Exploring corridors of power

Early in To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout gets an excellent, if brief, reminder from her father to get to the nub of a fact without getting distracted by any embellishments. After watching her older brother Jem rather hieroglyphically walk home from school one day — imitating an ancient Egyptian — she commented that she didn’t see how the Egyptians got anything done if they all walked that way.

“ [B]ut Jem said they accomplished more than Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn’t? Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have the facts.”¹

Delete the adjectives? You’re left with paper and embalming.

This simple fact-check technique is a good one to remember during times of political campaigning and political promises. Delete the adjectives — sidestep the embellishments — and see where the facts stand. British historian Lord Acton famously wrote, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” If we apply this technique of erasing the descriptive words in this quotation, what is left? “Power corrupts.” But does power always corrupt? Even Lord Acton qualified his statement with, “Power tends to corrupt.” If power does indeed tend to corrupt, is it possible for someone in power to avoid corruption?

Let’s consider two biblical examples of people in power.

Famously, there was Saul, Israel’s first king, appointed by the prophet Samuel and chosen by God. Interestingly, Saul was directly in the “center of God’s will” when Samuel anointed him king, but even that divine certainty did not prevent his eventual corruption. Later, yet still fairly early in his kingship, he arrogates Samuel’s own authority as prophet by offering up the burnt offerings at Gilgal himself, instead of continuing to wait for Samuel’s arrival, a disobedient act that costs his family the kingdom. Samuel promises him that the kingdom will be handed over to someone else who will be the leader over the people. Corrupted by his power and now broken, Saul continues and ends his reign as a more and more pathetic figure, consumed with suspicion and fear.

Perhaps less famously, there was Nehemiah, who started out as cupbearer to King Artaxerxes I and became governor of Judah, spearheading the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem decades after its destruction. Nehemiah showed considerable confidence in his calling and the ultimate success of their efforts. Like Saul, God had called Nehemiah to this task, and Nehemiah stayed in “the center of God’s will” as he completed it. But for Nehemiah, that mighty will he submitted to was embedded in a relationship with God and an understanding that God would get the glory for the rebuilt wall. Exercising faith and sturdy leadership, Nehemiah refused to swerve aside or slow down the work because of opposition, because of traitors Sanballat and Tobiah and their henchmen, or because of problems caused by their very own nobles and officials. Nehemiah had power and used it judiciously, but he refused the corruption that so often follows power. In fact, Nehemiah set a high example for leadership:

[N]either I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. But the earlier governors — those preceding me — placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I did not act like that. Instead I devoted myself to the work on this wall. (Neh. 5:14b-16a)

He records several times throughout the book of Nehemiah that he prayed to God for help, and in 52 days, the walls of Jerusalem were completely rebuilt.

Saul. Nehemiah. Both appointed by God and called to a position of power. One corrupted by his power; the other constantly surrendering his power back to God.

¹Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Warner Books, Inc., 1982, p. 64.

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Image credits: geocaching.com, godcenteredmom.com, bethelstone-inspiration.blogspot.ca.

http://insideoutupsidedownunder.blogspot.com Benjamin Ady

Here’s an intriguing factoid: apparently some scholars have posited that Nehemiah was a eunuch. One wonders if castration increases the odds of being incorruptible by power, for men?

Also perhaps of interest is that the extent of Persia’s rule back in they days of Nehemiah was apparently vast, encompassing much of the modern middle east and extending into Africa. This is interesting in light of the much more limited geographical reach of modern day Iran, and the way much of the western world, especially the U.S., get themselves all in a lather about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, and in the process hurt the common people of Iran with brutal sanctions. I wonder what Nehemiah would have to say about all that?

I’m a bit of a cynic myself. I rather suspect Nehemiah had a bit of corruption going on somewhere, which didn’t necessarily make it into written accounts. Probably when one gets into a position of power, it’s more about degree rather than presence of corruption. Although it might be interesting to explore what we even mean by “corruption”.
- Susan Lawrence
  
  Nehemiah as a eunuch. Well, possibly. However, there were–apparently–varying degrees of going eunuch, with only the most extreme form including castration. (Not an encouraging success rate w/ that approach.) Could be that the biblical Daniel was, too. He also remained in power, or in a powerful position, but without being personally corrupted.
  
  I’m not following the middle paragraph there, Benjamin, in relation to the post above. How’d we get from Nehemiah rebuilding the wall to nuclear weapons in modern Iran? Or is your point that Nehemiah, as a powerful leader, would have succumbed to some kind of corruption in today’s difficult circumstances in the Middle East?
  
  While it’s true that the account of the rebuilding of the wall covers a lot of ground in a short time [and by that I mean, Nehemiah wasn't working on it for decades, in power, getting dizzy with his authority], Nehemiah does return to Persia and then back to Jerusalem again later, restoring order and religious protocol. Those events/trips did take longer, and Nehemiah appears to be very much the same man as when the book bearing his name opens.
  
  Certainly we’re all human. Certainly Nehemiah had his failings. But in his position and job, he does appear to be consistently honorable.
  - http://insideoutupsidedownunder.blogspot.com Benjamin Ady
    
    re: how did we get from Nehemiah to nuclear weapons in modern Iran? That’s a reasonable and interesting question =). My experience growing up inside American IFB churches was that there was relatively little connection made between the Biblical story and modern realities, excepting in the funny old American-style dispensationalism/eschatology sense as per, for instance, the whole Jenkins/Layahe series of books etc. Further, it also seems to me that there’s a disconnect inside American Christianity in the sense that by and large American Christians aren’t able to place current political realities into the longer term context in which they possibly more properly belong. So the current Iran thing is seen by many or most American Christians as a thing of the last few decades at most, rather than as a relatively young and o’erweening nation trying to dictate to a truly ancient civilization.
    
    This came up for instance in the vice presidential debate, when neither candidate seemed remotely interested in talking about Iran and nuclear weapons in anything other than this nothing-older-than-1980, or at best nothing-older-than-1600 style.
    
    All of which to say, these are just the things that come into my head when you say “Nehemiah” =).
    
    Another thing that comes into my head when you say “Nehemiah” is the recent and deliciously brilliant television series Battlestar Galactica, which in my opinion is by far the best television produced in the last 30 years, and which among other things has a big theme around the Bob Dylan song “All Along the Watchtower”, which is probably referencing the book of Isaiah, but which for some reason I associate also with Nehemiah, although the two were centuries apart.
    
    Battlestar Galactica explores the idea of corruption in quite interesting ways.
    
    My friends and family tell me I’m a bit strange,
    that I don’t think the way others do =). So sorry if I’m a bit hard to follow in my apparent leaps of conversational topic =).
http://timfall.wordpress.com/ Tim

“Nehemiah showed considerable confidence in his calling”

That’s one of the best characterizations of Nehemiah I’ve ever read, Susan.
- susan
  
  Thanks, Tim.
  
  I hope it can encourage you in your calling, too.
http://insideoutupsidedownunder.blogspot.com Benjamin Ady

You’ve convinced me to go read the book of Nehemiah again. Fascinating stuff. thank you =)
- susan
  
  Hey, cool beans. I found it a refreshing read when I got to it this year. Just really, really good.
  
  (Get to your other comment in a bit.)