Beauty-First approach to theology and creating a beautiful society. I’ve had the opportunity to travel widely in both capitalist and Marxist countries. One of the things I find striking is the ugliness present in much of Western society and a significant portion of what we observe in the communist world as well. Somehow, an intellectual focus on Right Philosophy and Right Theology can blind leaders to the necessity of building a wholesome society where people can thrive. From this focus, we ultimately derive the scientific, materialistic, and technological focus that drives our culture.

I may talk more about this next week, but a Beauty-First approach is almost inevitably organic. It rejoices in the “small garden.” It believes that families are more important than political units. It believes that small businesses where people can use their talents and abilities are superior to great corporations, in which most people are simply units of production. It believes that society should not be overly “master planned,” but space should be given for the gradual emergence of an order created by beauty-seeking individuals. One of the essays in The Ethics of Beauty draws on the work of Jane Jacobs and his entitled “The City as a Liturgy.” The idea is that a thriving form of city is a joint movement of its citizens, freely undertaken, following a form or pattern of life that leads to human flourishing.

The liturgies we follow each week in church should be designed to build in church members a form or pattern of life that leads to human flourishing. This form or pattern of life cannot help but impact how they view their families, neighborhoods, cities, and larger political entities. It cannot help but impact how they view their businesses and economic life. We will not build the City of God in its entirety in this world. But we can make a beginning.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Patisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020). The ethics of beauty is a long book, almost 750 pages, and somewhat difficult to follow for a layperson. I am going to try to unpack the importance of its ideas for laypersons. I do not recommend it for those unwilling to read a book on ethics from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

[2] In the West, we speak of the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the “Father and the Son” (filioque).  As approved by the Council of Nicaea, the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) spoke of the Spirit as proceeding from the Father. No ecumenical council ever approved this; the Pope authorized the addition on his own authority. The Orthodox believe this was a theological mistake and an error of church organization: no pope can modify the church’s dogma. I believe they are correct on both counts.

[3] Contemporary worship often includes a “worship time” featuring several songs at the start of the service. Band members and attendees have told me that this period is designated for worship, whereas the sermon is considered the time for teaching. However, the Orthodox tradition would strongly disagree with this idea. They believe that the entire liturgy constitutes worship, and in this regard, they are correct.

The Transforming Beauty of Motherhood

I’m beginning this blog on Mother’s Day. Once each year in May, we all celebrate our mothers and motherhood. As I pondered Mother’s Day, getting together flowers, making a card, and arranging for dinner, I was captured by the thought that Mother’s Day is not enough. The American Mother’s Day may mask the fact that we don’t value motherhood much at all. If this is true, then Timothy Pattissa’s book, The Ethics of Beauty, serves as a much-needed corrective. [1] For Pattisas, motherhood lies at the foundation of society, the family, and any reasonable social order. And, of course, for the Orthodox and Roman Catholics, there really can’t be any discussion of motherhood without some mention of Mary.

The gospel of Luke records the visitation of Mary by the Angel Gabriel:

And the angel said to her, Fear not, Mary: for you have found favor with God. And, behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:30-33).

Mary responds with an act of acceptance, “May it be to me according to your word” (v. 28). As Pattisas notes, Mary opens her womb and life to the life of God in an act of holy hospitality.

This act of hospitality by Mary has a theological significance beyond the mere acceptance of Mary. In opening her womb to the Holy Spirit and embracing God from the moment of conception, Mary becomes the “Theotokos,” the mother of God. The Incarnate Word has a mother, and with Joseph, a family. Thus, marriage and family are not a mere human institution; it is a divine institution made holy by God’s participation in the human condition from conception forward.

In this act of “holy hospitality,” Mary has become the human agent of God’s entry into the world in a great act of divine condensation to the human condition, In the incarnation, God makes visible in one human life what has been invisibly true from the beginning of time: Love and family lie at the center of human life and human society. Just as Mary consented to bear Jesus, our human mothers in their own act of divine hospitality welcomed us, nurtured us, fed us, clothed us, watched over us, taught us, and sent us on our way into the world.

Every conception is and should be seen as an act of divine hospitality welcoming a new child made in the image of God and intended to be a child of God into the world. This sits at the root of a Christian attitude towards the value of human life. This sits at the Christian view of the importance of motherhood, of family, of the home and homelife, and of the gradual entry into the world of God’s universal family through the church. The mother provides the womb of the family, the family offers the womb of social interaction and life, and society forms the womb of human life and culture in the broadest sense.

Motherhood and its importance have profound importance for our notions of society, for all of human society is founded on and depends on motherhood. Pattisas likens the emergence of human society from motherhood by analogy to fractals. The emergence of order in chaotic systems is the emergence in ever more complex ways of the original fractal order on which it is based. In other words, the order of society is dependent upon the order of the family as it exists from the moment of conception.

We see all around us the consequences of ignoring this reality. If a well-ordered and fruitful human society depends upon the womb’s hospitality, then the reverse is also true. The disorder of our society begins with the disorder of the womb. It starts with the disorder of human sexuality, committed marriage, holy conception, loving, birth, and nurturing care.

“Pantocrator,” the word we translate as “Almighty” in the creed describing “God the Father Almighty,” can mean “Almighty,” but it can also mean “All Embracing”. If we believe that God is a God of love, and if we think that an all-embracing Divine Love sits at the foundation of the created order, then all of creation reflects the womb of God. What Mary and our earthly mothers consented to reflects God’s embracing and nurturing love. It is this love that entered the world in Christ, and it is towards this love that Mary, the mother of God, showed holy hospitality.

It is also to this love that we respond by faith. In the gospel of John, there is a long discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus, in which Jesus teaches Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom of God, we must be born again. In part, it reads as follows:

Nicodemus saith to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say to you, Except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:4-5).

Just as Mary welcomed the Holy Spirit into her womb, we welcome Christ into the womb of our hearts.

I think this way of looking at faith is a healthy complement to the legalistic and contractual view of salvation that emerged from the Reformation. Our faith in Christ and welcoming God into our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit is precisely analogous to human conception. We open our hearts by faith and welcome the seed of divine life into our human life. Just as the ovum welcomes the sperm in an act of passive hospitality, so we welcome God into our lives (faith alone) in an act of passive hospitality (grace alone) by which we are born again into the family of God (the Church Universal) as children of God.

This conception and new birth is our birth into a family. We must be nurtured and grow in the faith (Christian discipleship), as we learn to be part of God’s family of worship, prayer, and service to the world. This involves a continuing act of birth and rebirth in Christ as we mature in God’s family into which we have been born anew. As Pattisas puts it:

Yes, if we would be born again as Christ commands us to be (Jn 3:3), then we must allow him to be resurrected, or born again, within us. Now Paul uses the words “formed within us” in Galatians 4:19 but he uses these words of connection with the “pains of childbirth,” so “resurrection“ is a valid paraphrase for being born again for us to be born again, Christ condescended to be born again within our hearts. [2]

This passage from Galatians is of special importance. Paul is admonishing the Galatians who have drifted away from appropriate discipleship. He describes himself as in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is fully formed in them. In other words, Paul has welcomed the Galatians into the womb of his loving care for them that he might give them birth and form them fully into the Christian family. In other words, our Christian birth and maturity are not transactional but organic and should be seen in light of human childbearing. The church itself is to be seen in light of the Theotokos and Mary’s act of holy hospitality and the holy hospitality our human mothers showed in giving us birth.

This realization of the importance of motherhood to human civilization has significant consequences in other areas. For example, if the universe and our world resemble the womb of a mother giving birth to creation, then just as we care for pregnant mothers and the womb that bears our children, we will care for the creation that is very much like this womb. We will not abuse it. We will not treat it as unimportant. We will nurture it. We will care for it. We will see that we don’t in any way do anything that would deprive future generations of the womb in which human society grows and upon which it relies for nourishment.

America’s Mother’s Day is a secular holiday, and most of us, if we can and are inclined, take our mothers to church. However, Christians ought to see it as a holy holiday—more like Christmas and Easter than like the Fourth of July. Our mothers embody a divine mystery in giving us life. They embody the reality of a God who is love, who nurtures his creation, and who gives birth to beauty, health, wholeness, and all the blessings of life we can enjoy.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

[1] Tomothy Patisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020). The ethics of beauty is a long book, almost 750 pages, and somewhat difficult to follow for a layperson. I am going to try to unpack the importance of its ideas for laypersons. I do not recommend it for those unwilling to read a book on ethics from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

[2] Id, 408

This begins a series of blogs based on Timothy Patisas’s book, The Ethics of Beauty. [1] Philosophers categorize the world into three domains: epistemology, the study of what we can know about the nature of truth (The True); ethics, the examination of the nature of goodness and how we should act (The Good); and aesthetics, the exploration of beauty (Beauty). Western civilization has tended to emphasize truth and what we can know, and it has treated the good and the beautiful as secondary characteristics. The position taken in the ethics of beauty is that this is wrong-headed.

Indications of the Importance of Beauty

To determine whether the author is right, we have to ask the question, “Is there any evidence that indicates that it might be true?” I think there is. For example, mathematicians and physicists often view the beauty and elegance of an equation as indicative of its truth. One of the reasons why quantum physics and relativity theory gained acceptance is the sheer beauty and elegance of the mathematics involved.

Another indication might be the study of beauty itself. There have been a considerable number of studies of human beauty, many of which have looked at the symmetries that often characterize human beauty among cultures. Lost in this analysis is the fact that we already knew this person was beautiful before we understood mathematics or the science of that beauty.

From an ethical perspective, the ethics of beauty emphasizes the aesthetic beauty of the good life and suggests that beauty comes first. Once again, to provide an example, there’s something beautiful about the life of Mother Teresa. We could list all the good things she did, analyze the wise advice she shared throughout her life, and examine the ministries she established. However, somehow, we recognized her life as beautiful before we learned all those details. Beauty preceded goodness.

Challenge to the Enlightenment

Beginning with Plato, Aristotle, and the early Greek philosophers, Western civilization has been deeply interested in the question of truth. During the Middle Ages, the primary question was the nature of religious truth. In the modern world, the primary question has been the nature of material or scientific truth. Since the Enlightenment, Western civilization has been inclined to view. Scientific truth is somehow privileged over all other forms of truth. What Patisas calls “The Beauty First Approach” represents an alternative to modern thinking. It privileges beauty over scientific truth.

In his argument, Patisis draws from Western literature, architectural theory, orthodox theology, Wendell Berry’s works, and other sources. I believe he makes a compelling case. Focusing on beauty, aesthetics, and harmony may provide us with a clue about how to escape the deadening moral decay associated with the decline of the modern world and the avant-garde decorators in some forms of postmodernism.

The Greeks used the word eros, from which we get our word “erotic,” to describe that kind of love that is evoked by the attractiveness of that which we love. I like to say that erotic love is not sexual primarily, though it includes sexual love; it’s an evoked love. The beauty of the beloved evokes in us love. For example, if I love a painting, the beauty of the painting evokes that love. If I love a particular scientific theory, it’s the beauty and fruitfulness of that theory that evokes my love. If I love a specific form of life, it’s the beauty and attractiveness of that form of life that captures my desire. In other words, Beauty First.

The Religious Basis

During my pastoral years, there was a praise song that we used to sing quite a bit. It was called “Beautiful One”

Wonderful, so wonderful is Your unfailing love
Your cross has spoken mercy over me
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart could fully know
How glorious, how beautiful You are

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

Powerful, so powerful, Your glory fills the skies
Your mighty works displayed for all to see, beautiful
The beauty of Your majesty awakes my heart to see
How marvelous, how wonderful You are

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as You, Jesus

You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as You

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

Beautiful one, I love You
Beautiful one, I adore
Beautiful one, my soul must sing

And You opened my eyes to Your wonders anew
You captured my heart with this love
Because nothing on earth is as beautiful as You. [2]

This Christian praise song beautifully illustrates the point that the author is trying to make in The Ethics of Beauty. It also gives us a clue as to what is sometimes wrong with Christian evangelism and discipleship: We fail to emphasize God’s beauty and the beautiful life Christians are called to live. This is a point lost on me for a great deal of my Christian life and discipleship.

When I’m in Austin, Texas, I have the opportunity to visit a rapidly growing, vital Eastern Orthodox congregation. My wife and I are not Orthodox, and getting used to their worship took us a while. Nevertheless, having been to several worship services by now, we’ve learned that some things the Reformers criticized about Orthodoxy are subject to question. For example, when you enter an Orthodox church, you’re surrounded by icons of Christ, Mary, his mother, the apostles, and the church saints. These icons are beautiful. Much of the service is sung in a kind of rhythmic chanting. The responses are beautiful. The entire liturgy of the service is designed to create a sense of the holiness of God in his transcendent beauty. Instead of emphasizing the Cross and the sacrifice of Christ, the focus is placed upon the Cross and the Resurrection of Christ. In other words, the beauty of the resurrected Christ sits at the center of the service. In other words, the orthodox worship service takes a Beauty First approach to God.

Conclusion

In the next few weeks, I will post several blogs, teasing out the implications of a Beauty First approach to life. Interestingly, a beauty approach to life has much to say about how we should live. It has something to say about what is good and what is true. It also has something to say about the societies we should try to build. It has something to say about the ugliness of war. It has something to say about the kind of houses we should build and the kind of cities we should try to create. It has something to say about how one overcomes psychological trauma. It has something to say about the ugliness of war. It has something to say about how one overcomes psychological trauma. I hope readers enjoy the blogs.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Tomothy Patisis, The Ethics of Beauty (Maryville, MO: St. Nicholas Press, 2020). The ethics of beauty is a long book, almost 750 pages, and somewhat challenging to follow for a layperson. I will try to unpack the importance of its ideas for laypersons. I do not recommend it for those unwilling to read a book on ethics from an Eastern Orthodox perspective.

[2] Jeremy Camp, Beautiful One Released by Encounter Worship (2008).

The final week of Emotionally Healthy Discipleship involves creating a structure of life whereby we can progress to becoming more emotionally healthy. There is a similar need for those interested in creating emotionally healthy organizations. For an organization to embody a healthy culture, it is necessary to develop systems by which that emotional health is created, maintained, and improved.

This week’s blog is based on the following premises:

1. There cannot be emotionally healthy organizations without emotionally healthy leadership.
2. Leaders must first become emotionally healthy before instilling emotional health in their organizations.
3. Healthy leaders can create organizational structures that result in healthy teams and organizational culture.

Consequences of a Lack of Emotionally Healthy Leadership

Anyone with organizational experience has experienced emotionally immature and dysfunctional leadership and cultures. At some point, organizations can be so dysfunctional that their culture is toxic—harmful to everyone involved—leaders, followers, customers, stakeholders—everyone. In recent years, I have had the opportunity to study dysfunctional and toxic organizations. They have one common characteristic: emotionally unhealthy leadership.

It might be helpful for me to give some examples based on my experience as a lawyer and pastor over the years.

• Company X recently declared bankruptcy due to massive financial fraud. The court-appointed trustee announced that they had discovered considerable financial fraud involving many senior management members, much of which was ordered by the company’s president.
• Company Y just made a massive restatement of its financial results. It turns out that senior management instituted a bonus system that incentivized risk-taking among sales and trading personnel. Since bonuses were paid on current-year transactions, most of which would take years to pay out for the company, employees booked many unwise transactions. Senior management was also paid bonuses on the anticipated profits of current-year transactions. In fact, they designed the system.
• Company Z was just hit with a massive lawsuit alleging various forms of sexual harassment of female employees. As one magazine put it, the company has been famous for years for a kind of “fraternity boy” atmosphere. The Chairman and President were personally named in the litigation.
• Church A has just experienced a massive split and laid off many staff members. The Senior Pastor has become the subject of a sexual misconduct scandal. For years, the Board of Elders knew the pastor was ignoring his family, traveling with female employees, and working 70 or more hours weekly.
• Church B just lost an extremely effective discipleship pastor. His wife and family had been complaining about his schedule and many late-night meetings for some time. Finally, one of the children developed a serious addiction and rebellion. The pastor resigned to spend more time with his family.
• Non-Profit C has recently paid huge settlements due to misconduct charges against many volunteers. Some years ago, the non-profit changed its qualifications for adult leaders and its way of training them, lowering its standards under pressure from governments and special interest groups.

In these imaginary cases, and in many cases I have studied over the years, the fundamental failure was poor leadership, sometimes motivated by greed, lust, or desire for power and status. In other words, the problem was fundamentally a spiritual and moral problem created by spiritually and morally unhealthy leadership. In many cases, that leadership was never held accountable for what they did. In other cases, the accountability was insignificant compared to the social and monetary damage done by the leadership.

Healthy Organizations begin with Healthy Leaders.

Of course, emotionally unhealthy leaders are emotionally unhealthy people, which is why the past few weeks have focused on attaining and maintaining personal emotional health. Because none of us is completely emotionally healthy all the time and in every situation, emotionally healthy leaders embrace systems of self-care—regular habits of rest, recreation, retreat, self-examination, and other disciplines designed to maintain emotional health.

The concept of a “rule of life” or what might be called “a healthy structure for daily living” is simply a tool to enable people, and especially leaders, to attain and maintain emotional and spiritual health. For most people, including most Christians, our “rule of life” is not in writing. For example, it is nowhere written down that I will walk at least 8,000 steps a day and stretch three times a week, but I religiously do so. Before I knew anything about a rule of life, I did not usually work on Sundays, attended worship regularly, exercised, followed a healthy diet, avoided unhealthy behaviors, and many other elements of a wholesome lifestyle.

Nevertheless, there are real advantages to putting a rule or order for life in writing. For many years, I kept a long “to-do list.” Interestingly, most of the time, all the items on that list were accomplished. There is something about putting things in writing that encourages one to achieve them. Putting 72,000 sensible words on paper initially seems impossible when writing a book. In my list of things to do, I have a 1000-word-a-day target. Guess what?  If I write 1000 words daily, I will write a book draft in seventy-two days. When I fall behind, I do catch up. Having a rule or order of life has the same function: It reminds us what we intend to do and gives us a practical way of achieving our goal.

Good leaders have goals for their lives. Some things need to be done, and priorities that must be maintained. Peter Scazzero suggests the following priorities for Christians and their leaders:

• Relationship with God
• Relationship with Others (including family)
• Relationship with Self
• Relationship with Work [1]

A good order for life assures us that we are taking care of our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual lives by attending to each area systematically and often daily. For example, if I spend at least 30 minutes a day in prayer and Bible study daily, and pray on at least two other occasions during the day, I will go a long way towards keeping my relationship with God in good order. If I set aside time daily for my spouse and children and prioritize that time, I will go a long way towards maintaining my family’s health. If I walk at least 6,000 steps a day and work out three times a week, I will go a long way towards maintaining my physical health.

Taking Emotional Health to the Workplace

Very few people work entirely alone. Most of us work in an organization where various groups join to reach a common goal. Within large and small organizations, there must be leaders who see that the work gets done and organizational goals are accomplished. One of the leader’s primary responsibilities is maintaining the workplace’s health to accomplish organizational goals.

In The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Pete Scazzero sets out some indications that an organization needs a more emotionally healthy approach to leadership:

• The organization and its leadership define success too narrowly (for example, profits only or membership numbers only).
• Plans are instituted without sufficient time, attention, energy, mediation, and prayer to determine their impact on stakeholders, i.e., management, employees, shareholders, contributors, customers, and others.
• The organization emphasizes performance standards that exceed human limits, so employees are constantly challenged to work longer, harder, and more intensively beyond their limits. The organization does not accurately understand its financial, personnel, and other limits. [2]

Conversely, an emotionally healthy organization has specific characteristics:

• Success is defined holistically with due consideration of the needs of all stakeholders.
• Planning is done with a clear understanding of its impact on all stakeholders.
• Planning is done in a way that is prudent and loving towards all stakeholders.
• The organization and its employees are encouraged to find ways to succeed within natural and other limits.
• The leadership and staff have clear, written covenants that define acceptable behavior and commitment to healthy goals and outcomes. [3]

Good Leaders build Healthy Teams.

Many books have been written about the impact of a healthy corporate culture on business and organizational performance. Few aspects of an organization influence its success more significantly over time than its culture. Consequently, wise leaders invest considerable time cultivating the best possible culture within their organization. This requires a slow process of working with people to see that they are transformed as they impact the organization’s culture. Here are some basic principles that can help in achieving that goal:

• Our primary goal is to impact human flourishing among our leadership, employees, clients, members, shareholders, partners, customers, etc.
• Success includes building teams of people with various backgrounds and abilities who can work together without fear, prejudice, or anxiety.
• Success includes caring about the emotional, moral, and physical health inside and outside the organization. [4]

Developing a Meditative Leadership and Organizational Culture

In another context, I have written about meditative leadership styles and cultures within organizations. [5] In our society, most corporations, especially large and successful for-profit companies, employ a “scientific, results-driven, measure-intensive style of leadership and corporate decision-making.” There is nothing wrong with any of this. In the churches I served, we had annual budgets and multi-year forecasts. But they resulted from deeper planning centered on the question, “What would God have us do next?”

In making decisions, we spent much time in prayer, meditation, and conversation trying to discern the ultimate impact of any decision on not just the group as a whole but as many individuals as possible within the whole. I have spent days in my office praying and listening to people as they described their hopes or fears related to decisions of importance. I believe that those days were important.

Using Scazzero’s work, a meditative style of leadership looks something like this:

• Leaders and team members define success as broadly as possible in planning and making decisions for Christians in the context of God’s will.
• Leaders and team members prepare their hearts for sound decision-making by taking time for prayer, meditation, and other spiritual preparation.
• Leaders and team members seek the most prudent and caring option in devising plans.
• Leaders and team members live within their limits, seek solutions to problems, and develop plans that allow everyone to succeed within limits.

Conclusion

This blog concludes this series related to Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and The Emotionally Healthy Leader. I have reviewed these books on more than one occasion and suggest reading and working through them for all Christian leaders. I also suggest congregations and intermediate church administrative bodies use this material with all pastors and church leaders. There is more to know about leadership than can be contained in any book or program, and Scazzero’s work only scratches the surface of servant leadership and meditative leadership. But his works are, in my view, must-reads.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] As mentioned previously, these blogs are based on Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), hereinafter EHL. See also Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids. This list is slightly different from Scazzero’s, which I have simplified and secularized for this blog.

[2] EHL, 180-185.

[3] Id, 187-197. I have slightly changed Scazzero’s listing, which is centered on churches and non-profit ministries.

[4] Again, I have slightly changed Scazzero’s listing to apply his ideas more broadly.

[5] G. Christopher Scruggs, Letters to Leaders (Bay Village, OH: Bay Presbyterian Church, 2019).

For many years, I worked closely with not only one of the most successful church planters in my former denomination but also one of the most effective leaders. Dave Schieber had two qualities that never ceased to amaze me:

1. He could accept and love everyone just as they were, even if he knew their faults and shortcomings well.
2. In every situation, however busy, he could be entirely present for the person in front of him.

I’ve often shared stories about walking down the hallway with him on the way to a worship service, just a few minutes late, when someone approached us with a problem. Dave would immediately direct 100% of his attention to that person without hesitation, irritation, or distraction. This didn’t occur just once, but often enough for me to remember and internalize this quality.

Love and Leadership

It wasn’t until several years later, when I read The Emotionally Healthy Leader and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, that I realized Dave was instinctively in touch with one of the most essential spiritual qualities leaders can have: genuine empathy born of loving concern for the other. [1] For those of us who are introverted, or who may have been damaged in childhood and have difficulty connecting with people, this quality must be developed as a part of the broader task of achieving emotional health and the ability to lead people truly.

It doesn’t take a lot of experience in business, government, the church, or any other form of social organization to realize that many people who exercise leadership positions care about nothing but themselves. The fact that leaders struggle with narcissism has been well documented, perhaps too well documented. One reason why narcissistic leaders are tolerated, and even occasionally celebrated, comes from the mistake of equating the position of a person with the authentic leadership of a person. If all that matters is getting a position, then the person’s internal health doesn’t matter. However, if the accurate measure of leadership is the ability to love others and build an organization conducive to their flourishing, the character and spiritual development do matter.

Signs of Trouble—and the Solution

If we are honest, we can see signs that we may pay attention to, and they warn us that our leadership is not optimal. For example, in meetings, do I speak more than I listen? Do I get angry with those who don’t immediately grasp my thoughts? Am I able to talk about the truth to other people in a way that they know that I love them? Do I try to avoid unnecessary conflict? Do I sympathize with the weaknesses, failures, and misdeeds of others even when I can neither agree with them nor allow the behavior to continue? Am I continually comparing myself to others? Am I jealous when others succeed? All of these characteristics warn us that we are both emotionally immature and inclined toward self-centered narcissism.[2]

On the other hand, emotionally healthy leaders recognize, manage, and take control of their natural human tendencies toward narcissistic behaviors. They can respect and love other people unconditionally, and without the expectation that they will change as a result. They give people the opportunity to make mistakes and not be perfect. They appreciate people for who they are, with their strengths and weaknesses. Because they are deeply in touch with their emotional world, they can enter into the emotional world of other people. In other words, they are empathetic. In cases involving conflict, they can maintain their emotional self-control and resolve conflict maturely. [3]

Sitting behind this capacity to make decisions and maturely resolve conflict is the ability to enter other people’s emotional world. Scazzero puts it this way:

As emotionally mature Christian adults, we recognize that loving well is the essence of true spirituality. This requires that we experience connection with God, with ourselves, and with other people. God invites us to practice his presence in our daily lives. At the same time, he invites us “to practice the presence of people,” within an awareness of his presence, in our daily relationships. [4]

You can see why Dave Schieber has made such an impression on my life. He embodies the ability to maintain an awareness of God while being fully present to others.

Overcoming “I You” with “I Thou”

We human beings are inevitably self-centered. We have no choice but to see the universe, including others, from our center within ourselves. That center and our natural self-concern incline us to view other people as objects. The great Jewish theologian Martin Buber wrote a book entitled “I and Thou,” which I’ve had opportunities to talk about before, and which Pete Scazzero uses in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. [5] At the very heart of the I/Thou relationship is the ability to see another person, not as an object, but as a person to be accepted and loved as they are.[6]

Truly transformational leaders can see others not as objects but as individuals motivated and loved to accomplish tasks within their abilities, talents, and interests. Although we occasionally treat other people as objects (something every leader has experienced), the capacity to transcend a merely objective approach and love all human beings defines a truly transformational leader. In discussing this within the context of Christian spiritual formation, Scazzero provides an excellent graphic of two concentric circles: one representing my world and the other representing your world, with a sacred space between them. [7]

Conflict and the I-Thou Relationship

Every leader, sooner or later, must deal with conflict. It is a natural tendency to avoid such conflict. However, avoidance is not always a good strategy. If the conflict is inevitable, and a decision must be made where people disagree, there will inevitably be a type of conflict. A mature leader can accept the reality of that conflict and manage it without engaging in, minimizing, ignoring it, or settling for a false peace. [8]

Listen and Ask Questions. As a pastor, I’ve often marveled at how much conflict is merely the result of misunderstanding. Many times, I’ve experienced conflict in a board meeting where everyone was really saying the same thing using different words. This is where listening is essential. I don’t mean just superficially listening to the conversation while you’re doodling on your notepad. Instead, one must pay attention to the meaning behind the words used. Are people talking past each other?

Avoid Mind Reading. A second problem in dealing with conflict is our tendency to believe that we know what’s going on in other people’s minds. I find myself especially inclined to judge people’s motivations without knowing what they are. Based on my understanding of the person, I assume I know what motivates them. But people are infinitely complex. At any given time, a person may reveal a new aspect of their personality amid this conflict and understand that deeper motivation requires asking questions, listening to conversations, and engaging in a dialogue concerning the matter under discussion.

Clarify Expectations. People often have unrealistic or impossible expectations of how a conflict will be resolved. Much of the time, people want their side to win and the other side to lose. Unfortunately, this sets the organization up for failure and one party up for complete failure. A better approach is to motivate people to verbalize and own their expectations so that they can come to their own conclusions concerning how realistic their expectations are in achieving the desired result.

For example, I was once involved in a lengthy conversation about when worship services should be held and what their nature should be. The session unanimously agreed that they wanted the church to prosper and grow. Unfortunately, there were two differing perspectives on how that would happen. One group believed it would involve embracing contemporary worship, while the other thought it should focus on continuing the traditional worship we enjoyed. Most importantly, many people felt attached to the worship time they were currently experiencing. It took considerable time for everyone to understand their motivations and recognize where they needed to adjust their perspectives in order for the group to prosper. Interestingly, the solution finally chosen was not the one that I and the other pastors desired; however, it worked marvelously.

Conclusion

This week, Christians celebrated Easter Sunday. This year, Kathy and I were priviledged to celebrate Easter in a new way, from Maundy Thursday and the Last Supper, with its emphasis on Christ giving his life for his disciples and the footwashing seen in John, both of which celebrate the servant leadership of Christ, to his crucifixion, death, and burial on Friday, to his descent into Hell while in the Tomb on Saturday, to his glorious resurrection, which we celebrated just after midnight on Sunday morning. The various Easter Vigil liturgies are one constant reminder of the true nature of God, and the true nature of Christian leadership, all of which is summarized with the words, “Greater love has no one than this: that he give up his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

There can be no Christian maturity without self-giving love—and there can be no Christian leadership without cross bearing. This is why Jesus told his disciples, who would share the gospel to the ends of the earth, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).Leaders, of all people, must be cross-bearing lovers of those they lead.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] As mentioned previously, these blogs are based on Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), hereinafter EHL. See also Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality,Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids.

[2] EHS, 167-168.

[3] EHS, 169-170.

[4] Id, at 170.

[5] Id, at 172, see Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958).

[6] Buber, 14-15.

 ⁷ EHS, 171-172. If I were to prepare a similar graphic, I would depict the two worlds overlapping in the I-Thou relationship, indicating the true entry of the I into the being of the Other.

[8] EHS, 172-175.

For the next several weeks, we’ll discuss developing a leadership lifestyle conducive to wise and loving leadership. In our Emotionally Healthy Spirituality course, Kathy and I must take time to do devotionals twice a day, incorporating times of silence during each pause. We’ve taken the course before, but for some reason, the silence has become a central feature this time. Additionally, Kathy and I decided to regularize our Sabbath habits in preparation for leading the course. It has also been a pleasant and transformative experience.

Many years ago, I preached a sermon on the Ten Commandments. When we got to quotes,

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy,” I observed that this was the only commandment among the Ten Commandments that almost anyone could violate at will, and no one would think less of them for doing so. If this observation was accurate thirty years ago, it is even more accurate today. Unfortunately, the advent of the Internet and working from home has made it even easier for people to ignore sustained periods of rest and recreation. (Notice I said rest and re-creation, not recreation.)

For most of my professional career, I worked in occupations that demanded long hours. When I practiced law, it was customary for everyone to work on Saturday and high performers to work on Sunday as well. That meant we did some work seven days a week, fifty or so weeks a year. The only difference between me and the highest performers in the firms was that I was a Christian and did not work on Sunday unless a client demanded it.

When I became a pastor, I continued this “work ethic,” completely unaware that what I termed a work ethic was actually workaholism. Our marriage, our children, our social relationships, and even my physical health, especially toward the end, paid a price. As I mentioned last week, it was only late in my professional career that I seriously acknowledged the need to slow down. As everyone will see as this blog unfolds, I believe the spiritual necessity for a Sabbath applies not only to Christians and Jews but to everyone else. We are all mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual beings. Therefore, we all need time for rest and recharging.

A Rhythm for Life

Many people take time to rest. Many individuals practice mindfulness, which helps them center themselves during certain periods of the day. In Christian circles, we typically refer to this as “quiet time.” Quiet time is a period, usually in the morning, dedicated to prayer, Bible study, and perhaps some meditation. For many years, this quiet time lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes and primarily involved Bible study. In later years, I began to include a more significant prayer component, praying for needs beyond our immediate family. It was only after the turn of the century that I started practicing a form of silent prayer. Unfortunately, like many others, I struggled to maintain this discipline.

In Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Peter Scazzero suggests an alternative to the inadequacies of quiet time.[1] He suggests that Christians, including evangelical Christians, rediscover Sabbath-keeping and some ancient practices of the Roman, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox churches, particularly the Daily Office. Before discussing both, it’s essential to make a point: The purpose of rediscovering the Sabbath-keeping and the ancient Daily Offices is not to create a new legalism but to help Christians and Christian leaders develop a healthy rhythm of life.

In keeping with the purpose of these blogs, I would say that discussing Sabbath keeping and the daily office for secular people involves encouraging everyone to reach into the Christian and other traditions to find ways for them to create a balanced rhythm of life conducive to their health and wholeness, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

What is a Sabbath?

I’m afraid to admit it, but during my entire Christian life until recently, I took at most one day off. During that day off, I had to mow the lawn during the spring and summer until the grass went dormant. I had to do certain chores around the house. I had to do things like balance a checkbook. Ultimately, my “Sabbath” was simply a day when I did work for which I wasn’t paid. It wasn’t until I read The Emotionally Healthy Leader that I realized I had not been keeping a Sabbath at all!

Being a pastor, I usually took off Fridays and part of Saturday afternoons before I had to begin working on the sermon for the final time. A good bit of the time, my Thursday, the time I usually prepared sermons, was interrupted by meetings. Therefore, it was not unusual for me to write sermons on Friday. For a good bit of the time, I would go into the office to do this. Once the children ran out of the house, at least I would stay home. But I wasn’t enjoying a Sabbath.

Scazzero defines a “biblical Sabbath” as a 24-hour block of time during which we stop work, enjoy rest, practice, delight, and contemplate God.[2] Notice that a biblical Sabbath is not merely a time when we don’t go to the office. It’s not just a time when we refrain from our daily responsibilities. It’s a time to focus on God and enjoy His presence.

Genesis tells us that God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day, He rested (Genesis 2:2). Many scholars, including Scazzero, note that the Sabbath is the unique contribution of the Jewish people to the world’s civilizations. They were the first to observe a day of rest, devoted not to transient pursuits but to ultimate truths. Our world needs to reclaim this practice because we are wholly dedicated to material and fleeting things, rarely taking time to ponder eternal matters. Christians, Jews, and every other type of human being can benefit from setting aside time to reflect beyond the present and the immediate demands of our lives.

For Christians and Jews, the Sabbath holds a deeper purpose. By taking a day off, we acknowledge that we are not ultimately in control of our lives, our successes and failures, our prosperity or lack thereof, or any other aspect of our existence. Whatever control we have achieved through our work, great or small, remains limited compared to the vast forces of chaos that can and do periodically disrupt our lives. Much of the frenetic busyness of our society could be alleviated if we would just stop once a week and meditate.

Four simple principles underline a good sabbath:

1. Stop working and rest
2. Delight in things like Sabbath meals, enjoying nature, worshiping God, etc.
3. Meditate on ultimate things. [3]

There are many ways that Christians can organize their Sabbath, but these are the main components of a good Sabbath habit. Notice that, if possible, there needs to be an additional day off when we conduct business for which we are not paid.

A Daily Rhythm of Life

Some years ago, while still employed as an evangelical pastor, I had the opportunity to spend a week at a monastery near Atlanta, Georgia. It was one of several opportunities I took to retreat in monasteries and retreat houses. For evangelicals, this may seem like an odd thing to do. However, one cannot live in a monastery with the rhythm of the daily offices, most of which involve reading scripture and liturgy based upon scripture, without recognizing that modern society, and even modern evangelical Christian Society, often mischaracterizes the monastic life.

The purpose of the monastic life was to create an order or rhythm of life through which members of the order could order their lives around the ultimate. They still worked, most of them with their hands, raising crops, cooking food, cleaning, and taking care of the common life of the monastery. Only a very few were involved in leadership. Even fewer were involved in scholarships. The purpose was to order their lives as an example to the world of how it might be organized peacefully and conducive to human flourishing.

The Daily Offices consist of a structured sequence of prayers, readings of the Psalms, Bible readings, canticles, and the Lord’s Prayer. The entire Psalter is read over time.  For priests and monastics, seven daily offices have developed: Matins, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. St. Benedict’s Rule (ca. 540) establishes a common pattern:  Nocturns and Lauds (midnight), Prime (6:00 AM), Terce (9:00 AM), Sext (noon), Nones (3:00 PM), Vespers (sunset), and Compline (before bed). [4] In the Anglican tradition, morning and evening prayer have persisted as part of the Book of Common Prayer across all Anglican groups.

In his books, Peter Scazzero suggests that lay people attempt to create two or three times of prayer and silence consistent with the ancient daily office. The most common of these would be morning, noon, and evening. In the courses he developed, there are two periods of time involving a short Bible reading, a meditation, a time of prayer, and silence.[5]

Conclusion

Over the next three weeks or so, I will have additional opportunities to describe what a rule of life, or “order of life for human flourishing,” might look like. Modern life, especially modern American life, is relentlessly busy, acquisitive, and hedonistic. Taking time to step away from the pressure to conform to our culture’s demands allows one to rest, gain perspective, and flourish mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. For Christians, this is important, and the Christian tradition provides many examples that help deepen and nurture our growth. Other religious traditions offer their own examples and support. Even in the secular world, we can find examples and guidance in the pursuit of a more balanced and healthy life. Each of us must begin the journey in whatever way we feel called. As a Christian, I do not desire to do more than encourage people to step out in the search for a more emotionally healthy spirituality and lifestyle.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] As mentioned previously, these blogs are based on Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), hereinafter EHL. See also Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality,Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids.

 

[2] EHL, 144.

[3] EHS, 134-160.

[4] The Episcopal Parish of st. John the Evangelist, “Praying the Daily Office,” https://www.stjohns-hingham.org/praying-the-daily-office(downloaded, April 12, 2025). There are many other introductions to be found online and in books.

[5] These are found in the two devotionals accompanying  Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Emotionally Healthy Relationships.

At the root of this week’s blog is the importance of leaders understanding their limits. We all have physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual limitations. Some of us may have higher limits, different or more socially acceptable limits, but we all have limits. As we grow older, these limits become more evident in our lives. [1]

Pete Scazzero begins his discussion of the importance of limits in a chapter devoted to enlarging your soul through grief and loss. Our culture doesn’t like losses. It doesn’t like defeats. It doesn’t like failure. This is actually somewhat enterprising. If you ask highly successful people about the most important contributors to their successes, many of them will answer, “My defeats.” Many people will say that their limitations or defects were instrumental in their success.

When I was younger, I was a debater. As a debater, I paid special attention to great orators. In the 20^th century, there was no greater orator than Winston Churchill. Churchill had a speech impediment. His remarkable ability to communicate and lead the British people through the Second World War began with overcoming a physical limitation—a speech impediment. The same might be said of Theodore Roosevelt, a sickly child. His great physical and mental energy and stamina were cultivated by overcoming his limitations. Limitations are an essential source of success. Every child should be taught this truth: Your limitations may lead to success.

On the other hand, those who push the limits of their personality- whether physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual- risk burnout and failure. I’ve always admired people who can thrive on little sleep; however, I’ve realized that I need eight hours to function well. As I’ve aged, I continue to respect those with remarkable physical vitality who can run marathons, walk thirty-six holes on a golf course in a single day, or play tennis almost as well as they did at thirty. Unfortunately, I cannot.  As a manager, I’ve always looked up to those with extroverted personalities and abundant emotional reserves who can constantly interact with people without burning out. Sadly, I am sometimes introverted, and my emotional reserves depend on spending time alone.

When leaders ignore their limits, they almost always engage in some form of dysfunctional behavior. They deny their weaknesses, rationalize failure, and numb the pain with sex, drugs, alcohol, or, more commonly, workaholism. They avoid discussing or confronting their limitations. One of the most prevalent ways we dysfunctionally cope with our limits is by ignoring our emotions, particularly those related to grief or loss.

Job as an Emotionally Healthy Leader

In Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, the author uses Job from the Bible to discuss the importance of experiencing grief and loss. [2] The story of Job is particularly intriguing. [3]He was one of the most successful leaders of his time and extremely wealthy, making him a prominent figure in business. Job earned great respect in his community, establishing himself as a significant political leader. He led a large and prosperous family, solidifying his role as a family leader. In the ancient world, Job was highly respected and successful.

Then, in a single day, for clearly unjust reasons, Job loses everything. His wealth is stripped away. He becomes an outcast from the community. His family is shattered. He is left alone and vulnerable. For incomprehensible reasons, God allows Satan to ruin Job’s family and life.

One humorous thing about Job’s character has to do with the way the unknowing repeatedly refers to him as having great patience and acceptance of this condition. Even the book’s most casual reading of Job proves this false. Job constantly complains to God and his friends about his condition. In other words, Joe doesn’t deny his pain, grief, and loss. He doesn’t push it down out of his consciousness where it works in his unconscious. He owns his feelings of grief, loss, and injustice. Job turns out to be an emotionally healthy person and leader. He can maintain his integrity under the most challenging situation imaginable.

Amid his suffering and loss, Job avoids the standard methods we use to evade grief and loss. He doesn’t deny his pain or minimize it. He avoids blaming anyone else for his pain, nor does he blame himself. He maintains his innocence throughout the book. He doesn’t rationalize or intellectualize his suffering, and he doesn’t claim, ” God will make this all work out for the good.” Additionally, he doesn’t distract himself from his pain with alcohol or drugs, nor does he change the subject or divert the conversation. He doesn’t become hostile; instead, he argues with his friends, expressing that he believes they are mistaken in their interpretation of his condition (they think he’s a sinner), yet he doesn’t sever ties with them out of anger.

Owning Our Grief, Loss, and Limits

Job provides a vivid example of how we can confront our own mortality, loss, and other emotions. First of all, Job is aware of what he is feeling. In other words, he pays attention to his emotions. He does not give up as he waits for God to respond to his complaint. He doesn’t stop expressing discontent about his situation. However, he also doesn’t abandon his friends, deny God, or entirely avoid the situation. He waits.

Beyond the story of Job, we can all learn to embrace our limits. We all inherit limits from our family of origin. We have physical, emotional, and mental limits built into our genetics. Additionally, we carry emotional baggage from our childhood, some of which may never be overcome in this world. For those of us who are married, our marital status limits what we can or cannot do. For example, those of us who are married cannot prioritize our wives and children if we wish to maintain leadership positions. We all have only so much time, so much giftedness, so much intellectual capacity, and so much money. We must live within the limits of who we are.

Becoming a Humble Servant Leader

Last week, I mentioned that, contrary to the media (which constantly portrays leaders as self-assured, prideful activists), studies show that the most humble leaders actually create the healthiest organizations and, in business, generate the greatest profits for their shareholders. This is especially true for religious leaders. If you remember, Moses was described as “… a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). Jesus in the New Testament is proclaimed the new Moses. The Beatitudes describe the significance of living with humility within human limits (Matthew 5:3-11).

Above all, living within our limits and acknowledging our failures and shortcomings are constant reminders of our humanity and frailty, showing how much we are like those we lead. Our limits, failures, shortcomings, and griefs are signs of our shared humanity. If we avoid them, we deny our humanity; if we embrace them, we become more fully human and better equipped for leadership. We can identify with others compassionately and wisely.

Slowing Down to Live Within Our Limits

During most of my years in active leadership, I was a poster child for what I call overperformance. Overperformance occurs when we regularly operate at a level inconsistent with our physical, emotional, social, and mental limits. I often share the following story. I became aware of my limits fairly late in my career when I was over 50. Throughout my life, I’ve been blessed with good physical energy and the ability to work long hours. One Thursday night, about twenty years ago, I finished a meeting about our new building campaign. The meeting lasted until 9 p.m. It had been a hectic day filled with meetings about the project, and I hadn’t had a chance to work on the sermon, which I usually write on Thursdays. Therefore, I returned to my office after an 18-hour day and sat down to begin writing. About a paragraph into the sermon for the week, I realized I couldn’t continue. I had hit a limit.

Interestingly, this awareness of my limits helps me better understand how often I’ve overperformed. Most of the mistakes I’ve made in ministry, law, and business occurred under pressure when I was overperforming. Amid a crisis, pressured by events, and exhausted from overwork, I made decisions. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

I became more aware of this phenomenon and began changing my work habits. I started to spend more time at home in the mornings for prayer. I purposefully devoted more time to our family. (At that time, we only had one child left at home. I had already harmed our family concerning the older children.) I sought to overcome the consequences of constant overwork. I made a conscious effort to ensure I did not neglect the need for a Sabbath time. (Working when I should be spending time with God remains a problem occasionally.)

Signs of Living Outside Your Limits

In his book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Pete Scazzero provides a helpful list of signs indicating leaders are living outside their limits. We are almost certainly living outside our limits if we:

• Constantly feeling we have too much to do and too little time
• Are always in a hurry
• Continually make snap judgments and give quick opinions
• Are overly concerned with what others think
• Are routinely preoccupied and distracted
• Are consistently ignoring stress, anxiety, and other physical symptoms
• Spend more time talking than listening. [4]

I’m sure anyone with leadership experience could add to this list. You are overperforming and failing to live within your limits if you’re constantly exhausted, feel hopeless, sense failure no matter how much you accomplish, and are easily irritated by others. The list could go on and on. The point is that we all exhibit dysfunctional symptoms when living beyond our limits and failing to be the people we are called to be.

The Price of Over Functioning

There are many significant dangers to failing to live within our limits and constantly overfunctioning. The most important of these is that we distort our personalities, deny the very individuals we were meant to be, and miss the joy of being fully human. Along the way, we hurt others: our families, our businesses, the organizations we lead, our churches, our employees, and our stakeholders. We harm everyone around us.

I think I probably mentioned this in a past blog, but many years ago, one of my best elders retired after many years with a company. We were talking about what she learned in retirement, and I was pondering retiring myself at the time. I will never forget what she told me: “It’s been very interesting. Not one person has mentioned a deal we closed together. Not one person has mentioned a bonus we received for outstanding work. Not one person has mentioned a division we managed together. Everyone mentioned some personal act of kindness and love. Over thirty years of work, I paid a little attention to this, but in the end, it was the most important thing of all.”

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved 

[1] As mentioned previously, these blogs are based on Peter Scazzero The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), hereinafter EHL. See also Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids.

[2] Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, 119-120.

[3] See G. Christopher Scruggs, Path of Life: The Way of Wisdom for Christ-Followers (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, (2014), 179-882

[4] The Emotionally Healthy Leader, 127.

I am just over halfway through a series of blogs on leadership. In order to write this series in coordination with a teaching obligation that Kathy and I have undertaken, I’ve had to pause a series of blogs on spiritual warfare and the theology of the Methodist theologian Walter Wink. I intend to return to Wink sometime in May and continue until I have completed my review of his work. His work is relevant to more than one project I’m currently working on.

As my friends know, I’ve written a series of books on theology, leadership, and philosophy and two novels, Marshland and Peace at Battle Mountain. I’m currently a bit more than halfway through the last installment of what I call the Arthur Stone novels. I began these novels hoping to communicate something of the mystery of Christian faith to a broader audience than Christian believers. The novels follow the career of a young lawyer, Arthur Stone, and his wife, Gwynn, from near the beginning of his career in the 1980s until around 2015.

Each of these novels features a murder, an economic crime, a financial collapse, and the ensuing litigation that typically arises from such events. However, behind the scenes, there lies the mystical reality of a world beyond our material existence, a world that interacts with and connects to our own in mysterious ways.

The first novel delves into a murder during the Texas savings and loan crisis, exploring faith from a spiritual perspective. The second novel centers on the period surrounding the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and other companies during the financial crisis around 2000, addressing love from a spiritual perspective. The final book, set in 2013, discusses the aftermath of the great financial collapse of 2008, focusing on hope from a spiritual perspective.

At the end of Peace at Battle Mountain, one of the characters has a dream:

He remembered his failures and infidelities. He saw all the people he had used and hurt before his injuries—and some since. He remembered his wife’s desertion during his illness. He remembered his inner healing through Eleanor’s love. He remembered their love, and he missed her. He remembered his loneliness and saw the loneliness extending out into the future.

What is the purpose of it? What is the purpose of all this struggle? What is the purpose of all this failure and loss? What is the purpose of it all, even my success? In the end, does it mean nothing? What is the purpose of it all?

The figure in his dream began to speak.

“The purpose is not in history or events. For better or for worse, the meaning is in what humans make of it. Human history and human lives are stages upon which the play of life is set. I have set the stage. It is for you to create its meaning. The stage is not the meaning of the play. The meaning of the play is the life of the characters. Yet, life is not ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing.’ The deepest meaning is the love you share and the meaning it gives. That is the only meaning. The only thing that abides forever is love, for love is what I Am, and no love is ever lost in Me.”

Then, in his dream, Roger saw his life as it was played out in the second half of the 20th century. He saw all of the events of that history. He saw the wars. He saw the death of so many innocent young people in those wars, some for little or no reason at all. He saw the political intrigues and the victory of corruption and decay. In his vision, he saw all the economic booms and busts of his business life, past and future. He saw the end of Winchester & Wells, to which he had given his life. He saw the victory of fools and the defeat of the wise.”

“In his dream, he saw the innocent’s corruption and the unexpected salvation of the corrupt. He saw all the marriages that begin with the fiery anticipation of youth and their end in disillusionment and divorce. He saw all the families starting in hope, ending with hope fulfilled or the end of hope. He saw the endless, impossible-to-understand foolishness and suffering of humanity. He saw in his dream all the seemingly meaningless chaos of history.

Above it all, he saw a figure, bloody from the lash, bruised by beatings, and pierced by nails. He saw that figure looking down upon him in sadness and pain. He felt the vulnerable, suffering love of that figure freely given, sharing itself with the world, and the figure drawing into himself all the pain, all the loss, all the destruction, all the decay, and death of the world from its foundation. He saw the vulnerability and suffering of the One who shared in all life’s meaninglessness and drew it into himself. He saw himself sharing with the sufferer in his suffering.

“Then, in a moment, he saw the figure of his dream transformed into light, a beam of light having the shape of a heart. He saw himself transformed into a version of that light.

Roger Romny awoke. It was morning, the sky was clear, and the day was warm. It was time to go to the office. His dream and its meaning could wait.” [1]

The dream of Roger Romny is meant to communicate the truth of which the Apostle Paul speaks:

Kathy and I have recently been reflecting on and attempting to address a challenging situation with wisdom and love. It has reminded me that love is not merely the key to human relations; it is the key to all relationships in which we human beings are involved, including institutional ones. The problem, of course, is determining how to infuse love into our politics, economics, business, non-profits, and similar domains.

Copyright 2024, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Peace at Battle Mountain (Hunt, Texas: Quansus, 2024), 328-329

This week, I examine what is sometimes called the “Dark Night of the Soul,” an experience that Peter Scazzero refers to as “the Wall.” [1] One of the exciting features of Scazzero’s work is that it exemplifies what I sometimes call the “Post Modern Recovery of the Ancients.” In the case of the Wall, he is recovering the ancient church’s spirituality that surrounds how God is present in his absence, provides light amid darkness, and works in spiritual pilgrims to purify them from barriers to the fullness of what God has for them. Surprisingly, this ancient notion is relevant to secular and religious leaders today.

It is a fundamental notion of Christianity that humans fall short in life (are sinners) and suffer from disordered desires and attachments. St. Augustine famously declared that we love what we shouldn’t love and love the right things incorrectly. We seek our comfort, our pleasure, and our own will. We value what we want more than we value what God wants. We commit wrongdoings, even if only in our hearts.

Secular thinkers generally conceive the human condition as burdened by psychological trauma inherited from childhood and inadequate education and nurturing. The result, however, is just the same—we are less than fully functional, healthy, and moral human beings. We miss the mark of the goals we and others have for our lives. Leadership places extraordinary pressures and burdens on those who exercise it. [2] Whatever “cracks” exist in their personalities are likely to be exacerbated by the pressures leaders face.

The past two blogs emphasized the importance of feeling emotions, positive and negative, understanding the unconscious drivers that impact our leadership and the impact it has on others, and fostering what we referred to as a “positive shadow,” which is a subconscious emotional and spiritual reality that encourages the best functioning of the organizations we lead. This week, we will talk about failure and the need to grow internally through periods when the positive aspects of leadership (success) are lacking in the context of the Christian notion of the Dark Night of the Soul.

The Wall and Dark Night of the Soul

First, we need to define what we are discussing when we speak of “the Wall” or “Dark Night of the Soul. “Secular readers will have to ponder the concept a bit, but eventually, the idea’s secular importance will dawn on all readers.  At the beginning of the religious life, there is usually a honeymoon. You have made a spiritual commitment, received some initial discipleship training, attended worship and other services, started studying the Bible or other religious literature, learned the rudimentary elements of prayer and meditation, and found life different and better.

The problem from a religious perspective is that all of this is, in a way, selfish. We love God or engage in a spiritual community for what we can gain from it. When I reflect on my early religious life, this is exactly what I experienced. I became a Christian in a small group in Houston, Texas, in the late 1970s. I immediately encountered profound spiritual growth. I learned how to study the Bible, began to pray, and volunteered in various public services, including a local mission, church youth activities, and a Sunday School class. I met my wife, fell in love, and started a family. Through all of this, I experienced one long period of consolation and blessing from God, which lasted several years.

In secular callings, there is a similar experience. One decides on a career, for example, law. One studies and achieves the necessary licenses and education. When one first goes to work, one grows rapidly. Everything is new, and every day involves growth as a professional. Sure, there are hard times, which one expects, but overall, a life goal is being accomplished. In the case of lawyers, they may begin to participate in a local or even state bar association.

Unfortunately, this stage does not last forever. For most Christians, there comes a point when they experience spiritual dryness, a feeling that their prayers are hitting a glass ceiling. Prayers go unanswered, and the excitement of religious experience diminishes. Simultaneously, one might face spiritual struggles, including unanswered prayers that seem justified, conflicts within the religious community, and similar challenges. Pastors and spiritual directors consistently caution that these occurrences are neither the dark night of the soul nor the unavoidable ups and downs of life, such as job loss, family issues, moral failures, and so forth. While this is accurate, all of these can be external manifestations or triggers of a Dark Night. The Dark Night or Wall refers to the feeling of God’s absence in the situation.

In the life of most leaders, a similar experience often occurs. For example, let us take the case of a person I will call “Dr. Y.” Dr. Y graduated from a prominent Presbyterian seminary. Dr. Y was a significant success through several more extensive and prominent calls. He was a natural preacher, had good relational and leadership skills, and a practical bent that allowed him to begin ministries and grow churches. Y was a good servant of God, and God was a good servant of Y’s ambitions.

At 45, Y was at the pinnacle of any pastor’s dream career. He was the church’s Senior Pastor, led a sizeable non-profit mission in the city, was a published author, and was much in demand as a speaker and retreat leader. He received a call from a mega-church. At that church, he followed a legendary pastor who took a small rural congregation and turned it into a mega-church in a major city’s suburbs. For the first time, he faced opposition and failure in a call. The congregation constantly compared him to the former pastor. They rejected worship and mission. And managerial changes that Y had successfully instituted in the past. Y was under enormous pressure. Eventually, he suffered a minor self-induced failure. The leadership who called him turned against his leadership. For a time, Y did what any strong leader might do. He worked harder. He studied his Bible, and he prayed. There were no answers to those prayers. Now, Y was lonely, depressed, and questioning his faith. He prayed, but there were no answers.

The events that occurred are of a type that happens to many pastors. They are not the dark night. The Dark Night is the perceived sense of God’s absence during spiritual growth. This is why it is often called “God’s presence in God’s absence.”

Eventually, Y asked for and was given a Sabbatical. For a part of the time, he was with his wife and family. For a part of the time, he went to a Catholic Retreat Center, where he was able to share his feelings of abandonment by God. In the end, Y moved from loving God and ministering to others from a selfish and immature motive to loving God and ministering to the congregation in a selfless way from a center in the unmerited love of God.

Two Aspects of the Dark Night

In The Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross identifies two kinds of Dark Night. The first is a night of the senses.  In other words, we don’t feel the presence of God. The second night is a night of the spirit in which God appears absent from our spiritual lives.  Saint John of the Cross puts it this way:

 This Dark Night, a night of contemplation, produces two kinds of darkness or probation in a spiritual person, corresponding to two parts of human nature: the sensual and the spiritual. The first Dark Night is sensual, wherein the soul is purged according to sense, subduing it to the spirit. The second Dark Night is spiritual. During this second night, the soul is purged and stripped, according to the spirit, subdued and made ready for loving union with God. …  The first Dark Night is bitter and terrible to sense. The second Dark Night is far beyond the first, for it is horrible and awful to the spirit. [3]

In simple terms, humans need to be purged of our tendency to value things according to our senses and the pleasure they bring us. Beyond the merely sensual, we also value ourselves, that spiritual psycho-somatic unity of mind, body, and soul that makes up our total spiritual personality. This spiritual self must also be purged. Those who can endure this purging of the false self in all its forms find a new spiritual unity and wholeness in which they can love God and others unconditionally and without expectation of personal pleasure.

A Secular Example

“Z” is a successful businessman. After graduating from college, he worked in a major technology company as a salesperson, sales manager, and eventually as part of management. He eventually earned an MBA. At a fairly young age, Z was offered the chance to lead a technology start-up company. He was also successful in that endeavor, and eventually, the company went public.

Recently, Z has hit a wall in his professional career. Things that once brought him great joy no longer provide any satisfaction. In addition, his company has fallen behind in the always competitive high-tech industry. The market niche for his product has changed. Several of his employees have publicly challenged his leadership, and his board of directors has begun to raise questions about it. For many years, he has devoted his life to increasingly larger achievements.

At the insistence of his Board of Directors, he began a relationship with a leadership coach. In a recent session, the coach made a challenging observation. She asked a rhetorical question, “Basically, what you are saying is that up until now, your business career has been about you—your achievements. What about your employees, suppliers, customers, shareholders, and others?” I don’t sense much interest in them.”

After the session, Z reflected on her observation. He recalled reading Jim Collins’s book, Good to Great. [4] One of Collins’s key points is that great leaders display humility, focus their energy on the company instead of themselves, and anticipate and empower potential successors. During a long self-examination and with his coach’s help, Z became aware of this pride and the way success fed his pride. He became aware of his love of money and the luxuries that success brought him. He came to terms with his personal weaknesses and shortcomings. Considering his situation, he recognized the need to set aside his ambition and develop a humble, servant spirit towards his company and all its stakeholders. By doing so, Z broke through a leadership barrier that had held both him and his company back.

Conclusion

Dark Nights, or what might be called “Encounters with a Wall,” are often viewed as negative experiences. In reality, they present valuable growth opportunities. These encounters may be perceived as signs of failure; however, they signify future success. Often, they are resisted as a form of death, yet they serve as a pathway to new and abundant life. This does not imply that they are easy- far from it. But they are essential for anyone, whether secular or religious, to attain the fullness of their potential.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] As mentioned previously, these blogs are based on Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), hereinafter EHL. See also Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality,Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids.

[2] EHL, 270.

[3] I have paraphrased this passage from St. John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, tr. E. Allision Peers (New York, NY: Image Books, 1990), 61. I have simplified the language and tried to make it more readable for contemporary people who are not specialists.

[4] Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap, and Others Don’t (San Francisco, CA, 2001),

One of the most remarkable (yet commonsensical) revelations from the research for this blog was the understanding that it is not enough for leaders to simply acknowledge their shadow; they must also learn to manage it for the benefit of the institutions they serve. For better or worse, the unconscious motivators that leaders hide from themselves impact the lives of the organizations they lead. There is truth to the saying that we humans cast a shadow, and leaders cast a particularly large one. [1]

The Shadow

As previously mentioned, the “shadow” consists of an accumulation of unacknowledged and, therefore, untamed emotions, motives, and thoughts, both good and bad, that influence our behavior. The term “shadow” signifies that consciously hidden and submerged aspects of our personality operate in the background, within our unconscious, where they can direct and influence our actions without our awareness or control.

This shadow’s unconscious feature makes it significant and potentially dangerous. Let me provide an example. Mr. X grew up in a dysfunctional family. His father was repeatedly unfaithful to his mother, who coped by drinking excessively. Although his father was a moderately successful businessperson, he fluctuated between extreme prosperity and near bankruptcy.

Additionally, the businesses he managed experienced high turnover rates. Eventually, he was compelled to retire from the company he founded. X is also an entrepreneur. He similarly cycles between extreme prosperity and bankruptcy. Like his father, he is unfaithful to his wife and trusts no one. Similar to the organization his father built, the company he created is characterized by internal conflict, a lack of trust, and poor teamwork.

X recently visited a psychologist for help. The psychologist promptly identified the behavioral similarities between X and his father. He also noted, in a constructive manner, that X’s lack of trust had become systemic within his company. He recommended a counseling period along with specific actions to rebuild healthy trust and teamwork in the workplace. X’s shadow was infecting not only his performance but also the performance of others in the company.

Now, let’s look ahead five years. X has successfully confronted his shadow. He has become more trusting and is focused on fostering a positive atmosphere in his company. Interestingly, he recently embraced Christianity and has been working diligently to restore his marriage, which was severely impacted by his unfaithfulness. A trade publication recently featured a positive article about his company, highlighting its low employee turnover for a business in his industry.

This story illustrates the difference between a negative and a positive shadow. Unconsciously, X had harmed his company through his behavior. Once he became aware of his shadow and changed his actions, he began positively impacting his employees, consciously and unconsciously. Not only did he become more trusting and cooperative, but everyone else in the company followed suit. X transitioned from casting a negative shadow to casting a positive one.

We Know More Than We Can Say

The philosopher Michael Polanyi coined a significant phrase in this context: “We know more than we can say.” [2]In every area of human inquiry and activity, we often act based on information, beliefs, worldviews, and prejudices that unconsciously guide our behavior. It can be as simple as holding a hammer. When I hold a hammer while nailing, I am often unaware of how my hand grips it; my focus is on the hammer’s head and the nail. I’m aiming to hit. However, tacit knowledge is even more crucial in more complex areas. In all aspects of life, humans interpret the world through feelings, ideas, and concepts we have internalized to understand and operate in the world as we perceive it. [3] Unfortunately, we do not always interpret the world accurately; unconscious motives and emotions often guide us.

When I lead a business and engage with people daily, I unconsciously apply my feelings about others to my relationships- including their trustworthiness, abilities, loyalty, and a variety of other factors. Most of the time, this occurs without conscious thought. For example, if someone comes into my office and suggests a course of action, I will immediately respond, “ Sure, go ahead,” if I trust that person and view them as confident. Conversely, if I doubt the person, I say, “Let me think about it. ” In addition, in many situations, I have to consciously remind myself that this person may be right even if I don’t necessarily like or admire this person. On the other hand, I have to constantly remind myself that this person might be wrong even if it’s a person I like and admire.

You can see why leaders need to be in touch with their unconscious drivers more than other people. Simple things, like being self-aware when you’re moving too fast and overworking, are essential for a leader, especially if you’re given (as I am) to overperformance. Otherwise, mistakes can be made.

We Emerge from a Family System

Human beings from the beginning of time to the present have emerged from a family system. It doesn’t matter what society or culture you’re in; you are born from the union of a man and woman, and for a period during infancy, you are completely helpless and dependent on others. During this time and into our young adulthood, we are unconsciously shaped by the culture and family system into which we were born. Unconscious programming can follow us into adulthood for better or for worse.

Since there are no perfect families, everyone should come to terms with the family system from which they emerged. I like to tell a funny story about my wife and I. I come from a family that loved to argue about politics and religion at meals. We didn’t think we had had a good dinner unless we argued about something. My wife came from a family system in which politics and religion were not discussed in social situations. We have somewhat different instincts when speaking out about politics and religion. I’ve learned something from her, and she has learned something from me. We have become more conscious of our family systems and how they molded our personalities.

Two very helpful tools are becoming aware and conscious of our emotions and family history and understanding the unconscious drivers of our personality.

Becoming Aware of Our Emotions. It is very difficult for most of us, especially males in our society, to connect with our unconscious emotional state. One of the most helpful things we can do is spend some time each day reflecting on the positive and negative emotions we experience throughout the day. In the last blog, we discussed the Ignatian discipline of recognizing consolations and desolations. In simpler terms, we need to be mindful of the positive and negative emotions we experience daily. Engaging in this practice regularly, over an extended period, is essential to be sure you properly understand the feelings that subconsciously guide you.

The previous illustration demonstrates the process. When X became involved in counseling, he began to write down his emotions. Over time, he discovered that distrust and fear of others, along with concerns about what they might do or think, significantly influenced his emotional life. This affected both his family and business. He recognized that his father also tended to distrust others. This trait had been instilled in him at such an early age that he understood its impact on his behavior.

Genograms. Another helpful tool is creating a diagram of your family history, known as a “genogram.” A genogram is a visual representation of your family’s relationships, structure, and composition, including key relationships, character traits, significant life trauma, medical information, and other details.  It serves as a tool to help you understand the family system from which you emerged.

In creating a genogram of your family, it is essential to ensure that you have your parents, siblings, and children included in the chart. If you can push back to grandparents and great-grandparents, it’s also helpful. In my case, I know a good bit about my parents and grandparents but not as much about my great-grandparents and almost nothing about my great-great-grandparents. I do, however, know one piece of information about a great-great-grandparent that’s important for our family history: he died pretty young, and as a result, the family moved from being middle class to being poor. I think this trauma has impacted future generations up to mine.

The recommended information for inclusion in a genogram includes marriages, divorces, children, and significant traumatic events (such as an early death), as well as issues like alcoholism, drug dependency, domestic violence, sexual misconduct, and other factors that may impact future generations. I have provided a chart to help you get started. Additionally, various online resources can assist you in using symbols to represent specific types of dysfunction. One of the most important considerations is whether the family system functioned effectively. For instance, if one or more children left home at an early age and had no further contact with their parents or grandparents,

 It indicates a problem. Returning to my illustration of X, let’s suppose that while creating a genogram, he discovers that not only was his father repeatedly unfaithful to his mother, but his grandfather and great-grandfather were also unfaithful and even fathered illegitimate children. This would indicate a deep wound in the family system that X needs to address. Having completed more than one genogram over the past several years, I have found that each case contributed to my self-understanding.

At this point, offering a personal disclaimer or at least some words of wisdom is necessary. The purpose is not to blame our problems on our parents and ancestors but to help us understand ourselves and change. One of my great-grandparents came from Scotland at a very young age. His parents died almost immediately, leaving him to care for himself and his siblings. He worked in a physically demanding job throughout his life. He could be a heavy drinker, had a temper, and could be occasionally violent, including to a hyperactive and not very well-behaved little boy. I can only say that if I had experienced the same life as he did, I might have become just as violent and just as heavy a drinker. I don’t blame my great-grandfather for his behavior or my weaknesses and temper. I understand, love, and hope that he found healing in heaven. This is the attitude we should adopt when creating a genogram. We’re not here to blame; we’re here to learn and seek healing.

Conclusion

The shadow and its impact on our lives and the lives of those around us is an important concept. It’s important in families, churches, small groups, businesses, schools, and every social institution we are part of. I’ve emphasized the importance of leadership and the shadow of a leader. That should not blind any of us to the fact that our behavior impacts the entirety of our relationships. In other words, my shadow may not have as significant an impact as the shadow of the president of the United States. Still, it impacts me and all my social relationships, including my citizenship, our country’s character, and even our world’s character. Therefore, it’s worth taking the time to do a little “shadow management.”

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] As mentioned previously, Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). See also, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids.

[2] Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1966), 4. The actual quote is, “We know more than we can tell.”

[3] Id, at 29.

Christians and Christian leaders must realize their potential as disciples, and apostles (those sent into leadership) must face their personal emotional weaknesses and sin, lest they project it onto others. This responsibility is fundamental, especially for leaders. As noted in the past, leaders magnify their brokenness by embedding it into organizations like the church, where it infects others. Leaders inevitably leave the marks of their personalities on the organizations they lead, including small groups, classes, and entire congregations.

Understanding the False Self, the Shadow, and the True Self

To understand what it means to “face our brokenness,” it is helpful to clarify three concepts in our minds: the False Self, the Shadow, and the True Self.

False Self. The “False Self” is a construction of the human ego designed to project a more acceptable persona to others. This constructed False Self divides a person from the True Self, preventing psychological and spiritual wholeness. The human propensity to create a “False Self” is a coping mechanism resulting from our insecurity and inadequacy, usually stemming from childhood, youth, and adolescent anxieties. From a religious perspective, our false self ultimately derives from our alienation from God and God’s creation due to pride and selfishness, our unwillingness to accept who God has made us, and our failure to recognize God’s ultimate trustworthiness to redeem and bless us as creatures and the creation God made. [1]

The Shadow: The Shadow consists of an accumulation of unacknowledged and, therefore, untamed emotions, motives, and thoughts, both good and bad, that influence our behaviors. The term “shadow” indicates that consciously hidden and submerged parts of our personality work in the background, in our unconscious, where they can direct and influence our behavior without our even knowing it or having any control over it.

The False Self and the Shadow can create chaos in our lives and the lives of others. The apostle Paul, speaking of sin, speaks words of wisdom that apply to our false self and shadow self:

For I do not understand my own actions. I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not wish to, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I desire to do what is right but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me (Romans 7:15-20).

When we are under the control of our false and shadow selves, we act in ways we cannot fully understand or control. We do not act with faith, hope, and love towards others. We do not act wisely, with temperance, justice, and courage. Instead, we act under the impulse of submerged fears, anxiety, lust, jealousy, greed, and a host of other sinful and unhealthy desires. This causes us to betray our calling as leaders, our fundamental values, and our most basic commitments to the cause of Christians.

As Scazzero points out in The Emotionally Healthy Leader, when we become dominated by the dark side of our shadow, we become a less dramatic form of the famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Worse, our false and shadow selves prevent us from experiencing the joy of the Christian life and the kind of transformational leadership we so much desire. [2]

True Self. Unlike the False Self, the True Self represents our authentic personhood. From a Christian perspective, it is the person God created us to be, encompassing all our gifts, talents, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. For Christians, Paul instructs us that in Christ, we must “take off the old self and put on the new self” (Colossians 3:9-10). This new self, as John wrote, is “born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, but born of God” (John 1:13). Our true self does not require false strategies, deceit, or control to shield a false self-image. It is genuine and possesses inner integrity. It does not operate from the hidden motives or control of the shadow or repressed emotions. It does not need to project false strength or abilities. It is content with itself.

Life Beyond the False Self and Shadow Domination

Most of the time, many Christians and leaders, both secular and sacred, ignore their false selves and shadows. When challenged to confront them, we often resist due to anxiety, fear, and sheer laziness. We say, “I don’t have time for this.” By resisting the confrontation of our own brokenness, we miss the treasures that Divine Wisdom and Love have to offer. By taking the time to confront our shadow self, we gain emotional and spiritual riches through the freedom that comes from Christ and the realization of our true selves. We can break free from the shadow’s hidden power and bring it into our conscious ability to change. We discover aspects of ourselves that are good and wholesome, which we fear due to the disapproval of parents and others.

Basic Tools of Our Freedom

Experience and Name Emotions. So long as we cannot name our emotions, we cannot ask ourselves questions about their meaning and appropriateness. Once we can name them, they begin to lose their power over us. I often tell a story from my past. When I was about six years old, my parents were hit in a car by a drunk driver. Two people were killed. My father was thrown through the windshield into a nearby field, and my mother was crushed between the back and front seats. (This was before seatbelts and airbags.) Dad was in the hospital for about eight weeks and my mother for six months., Dad lost our family business, and the doctors doubted Mom would recover fully. (She did and lived to 94, walking like a much younger woman.)

For whatever reason, I did not want them to go that night. They assured me everything would be okay, and we spent the night with our grandmother. Things were not okay, and I was left with a kind of anxiety and fear of abandonment that affected me as a husband and father. Then, one day, a spiritual director and friend pointed out that the dysfunction was not the problem or was caused by anyone else. It was coming from my subconscious fears. That realization was the first step in overcoming this fear. It did not happen all at once. It did not happen without prayer and work. But it did happen.

Understanding and Experiencing Our True Selves. As mentioned above, not all aspects of our shadow selves are negative. Within each of us lie potentials we have submerged, partly because others have devalued them. I have a friend whose parents deemed him “too emotional and too soft.” In our success-oriented culture that celebrates toughness, this can easily occur. For a long time, he pursued a profession and a life path, trying to become the “macho person” he believed he should be. The outcome was failure and emotional turmoil. When he finally embraced the different facets of his personality, he shifted his professional focus. He became quite successful in a new field where his sensitivity to others became an asset. Accepting his true self enabled him to unlock untapped potential.

Stopping the Wrong Script. Most of us see our lives as a story where we are the main characters. One view from modern psychology, philosophy, and theology is that humans interpret and respond to reality in narrative forms. This is beneficial if we embrace the script of the right story for our lives but harmful if we enact a false narrative. Unfortunately, in one way or another, we all follow a script we did not write, which was not intended by God, but rather passed down to us by our parents or other significant figures. Sometimes, that script is tragic.

For example, a child who learns to believe he is not a good person may live a life of crime and dishonesty. A child who is told that “Girls (or boys) do not enter this or that kind of profession” may spend years in the wrong calling. Children taught “never to complain” may put up with abusive behavior from others in their adult lives. A young person who sees on television or the media glorification of violence or sexual promiscuity may live out a life script of promiscuity and miss the joys of real love.

Seek Counsel and Wise Mentorship

It isn’t easy to overcome deeply ingrained emotions and habits without help. This is why receiving counsel from appropriate, trained professionals is essential. Referring back to my earlier example, if I had not established a relationship with a spiritual director, I would not have been able to overcome my brokenness. Scazzero notes in his book that one of his negative scripts was the belief that he could not be a good manager because the family business in which he was raised was poorly managed, and he felt he lacked the ability. He overcame his buried fears through the wise counsel of more experienced managers.

Discernment and the True Self

St. Ignatius Loyola wrote a series of meditations to use Jesuits in discerning God’s will for their lives. [3] Today, across many denominations, the so-called “Ignatian Retreat” is used to discern God’s will and the proper functioning of the True Self. At the root of this method is recognizing that God speaks to us through our emotions. He calls these “Consolations” and “Desolations.”

Consolations. Consolations occur when we experience the potential for the joy of God’s pleasure in our lives and, in leadership, in the lives of others. We know we are in God’s will when we sense the presence of love, faith, mercy, hope, or any qualities we recognize as gifts of the Holy Spirit. If I am becoming kinder to people and find this transformation life-giving and Christlike, Galatians offers a partial list of these emotions: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, and similar emotions (Galatians 5:22-23).

Desolations. Desolations, on the other hand, refer to those moments when we perceive the absence of God’s pleasure in our lives and, in the context of leadership, in the lives of others. We recognize we are heading in this direction when we sense a lack of the growth of love, faith, mercy, hope, or any qualities we understand as gifts of the Holy Spirit. Once again, Galatians provides us with a partial list of these emotions: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry (greed), sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and similar emotions (Galatians 5: 19-21).

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius developed a system of discernment and decision-making that relies on scriptural meditation. This involves visualizing whether a proposed course of action or decision will enhance the presence of God and the Spirit in our lives and the lives of others. By meditating on Scripture and seeking its guidance in our lives and decisions, we can practically understand God’s will in our daily experiences.

This can be very important for leaders. Failing to discern whether a particular decision will lead to consolations or desolations, health or a loss of health (personal and institutional), wholeness or a loss of wholeness, harmony, or disharmony can have devastating consequences for any organization and the people involved. As a pastor and church leader for nearly 50 years, I have seen the tragic consequences of failing to meditate prayerfully on the consequences of a course of action.

Victory through the Word of God.

When we become aware of the submerged emotions and harmful narratives shaping our lives, we can evaluate, pray about, and transform them. This awareness liberates us from being driven by unconscious desires and repressed emotions, allowing us to embody our True Selves in Christ. We can “put off our old self and put on a new self” in our lives and leadership. Paul puts it this way:

Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness (Ephesians 3:17-23).

As we allow our minds to be changed, we become able to engage in what I call “contemplative decision-making.” Letters to Leaders (which I hope to revise and publish in the future) outlines the beginning of contemplative leadership’s importance and technique. [4] Ultimately, contemplative decision-making involves prayerfully lifting to God, not just the decision to be made but also the impact on the human beings involved. One helpful practice is for a leadership team to build a “mental model” of the decision and its impact together with prayerfully considering various bible verses or wisdom sayings that might be helpful. There will be more on this in a future blog.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] G. Christopher Scruggs, Centered Living/Centered Leading: The Way of Light and Love (Memphis, TN: Permiso Por Favor, 2016), 164.

[2] Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 55.

[3] The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, were originally published in Spanish. Numerous English translations are available online and through various book services. The Spiritual Exercises consist of scripture readings, meditations, prayers, and contemplative practices developed by St. Ignatius Loyola to help individuals deepen their relationship with God. For centuries, the Exercises were typically offered as a “long retreat” lasting about thirty days in solitude and silence. In recent years, the Spiritual Exercises have evolved into a program for laypeople and non-Catholics.  The most common approach to experiencing the Exercises today is a “retreat in daily life,” which incorporates a months-long program of daily prayer and meetings with a spiritual director.

[4] G. Christopher Scruggs, Letters to Leaders (unpublished manuscript created for Bay Presbyterian Church, 2019).

Last week, I began a series of blogs on what I’m calling “More Emotionally Healthy Leadership (MEHL).” As I indicated last week, these blogs are heavily influenced by Peter Scazzero’s “Emotionally Healthy Leadership” and his writings on emotionally healthy discipleship.[1] The underlying thesis is that many Christians, including Christian leaders, are not able to fulfill their calling as disciples due to emotional immaturity and blockages from the past.

Christian disciples and leaders cannot change unless they recognize the signs they need to address specific emotional issues. Most of us face the problem of some of these issues lying beneath the surface of our consciousness. Cao uses the iceberg model to illustrate that 90% of who we are lies beneath the surface of our consciousness. Addressing that 90% when it interferes with our service to Christ takes work. Therefore, before self-transformation can occur, self-examination and self-understanding must be undertaken.

Because humans are embodied creatures, we can’t address our spiritual lives without considering our physical, emotional, social, and spiritual lives. To achieve a well-balanced, harmonious personality, we have to balance all of our humanity. In particular, disciples of Christ, including Christian leaders, must bring their emotional lives under the rule of Christ.

Characteristics of Emotional Unhealth

In his book, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Scazzero lists ten characteristics of emotionally unhealthy spirituality:

1. Using God to run from God,
2. 2 Ignoring emotions, such as anger, sadness, and fear, d
3. Dying to the wrong things,
4. Denying the impact of our past on the present,
5. Dividing our lives into secular and sacred compartments,
6. Doing for God, instead of being with God,
7. Spiritualizing away conflict,
8. Covering up brokenness, weakness, and failure,
9. Attempting to live without limits, and
10. Judging other people’s spiritual journey.

In his book, Emotionally Healthy Leadership, Scazerro reduces this list to four characteristics of an emotionally unhealthy leader. These are:

1. Low self-awareness,
2. Prioritizing ministry over marriage and singleness,
3. Doing too much for God, and
4. Failure to practice a Sabbath rhythm.

For readers of this blog who are not Christians or who are engaged in secular professions, I would rephrase the list as follows:

1. Lack of emphasis on emotional intelligence,
2. Prioritizing work over family and community life,
3. Constant over-performance and failure to live within limits, and
4. Failing to develop a harmonious way of life.

The good news for all leaders is that these problems can be successfully addressed. Even those of us with low self-awareness and limited emotional intelligence can develop better habits. If our priorities are misaligned, we can change them. If we are consistently overextending our human limits, we can slow down. If our lives are out of balance and we neglect our physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual needs, we cannot achieve balance by consciously adjusting our lifestyle.

Habits of Unhealthy Leaders

Unhealthy leaders have common habits:

1. Viewing success in terms of size and physical rewards,
2. Building a self-image around what we do as opposed to who we are

(doing versus being),

3. Superficial spiritual and emotional health is fine (putting on a mask),

One caution is that all leaders, however self-aware, from time to time narrowly view success, get our self-image by what we achieve as opposed to who we are, and hide our real self from others. Self-awareness is the capacity to recognize what is happening inside of us and react in a healthy way. The journey of Emotionally Healthy Leadership is a journey into balance. It’s a journey to achieve inner harmony that coordinates with our outside leadership. The need for this is just as great in business, the professions, academia, nonprofits, the military, and other kinds of leadership as it is in the church. Some language modification might be necessary to make the principles applicable, but the principles remain the same.

Restoring Balance

However, we cannot become emotionally healthy leaders in our active lives until we have developed an Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. For those who may be secular, we cannot have a healthy, active life unless our interior life is also healthy. I can think of many leaders whose leadership failed due to their self-promotion, fears, anxiety, lack of emotional maturity, misuse of their bodies, moral failure, and underdeveloped mental lives, making them so unbalanced that failure becomes likely.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved

[1] Peter Scazzero, The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and World(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). See also, Emotionally Healthy Discipleship: Moving from Shallow Christianity to Deep Transformation(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021). Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Updated Ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017). The Emotionally Healthy website is https://www.emotionallyhealthy.org/. The materials needed to guide individuals through emotionally healthy discipleship training are available on the website and most Christian and secular online book retailers. The Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Relationship Courses are offered as the “Emotionally Healthy Disciples Course,” which includes books, study guides, teaching videos, devotional guides, and teaching aids.

Somewhere over 4000 years ago, in that perennially troubled part of the world we now call the Middle East, an elderly gentleman heard God speak these words:

“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you, I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:1-4).

This man, whom we call Abraham, obeyed the call, left the place where he was, and began a journey that would last the rest of his life.

It does not require extensive familiarity with the story to recognize that Abraham was not perfect. He tended to lie under pressure. Despite his faithfulness, he often deviated from the path of complete faith. While he listened to God, he sometimes took matters into his own hands. By the end of his journey, I believe he would tell us that he was not a perfect leader. He was, however, better than he had been at the beginning.

Three religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—trace their beginnings to Abraham. Each reveres him as a foundational figure. We all celebrate that Abraham believed in God, trusted God, and obeyed God. This is what I want to discuss in this blog.

The journey to healthy leadership is not a simple one. As I’ve been preparing for this series of blogs, I’ve been joking that the blog should not be titled ” Emotionally Healthy Leadership” but “More Emotionally Healthy Leadership.” In the end, I’ve entitled the series “Healthier Leadership.” Although the book emotionally healthy leadership is in some ways foundational to this series of blogs, I’m going to be giving you some of my own reflections. One of my reflections has to do with the word “emotionally.” We do need emotionally healthy leaders. We also need spiritually healthy leaders. We need physically healthy leaders. Leadership is holistic. The leader leads not just with their mind, not just with their emotions, not just with their spiritual fire born of an encounter with God, but as an embodied being. We lead with all that we are and can become.

The Call

Leadership begins with a sense that we are called to be leaders. When I was quite young, I became a Cub Scout, a camp counselor, a Boy Scout, and then an assistant camp director. I was also president of my high school’s student body. After a few years of practicing law, I attended seminary and became a pastor, eventually leading larger churches. In each case, something inside me urged me to pursue roles I felt utterly unqualified for and incapable of fulfilling.

Every leader has a calling. They may not even know they have the call. Think of the president of a company. That person may think they achieved their position because of ambition. Nevertheless, behind that ambition is the creator God, who made them what they are. Over the years, I have read many leadership books. When I wrote my dissertation, I wrote about the spirituality of leadership. These books recognize that leaders, whether in business, politics, the church, private charities, or social organizations, have some common qualities. They have the physical endurance to undertake the responsibilities of their position. They have the mental capacity to understand problems and their solutions. They have the emotional capacity to read people. All good leaders have these capacities to 1° in another, and the best leaders have exceptional energy, emotional intelligence, and mental acuity. They may have developed these abilities throughout their lives, but the leadership capacity came from another source.

And, of course, there is that subtle thing we call luck, chance, or opportunity. In every leader’s life, there is a moment in which the future opens up, and they step through the door towards their destiny. I can think of two examples from my own life. I was an average student, a poor athlete, and not socially at ease with people. One day, completely unexpectedly, I had the opportunity to become the student body president of my high school. There were 600 people in that class, and I would suspect that I rank somewhere around 590 in the capacity to lead. But God, who knew what he had in store for me, opened the door.

Many years later, I was a lawyer. I wasn’t happy practicing law. I was very active in our church and had served as a deacon, elder, and Sunday school teacher for many years. One day, the door opened, and I had the opportunity to attend seminary, although I had a wife and four children. There’s nothing that I could’ve done to have made that possible. I prayed about the opportunity to serve God and perhaps become a pastor someday. But it was God who opened up the door.

The Promise

When I teach the story of Abraham and his response to the call of God, I often point out that Abraham had a motivation. Too frequently, we think of the spiritual life as entirely spiritual, unconnected to our physical lives. I don’t think that’s true. In the case of Abraham, he was a 70-year-old man, the leader of a tribe of people, and without an heir. In Abraham’s day, that was a considerable problem. It meant that his family would no longer be leading the tribe of the Hebrews. It meant that his wife, Sarah, whom he loved, would likely fall into poverty without anyone to take care of her. Abraham did not obey God in some disembodied way and connected to his own life or problems. He followed God because he wanted to have a child. When God promised him that he would make him a great nation, he promised him that he would have at least one child, which would be the beginning of that great nation. We are no different.

The second aspect of Abraham’s story that interests me is the realization that he didn’t fully understand the promise. He grasped the idea that he would have a child. But what if you and I had told him that he would be the father of three world religions and that many people around the globe, who did not share a single gene with him, would be his children by faith? He surely would have thought we were ridiculous. Often, we ask God for something we desire, and He grants it to us. However, when He does, it is in a way that we could never comprehend at the time of the promise.

Kathy and I served churches from the East Coast to the Mississippi River, to the Canadian border, and throughout southern Texas. We’ve led missions that took our churches and us to Africa, Asia, Central America, and most recently, Mexico. One day, I found myself standing on top of a hill in West Africa, reflecting on the Great Commission, where God says He will send His disciples to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:19). I looked at a project we had just completed, one with my name on it, and I thought, “Son of a gun, I made it.”

If someone had told me in 1991, when we left Houston, that I would preach in Africa, the Philippines, Honduras, and Mexico, I would’ve thought they were crazy. God is taking me much further than I envisioned. I thought I would simply become a pastor and have a lovely church somewhere in the United States, complete with four white columns at the front and two rows of pews divided by a center aisle. I envisioned wearing a black robe every Sunday while preaching from a Calvin pulpit. I was mistaken. What God had in store was even better than I had dreamed.

The Blessing

I often discuss what I refer to as “Shepherd/Servant Leadership.”  Abraham was a shepherd, and all the patriarchs served in that role at various times. King David was also a shepherd. Jesus is known as the “Good Shepherd.” Leadership involves guiding people; it is about leading a group from one place to another toward a better situation- physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and organizationally. That ideal place can be a church that thrives both spiritually and physically, a successful business, a charity that meets the needs of its clients, a family filled with happiness and joy, or a strong and lasting marriage. Leadership exists wherever individuals engage in a common endeavor, and the leader’s goal is to guide those people and the organization entrusted to their care.

This brings us to the servant aspect of Shepherd/Servant leadership. Abraham is told that when he obeys God, he will be a blessing to others. He will receive a blessing, but he will also bless other people. We bless others whenever we meet or help to meet their most basic needs. People need love. People need respect. People need trust. People must be corrected when they are wrong and guided on the right path. The leader’s role is to serve the organization and the people they are called to lead.

It’s been my own experience, and the experience of every leader that I know, but this is not always easy. I have a good friend who was the president of a nice-sized company. We talk almost every week in retirement. Interestingly enough, we often talk about times when we had to do something we didn’t want to do. I’ve had to fire people, and so has my friend. No sane person enjoys holding another person accountable for the final time. I’ve had to uncover wrongdoing and spent hours and hours thinking about financial statements that did not make sense. I was doing it for the organization, not because I liked it. Every leader must do a lot of things they don’t enjoy doing. It comes with a territory.

Attending meetings, working long hours, managing conflict, and addressing organizational failure are all challenging, draining responsibilities, yet leaders must confront them. Selfish and self-absorbed leaders shy away from the tasks they dislike. Conversely, good leaders tackle both the tasks they enjoy and those they loathe. Through this process, they develop the ability to serve others.

America today is afflicted with narcissistic leadership. It occurs in business, politics, churches, charities, and everywhere else. One unfortunate feature of losing a Judeo-Christian consensus about morals is the emergence of people who serve only themselves without the moral constraints of a religion that teaches self-denial.

Some time ago, I researched a company that I cannot name. The president was narcissistic to the point of being a sociopath. He created a culture built on fear and greed. Because of his position, he could hide this behind the façade of being a servant leader. In a way, he was a servant leader, but the person he was serving was himself. Eventually, the company collapsed, and his leadership was discredited forever. His name will go down in history as a failed leader.

The Challenge

Returning to Emotionally Healthy Leadership as we conclude this week’s blog. In the book Emotionally Healthy Leadership, Peter Scazzero tells his personal leadership story and provides many examples for leaders. [1] Most examples come from the church, where he eventually was an experienced and effective leader. However, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to apply a lot of what he says to every other kind of organization.

He begins with four core internal tasks that every leader must undertake. They are:

Internal: Facing our own shadow or false self, leading out of our marriage or singleness, slowing down for loving union with God, and practicing Sabbath delight. In secular terms, he means we must understand our false self, not ignore our primary responsibilities to family and others, slow down to make wise decisions, and be willing to rest. Rest, even for second people, isn’t acknowledgment that we are not in charge of everything, nor should we be.

External: Every leader also has four external tasks to undertake. These include planning and decision-making, creating a culture and building a team, exercising power and maintaining wise boundaries, and knowing how to begin and end a period of leadership.

At the center of emotionally healthy leadership is a profound recognition that who we are as leaders is more important than what we do. The people with whom we interact daily are more certainly formed by who we are than by what we do. Therefore, we must focus our attention first on spiritual matters.

Copyright 2025, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved.

[1] Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Leadership (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015).

Dear friends:

This afternoon, I researched and wrote about the Ukraine conflict using artificial intelligence. If your social media feed is like mine, you are inundated with politically motivated views on the current situation. I decided to examine the situation at a slightly deeper level. I do not claim originality or deep personal understanding. However, I can tell you that every inquiry I made requested a “balanced view.” I am trying to educate, not provoke or support a particular view, though I believe continuing the current war is unwise. I am not smart enough to know how that should be accomplished.

The current conflict in Ukraine stems from a long history of geopolitical tensions, major power rivalries, political corruption, and domestic struggles. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO’s eastward expansion has been a contentious issue among Russia, the United States, and Western Europe. Before the conflict began, several U.S. officials warned of its potential to provoke Russia. These warnings underscored Russian fears and the geopolitical risks of bringing the NATO military alliance closer to Russia, including the possibility of destabilizing Ukraine and inciting Russian military responses.

Early Warnings: George Kennan and the 1990s

One of the earliest and most significant warnings came from George Kennan, the architect of the Cold War containment policy. In a 1997 New York Times interview, Kennan described NATO’s eastward expansion as “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” He cautioned that it would exacerbate Russian nationalism, revive Cold War tensions, and undermine efforts to incorporate Russia into a cooperative European security framework. Kennan’s critique wasn’t speculative—he predicted that moving NATO to Russia’s doorstep would be perceived as encirclement, a notion echoed by Russian leaders ever since.

During the Clinton administration at the State Department, similar concerns arose. When NATO welcomed Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott acknowledged Russian objections, stating in his memoir that Moscow saw NATO as a Cold War relic aimed at them, despite the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Talbott and others questioned whether the West had a convincing answer to Russia’s question: if they had abandoned their bloc, why hadn’t NATO done the same? This internal skepticism indicated a recognition that expansion could be perceived as needlessly antagonistic.

William Burns: A Consistent Voice of Caution

Perhaps the most frequently cited warning came from William Burns, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008 and was the CIA Director under Joe Biden. In a February 2008 classified cable titled “Nyet Means Nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines,” Burns cautioned that Ukraine’s potential NATO membership represented a significant red line for Moscow. He stated that it “could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, as some claim, civil war, forcing Russia to decide whether to intervene.” Burns emphasized that this perspective was not limited to Vladimir Putin—hostility toward NATO expansion was “almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum” in Russia, even among anti-Putin elites. Additionally, Burns issued an early warning. In 1995, as a political officer in Moscow, he cautioned that Russian opposition to NATO’s eastward expansion was deep and widespread. Later, as ambassador, he described NATO expansion as “premature at best and needlessly provocative at worst,” predicting in 2008 that Ukrainian aspirations for NATO membership could destabilize the region and compel Russia to act. His warnings proved prescient with Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the 2022 invasion, events directly linked to Ukraine’s Western orientation.

Robert Gates, Deputy National Security adviser during German reunification talks in 1990 and later CIA Director (1991–1993), criticized NATO’s eastward push in his memoirs noting that the U.S. “pressed ahead with expansion” despite assurances to Soviet leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO wouldn’t grow beyond Germany—a claim debated but supported by declassified documents showing Western leaders discussing limits on expansion. Gates called this a missed opportunity to build trust with Russia post-Cold War.

Jack Matlock, the last U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1987–1991), claimed that assurances were given during 1990 talks that NATO wouldn’t expand eastward beyond a unified Germany. In later writings, he argued that breaking this perceived promise fueled Russian resentment and set the stage for conflict. While NATO and some U.S. officials deny any formal pledge, scholars like Mary Sarotte, citing archival evidence, suggest that Gorbachev was “led to believe” that expansion wouldn’t happen—a nuance that mattered to Moscow.

CIA Involvement and Escalation Risks

The alleged  CIA role in Ukraine added another layer of tension, amplifying Russian fears of Western encroachment. Reports, including a 2024 New York Times investigation, revealed that the CIA began constructing a network of bases along Ukraine’s border with Russia shortly after the 2014 Euromaidan uprising, which ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych. This followed a proposal from Ukraine’s security service for a “three-way partnership” with the CIA and Britain’s MI6. Over the next decade, the CIA established 12 secret outposts, trained Ukrainian commandos, and gathered intelligence on Russia—actions that Russia interpreted as a direct threat.

From Moscow’s perspective, this was not merely NATO expansion; it was the U.S. embedding itself militarily in a country that Russia regarded as its strategic buffer. Critics, such as Ted Galen Carpenter, who wrote for The Guardian in 2022, contended that this covert involvement transformed Ukraine into a “NATO political and military pawn,” even without formal membership. Burns himself had warned in 2008 that Russia feared “unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences” from such actions, a fear realized when Putin cited Western influence as justification for his 2022 “special military operation.”

(As an aside, it is impossible for Americans to fully understand Russia’s fears concerning hostile powers on its borders. In the 19^th century, Napoleon invaded Russia across the Ukrainian countryside. In the 1930s, Hitler launched an attack across the Ukraine. The land is flat and perfect for a tank battle. Russia views Ukraine as an essential buffer zone between itself and any hostile activity from the West. Whether we think this is an irrational fear or not, it exists.)

State Department officials were aware of this. A 1990 internal analysis warned against forming “an anti-Soviet coalition whose frontier is the Soviet border,” predicting it would alienate Moscow. By 2014, as CIA activities escalated, some diplomats expressed concern that arming and training Ukrainians—together with NATO’s involvement—crossed Russian red lines. Victoria Nuland, a senior State Department official, played a crucial role in supporting Ukraine’s post-2014 government, which Russia viewed as evidence of a U.S.-orchestrated “coup.” Her leaked 2014 call discussing Ukraine’s leadership transition fueled this narrative.

Dangers Highlighted: Provocation and Miscalculation

The warnings consistently flagged two dangers: provocation and miscalculation. Kennan foresaw a nationalist backlash, which materialized under Putin’s leadership. Burns and Gates highlighted the risk of civil strife in Ukraine spilling over, forcing Russia’s hand—a scenario that unfolded in Donbas in 2014 and nationwide in 2022. The CIA’s presence, meanwhile, risked escalating a proxy conflict into direct confrontation, a fear Putin exploited to rally

Historical Context: A Land Between Empires

Ukraine’s story begins long before its independence in 1991—and not all of it supports the typical Western view of the conflict. Before World War I, it was a contested space between the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, and Polish-Lithuanian empires. Kyiv, now Ukraine’s capital, was the heart of “Kyivan Rus,” a medieval state often cited by Ukrainians and Russians as a cultural ancestor. This shared heritage has fueled competing national narratives: Ukraine sees itself as a distinct entity with a unique identity, while Russia has historically viewed it as an extension of Russia, a “little brother” in the Slavic family.

By the 17th century, much of eastern Ukraine fell under Russian influence, while the western regions leaned toward Europe. This split deepened over time, creating a cultural and political divide. The 20th century saw Ukraine enter the Soviet Union after a brief attempt at independence following World War I. Under Soviet rule, Ukraine suffered through forced collectivization, the Holodomor famine of 1932–33 (which many Ukrainians view as a genocide orchestrated by Moscow), and Russification policies. Yet, it also industrialized and became a vital Soviet breadbasket and military hub.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine emerged as an independent state, inheriting a mix of pro-Russian eastern regions and pro-Western western ones. Crimea, which was transferred from Russia to Ukraine in 1954 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, added another layer of complexity. This historical backdrop—Ukraine’s struggle for identity—set the stage for modern tensions.

Post-Independence Struggles: 1991–2013

Independent Ukraine faced economic hardship, corruption, and an identity crisis. Its leaders oscillated between Russia and the West. Presidents like Leonid Kuchma (1994–2005) pursued a “multi-vector” foreign policy, balancing ties with Moscow and NATO/EU partners. Meanwhile, the 2004 Orange Revolution—a mass protest against electoral fraud favoring a pro-Russian candidate—highlighted Ukraine’s democratic aspirations and its western tilt under Viktor Yushchenko.

Yet, Russia remained a dominant influence. It supplied Ukraine’s energy, maintained cultural ties in the east, and viewed Ukraine’s integration into NATO or the EU as a threat to its security. The 2010 election of Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian leader, seemed to stabilize this relationship. Yanukovych leaned toward Moscow, negotiating trade deals and extending Russia’s lease on the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea. However, his rule was marred by corruption and authoritarianism, alienating many Ukrainians—especially in the west—who sought closer EU ties.

The Euromaidan Turning Point: 2013–2014

The immediate trigger for the Ukraine crisis occurred in November 2013 when Yanukovych abruptly suspended an Association Agreement with the European Union, opting instead for a Russian economic bailout. This decision ignited protests in Kyiv’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), initially led by students and pro-EU activists. The movement, dubbed “Euromaidan,” evolved into a broader revolt against corruption, repression, and Russian influence.

Protests intensified in early 2014 as police responded with force, resulting in the deaths of dozens. On February 21, 2014, Yanukovych fled to Russia after a deal brokered by EU mediators collapsed. Ukraine’s parliament ousted him and installed an interim pro-Western government. For many Ukrainians, this was a triumph of democracy; however, Russia and some eastern Ukrainians viewed it as an illegal coup supported by the West.

Russia’s response was swift. Claiming to protect ethnic Russians and its strategic interests, it annexed Crimea in March 2014 after a controversial referendum. Meanwhile, pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk) declared their independence, sparking a war with Ukrainian forces. Evidence suggests that Russia provided military support to these rebels, though Moscow denied direct involvement, labeling it a civil conflict. The West condemned Russia’s actions and imposed sanctions, while Ukraine viewed them as an existential threat to its sovereignty.

The annexation of Crimea was a significant geopolitical shock. Russia justified this action by citing historical ties (Crimea was part of Russia until 1954), the presence of its Black Sea Fleet, and a referendum in which 97% allegedly voted to join Russia—though critics questioned its legitimacy given the military occupation. Ukraine and the West condemned it as a violation of international law, specifically the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia, the U.S., and the UK pledged to respect Ukraine’s borders in exchange for its nuclear disarmament.

In Donbas, the conflict settled into a drawn-out stalemate. The Minsk Agreements (2014–2015), brokered by France and Germany, aimed to establish a ceasefire and grant autonomy to rebel-held areas within Ukraine. Neither side fully implemented them: Ukraine resisted legitimizing the separatists, while Russia denied its control over them. By 2021, over 14,000 had died, and 1.5 million were displaced, yet the “frozen conflict” maintained an uneasy status quo.

The Role of Burisma and alleged Western Corruption

Burisma Holdings, Ukraine’s largest private natural gas company, has become a lightning rod in debates about Western involvement and corruption tied to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian conflict, particularly since Russia’s 2022 invasion. Founded in 2002 by Mykola Zlochevsky—a former Ukrainian ecology minister under pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych—Burisma’s prominence grew amid Ukraine’s post-Soviet struggles with oligarchy and foreign influence. Allegations of Western corruption, mainly linked to Hunter Biden’s board tenure (2014–2019), have fueled narratives about its role in escalating tensions.

Burisma’s Origins and Ukrainian Context

Burisma emerged during Ukraine’s chaotic transition from Soviet rule, a period marked by oligarchic consolidation of power. Zlochevsky, leveraging his ministerial role (2010–2012), secured lucrative gas licenses for Burisma, raising questions about self-dealing. After Yanukovych’s ousting in 2014 during the Euromaidan uprising, Zlochevsky fled Ukraine amid corruption probes, including a UK money-laundering case that froze $23 million of Burisma’s assets (later unfrozen due to lack of Ukrainian cooperation). This backdrop—Ukraine’s endemic corruption and Burisma’s ties to it—sets the stage for Western involvement.

In April 2014, shortly after Euromaidan and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Hunter Biden, son of then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, joined Burisma’s board alongside figures like former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski and ex-CIA official Joseph Cofer Black. Hunter, with no evident energy expertise, earned up to $50,000 monthly, sparking ethical concerns. Critics, including some U.S. State Department officials, flagged this as a potential conflict of interest given Joe Biden’s role in shaping U.S. Ukraine policy—namely, pushing anti-corruption reforms and countering Russian influence. As with all aspects of this matter, Russia and the West have different perspectives:

• Western Perspective: The U.S. and allies allege Hunter Biden’s role was private and not policy-driven. No conclusive evidence shows that Joe Biden altered U.S. strategy to shield Burisma. His push to oust Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in 2016—widely seen as corrupt and ineffective—aligned with bipartisan U.S., EU, and IMF goals, not a Burisma cover-up. Shokin’s probes into Zlochevsky predated Hunter’s tenure and were dormant by 2016.
• Russian/Critic Perspective: Russia alleges that Joe Biden sacked Shokin to protect Hunter, pointing to Burisma’s payments as evidence of a corrupt quid pro quo. A 2020 Senate Republican report called Hunter’s role “problematic” but found no policy influence. Burisma’s hiring of Western elites seems more a PR move—bolstering its image amid legal woes—than a deep conspiracy. Yet, the optics fed Russian propaganda that Ukraine was a corrupt Western puppet, a narrative Putin used to justify aggression.

Notwithstanding American claims, Burisma’s role intersects with broader claims of Western corruption in Ukraine:

• Energy Warfare: Some argue Burisma was a tool in U.S. economic warfare against Russia, aiming to boost Ukraine’s gas sector (e.g., Burisma and Naftogaz) and reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian Gazprom. Some people suggest the CIA backed Burisma to choke Russian gas exports, linking this to the 2022 Nord Stream sabotage (unproven). If true, corruption might lie in prioritizing U.S. corporate interests—like LNG exports—over regional stability, though evidence is circumstantial.
• Aid and Profiteering: Since 2014, the West has poured billions into Ukraine—over $118 billion from the U.S. by 2025. Allegations persist that corrupt Western actors, including defense firms, benefit from prolonged conflict. Burisma’s prominence amplifies this critique, though its direct role in aid corruption is unclear. Ukrainian oligarchs, like Ihor Kolomoisky (once linked to Burisma), have faced U.S. sanctions for graft, suggesting a tangled web of local and Western interests. A 2024 New York Times report revealed that the CIA has had bases in Ukraine since 2014, training operatives partly to counter Russia. Critics see this as corrupt overreach, turning Ukraine into a U.S. proxy and provoking Moscow. Burisma’s board inclusion of Cofer Black partially fits this narrative, though his role was strategic, not operational.

 Burisma and Western corruption allegations didn’t ignite the Ukraine war but have unfortunately shaped its dynamics, particularly in the United States, where it has become a political issue. As with all things, there are differing views:

• Russian Justification: Putin’s 2022 invasion rhetoric cited Western “exploitation” of Ukraine, with Burisma as a symbol of alleged U.S. meddling. The Biden connection gave Russia a propaganda cudgel, framing Ukraine as a corrupt NATO pawn.
• Western Support Dynamics: Perceptions of corruption—Hunter’s Burisma stint, untracked U.S. weapons—fuel skepticism among Ukraine’s backers and critics of our involvement. By 2025, with private and public donor fatigue rising, these narratives risk eroding aid, while Ukraine warns of battlefield losses without it.
• Ukrainian Perception: For Ukrainians, Burisma epitomizes elite impunity, undermining trust in both domestic and Western anti-corruption promises. Zelensky’s 2023 crackdowns on graft signal reform, but Burisma’s legacy lingers.

Although there is little concrete evidence tying Burisma or Western corruption to Russia’s invasion beyond amplifying existing tensions, the conflict’s roots—NATO expansion, Crimea, and Donbas—precede and overshadow Burisma’s saga.Despite the possibility of Western political corruption, Russia has a history of corrupting Ukrainian elites (e.g., via gas deals), which undercuts its moral stance.

Burisma and Western corruption play a supporting role in Ukraine’s conflict rather than a leading one. Hunter Biden’s involvement symbolizes perceived Western hypocrisy, amplifying Russian grievances and domestic Ukrainian cynicism. Allegations of broader corruption—energy schemes, aid misuse, and CIA overreach—suggest that strategic missteps or profiteering may have escalated tensions, though hard proof remains elusive. As of March 2025, the war continues, with Burisma serving as a potent emblem of how corruption narratives, whether true or false, shape geopolitics. The real story lies in the interplay of power, not merely in one company or scandal.

Escalation to Full-Scale War: 2022

Tensions escalated in 2021–2022 as Russia amassed troops near Ukraine’s borders, arguing that NATO’s eastward expansion—especially Ukraine’s aspiration for membership—posed a threat to its security. The West strengthened its relations with Ukraine, providing military aid and training since 2014, though NATO membership remained a distant prospect. Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded legal guarantees against NATO expansion, insisting that the U.S. and NATO reject it as an infringement on sovereign choice.

On February 21, 2022, Putin recognized the Donbas separatist republics as independent, mimicking his approach with Crimea. Three days later, on February 24, he initiated a “special military operation” aimed at “demilitarizing and denazifying” Ukraine—rhetoric that portrayed Ukraine’s government as a Western puppet with extremist elements. Russian forces invaded from multiple fronts, targeting Kyiv, Kharkiv, and the southern region. Ukraine, supported by Western arms and fierce resistance, successfully repelled the initial assault on Kyiv, transforming the conflict into a protracted struggle.

Perspectives and Interpretations

As the foregoing proves, there is more than one way to interpret the current situation. Here are various viewpoints:

• Ukraine’s View: This is a fight for survival against Russian imperialism. Kyiv sees 2014 and 2022 as part of a pattern of Moscow denying its right to exist as a sovereign, democratic state. The West’s support is vital but insufficient. Ukraine seeks NATO membership and fears abandonment.
• Russia’s View: The conflict is defensive. NATO’s expansion, CIA involvement, and Ukraine’s drift westward threaten Russia’s buffer zone and national identity. Putin invokes history—viewing Ukraine as part of Russia’s “near abroad”—and accuses the A of orchestrating a proxy war.
• American and European View: The U.S. and EU perceive Russia’s actions as unprovoked aggression, violating post-Cold War norms. Supporting Ukraine upholds democracy and deterrence, though critics argue that NATO’s flirtation with Ukraine provoked Moscow unnecessarily.
• Global Perspective: Several nations, including India and South Africa, seek to remain neutral. These countries are cautious of what they perceive as Western and American hypocrisy, and they uphold economic ties with Russia. They promote diplomacy over escalation.

Where are we now?

Today, the conflict persists, with no real end in sight absent negotiations. Ukraine has reclaimed some territory with Western support, but Russia maintains control over extensive areas in the east and south. Irreconcilable demands hinder peace negotiations: Ukraine insists on a complete withdrawal and reparations, while Russia seeks recognition of its territorial claims and a Ukrainian stance of neutrality regarding NATO. Ukraine desires NATO membership or protection, a solution that would only intensify Russian fears. Sanctions have significantly impacted Russia’s economy; however, it has found ways to adapt through China and other allies. The human toll—tens of thousands dead and millions displaced—grows each day.

In conclusion, the situation reflects a tragedy rooted in miscalculation, mistrust, and ambition. History offers no straightforward solutions, and every decision—from 1991 to 2022—has reduced the chances for compromise. A balanced perspective reveals no heroes, only participants in a high-stakes game where the risks continue to escalate.